The emperors' pixellated new clothes
The generally respectful manner in which last night’s party leaders’ TV talent show has been treated today by the commentariat provokes only marginally less of a horse-laugh than the ‘debate’ itself. It wasn’t just that all three allowed each other to get away with blue, red and yellow murder respectively. It was the truly nauseating way in which they all fell over themselves in the hypocrisy stakes to paint a picture of a Britain full of deeply wonderful human beings marred only by flawed politicians (each other).
One was left wondering what they were actually in politics to do, since society was apparently so perfect, other than save Britain from people like themselves. Thus ‘brilliant, brilliant’ and ‘brave’ soldiers; wonderful and sainted health workers; hearts bleeding over the ‘absolutely vital question’ of how to pay for care for the elderly, so vital they have never agreed to do anything about it; ‘deeply ashamed’ of MPs’ behaviour in fiddling their expenses (oh puh-leease!!!); and my personal top line of the night: ‘What we need is more honesty in this debate’.
You really don’t know whether to laugh or cry. How anyone could have watched this without falling off the sofa from hilarity, nausea or narcolepsy beats me.
Who won? Oh yes, Clegg, definitely, as we all knew he would; because he had nothing to lose, he could only score. And he did; he was relaxed and articulate, he made some of the best points of the evening and his ‘plague on all your houses’ pitch was the easiest. The big loser, relatively, was Cameron. Brown, by his own dysfunctional standards, did well enough: he managed to joke and smile, and although it was all ghastly we’ve seen far, far worse from him. But Cameron looked uncomfortable; he scowled rather than joked and sounded the most insincere of the lot.
Which is really saying something. The man with the most to lose duly lost. The next two TV debates will now be even more important.
Oh – and did anyone hear the phrase ‘broken Britain?’
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