Election Fever

Just like milllions of others I watched the "three Prime Minister" debate with enthusiasm. I thought all three of them did rather well. At first they all seemed agitated by both nerves and expectation.

One thing came through quite clearly:there were hardly any policy differences. The one area, where there was substantial difference, was constitutional reform. But, even then, the proposals of both the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party were similar.

Perhaps, we can only decide who to vote for on the basis of personality, because the policy differences are so minimal. This is a shame.

The press and the television channels almost portrayed the debate as a beauty contest. And, of course, they wanted a winner and a loser. I don't care whether David Cameron looked nervous or not. I don't care, if Gordon Brown looked a bit stiff. And, I don't care that Nick Clegg had his hand in his pocket. I care even less about what ties they were wearing.

We are placing too much emphasis about who leads the political parties, and we are expecting a presidential or mayoral style of election even though we are just electing a parliament. It is not possible, under the present constitutional arrangements, for the general public to elect the Prime Minister directly.

We are not electing a leader; we are electing a party and a set of policies. Each party selects its own leader. The Prime Minister cannot be a President. If, we were to head down the road of the general public, rather than party members, selecting a leader then the Prime Minister would become the de facto Head of State. We would need to drastically alter our constitution. What would happen to the Queen? The Prime Minister could effectively become Head of State and Head of Government rolled into one.

There is much talk of a hung parliament, and if the political parties cannot decide on a coalition the Queen will have to select a Prime Minister. So, the Head of State and Prime Minister must be different individuals.

Where would the checks and balances lie? The USA and France have elected Senates to control the possible excesses of the President or the Head of Government. Therefore, the House of Lords,if they were to perform the same function, would have to be fully elected too.

If we want to keep our Head of State independent from our Prime Minister, then we shall have to accept that the political parties will continue to select their own leader. Therefore, we should not force David Cameron, Gordon Brown or Nick Clegg to act like a Presidents and allow them to concentrate on policy rather than "beauty contests"