A democratic debate or a debate about democracy?

Did you see last night's 'debate'? It was, to say the least, a curious affair. Seven party leaders stood behind their podiums and talked and shouted to us and at each other for two hours. Prime Minister Cameron looked uneasy, as though he had ended up at a wedding where the rest of the guests were not quite the right sort. He also had real trouble managing Deputy PM Nick Clegg, as Clegg tore into him and the Tories for being soft on the rich. After all he and Clegg had been to the same sort of school and Clegg was just being beastly and Cameron went quite pink with shock at his disloyalty. Farage from UK Independence Party also swelled up with fury at various unconnected points, as though the whole room was just not quite getting it. Labour leader Miliband just looked ill. Even when he tried to smile it appeared as though he might be sick at any point. You could go on.

The debate was supposed to enhance Britain's democratic understanding in the lead up to the May 7 General Election. And as such it was an interesting exercise in what all the party leaders, the media hosting them, the spinners ready to interpret the event and the goggle box extras who gave initial opinions from 'the general public's point of view' actually understood about what is Britain's modern democracy. It turns out to be about selling; selling and buying. Electing a new government on May 7 the political leaders tried to proclaim, is one of the most important purchases that you will ever make. Here's what you will get if you buy me! Or me. Or lose if you buy from her, or from him. 

More austerity (Tories, UKIP) austerity light (Labour and Lib Dems) and no austerity (Greens, Plaid Cymru, Scottish National Party) was the theme of the evening. Within that frame (and Farage entirely failed to make the EU or immigration the baseline) there were the individual policy pitches. Undoubtedly as reflected in some of the early polls, the SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, emerged as the overall winner of this particular game - and from the outside! Her ability to speak to English voters about the decisive role that the SNP Westminster MPs could play in supporting a new government against the Tories was masterful. With a difficult brief, the SNP leader was the clearest, the most personable and the most professional of the lot. Farage's 'common man' shtick did not come off at all - except to his devotees. His big moment passed, as the voice from the saloon bar sounded out of place in the rapid-fire sound bites and fervent promises. 

But although Green Party leader in England and Wales, Natalie Bennett, made a couple of stabs at it, the real big issue never really surfaced. Without it the politicians' dialogue remained at the level of platitudes and competitive 'offers'. In the end the big 'leaders debate' was remote and the promises were stale and, as they were not based on much, seemed incredible. Real democracy was not served. The 'choices' put in front of the potential voting consumers were abstractions without any weight, where they were not simple repetitions. 'But no, but we really do want to save the NHS.' In the end, the ordinary people who commented after the debate could not find much contact with the policies and programmes batted around by the party leaders, instead they discussed personalities and who they liked. Why? 

When millions of working class men and women fought for the right to be represented in Parliament, to have a government that supported the majority, they did not do it so that they could come to the political market every 5 years and choose their goods. They did 'politics' because they wanted to use politics to shift the centres of wealth and power away from a tiny minority and to put them in the hands of the whole society. That was the potential power of the vote. Virtually nothing in Westminster remains of that cause. 

British politics does not do that anymore. There is a solid argument that it never did under its own steam. Certainly a government today doing the types of reforms carried out 1945/8 is unimaginable. And last night none of the party leaders used their time to state the obvious. In 2008 the western capitalist world was on the brink of collapse. Was that because you and I maxed out our credit cards? No. It was because banks were were making countless £billions from buying and selling debt. The west was making less and less goods. Since the mid 1970s wages had shrunk but the rich just got richer. The poor were allowed to use some debt to bridge the gap, but they were hammered if they did not pay the interest. The rich sold their debts to banks, who sold them on. And in 2008 the whole crazy carnival collapsed. So what do the majority of us need politics for now? We need it to help us start to build a new system of society where the all the resources of the rich are put to use on behalf of the majority. Then we can make things again. God knows we need a new, green and healthy world. What should leaders and parties do?  We need leaders and parties to help us, the majority in society, to do it for ourselves. So politics becomes our politics; so the political class is dissolved; so the roots of privilege and entitlement are dug up. 

Democracy is the participation of the majority in their own rule. To change a system that nearly destroyed our world will be a life's work. There is nothing more important. And it needs all of us to succeed. It would be a good life and real political leaders that want to connect with the real world need to start spelling that out.