Election addicts
If you'd asked me a week ago how I'd feel if the General Election was off I'd have said "relieved".
But now that it really is off the feeling is more like "bereft". Caught on the hop by the prospect of a snap election we threw the kitchen sink at it last week - brainstorming programme ideas, designing election graphics, building a website.
By Thursday we had an election plan, and we liked what we saw. Now it's all off and is unlikely to happen until 2009, our burst of feverish creativity will probably never see the light of day.
It's tempting - though hardly practical - to have an election campaign without the politicians, but having discarded that notion this week we bring you "". In conjunction with the documentary strand Storyville, we have a series of films showing democracy in action around the world. A little help for election addicts with withdrawal symptoms.
Comments
I think this whole issue of a general election was promulgated by a few stupid advisors, like Ed Balls, with a gung ho attitude to politics as if it some kind of board game and taken up by a media hungry for a story.
No-one in the country wants or even cares about a general election, much less about the effect it will have on Gordon Browns standing. What we want to see is a health service that is not declinig into a third world first aid service, help with young people to give a worthwhile society to live in, and democratic reform, to make our elections more meaningful. An election should not depend on the minority vote of marginal seats, but on what the majority of people vote for. Surely this is the first condition of any democracy? We need electoral reform to make participation mean something, not, a stupid farce of an election based on marginal seats!
We are sick to death of hearing about an election, and watching the parliamentary process being turned into some kind of schoolkids shouting match, backed by bored broadcasters and hysterical journalists.
So tell us what is really going on in the world, not just in the Westminster clique; as millions disappear in Burma, thousands disappear in Darfur, and there is a war going on somewhere, for every day of the year. Not to mention the ecological disasters which we are experiencing in the UK; the spreading of viruses in out food chain, with a late summer in October, for goodness sake. There is plenty of real news to write about isn't there?
Isn't it about time the Media as well as the politicians had some kind of reality check, and, stopped boring us to death with meaningless debates about a mythical general election?
Maybe the media will learn from this incident that the increasing trend toward 'speculative' news stories sometimes has the potential to leave you with egg all over your faces.
I appreciate that the ±«Óătv wasn't by any stretch of the imagination the worst offender, but you nevertheless jumped on this bandwagon and ultimately ended up looking rather stupid.
I think it's also time for a debate on the extent to which the news media should reflect events and whether by attempting to set the agenda you are overstepping your remit.
I can't help hoping that rather than 'bottling it', GB decided not to call an election purely because the press and TV were insisting toward the tail end of last week that it was almost inevitable.
It appears to me that the only people who raised the issue of an Autum election was the media, as the media have now used this to defame the Prime Minister, along with the political opponents. I would suggest that the man is given a chance to prove his worth before ruining his reputation.
Just thrilled to bits that 'House of Cards'is being repeated on ±«Óătv4.
Never thought TV could be as good as the book but it's better, and the production values are superb.
Thanks ±«Óătv
I really don't like having an election dangled in front of me and then taken away. It is high time the people had a chance to validate (or otherwise) the current administration. I am turned off (to put it mildly) by Gordon Brown's statement that he wants to see his vision for the country accomplished. I am sure he does - but collaboration and involvement are important as well, and dithering about a election will simply make many of us feel less confident in the democratic process.
Having set their hand to the plough, Labour should not have turned back and there are more important things than simply holding on to office as long as possible.
Reading your comments on the work you've just put in preparing for an election, it suggests why the media has spent such a lot of time talking about it the last couple of days. As soon as I'd digested the fact that Gordon Brown had chosen not to call an election this year or next, I moved on. I was disappointed but not surprised that the TV & papers chose to put it at the top of the news & talk about it at length for a couple of days. It's his perogative, isn't there something more important to tell us about?
Democracy ! Democracy ! What Democracy ? Is disproportionate representation Democracy ? When it came to the allocation of seats in our Parliament at the last election every Labour vote was worth about 1.5 Tory votes and double the Liberal Dems votes and those who voted for other parties like UKIP, Greens, BNP, etc their vote had absolutely no value at all. All our Governments are minority Governments where the popular votes is concerned, none of the Governments in living memory have represented the majority of the people. What Democracy ??? If only we had a Democracy …
Ok, so if you're planning on showing "democracy in action around the world" let's hope you sufficiently cover the "Ron Paul Revolution" currently emerging in the US. It is quite a significant movement and it will not go away.
