Has Anyone Else Noticed:

That despite the election being only a few months away, there is a lack of real, hard political news?

The would-be chancellors debate was for me a damp squib: a bunch of guys skirting round the elephant sat right behind them. A bunch of guys so terrified of saying things how they really are, lest it loses them the election. A bunch of guys so unable to trust the electorate with the truth, they spin and deceive.

It does make you wonder what other elephants are roaming the halls of Whitehall we're not being told about for our own good.

I look at news websites and listen to TV news channels and there is nothing solid, no concrete policy proposals that I can base my voting decision on. Instead I'm supposed to chose a candidate based on how rosy, warm and fluffy their party can make the future sound.

"Everythings fine, you'll suffer no pain, vote for us" is the key election mantra of 2010.

Not that they'd have to stick to anything they promised: Labour went to court and proved that point didn't they. Nope, hard facts, promises and truthful statistics have been abandoned this voting cycle. Instead we're given a view of a utopia, where the government can continue to borrow and not pay it back (I suppose they arrange an IVA with the Saudis, Chinese and the IMF?), where everything is fine, as long as you pay a little more tax, surrender a little more freedom, allow the state to pry a little more into your life.

Not much of a choice is it? Welcome to the post-democratic age which, if you look at it another way is a phrase to describe a dictatorship. Ok, there isn't a single dictator (yet), but just look at how much we're supposed to allow the state to pry into our lives, for so little in return.

You know, us the public are crap at haggling and negotiation. Right now, we should be screaming for the borrowing to stop, ending the mortaging of our children's future. We should be haggling for a better, more efficient NHS, not pouring more money in just to employ paper pushers. We should be shouting for better roads, better schools, better council services.

Instead we are told what we'll be given by the parties, the very essence of democracy has been turned on its head. Our MP, our single representative in government should be haggling on our behalf, getting us better services, sorting the shit out. Instead in our post-democratic age, we're allowed to vote in a nanny, a minder, who tells us how it is, because mummy has already made up the rules.

We need to reinstate people's representatives. We need to remove the party political system. We need to reinstate Parliament as a debating and haggling shop. We need to place people in there who will tell them what we want.

We need to reclaim democracy, and fast, before we lose it forever.