First Minister, Alex Salmond’s objection to the arrangements for nationwide television transmission of ‘debates’ between the party leaders has ended with a typically British mess.
The SNP leader’s position was that a nationwide ‘debate’ featuring only the three traditional parties of Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat would disadvantage the governing party in Scotland. The SNP administration had therefore requested Mr Salmond’s inclusion in the ‘debates’.
In Wales, the Labour party are the administration for the Welsh Assembly and Norther Ireland is – well – Northern Ireland, with one partner of the power-sharing administration allied to one of the main UK parties – the Conservative and Unionist Party; and the other, Sinn Fein, not taking its seats at Westminster.
The position in Scotland was a problem the media had overlooked – as was the fact that including Mr Salmond in the top table team would immediately have led to cries for inclusion from other minority parties.
There should have been only two options:
- a clear position that it is a General Election, that the three main parties are those represented across the UK as a whole and that therefore it would be the big three only.
- an all-in dog’s dinner
The last option of course would have seen the swift withdrawal from the ‘debates’ of the self-important big three – and the media, having secured the coup, were not going to let that happen – and if had been achievable, who’d have watched it anyway?
But rather than have the conviction to stick to the first option, the result is the worst of all possible worlds – which grossly favours the big parties and which utterly lacks constitutional logic.
There is to be:
- the nationwide transmission – three – of the three leaders of the three main parties
- regional transmissions featuring leaders of region-specific parties and of local groups of the main parties
Think about it.
This is a General Election not an election for any of the devolved administrations.
As a result of the arrangements announced, the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties now have both national and regional television frontage, with their national leaders and their local group leaders all getting air time.
The other parties, including the SNP, none of which were going to make an impact on the national stage, are now doubly disadvantaged, with the cases for their rival parties being broadcast at twice their rate.
We suggest switching channels on all of it. The London ‘debates’ will be stage-managed and spun beyond the meaningful. The local ones will, with the exception of Alex Salmond (who, like him or not, is highly able), be as low rent as usual.
Life’s too short.
The past sometimes comes back to haunt us and did so with a vengeance today as the death of Michael Foot was announced.
Whatever one thought of his politics nobody -even his staunchest opponents- would deny that Michael Foot was a man of high principle and massive intelect.
I remember when he was attacked, viciously attacked, for wearing what some tabloid journalists descibed as a duffle jacket at a Cenotaph ceremony. Foot was utterly bewildered as I am sure that he placed no great store ever on his sartorial appearance but the jacket was perfectly respectable and presentable and those whose death he was there to commemorate would not have minded.It has been suggested that this episode finished his political career and, if true, shows how close to the abyss we are presently hovering.
The other abiding memory of Foot was his attendance over the years at anti-nuclear marches between Aldermaston and London and addressing mass rallies to that same cause all over the country. The Labour Party no longer associates itself with nuclear disarmament and in fact some close to here advocate not only nuclear weaponry but proliferation in the form of Trident renewal. The principles of Michael Foot in this as in so may other directions has been cast aside.
That said it seems to me the height of political hypocrisy for Gordon Brown to praise the man as a man of principle and then wholly reject the principles that made him a man to be admired.
It was stated today by a BBC continuity announcer that “nowadays no political party supports nuclear disarmament,” and it occured to me that were Alex Salmond to be afforded air time he could disabuse the others of that notion for a start.
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good to see the snp showing their true left wing colours , there goes any (remote) chance they had of winning Argyll & Bute parliamentary seat
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It is truly difficult to conduct any sort of rational debate with a mind as tightly closed and as anonymous as kintyre 1 but the SNP opposition to Trident and to its predecessor Polaris is longstanding and has never been concealed. It is a policy that our successful candidate at the last Scottish Election fully endorsed and it is also supported by our European candidates who so comprehensivly led the poll in Argyll & Bute and across Scotland in June of last year
While I respected Michael Foot I was never tempted to vote for him.
I don’t know what political philosophy, if any, that kintyre1 supports because he prefers to hide that along with his identity.
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had this country unilaterally disarmed as Michael Foot and co advocated (including the snp)the people of eastern europe would still be trapped in an oppressive communist system .
three cheers to reagan, thatcher, pope john paul2 and the others who stood firm in the west and brought the cold war to an end
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I have written from time to time about the half-wit factor that the major parties play to to try to win support. kintyre1′s posts generally provide the evidence for this numpty tendency in Scottish politics.
There is absoutely no evidence to suggest that the possession of nuclear weapons had anything to do with the awakening of Eastern Europe.
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the eastern bloc spent so much of their gdp on nuclear weapons , something they wouldn’t have had to do if we had unilaterally given up our weapons , that their entire system collapsed
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Absolute rubbish. They spent more getting to the moon. Their economy collapsed because it was inefficient and uncompetitive.
The amount the US spends on “defence” could give everybody in the world three simple meals a day.
Is this why their economy has collapsed and they have had to borrow astronomical sums from their friendly Chinese pals?
I take it from your remarks that you favour the removal of nuclear weapons as the production, maintenance and deployment of these it is likely to destroy the rest of our economy.
Glad to hear it.
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‘had this country unilaterally disarmed as Michael Foot and co advocated (including the snp)the people of eastern europe would still be trapped in an oppressive communist system’.
To plagiarise Jeremy Paxman – Oh come on……..!
Are you seriously asking us to believe that the UK’s possession of four Polaris submarines broke the will and the economy of the former Soviet Union?
What it did do – as Trident continues to do – is to starve the conventional forces of funding, inhibiting their ability to perform their role properly – witness the problems over faulty and unsuitable equipment hampering British troops in Afghanistan.
It also has a major impact on the navy’s manpower. It will be interesting to see just how the RN manages to crew a task force based on the proposed supercarriers and their attendant destroyer escorts – for to do that and retain a so-called deterrent fleet will be a very tall order indeed.
Get a grip on this; Britain’s possession of Trident or Polaris was neither independent nor a deterrent. There are no circumstances under which either would ever have been used without the consent of the USA.
If you believe otherwise then you are, without question, on a different planet.
The only thing the possession of nuclear weapons achieved was to delude arrogant politicians into believing that the country was a real force in world politics – a myth that was exploded at Suez many years ago.
The notion that to be opposed to Trident is to be left-wing is nonsense. It’s not a moral standpoint – it makes no strategic or economic sense to retain it, and even senior military and political figures have arrived at that conclusion.
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