Ron Paul might even give ±«Óătv some ideas on what freedom and liberty are, while it dishes out programmes on the fake NWO's "war on terror".
Otherwise, many are going to give up on you, ±«Óătv.
I would prefer the life of a parliament to be the whole life, not with time off for bad behaviour. The government of the day can call an election when it pleases them to do so, to top up their time in office. This Mr. Brown was going to do but chickened out at the the last moment, purely because the polls did not favour him. He tries to fool the population on virtually every topic, but do you know Mr. Brown, you can't fool us !!
The constitution needs changing, with a referendum on this and on the whole European question included.
For all the creative effort in bringing us the election (whenever it comes), my hope is that you will "hold that thought."
Mothball it, refine it from time to time, then be ready to trot it out when the other shoe drops - as I'm sure it will before 2009.
That's too long to wait, even for the Scot at the Top.
Bill
Tampa, FL, USA
I believe Khruschev told John Kennedy that the difference between the two systems was that in the USA you had a choice of two and in the USSR a choice of one.
Reading your comments on the work you've just put in preparing for an election, it suggests why the media has spent such a lot of time talking about it the last couple of days. As soon as I'd digested the fact that Gordon Brown had chosen not to call an election this year or next, I moved on. I was disappointed but not surprised that the TV & papers chose to put it at the top of the news & talk about it at length for a couple of days. It's his perogative, isn't there something more important to tell us about?
It's a brilliant idea - have a mock election complete with all the media trimmings - to last a week. Get actors or activists (who will have absorbed the party policies and strategies) to play the main politicians in the election. Use your website and graphics to explain what's going on - introduce mock stories and get the 'politicians' to react. Maybe divide the country into 10 'constituencies' to assess regional swings. Carry out opinion polls with the listeners or just make them up. Also you could devise strategy meetings - the kind we do not normally see. And at the end of it all get the Newsnight viewers to vote.
Would this fix be enough for Jeremy, Michael etc and the viewers?
Am I the only one who thinks that the "election fever" was at least 50% media-driven?
Am I the only one who *didn't* expect Brown to admit that his decision was based by the polls?
Am I the only one who thinks this is a 9-day wonder that the bulk of the population won't care a hoot about because they (e.g.) just got a credit card bill? or had a child bullied at school?
I am glad the General Elecion has been called off. Gordon Brown never promised one, neither did he suggest it was likely.
Granted he should not of allowed the media hype to run away with the idea.
Quite frankly, I would prefer a strong Government to a so called 'legitimised' one, which would have been severally weakened if Labour bled seats to the Liberal Democrats and The Conservatives. Even worse still, had the Conservatives won without a majority....
Let Gordon Brown "accomplish" his vision, then we can decided in 2009.
Democracy? He cannot be serious.
It wasn't the media that hired election officials, briefed the Unions, the media, started robo-calling potential electors, hired bill-boards and basically did everything required to call an election, short of actually calling one.
Browns team, in time honoured tradition, briefed the media on everything leading up to the announcement and used the media to his own ends the whole way through. He made his pets in the media look foolish and they will not ever forget that, I hope!
As for democracy, well, when the labour party has an inbuilt majority of 60 because of electoral boundaries, the politically ignorant and the truly well informed (and politically disgusted) alike form a combined group of up to 50% of the electorate who will not vote at all, the labour party can inflict their rule with as few as 20% of the population voting.
Gordon Brown is now displaying mind numbing cynicism alongside his supine cowardice of the weekend. "I want to demonstrate my vision for change" for two years prior to an election?
Well seeing as how Gordon is abandoning any vestige of the manifesto he was elected to implement, as seen by his obsession with "change", surely he must put that in a referendum before the electorate? He is entitled to implement the 2005 manifesto as PM, but neither Gordon Brown, nor the current labour Government, have a mandate for change.
This "let me have a couple of years trial period" is politically obscene. trial periods are for office juniors, not Prime Ministers. If he has any conviction whatsoever he would have the courage to stand up before the country and fight an election upon it. Otherwise, for the sake of political fairness, David Cameron, Ming Cambell and the leaders of UKIP, The Greens and the BNP surely must be given their two year trials of their visions of change too.
How craven can you get? What Gordon Brown is actually doing (and being allowed to get away with it by a media that he has made to look foolish) is to run away frit from an election, abandon the old manifesto and "try out" his new manifesto without any election whatsoever.
