The media, the leaders and personality

Letdown of a debate; Channel 4 does personality politics; Politician version 2.0

I finished my last post on Thursday afternoon expressing my excitement about the first televised leaders debate that was to take place that evening. My enthusiasm even led me to get the time wrong, arriving at Andy Brown's to watch this historic moment an hour early. My over-punctuality, however, turned out for the better as the three episodes of Fonejacker we fitted in whilst Corrie laid down the teatime gauntlet for Messrs Brown, Cameron and Clegg, proved exponentially more entertaining than the tedium that was the main event. And I'm not even a fan of Fonejacker.

The first issue was immigration, a topic on which each leader sought to appease the supposed xenophobe in all of us with a truly nauseating, tougher-than-thou approach. Internet hero Joel Weiner's question on our 'education' system was given short shrift and all three offered similar responses on the issue of crime. Indeed, agreement was the broad theme of the evening with only some petty bickering on the economy between Brown and Cameron, and the Liberal Democrat's pledge to scrap the renewal of Trident demarcating any differences between the three. What the debate went to show was that what clear water there is between the three main parties is but small, shallow puddles on an island of crackdowns on immigration, slashed public spending and policy justification by anecdote.

Nick Clegg has been roundly acclaimed as the winner- a result that has caused somewhat of a media storm around the Lib Dems- yet this is more due to the fact that much of the public were previously unaccustomed with him. With the leaders failing to lock horns on policy, judgements have been made based on performance. Clegg has been acclaimed for his ability to talk straight down the camera to the viewer at home, like an X-factor contestant pleading for the nation to keep them in the competition. Cameron came across as confident and the fact his biggest gaffe is considered to be his story of the black man he met who supposedly joined the Navy aged 10, rather than his categorising China as a potential nuclear threat to a peaceful world, shows how style and delivery are coming under more scrutiny than substance. The hapless Gordon Brown continued to place his sporadic, strained smiles at inopportune moments, such as when being criticised by the others, and remains derided by many corners, not as a political lightweight, but simply as socially-inept.

And here lies the problem. As I sat down for some dinner before heading to the pub on Friday night I was watching Channel 4 news. Halfway through, Jon Snow finished the proper news and handed over to Krishnan Guru-Murthy to present a 'policy free' examination of the three candidates called Britain's Next Boss. The show consisted of three experts- James 'Dragon's Den' Khan, Ruby 'not funny' Wax, and a man, who looked like the kind of guy to be selling you stolen watches in an East End pub, but was in fact referred to as a business psychologist- watching selected clips of Brown, Cameron and Clegg on the campaign trail and then commenting on their team-work/decision making/ genuineness. Here's Gordon Brown with some cabinet members- does this show he's a good team-player? Here's Nick Clegg turning one way out of a room but then going the other- does this show he's indecisive? Here's David Cameron pretending to be mates with some factory workers- does this show he's not genuine? It was an example of the complete dominance of personality and style over policy in modern politics.

This is part of the reason why Gordon Brown is so detrimental to the Labour party at the moment, to the point that he barely figures on most candidates literature. No doubt many people have reservations about the way Labour, under Blair and Brown, have presided over the country, but a lot of people simply see the latter as socially awkward and find it difficult to relate to him. What they want is the socially confident (thanks to a public school and Oxbridge education), forty-something male, with attractive wife and kids in tow. Think Cameron, think Clegg, think David or Ed Miliband. Whilst for a lot of people the UK's political landscape is a dull, monotonous scenery, we risk moving towards a state where the people who inhabit it reflect this, as over-coached, PR savvy, clones. The media persona's of Clegg and Cameron are virtually indistinguishable. Get used to it because there's more of the same coming.

Prepare for people power?

Essays and the Agricultural adjustment act; A power station that generates no power; The elusive Mr Osborne; Let the debates begin

The last few days have been spent getting slowly back into work/essay mode. I would say I'm easing myself back in, upping the hours each day like a jogger slowly upping the mileage in preparation for a marathon. However, it's been more like a jogger who gets to the end of his road and decides he can't be bothered so turns around and walks back to his house. Word counts are the issue at the moment with the essay I've pretty much done a couple of hundred words short and the one I'm working on at the moment shaping up to fall similarly wanting. I blame my laconic style on the useless History A-level exams where you had an hour to write one essay showing how knowledgeable you were. This involved being concise and getting straight to the point to the extent that adjectives and conjunctions came at a premium and was more a test of how many facts you could jam in to two scribbled sides of A4 than a gauge of aptitude in the study of history. For an example of its success I can tell you that one of the bills in FDR's first new deal resulted in the slaughter of 6 million pigs. What I couldn't tell you is what act it was, when it was enacted or whether this great loss of swine life had any effect on America's economic recovery (for those who are interested it was the agricultural adjustment act, enacted in 1933, and I'm still none the wiser on its impact).

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The last few days have seen all the main parties launching their manifestos as well as some not so main parties- my favourite proposal from the lesser parties is Ukip's plan to fund the Met Office depending on the accuracy of its predictions. The launch greeted with the most fanfare was the Conservative's on Tuesday, unveiled in the rather bemusing surroundings of the long-defunct Battersea power station. John Prescott, never one to miss the opportunity for a bit of Tory bashing, saw similarities between the two tweeting 'impressive from the outside but hollow and empty within'. Turns out the manifesto wasn't empty. No, it was all about people power and was filled with all kinds of invitations to set up schools, elect police chiefs and sack MP's. The PR wizards had come up with the High School Musical inspired slogan 'we're all in this together' and David Cameron even had the temerity to quote JFK's old 'ask not what your country can do for you' line. Whilst the presentation may have lacked imagination, the manifesto did finally provide some clue as to what Cameron, as a conservative, stands for.

