Why on earth do we need televised debates between leaders of political parties?
Think about
it! Less than 0.02% of the population
are actually able to vote for any of the people involved in the debate! We all know what they are going to say because we've heard it before, ad nauseam. All they ever do is blame each other for the
state of the country and spout the old, familiar party propaganda – always trimmed
to the most simplistic sound-bites possible, all carefully engineered to try to
attract the populist vote. Were told
that the TV debates are intended to “engage” the public in the political
process – but this kind of posturing charade is precisely what turns voters off
and what brings politics and politicians into disrepute.
Elections should be fair!
Every candidate should have the same chance to get his/her viewpoint
across. Every candidate should have the
same amount of exposure and publicity. If
we really want to have fair and genuinely democratic elections, then why can’t
the BBC record a public debate in every constituency – involving all the
candidates in that constituency? With
today’s technology, these recorded debates could be made available on a designated
election channel in such a way that voters could view their own local debate as
often as they like and at any time during the weeks prior to the election. That way, we could all assess the qualities,
views and policies of those candidates for whom we are actually able to vote.
Disenchantment and disengagement with politics,
politicians and the political process are major problems in today’s society – and
the media (including the BBC) are as much to blame for this as the politicians
themselves. It’s time for a new kind of
politics!
