Political parties may claim to be at each other’s throats – yet they seem to agree on a public discourse that keeps the nation in a state of arrested development
Political coverage is never more trivial or evanescent than during an election. Where we might hope for enlightenment about the issues on which we will vote, we find gossip about the habits and style of political leaders, an obsession with statistically meaningless shifts in opinion polls and empty speculation about outcomes. (All this is now compounded by the birth of a royal baby, which means that our heads must simultaneously be dunked in a vat of sycophantic slobber.) Anyone would think that the media didn’t want us to understand the real choices confronting us.
While analysis of the issues dividing the political parties is often weak, coverage of those they have collectively overlooked is almost nonexistent. The Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and even the SNP might claim to be at each other’s throats, but they have often reached consensus about which issues are worthy of debate. This article will list a few of the omissions.
Where are the arguments about the UK’s political funding that allows corporations to buy the politics they want?
A narrow public discourse, dominated by the corporate media and the BBC, ignores or stifles new ideas
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