He is, to be very crude, pissing on the corpse of British Democracy!
The only people I heard talking about an election were the media & the Schoolboy party(sorry, The Tories).They're the ones with egg on their faces & transparently attempting to put the blame on Gordon Brown. These are just the kind of antics that lead us to mistrust journalists and especially Radio4 news broadcasts: I fear we are approaching a situation where the 'news' is CREATED by the media!
The only people I heard talking about an election were the media & the Schoolboy party(sorry, The Tories).They're the ones with egg on their faces & transparently attempting to put the blame on Gordon Brown. These are just the kind of antics that lead us to mistrust journalists and especially Radio4 news broadcasts: I fear we are approaching a situation where the 'news' is CREATED by the media!
We all thought that Gordon Brown was doing so well as our new Prime Minister. Responding well to floods and foot and mouth. Taking control and showing clear leadership.
What went wrong when it came to his first really big decision.
I am deeply disappointed at the way his advisers and he have led us all up the garden path. There is no one else to blame and Gordon Brian must accept the blame as the one who allowed the spinning the whole election hype and then crashing the body politic down to earth.
Quiet pathetic really.
shella wrote ...
1. "No-one in the country wants ... a general election ..."
and
2. "What we want to see is .... democratic reform ..."
Well, sorry to say shella, but I think that without 1. (a general election) then 2. (democratic reform) cannot occur!
And even then, we cannot expect the existing parties to bring about change as they know how to 'play' the current game.
I believe we must have a 'one-time' party, made up of the people of this country that want to put common sense at the head of all decision making.
By 'one-time' I mean a party made up of people that would aim to get elected to serve one term (not jump on the gravy train), address all the common sense issues and then let the country vote again.
Top of the list for change would be:
1. Election reform whereby, unless a candidate polled over 50% of the vote, the two highest-polling candidates would be voted for again the following week. In either case the winner would represent more than 50% of the people that voted in the constituency and we would have a government representing the majority of the voters! That is true democracy!
2. Fixed term parliaments - so as to remove the PMs favorite part of the game play - and stop a repeat of this week's time-wasting media coverage of a non-event!
The 'one-time' party would also address all the other issues that the normal people of this country find so incomprehensible, infuriating and disappointing.
It's true to say that the Tories are in a stronger position than they've ever been under David Cameron; their leader has the bit between his teeth, and he's banging on about this election back down, but he's using the non election as a smoke screen to whether or not the Tories are actually electable. Whilst Brown is getting on with the business of government, Cameron and Osbourne will be banging on about this for a good while to come. Why? Because they know its the only glimmer of hope they've been offered in a long time.
The fickle pollsters dont really relflect public opinion; Brown could have gone to the polls and won, but chose not to, and will instead continue to get on with building the strong government that he begun in the summer. He and Labour are still the best option for the leadership of this nation, and when Dave and Ozzy have drunk the barrel of hysteria dry, we can all get on with the serious issues facing this country.
I was really looking forward to an election and disappointed to here that Brown had bottled it once again. He did this last year when he attempted to remove Blair but lost his nerve, don't get me wrong I think that the PM needs to be a causious man but is he short or courage?
Cameron could not have won and Brown would have increased his vote giving him a mandate, he now has prospects of mid-term unpopularity even though for HIM is will not be mis-term, if you follow my thought.
shella wrote ...
1. "No-one in the country wants ... a general election ..."
and
2. "What we want to see is .... democratic reform ..."
Well, sorry to say shella, but I think that without 1. (a general election) then 2. (democratic reform) cannot occur!
And even then, we cannot expect the existing parties to bring about change as they know how to 'play' the current game.
We need to have a new party that is dedicated to actually doing what the people want!
This should be a 'one-time' party, made up of people who would aim to get elected to serve one term (not jump on the gravy train), address all the common sense issues and then let the country vote again.
Top of the list for change would be:
1. Election reform - whereby, unless a candidate polled over 50% of the vote, the two highest-polling candidates would be voted for again the following week. In either case the winner would represent more than 50% of the people that voted in the constituency and we would have a government representing the majority of the voters! That is true democracy!
2. Fixed term parliaments - so as to remove the PMs favorite part of the game play - and stop a repeat of this week's time-wasting media coverage of a non-event!
The party's manifesto would contain the main issues, identified by the public (I'm sure there will be a few,) and these would all have common sense applied in order to get this country back onto an even keel.
