‘David Cameron’ Articles at j’accuse, Page 2

It’s the last day before voting day and the three main parties in the UK have unleashed their last attempts to lure voters to their fold. Or should it be to scare voters away from their opponents’ fold? The Fear Factor, redolent of the Top Trumps Horror Series, has become a major player in this election that could have seismic consequences on the British electoral system.

Here, for example, is the Daily Mail’s toon – moved to the front page today for extra punch. MAC (the cartoonist) depicts the obvious choice for anyone toying between the (LibDem friendly) hung parliament and what the Tories would see as an alternative: strong government.

In it’s front page article the Mail is ruthless on those “wrong-headed” individuals toying with the idea of a hung-parliament. And the usual suspect arguments are out – shot at the crowd with wanton abandonment.

The Mail cannot stress too strongly how wrong-headed and dangerous it believes this view is. Whoever wins the election, Britain will desperately need bold, decisive government if we’re to avoid the nightmare into which Greece has been plunged. A hung parliament, with the probability of a coalition or pact, will result in a weak administration, dependent on back-room deals and shabby compromises.

Now now. A bold, decisive government like Mr Brown’s (and Blair’s before it did preside over the initial tsunami of banking and financial chaos but this is not the time to remind the giddy electors is it?

Labour has used the Blair trump to “shake some sense” into the “hung parliament voter”. In what sounds like a more sensible approach Blair admonished Labour voters who thought of voting tactically (LibDem) to keep the Tories out. The Guardian reports Blair shooting down the LibDems :

The Telegraph pulled out all sorts of rabbits out of its hat. The YouGov poll showing LibDems down to 24% and a surge for Labour to 30% provides the background to a number of anti-hung parliament possibilities. There’s the possible deal with Northern Ireland’s Unionists (better the coalition partner you can chew), or (sit down before you read this) Simon Cowell‘s backing Cameron as “the prime minister Britain needs at this time”. They did say that the TV debates had an X Factor feel about them but hey… Simon Cowell??

If the backing of multi-millionaire Cowell would not dissuade Tory voters from voting LibDem then you had the good old guilt by affinity – remember the “zokk u fergha“? “Clegg styles himself as successor to Blair” – it doesn’t get any scarier for a down and out Tory does it?

For an interesting take on the world outside “tribal pulls” read the Times’ resident genius Finkelstein. Unlike most Brits he never felt the tribal pull so he does not find it difficult to opt for Cameron this time round:

So, annoyingly, this election will be determined by people fighting a tribal urge that I’ve never felt and can’t completely relate to. The best I can offer is this: once I considered myself on the centre Left, and I don’t any more. And once I, too, had “never voted Tory”, but in the end I didn’t find it very difficult at all.

Then there’s Rachel Sylvester (Off with their heads! Soon the cuts will begin) who has identified a bit of the “trash and destroy” in the UK campaign too:

They would like us to think that their inspiration is Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope. But in fact, as the country prepares to go to the polls, the political parties seem to have been more influenced by Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail.

Gordon Brown yesterday described the Tory manifesto as a “horror show”. Labour’s recent election broadcast featured a tax inspector with a clipboard going, like the Grim Reaper, from house to house telling families which tax credits and cancer treatments they will lose if David Cameron wins on May 6. It was scare mongering of the worst kind.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are trying to terrify the electorate about the prospect of a hung Parliament with posters featuring a noose. To me the subliminal message was “Vote Tory, get hung”, an eccentric strategy for a party trying to shed a “nasty” image caused in part by rightwingers’ support for capital punishment. Their other most memorable image was a pair of bovver boots.

Nick Clegg is picking up support because he looks like a different kind of politician, one who does not engage in the petty squabbling and negative campaigning of the “two old parties”. But my local Liberal Democrat candidate has just delivered a leaflet that has only one message, printed in huge capital letters across it: “I don’t trust politicians either.” From a man who is himself trying to become an MP, it looks less like a new politics than the same old dirty tricks.

