The leader Debates: My 2 cents

[Blazzin]

I am going to avoid an in depth discourse analysis of the debates and also try to avoid repeating DTEs insightful blogs on this. Instead I am going to post my personal impressions on this new phenomenon (in the UK at least) of leaders debates.

Cameron: All presentation and style. Anyone who knows anything about NLP, speech writing and body language can see how carefully crafted his look and message is. The challenge is to see if you can unearth any substance at all in terms of what he says. 'Change' - the inflection and annunciation of this word has been practised and crafted to a massive extent. The question that springs to mind is will we get real change from a leader whose style and presentation is modelled entirely on the the person who has been our PM for the majority of the Labour administration. His rhetoric on waste is just that - rhetoric. I am very worried that he does not seem to realise that every single local authority has to constantly demonstrate all its services offer Value for Money (known as VFM in the biz). They are constantly regulated on exactly this issue by the Audit Commission (who the Tories would abolish btw, as they are rather critical of Tory councils especially with regard to value for money - The irony!!)

Clegg: Don't care what anyone else says (we will come on to this in a bit) - he comes across as a lightweight. Intellectually his arguments are not absurd and may even work to some extent (tax policy is not as bad as what Dave is proposing in terms of fairness - his core value [rhetoric]) but he just does not come across as someone who has a firm grasp of the complexities of the economic problem we face and the degree to which a British government , in isolation, is impotent to do that much about it!

Brown: Everybody hates him. Fair enough I guess, however his no **** attitude really speaks to me. Yes he's been coached and coached on speech delivery ; but unlike Cameron has taken this advice on style with a pinch of salt. He focuses on practical problems and practical solutions. He comes across as someone who really means business. I'm sure he's not a nice guy. I'm sure he isn't warm and fuzzy. But he doesn't pretend to be (unlike Dave or Nick). He calls it as he sees it and although I don't really agree with his analysis it is a defensible one that has a degree of logical consistency (as does Nick's policies but NOT Dave's). Brown comes across to me as the sort of hard bastard, no ****, manager that everybody hates but gets stuff done.

The real loser in all this is the public. The inane idiotic questions asked in all debates make me despair. The sort of simplistic regurgitated discourse of the mass media (who at least can articulate their simplistic arguments with a degree of panache) that has come to characterise the British public makes me sick . I am sick of the people, I don't care what they think as they really don't know what they are talking about, if their (miss the point) questions are anything to go by.

So my conclusion

Policies

1. Lib Dem
2. Labour
3. Tory

Personality of leaders (in terms of appropriateness for dealing with a difficult economic situation)

1. Brown
2. Clegg
2. Cameron

However of course we all know all three parties are useless and one thing is for sure, no matter who wins the election, the pig ignorant British public will get the government they deserve!

For a real alternative I recommend you all look at the Green Party Website. Their policies and leader are heads and shoulders above the three paraded on our TVS. Of course unless you Live in Norwich or Oxford - there is no point in voting for them!

[hhhhancock]

However of course we all know all three parties are useless and one thing is for sure, no matter who wins the election, the pig ignorant British public will get the government they deserve!

For a real alternative I recommend you all look at the Green Party Website. Their policies and leader are heads and shoulders above the three paraded on our TVS. Of course unless you Live in Norwich or Oxford - there is no point in voting for them!

I don't know what nationality you are Blazzin but to generalise and state that the British public are pig ignorant I find highly insulting. Most of the members of this forum are Brits, I presume, and from their erudition (and yours too) and elequence the majority are a long way from being pig ignorant. I'm from a working class background and from my involvement in community and public life over the last decade I can't agree with you. The vast majority of people I come into contact with are of a similar background to mine and I fid their opinions often perceptive and profound. Please do not insult the people of this country because of the shortcomings of some. Respect for all.
As far as the Greens are concerned you can see my post on your other post about election predictions.

[DougieG]

I don't know what nationality you are Blazzin but to generalise and state that the British public are pig ignorant I find highly insulting. Most of the members of this forum are Brits, I presume, and from their erudition (and yours too) and elequence the majority are a long way from being pig ignorant. I'm from a working class background and from my involvement in community and public life over the last decade I can't agree with you. The vast majority of people I come into contact with are of a similar background to mine and I fid their opinions often perceptive and profound. Please do not insult the people of this country because of the shortcomings of some. Respect for all.
As far as the Greens are concerned you can see my post on your other post about election predictions.

You only have to look at how far sales of the Daily Mail and the Sun outstrip the Guardian and the Times to see that a lot of what Blazzin said is true.

[hhhhancock]

I agree to a certain extent but I know plenty of people who read the Mail are complete political innocents and like the paper for the sports coverage etc. I'm not discounting the fact that there are a lot of ignorant b*ggers out there but I don't like generalisations.