Terry writes,
It was media fuelled job,the Government were right to test the water,but there is over 2 years left in the life of the incumbent government,there is much to do.Having an election now could be a risk especially when the Prime Minister has only been in situ a short time.
An immediate election would appeal to the impotent opposition,the media and the career politicians who have nothing else to think about.
Did the Tories go the country when Thatcher was sacked ?
Lets hope the PM uses his energy to ensure the remaining time is not wasted.
I do agree with most of the comments that this whole election fever has been whipped up by the media to satisfy their ever increasing need to speculate endlessly in order to keep themselves in a job! It may be that Brown is also guilty of playing the field, somewhat unwisely, egged on by a few inexperienced advisors, but at least he has not handed the country over to a hung parliament unnecessarily.
Callaghan handed us over the Margaret Thatcher. It os her privatisation programme and blathering on about a free market, that has led this country to near collapse - no public services, no health service, schools in crisis, no railways, no industry, over-reliance on new technology, agriculture in crisis - you name it we now have it. It takes a good twenty years for a country to collapse into that kind chaos. Now we have low wages and everyone in debt - a really good time to havE an election? On top of that the Labour government led us into an expensive unnecessary war which has cost millions, and achieved very little in terms of world peace. Is that really what democracy looks like??
In the UK yes, democracy looks a complete mess! Only media pundits busily putting work into a fictional scenario of their own making seem to think that an election is worthwhile. I want to see democracy work in this country, with electoral reform to suit a 21st century society not a two party system, where the third party simply splits the vote, so we depend on a small minority of votes to "swing" the election in favour of either of the two bigger parties.
Why in Europe do they have a PR system, which is based on regional, or constituency type, boundaries. Why do people now go to Germany or France for their healthcare, not England any more. Why does Canada have the best health service in the world. Because our government is so self obsessed with hyped up issues, like immigration, or crime, IT DOES NOTHING concrete to improve peoples lives.
It is not democracy in action at all any more in the UK. Just a display of petulant, ego-tripping, macho (female or male) politicians, creating little storms in teacups, because they have lost the plot completely. The UK has become a backward and inward looking society that really needs to wake up, if we are not going to be swallowed up by the transglobal corporate economy that dominates the world now. If Gordon Brown wants to regain credibility he should study how political change is sweeping the world, not always for the best either, and, needs to get a grip on the whole idea of electoral reform before we become an insignificant blot on the global landscape.
In the meantime, people die on hospital trolleys, kids form themselves into violent gangs as the only way they can have any fun, and our soldiers are picked off in Iraq.
WHAT A CATASTROPHE!!! SORT IT OUT BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!! WE COULD DESCEND INTO ANARCHY!
DISGRACEFUL DEMOCRACY
Every few years, we are offered a bunch of pre-selected individuals – with no qualifications in governance (let alone in such specialisations as they might be rewarded with the control of). A minority of us then vote some of them into the “Westminster Game”. The party with the highest success, forms the party of government and their leader, by virtue of a visit to the queen, but with no certification in national management, becomes dangerously powerful. The leader is virtually untouchable – short of assassination – as they hold the future of each of their underlings in their hand. Thus we are run (ragged) by a succession of very odd individuals who preside over unskilled lieutenants making a hash of the various aspects of managing the country. The Westminster game is played IN SPITE of the citizens of Britain, not ON BEHALF of them and is further enacted FOR the satisfaction of that rarefied mentality that thrives in its Bizarre halls. Its configuration and practices are redolent of Alice in Wonderland; bemusing and unconducive to effective and economic management of Great Britain. Brown should note - in his quest for “Britishness” - it is under his nose, undemocratic, and a bloody disgrace.
Democracy is the system under which Socrates was put to death and Athens left in ruins; it has nothing whatever to recommend it.
I'm puzzled why the people of a nation which has never bothered to write down its constitution and is devided into 'royals' and 'everybody else' should be concerned with democracy; to those who've always been subjects and never citizens, the consecpt of 'democracy' may be attractive, but the practice impossible. A representative republic, however, is doable if the 'Obligations of Contract' clause is deleted and an 'All persons elected, or appointed, to national office are subject to recall referenda, without exception' clause inserted in its place.
Though your system is just a bit more "democratic" than our American government, and you have managed to keep money from corrupting it as thoroughly, I believe this quote is still very appropriate.
