Has the quality of public debate declined?

I don’t think so, and I had a cameo role in Giles Dilnot’s Archive on 4 programme last night, to which you can listen again here.

I was allowed to whinge on about my Banned List, and to complain about politicians filling their debates with meaningless guff, but I do not think it has got worse. On the contrary, I believe that people generally are more impatient than they used to be with cliché, jargon and filler phrases.

There are other ways in which public debate is constrained. Dilnot has an interview with Kenneth Clarke about his trouble over the definition of rape last year, in which the Minister Without Portfolio explains that this is not the only subject which he has learned to avoid:

I am known to have controversial views on the European Union. But you will have noticed how often I have expressed them in last five years. I mean, forget it.

Dilnot has a number of interesting clips from the archive, including Yasmin Alibhai-Brown confronting a Kurdish woman on BBC1 Question Time who desperately “wants this war” in Iraq.

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• Pacificweather

  One of your rare perceptive observations, there has never been good political debate in Britain although, every rule has its exception, I did see a debate involving the MP for South Dorset and the Minister where he exposed the democratic deficit in the proposals to reduce the number of MPs. One of the few principalled politicians who will doubtless lose his seat as a result of the changes.

• creggancowboy

  I was all set to extract the urine then you make a cogent point re – Clarke and the “rape industry”.

• Happeh

  Yikes! Mining for hits are we?

  Keywords:

  Kurds
  Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
  Rape
  Banned
  European Union
  Iraq
  War

• Farweasel

  I’m still waiting for that baying pack to resurface following Sweden dropping charges against Julian Lasange.

  Without worrying about evidence their only quandary seemed to be whether to hang him from a lampost or burn him at the stake because two slags conspired to frame him.

  When the ‘Honourable member for Bhagdad’ (about as unappealing as you can get but sometimes strangely insightful) spoke for balance they denounced him.

  Suddenly. Silence.
  But I’ll lay odds it won’t stop the hysteria whipped up by people with an agenda next time there’s a thin excuse to stir the pot.
  …….People like Harpie Harmon for instance.

• creggancowboy

  Hazza. She is MP for Camberwell & Peckham since the 1980s. It was a slum then it is still one know. Not much good is she?