Ed's Tombstone (06/05/15)



The Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore says that Ed Miliband's Moses-like slab of election promises feels the 'the tombstone of British democracy' and as politicians seem more interested in silly stunts than serious policy that's a fair comment on the state of Westminster politics today.

Not least because a senior Ed Miliband aide gave the game away by saying on Radio 5 Live:

"I don’t think anyone’s suggesting that the fact he’s carved them into stone means he’s absolutely, you know, not going to break them or anything like that."   

Now that's remarkably honest because I'm sure it what most people think anyway  

Why does Miliband’s Edstone feel like the tombstone of British democracy?

By Suzanne Moore - The Guardian

Carving Labour’s pledges in stone is as daft as Cameron’s promise to outlaw himself from raising tax: they should just admit to the likelihood of coalition
 
Ed Miliband unveils Labour's pledge stone. ‘Over and over they repeat the mantra that they are campaigning for significant majorities. They are like children who shut their eyes and think we can’t see them.' Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

I want it to end. Everyone I know does. Why is this election so discomforting? Why does this, one of the most important elections of my lifetime, feel so utterly disconnected?

It’s because, to engage with it at all, one has to somehow numb down the massive cognitive dissonance that the campaign now entails. Cognitive dissonance describes the psychosocial conflict that results from holding two conflicting beliefs. Those beliefs are, “We will get a huge majority and govern as a single party”, and “We all know we will be in some kind of coalition”.

This is the modus operandi of both the Tories and Labour, because that is the way they have done things in the past and they are afraid of the future. It is frankly barking, and thus has led to much barkingness.

The apotheosis surely being the meeting at which the vision of Edstone – a slab carved with Labour’s election promises – was decided. “That’s brilliant! You get the slab. I’ll call a stonemason.” The much-derided garden feature is carved with slogans devoid of any real significance: “An NHS with time to care”, for instance. What does this even mean? We have reached a level of detachment in this campaign where random words are generated into slogans that signify nothing. As the kids say, I can’t even …

This new attempt to solidify trust – in the most literal terms – by promising not to deviate from electoral pledges is as completely daft as Cameron’s “promise” last week to outlaw himself from being able to increase tax or national insurance, whatever happens. These promises are taking place in a vacuum. There is no context for them, economic or social.

It is not that these politicians are out of touch with reality – they are in deep denial. Over and over they repeat the mantra that they are campaigning for significant majorities. Over and over, the polls show this is extremely unlikely. They are like children who shut their eyes and think we can’t see them.

I have watched endless footage of party leaders engaged in that weird game where they pretend to have proper jobs

If this election is premised on “trust”, two things are happening that wreck trust. One is this inability to accept that, whether you like it or not, what is happening in Scotland is the democratic will of the people and a positive accommodation with it should be made. Making democracy out to be a threat to civilisation is hardly a good look for any politician. The other issue is the highly mediated, and indeed fake nature of much of this campaign.

The only campaigners I have met in this election have been the ones I have gone to interview. No one in real life has tried to engage me in any way, other than a few desultory leaflets.

Instead, I have watched endless footage of party leaders engaged in that weird campaign game where they pretend to have proper jobs. So here is George Osborne in a hi-vis jacket in some sort of factory. Here is Nick Clegg doing Messy Play in a classroom. Here is Ed Miliband being let loose around some food stuffs. All of them love a hard hat.

This concerted effort at being normal in laboratory conditions no longer really works. Social media zooms us outwards, so we see the machinations all too well. When the average 13 year old knows how to present themselves in Vines or YouTube videos, it all looks a bit overwrought, with the odd flash of someone real cutting through: the teen Milifan.

But cognitive dissonance means that in the parallel universe we are being bunged another bribe or celebrity endorsement, as though we have no idea about the bigger picture and will follow the instructions of Delia Smith.

The big question, if these people could actually face up to it, is not simply the question of “legitimacy” in a hung parliament, but the legitimacy of the whole political class when huge shifts are happening, when the two-party system is breaking down.

Do we trust these people – any of them – to bodge together a government when we have no written constitution? At what point is the public locked out of the negotiations about who is in power? Proclamations of passion, writing rubbish on slabs, repeated assertions of normality, are petty distractions.

Campaigns founded on fundamental dishonesty about the state of electoral politics lead to further disengagement. We all know that when they “get real”, it will be behind closed doors.

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