OH, come on now! Let us stop all this silly talk about broadcasting General Election leadership debates in prime time when we all have much better things to do with our telly time.
We’re not going to let Them hijack Corrie or Eastenders in favour of watching the Old Lady Who Lived For Her Shoes hack lumps out of that loser Corbyn, are we? Surely we’re not seriously thinking of swapping Masterchef for Mrs Maybe? Or imagining that a single viewer would turn away from the Great British Bake Off to watch the Great British Election Balls-Up instead?
At least the politicians are on the side of our democratic right to turn a blind eye to all of those annoyingly confusing facts, issues and expert opinion. Having listened to the Great Uninformed embark in blissful ignorance (to the tune of the Millwall Anthem ‘No one likes us, we don’t care!’) on a life-changing EU referendum decision, our major party leaders havedecided, sensibly, not to burden us with any information on this occasion, either.
First, Mrs May refused to take part. Then Mr Corbyn responded with the third of a hat-trick of poor decisions (the earlier two being his support for the vote to launch Article 50 followed by a three-line whip that provided a two-thirds parliamentary majority to override the Fixed-Term Election Act) by declaring that unless Mrs May came out to play then neither would he take part in what would automatically have become a party political broadcast on behalf of the Non-Tory Parties.
Swipe me, they’re dead right, my confused fellow voters!
Look again at the photo at the top of this page . . . THere isn’t an ‘ordinary’ member of the public in sight. The PM was helicoptered in for a ‘meet the people’ event at a Bolton golf club whose audience turned out to be merely the media plus an assortment of invited Conservative grandees, councillors bussed in from the Wirral (55 miles away) and big-hatted Tory ladies waving ‘Strong and Stable’ placards.
The same sort of crowd turned up a few hours later at Netherton Conservative Club in the West Midlands (above). Once again the local riff-raff were excluded to make room for right-thinking types and more of those placards (bussed over from Bolton, presumably!).
but it’s not just the Tories who have seen the light and ditched people in favour of party workers and placards.
Tim Farron’s Lib Dems, back to the bad old days of holding party meetings in a phone box, had a whip-round among the faithful for some placards of their own.
And while Jeremy and his loyal Corbynistas insisted that the Labour leader “launched his campaign on the streets of Croydon talking about standing up to privileged elites in order to protect ordinary people like NHS users, carers and children”, where were they? Couldn’t get a look-in beyond the media scrum, part workers . . . AND MORE BLOODY PLACARDS!
it’s bad enough seeing this sort of behaviour acted out in streets, golf clubs and party headquarters all over Britain; do we REALLY want these pathetic actors and their crowds of extras jamming up the TV screens, too?
WHAT DO WE WANT? Wall-to-wall Corrie!
WHEN DO WE WANT IT? Now!