The question though is whether anyone 1) actually wants to take advantage of these schemes and 2) has the time to do so. At least these were the questions Michael Gove dealt with as he did the media rounds Tuesday evening. I quite like Gove. He speaks eloquently and intelligently and generally answers the questions put to him. He's performing well, as he's playing a pretty predominant role in the Tory campaign at the moment whilst others- Chris Grayling and George Osborne for example- have receded into the shadows. Osborne is an interesting case as, for someone who in a month will likely be controlling our ailing economy, even the Tories seem to realise he can come across as immensely unlikeable. He still has the superior demeanour that Cameron seems to have shaken since their Bullingdon days, and he has a perpetual look of contempt etched across his face. I was fairly surprised when the latest Conservative's letter through our door came baring his photocopied signature (no photos, unlike the Cameron ones though).

Whilst Cameron and Nick Clegg are their parties main assets, Gordon Brown is conspicuous by his absence from much of Labour's election material, replaced by marathon-running comics and vanquished timelords. Tonight he will have nowhere to hide. All three have been attempting to play down the impact of tonight's leaders debate, but it looks set to have a some effect with the expected audience around the 10 million mark. Cameron has been most guilty of trying to dampen expectations warning that it could be 'slow and sluggish'. Despite his efforts he knows he has the most to lose if he doesn't perform. Nick Clegg, who has already shown himself ready to be challenged on his policies with a reasonable performance against Paxman, will benefit from an equal footing with the other two and should show better than his rather tepid interventions at PMQs. And then Brown. It's finally time for him to show why he deserved to survive more coup attempts than most small west African nations ever manage. I can't wait.

It's a Marathon, not a Sprint

Hello and welcome to my second attempt at a blog. My first faltered just before Christmas before perishing of neglect early in the new year. With the click of a delete button a few weeks ago it is has now been consigned to the the dustbin of cyberspace, to be replaced with this slicker, more efficient, as badly titled version. My hope is that this will exist rather longer than its short-lived predecessor, and I have a hunch that it may well do for a couple of reasons:

Firstly, I have finals coming up in a months time meaning that the word of the moment is 'procrastination'. Be it sorting notes out into piles, making sure my room is tidy enough to work in or just that last jaunt round the usual websites (webmail, hotmail, facebook, bbc sport, bbc news in that order) during exam periods time wasting becomes a finely-honed skill.

Secondly there's a small matter of a General Election in under a month meaning the news will be crammed with policy matters and publicity stunts- as Paxman put it 'let the baby-kissing commence'- for me to spout my opinions on. Let us commence.

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Gordon Brown rather inconveniently, though as expected, called the election last Tuesday whilst I was in Cyprus. I say inconveniently because the resort store had a pitiful selection of British newspapers meaning that my first taste of election media coverage was through the slightly right of right-wing Daily Express. The paper made it seem that if Cameron were not to win, Britain would face some kind of armageddon with groups of 'hoodies' slashing and mugging everything in sight, the country being swamped with funny looking and funny sounding people wanting to either steal our jobs or blow us up, and the nation having to go into administration and getting a nine point deduction, or whatever the international punishment for such measures entails. The world must be a very scary place to live in for Express readers.

I arrived back with the family late on Friday night and any worries that campaign coverage would all be of the Express's timbre was quickly quashed by the Beeb's much more tempered reporting. Radio 2's midnight bulletin was dominated by reports on the three main parties tax plans, the most eye-catching (or I guess ear-catching in this case) of which was the Tories plan to reward people for getting married- it's something to do with the 'death of the family', 'Broken Britain' and some other ominous sounding slogans that feeds the fear frenzy the right-wing papers thrive on. The proposal would save couples about £150 a year so with a traditional wedding in the UK costing about £11,000 cold-hearted economics would suggest you only need to be married 73 years to make your money back. Those Tories can be so generous.

Anyway, the Conservatives seem to believe they've got the better of the first week, or at least that's what my uncle, who's standing for them in Carlisle, thinks. Family ties took predominance over political allegiances- at least for me- yesterday as a group of us went leafleting for him in a fairly nondescript area. I managed to avoid any encounters with hostile dogs or voters, but I'm sure there must be parts of the city where a Conservative leaflet in your hand may as well be a ticket to the nearest A&E. As a constituency its a high-employment but low-wage area with 99% of the population being white and has been held by Labour since the 1960s. The notional majority sits at just over 4,000 but this year Labour face seven challengers including candidates from the BNP, Ukip and the Socialists. It's going to be a tough fight but Carlisle will be one seat I won't mind seeing swing to the Tories.

In the next few days I intend to decide where I'll use my vote, be it York Outer or South-East Cambridgeshire. I'm pretty sure it'll be York where, not only is it rated very marginal by the very useful voterpower website, but there is also a BNP candidate running. The more people that vote here the lower their share will be and maybe, just maybe, we will be able to roll back some of the confidence they gained from their successful showing in last years disastrous European elections.