I’m sick of politicians talking up deals before we’ve cast our votes

FELLOW voter, are you feeling bored, alienated and positively neglected in t hi s weirdest and most surreal of general elections, in which politicians seem to be far more interested in shouting at each other than in talking to us?

You are scarcely alone. Of this spring’s outing in participatory democracy, there are two intensely irritating features.

For one, this election has been inordinately long. Time was, and not so long ago either, when it was only three weeks and a bit. We are now past that milestone and with another shrieking fortnight to go. Thanks to the ridiculous Fixedterm Parliaments Act, the whole pack of rascals have been at it since New Year.

For another, it has been remarkably static. Considering the inordinate amount of money spent on posters, leaflets, mailing, staging and platforms and image consultancy and election broadcasts and direct- dial canvassing and battle buses and, presumably, nibbles, it all seems wholly pointless – for, three weeks in, the polls are stubbornly refusing to shift.

In the UK as a whole, around a third still plan to vote Tory, another third Labour and only one cat in ten cares to back the Liberal Democrats. Except in Scotland, of course, where all the signs are of an SNP landslide.

Our professional politicians have so far failed to engage us seriously – in fact, in a distinctly chilling development, they seem extraordinarily reluctant to meet the public at all.

Most of what are risibly presented as ‘ campaign events’ on nightly news bulletins typically show Cameron or Miliband or Clegg in some strange, enclosed workplace – a builder’s yard, a locomotive repair shed – sounding off on the pet theme of the day, even as folk behind them who are actually hardcore party activists bop away with placards and nod maniacally at everything the Dear Leader says.

Meeting

At the last general election, even Gordon Brown spent a morning stumping up and down Kirkcaldy streets, meeting all sorts of people and yarning with them. But even this is now regarded as high-risk, si nce t he ‘ Sharon Storer moment’ in 2001, when Tony Blair was confronted in front of the cameras about her man’s treatment in hospital.

In fact, Miss Storer made Mr Blair look human, and herself rather silly, when she announced that she had never bothered to vote in all her life.

Meanwhile, in 2010, Rochdale still turned Labour despite Mr Brown’s unfortunate miked-up reflections describing one voter, Gillian Duffy, as a ‘bigoted woman’.

But these days the people playing with general election train sets have a mortal horror of anything unscripted or unplanned, and do t heir utmost to avoid it.

Furthermore, there is now the irritation of ‘policy convergence’. There is not, really, any significant difference between the three main parties on anything very much. They all support a mixed economy, austerity-tinged fiscal discipline, lots of nice things for pensioners, engagement with Europe and the retention of Trident.

Three decades ago, politics was in some respects coarser and more violent – the 1983 general election being a particular corker – but it was far more honest. Thatcher, Foot and the SDP/Liberal Alliance each represented a very different, competing version of Britain and their own distinct values and priorities.

Those differences were so dramatic that 73 per cent of us scurried out to vote. But now things are so boring, and the differences between manifestos are so much pipsqueakery, that fewer than two-thirds of us bother, as if we felt that, under devolution and with the European Union calling so many shots, it makes very little difference who wins the keys for No 10.

The sense of futility is reinforced by our ridiculous voting system, whereby the general election result is settled only by swing voters in marginal seats – the likes of ‘Worcester Woman’ – who make up only about 0.05 per cent of the total electorate. Yet it is on them that all serious campaigning endeavour is concentrated.

And there have been developments in this 2015 election that should make us particularly angry, such as the deliberate narrowing of the agenda.

Subjects

As one London commentator put it last month: ‘The two main parties narrow down the subjects they are prepared to debate and then make a tremendous show of disagreement a bout what little remains...’

So – even as Russian submarines slide through the Minch, or Putin’s MiGs audaciously buzz over Bournemouth, neither Mr Cameron nor Mr Miliband are discussing the defence of the realm.

Nor is anyone talking about the urgent need for real reform of a benefits system that, for instance, positively rewards silly young girls t o have repeated babies by this or that drifting deadbeat dad; nor the grotesque power (and borderline fraud) of our major supermarkets; nor the desperate housing crisis, not least in a culture where we have come to view a home as an asset rather than a living-space.

Indeed, an MP of any party these days who comes out with anything genuinely interesting or original to say i s most unlikely to be hailed by anyone. I nstead, he will be denounced on all sides for his ‘gaffe’. And on entire fields of legitimate public interest – the nature of Islam or gay rights – meaningful public debate is now forbidden completely.

But more immediately annoying is this campaign’s relentless negativity. It is one thing for everyone to run around telling us to vote, vote, vote for Nigel Barlow. It i s acutely depressing when, for most of this election, our politicians are telling us instead to vote against something.

Vote Lib Dem, we in Scotland were exhorted the other day – only we can stop the SNP. Vote Labour, suburbs are exhorted elsewhere – we alone can stop Ukip. Vote Tory, David Cameron begs middle England, lest Red Ed be borne into power by the nasty Scots Nats and the swivel-eyed Sturgeonator...

But most maddening of all is the time squandered neither engaging with voters, nor detailing policy, nor articulating any clear vision of Britain, but instead discussing and discussing again what would happen should there be a hung Parliament – who we might deal with and who we will never deal with, even if our trousers are on fire; what policies we would discard and what policies are non-negotiable.

Such talk, during a general election and before votes have even been cast, l et alone counted, is unprecedented, and profoundly depressing. And the uncertainty of a hung Parliament – and how such an outcome immediately devalues everything promised by any party – has always infuriated the British.

Neil Kinnock and Labour did not, despite mythology, lose the 1992 general election because of the triumphalist ‘ Sheffield Rally’. They lost because, on the final weekend, Mr Kinnock was foolishly sucked into thinking aloud about a possible deal with the Liberal Democrats, electoral reform and so on.

Spooked

It seriously spooked the public and, in the final days, support for the minor parties ebbed away, and largely to the Conservatives – a swing so late no opinion poll detected it.

We besides resent being lied to. We know that, if Mr Cameron were to need only the Democratic Unionists and a couple of Ukippers for a working majority, he would joyously seize it. We know that Ed Miliband would be no less sanguine – come the hour – about some arrangement with the SNP. And since Nick Clegg’s infamous pledge on tuition fees, no one can take him seriously about anything.

We cannot predict the final, parliamentary arithmetic after May 7 – nobody can. But we can beseech our politicians to stop squabbling with each other as if we don’t exist and actually talk to us.

We want them to tell us what they really think, explain where we are, and how they are going to lead us through it and hopefully out of it, because this is not a game – it is about us, about our children, and about our future.