At every election time, the editors most of the the UK’s national newspapers always like to tell their readers which political party to vote for.

It’s no secret that most of the same newspapers have backed the Conservative party either directly (e.g., The Telegraph, Daily Mail) or indirectly (e.g., The Sun, Daily Star). That means they publish a constant stream of articles attacking the Labour party. At the other end of the scale, The Daily Mirror is the only newspaper that has openly backed Labour, despite their mistakes in government.

Many commentators make the mistake of claiming that what people read in the print media directly influences voting behaviour. I believe that is exaggerated. Politically, I’m the member of the Liberal Democrats, but I buy the Labour-supporting Mirror, the right-leaning London Evening Standard, and the left-leaning (but not too Labour) Guardian. I also am a regular reader of my local newspaper. I read many articles and make my political opinions based on what I read and can either believe them or dismiss them. I bet most people are the same.

However, for some reason, there’s  often a hardcore number of people who believe everything they read in the press, particularly on issues such as crime and immigration, and they leave often sarcastic or hateful comments on websites or letters pages. They more often than not don’t bother wasting their time checking about what they read. No wonder many commentators argue that Britain has probably the least-informed electorate in the world.

It’s rather depressing that newspaper proprietors  like Rupert Murdoch and Richard Desmond still believe that their opinions  count in elections, and particularly this one, where there seems to be very little public confidence in the agendas of the mainstream parties. However, it is the parties’ policies… and those of the others… which will eventually decide the general election result on May 6th.

History was made last night when the leaders of the three main political parties held the first of three live US-style televised debates. I posted this on my blog last year about them.

The first debate was screened on ITV, and hosted by Alistair Stewart. I must admit to not being a fan of ITV‘s programming in the past, so it was the first time in weeks that I tuned in to the channel.

I must admit I did enjoy the debate. Most pundits saw that Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader,  was getting the upper hand when verbally sparring against Labour’s Gordon Brown, and the Conservatives’ David Cameron. Not surprisingly, as the Prime Minister, Brown came off worse, with commentators and voters commenting on both his responses to questions as well as his mannerisms.

Predictably, the debates were criticised by the leaders of the nationalist and smaller parties, mainly for allegedly failing to talk about what they thought were the real issues, for example on immigration, the European Union and the environment, and the fact that they were excluded from appearing on the debates in the first place.

The debate had lasted slightly over the ninety minutes, with over nine million people tuning in. Okay, it wasn’t The X-Factor, but at least it wasn’t the turn-off many cynics had earlier predicted.  I can only hope that the next two debates (the first on Sky next Thursday, and then on the BBC in a fortnight) will get an otherwise cynical electorate to recognize that our democracy is still worth fighting for.

More reaction  on the debate from the BBC’s Nick Robinson, Harry’s Place, and Liberal Conspiracy, among others.

Don’t you just get fed up of reading into the constant stream of opinion polls that will crop up between now and the general election?

Day after day, night after night, we are constantly reminded of these polls, showing which political party is ahead, and what would happen if there was an election at that particular moment. This is poll abuse at its worst.

To be honest, these are just fake polls. We should be thinking about the real poll, when at the general election, we would actually know how many votes has been cast and how seats each party has won. At the end of election night, we will find  out the result of the most accurate poll of all. That’s something that cannot be changed.