#oneaday, Day 95: Round 2! Fight!

The second round of the Leaders’ Debate happened tonight on Sky News. This means we had an annoying news ticker running across the bottom of the screen all the way through, accompanied by occasional references to make us wish “God, I wish I was watching this in HD”. There is no need for HD in a Leaders’ Debate. Unless you really like watching people sweat.

It was what happened afterwards that was quite interesting, though. Sky immediately pronounced David Cameron the “winner” of the debate, according to the YouGov/Sun poll. Now, I’m immediately suspicious about this as the Sun is hardly the most objective point of reference when it comes to politics, particularly around election time. But my suspicions were further confirmed when, looking at various other polls on different websites, results varied enormously. One site put Nick Clegg at a 65% majority. Twitter was overwhelmingly pro-LibDem once again. Another site put the three potential leaders much closer to one another.

Conclusions to draw from this, then? Polls are utterly meaningless if there’s more than one asking the same question, because you’re going to get vastly different answers according to the audience. One could even question whether the election itself is truly representative of public opinion, given our typically low turnout at the polling station on the big day. And then there’s our bizarre “first past the post” system, which means that it’s actually extremely difficult for the LibDems to achieve a majority, even if most of the country were to turn yellow overnight. Political reform is high on the agenda for all three parties, and this is one thing I think will be looked at for next time around. Proportional representation is the buzzword. I remember reading about that during A-Level Sociology and while I can’t quite recall what it actually means right now (and, it being late, can’t quite be bothered to look it up), I’m pretty sure it’s rather more fair than the odd system we have right now.

The real winner of the debate, as already mentioned, was Twitter. Twitter, during any sort of “big” event (and I use the term loosely, since last year The Apprentice became a “big” event on Twitter) explodes with discussion and jokes. It’s where the “public” thing about Twitter really comes into its own. Anyone and everyone can post, and anyone and everyone can read what everyone else said. Everyone from my humble self to “them off the telly” like Charlie Brooker, Simon Pegg and numerous others were all at it. And while the volume of tweets was so high it was impossible to read them all and stay sane, it provided an interesting snapshot of how people were reacting to everything, on a real-time basis. Gaffes the politicians made were caught immediately – “every time I go to Afghanistan I get blown away” being my particular favourite – and several people took it upon themselves to count how many times they attempted a lame joke (often), a successful joke (rare) or a flirtation with an attractive audience member (a clear victory for Clegg).

The other entertaining thing about today was the front-page article from the Daily Mail accusing Clegg of a “Nazi” slur. The reason for this? This article from 2002 (yes, 2002), in which Clegg, then an MEP, hit out at the misplaced sense of British self-satisfaction, when Germany, having been beaten down from not one but two World Wars, had achieved rather more significant financial and cultural success than we have. I happen to agree with him. Does that mean I’m making Nazi slurs too? The Mail didn’t even seem particularly clear on what they were accusing him of. Given that they had to go back eight years to find anything even vaguely controversial to dig up, they’re clearly more than a bit desperate.

The LibDems have balls, I have to give them that. After the Mail‘s accusation, a political blog and a Lib Dem councillor allegedly seeded the Twitter hashtag #nickcleggsfault, where anyone and everyone would have the opportunity to blame Nick Clegg for something that clearly wasn’t his fault. It’s a joke that could have so easily backfired, but Twitter, itself overwhelmingly LibDem at present, took it to heart and has spent the whole day “blaming” Clegg for everything from the unpronouncable, unspellable Icelandic volcano that has brought so much irritation to air travellers, to John Romero’s Daikatana. (I may have had something to do with that last one.)

This is the first time the election has felt like it “mattered”. Thirteen years of Labour has turned a lot of people into cynics, which would explain the nation’s poor turnouts at the last few elections. But hopefully, with all the buzz surrounding this one thanks to Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other means of online social networking, this may well be a year we start to see some big changes in British politics. And, as lovely as those beautiful old buildings down in Westminster are, what goes on inside them is in serious need of a big kick in the arse.

It’s probably pretty clear from all this that I will be voting yellow all the way. I’m not saying you should, too. But you should at least vote. It would be heartening to know that the nation actually gives a shit about something more important than bloody football for once.