"The promise to give the people the freedom to vote for those whom they want to elect is rather a poetic figure than a political formula. The people will have the right to choose their "representatives" only from among candidates whom the central and local leaders present to them under the flag of the party."
Leon Trotsky
To avoid getting fooled again, why don't you follow the advice of your viewers and stick to reporting what has happened rather than what you expect to happen. This simple strategy might restore the faith of the public who fund the Corporation.
This morning there is endless speculation about what will be in the Chancellor's statement. You are hyping up expectations about changes to Inheritance Tax and if they don't happen it will give you another chance to stick the boot in. I thought Nick Robinson was going to physically attack the PM at yesterday's news conference.
There were important real issues that deserved more coverage. Why is the electoral roll so inaccurate? Why is the election decided in a handful of seats by a handful of voters? What will happen to Labour in Scotland and Wales? But you aren't interested in research and investigation, but just repeat the Westminster spin and gossip. Learn the lesson and start to inform and educate rather than entertain.
Can we stop the tedious whinging by journalists now? Was Brown really going to call an election with the post on the blink? How would that work? So you fancied an exciting few weeks and he's denied you, but it is anti-democratic to attack Gordon Brown simply because you media types are going to have to live with run-of-the-mill a bit longer. It doesn't make the other parties fab by default and it doesn't make this story bigger than Burma, Darfur, Iraq or people being shot. Get a grip.
why does the bbc seem fit to report on the state of democracies round the world in all their forms, when they can't even do their job within our democracy, that of a vigilent 4th estate.
Its seems to me a bit like remarking on your neighbours guttering while your house collapses around you.
Well done ±«Óătv for once again doing a mervellous job in avoiding and ignoring the one issue that dominates your forums.
My last 7 or 8 posts have been 'unnaccepted', lets call it, lets see if you can make it nine.
I have noticed that when you make a point about your postings not going up, it always gets posted, so i thought i would try.
This really does make you wonder where the licence fee goes!
shella wrote ...
1. "No-one in the country wants ... a general election ..."
and
2. "What we want to see is .... democratic reform ..."
Well, sorry to say shella, but I think that without 1. (a general election) then 2. (democratic reform) cannot occur!
And even then, we cannot expect the existing parties to bring about change as they know how to 'play' the current game.
We need to have a new party that is dedicated to actually doing what the people want!
This should be a 'one-time' party, made up of people who would aim to get elected to serve one term (not jump on the gravy train), address all the common sense issues and then let the country vote again.
Top of the list for change would be:
1. Election reform - whereby, unless a candidate polled over 50% of the vote, the two highest-polling candidates would be voted for again the following week. In either case the winner would represent more than 50% of the people that voted in the constituency and we would have a government representing the majority of the voters! That is true democracy!
2. Fixed term parliaments - so as to remove the PMs favorite part of the game play - and stop a repeat of this week's time-wasting media coverage of a non-event!
The party's manifesto would contain the main issues, identified by the public (I'm sure there will be a few,) and these would all have common sense applied in order to get this country back onto an even keel.
In all seriousness, I think you should also have a 'Horizon' strand, as this seems to be another one of Thompson's Targets. United we stand.. safety in numbers..No, I'm Spartacus and all that.
Newsnight aquitted itself supremely on the election issue. There was robust coverage of the manifestos that appeared by stealth, and the presenters managed to get the politicians to admit that they were in battle mode for an election, and that the Govt shelved the idea following early post -Tory polling. Jeremy Paxmans interview with the defence minister elucidated that the troops were being spun by Brown more than rotated by the Military. All in all, a good week for Newsnight who treated us to wonderful snippets of democracy in action elsewhere. If Mr Barron is reading this gibberish, he may reflect on current motion on Turkey's role in the Armenian genocide 1915, which goes for a vute to the house of reps tomorroe. Bush is against this valid resolution for illogical and vested interests. Armenians suffered a systematic gencocide bt Turks in 1915. It Turkey was mature enough, it would alknowledge the sins of their grandfathers. This issue is live.
Aconomy down turn, you can say that again.what on earth is happening to the UK economy and Apathetic population. We have a NHS completely starved from the elderly, combined with a government causing depreciation and poverty to taxes for those retired.
If we continue to tolerate this treatment we will end up a third world with many other countries living off our Aid.
You can't wonder at the deep depression sweeping our country.
Barbara Norwich