I just love Sylvester’s conclusion. The dilemma is very much alive in the UK as it will be in Malta come next election:

Like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, this campaign has got curiouser and curiouser. With Nick Clegg going from Churchill to a Nazi in less than a week, Gordon Brown meeting an Elvis impersonator and David Cameron pulling the head off a chicken, there has been something surreal to the whole thing — and not just in spin alley. The election itself will be a bit like the Queen of Hearts’ declaration: “Sentence first — verdict afterwards!” But will the voters also soon shout: “Off with their heads”?

Queen of Hearts 2.jpg — Hang or Behead - Fear Factor Unknown

addendum:

Back in 2008 when the attacks on the “Wasted Voters” were akin to the carpet bombing of Dresden on a bad day I had written an open letter on J’accuse (Daphne’s Invigilators) in answer to their attacks. That it is still very relevant two years on says much about how far we are advancing locally.

Guardian Special: General Election 2010 press coverage the day before

Election 2010: What influence do newspapers have over voters? (guardian.co.uk)
U.K Election: Why Winning Could Feel a Lot Like Losing (time.com)
Nick Clegg is the candidate of change | Editorial (guardian.co.uk)

This Sunday’s Observer editorial is all about endorsing Nick Clegg as the candidate of change. There’s some interesting extracts that discuss subjects relevant to our local (Maltese) realities too:

First there’s that echo of the argument of the “wasted vote”. Clegg’s rise in popularity has prompted a harsher approach by the Labservative front against the potential LibDem voter. We are familiar with the attack of “irresponsible”, “toying with vote” and other similar slurs thrown at anybody considering a vote outside the PLPN fold. When you are in the thick of it and the onus of the vote is immediate it is probably a bit more difficult to notice how false in democratic terms that kind of accusation is.

For what is voter emancipation all about if not for the right to choose the party that best reflects his or her options. When Labservative or PLPN candidates or pundits arrogantly attack the voter as “irresponsible” they are only demonstrating a lack of respect to the very voters’ principles:

The Conservatives have spent much energy campaigning against that outcome. They have publicised their irritation that voters could deprive David Cameron of a majority much better than they have explained why he deserves one in the first place. Mr Cameron warns portentously that a coalition might lead to instability, economic jeopardy and “more of the old politics”. Perversely, he also rejects the need to change the current voting system, which has, he says, the merit of delivering clear results. Except this time it might not. What then? Mr Cameron’s view is that the system would work fine, if only everyone voted Conservative. This is sophistry draped in hypocrisy. He backs first past the post, while agitating against one of the outcomes that is hard-wired into it. He is campaigning against the voters instead of pitching for their support. He defines change in politics as the old system preserved – but run by the Tories.

That is the crux actually. The establishment politician is so ingrained in the system that he does not notice the arrogant folly of his own assertions. The “insult” to voters considering a third way is probably not seen as such from their point of view. To te PLPN/Labservative person dishing out advice it is more of an “eye-opener” – they are blissfully ignorant of how hopelessly perverse their assertion is.

Then there is the argument that the third parties have led an easy life and would not be so attractive an option when in government:

The Lib Dems have in recent years developed a habit of getting things right. They were first of the big three to embrace environmentalism, first to kick back against the assault on civil liberties, alone in opposing the Iraq war. The conventional riposte to those boasts is that the Lib Dems were free to take idealistic positions because they knew they would never be tested in government. Thus is political courage denigrated as a luxury of eternal opposition.

Which leads us to the Observer’s final declaration of bias (it’s normal, it’s done and it’s nice to see when it is openly declared):

There is a moral imperative to consider in this election, distinct from the old Labour-Tory contest. Opinion polls throughout the campaign suggest that the country wants the Lib Dems to take a place of equal standing alongside the other main parties. A grossly unfair voting system has historically deprived them of that right. It is vital this time that they win a mandate for real change expressed in the overall share of the vote, not just in the discredited distribution of seats in parliament. There is only one party on the ballot paper that, by its record in the old parliament, its manifesto for the new one and its leader’s performance in the campaign, can claim to represent an agenda for radical, positive change in politics. That party is the Liberal Democrats. There is only one way clearly to endorse that message and that is to vote Liberal Democrat.

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