Britain ’s Party Leaders Debate: An exer cise in political engineering

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Britain’s Party Leaders Debate: An exercise in political engineering
By Chris Marsden
17 April 2010

Thursday’s televised debate between the leaders of Britain’s three main parties
was billed as an historic move towards a more participatory democracy. It was
the first time that such an event has been held.

In the end, it only served to demonstrate the refusal of the ruling elite to
allow even the most minimal expression of genuine democratic discussion and
decision-making to cut across the agenda it dictates to its political hirelings.

This was a debate in which any possibility of the issues of concern to millions
of voters being raised had been excluded a priori—a stage managed affair during
which Gordon Brown for Labour, David Cameron for the Conservatives and Nick
Clegg for the Liberal Democrats paraded their right-wing credentials before a
hand-picked audience and responded to pre-selected questions.

Prior to it being held, the party leaders had negotiated 76-point agreement on
the debate’s format. Three debates are to be held, each 90 minutes long, and
screened in turn by ITV, Sky and the BBC. The first, held in Manchester, covered
domestic affairs; the second will cover foreign affairs and the third the economy.

The questions were selected by a panel of journalists and the audience by
pollsters ICM according to gender, age, ethnicity and social class. The audience
was not allowed to either applaud or jeer.

This was not debate, but a form of political engineering in which an audience of
over nine million people was subjected to carefully crafted propaganda.

Opening, one-minute statements saw Brown warn of the danger of a double-dip
recession and the need to stick with Labour’s policy of no early cuts. Cameron
promised a fresh start and a “bigger society”, whatever that means. Clegg
portrayed himself as a break with the two-party system and “something new,
something different”.

Amidst the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s, with millions concerned for
their jobs, the possible loss of their homes and major cuts being made in
health, education and other essential social services, the first question chosen
by the panel of journalists was on immigration, the second on law and order.

Brown responded to a question on a “fair and effective” immigration policy by
boasting that “net inward migration is falling… because of the action we are
taking.”

Cameron railed that immigration was “out of control” and pledged to introduce a
cap on immigration “so it’s in the tens of thousands, not the hundreds of
thousands.”

Clegg accused the others of “talking tough about immigration, but delivering
chaos”. He promised to restore exit controls and ensure that immigrants could
only come into the country if their skills were needed by employers and they
were then assigned a particular geographic region in which they would be allowed
to work and live.

A question on how to tackle crime saw Cameron beat the law-and-order drum,
decrying too short sentences and insisting that youth who vandalised bus
shelters needed custodial sentences.

Brown pledged to guarantee that, under Labour unlike the Tories, “The spending
on the police will continue”.

Clegg referred three times to “hardened criminals on the run” and prisons
functioning as “overcrowded colleges of crime”.

This debate on “crime” naturally did not touch upon the criminals that pose the
major threat to society—the bankers who have swindled and looted billions.
Rather than calls for them to face punishment or custodial sentences, they have
been handed the keys to the public purse.

A question on the scandal surrounding MPs’ expenses elicited feigned outrage
from all concerned and pledges to clean up politics.

When the economic crisis was finally raised, it was framed as to how the parties
would slash the state deficit rather than anything even suggesting opposition to
cuts.

The debate took on a surreal character. It focused initially on Cameron’s
opposition to Labour’s plans for a small increase in National Insurance, which
he denounced as a “tax on jobs”. This was rebutted by Brown, who warned that the
Tories’ plans to bring in immediate cuts of £6 billion threatened to plunge the
economy into a double-dip recession.

Clegg posed as someone taking the moral high ground—telling the truth that cuts
were needed and boasting that the Lib-Dems had costed £15 billion of them,
unlike their opponents. “These two talk about waste as if we could fill the
black hole in public finances by cutting paperclips and pot plants in
Whitehall,” he said.

There is some truth in this statement, regardless of Clegg’s posturing.
Differences over when to begin imposing £6 billion in cuts mask agreement on the
need to ultimately slash around £50 billion from public spending. Moreover this
figure is dwarfed by the true scale of the measures that will be demanded in the
months following the election. The Financial Times pointed out, “Ultimately,
however, the current fiscal turf war is concentrated on a figure—£6bn—which is
dwarfed by the scale of the deficit, at £167bn for this year.”

Ashok Shah, chief investment officer at London Capital, a fund management firm,
warned that, following on from Greece, “You must expect more speculative attacks
to surface in the market place… The two most likely candidates are Portugal and
the UK.”

A question from someone in the Territorial Army asking for assurances that
troops will be better equipped and supported allowed Brown, Cameron and Clegg to
dress up their support for war in Afghanistan—an occupation opposed by the vast
majority of the population—as support for “our boys”.

“Let us remember all those who have lost their lives in Afghanistan,” Brown
intoned. “I join Gordon in paying tribute [to] the incredible bravery of what
those people do… they are brilliant, brilliant people,” Cameron added.

Clegg called for abandoning plans to replace the Trident nuclear weapons system,
only to state that the money saved would be better spent on frontline troops.

There followed vapid exchanges on education, health and social care,
distinguished by hypocritical pledges by Blair and Cameron to safeguard the
National Health Service. Clegg distinguished himself only by declaring that
health provision must face the axe along with every other area of public spending.

A feature of the debate was Brown’s repeated efforts to ingratiate himself with
Clegg, with statements on seven occasions that “I agree with Nick” and a promise
to introduce some form of proportional representation. This indicates Brown’s
calculation that he will only possibly be able to form a government in alliance
with the Lib-Dems.

The possibility of either the Conservatives or Labour forming a majority
government appears remote, as both lack a significant social base for their
right-wing, pro-business policies. This has placed Clegg in the hitherto
unlikely role as kingmaker.

To this end, most papers not only acknowledged Clegg as the victor on the night,
but heaped extraordinary levels of praise upon his anodyne performance.

The Independent declared that Clegg “broke the duopoly in British politics… The
Liberal Democrat leader seized the moment”.

The Telegraph wrote of his “confident performance and mastery of the debate
format” giving him “overall victory.”

The Guardian editorial focused on his “leaving his two rivals in his wake,”
while Patrick Wintour and Polly Curtis spoke of his ability to “change the
political landscape” by his “revelatory performance”.

Anyone who witnessed the tortured debate would be baffled by such panegyrics.
After all Clegg benefited primarily from not being Gordon Brown or David Cameron.

This response accorded to him is because he is now considered important in the
political calculations of the bourgeoisie. The Liberal Democrats are being
cultivated for a possible role in government for the first time since the
Liberal Labour coalition in 1977, which was used in order to impose cuts
dictated by the International Monetary Fund. Its role in a government formed
after May 6 would be to impose the far more “savage cuts” to which Clegg is pledged.

The leaders’ debate serves to confirm the appraisal made by Britain’s Socialist
Equality Party in its election manifesto: “This general election is a political
fraud. Whatever the make-up of the next government, its agenda has already been
determined. The international financial institutions, the major corporations and
all the official parties intend to make working people foot the bill for an
economic crisis that is not of their making.”

Politics today is monopolised by a fabulously wealthy financial oligarchy, which
controls all of the major parties and determines their policies. This situation
can only be challenged through the mobilisation of an independent political and
social movement of the working class, under the leadership of its own socialist
party—one that must of necessity develop outside of the sclerotic structures of
the parliamentary system.

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/apr2010/brit-a17.shtml

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