The TV debates
Critics of News and other debates
have focused on the damage it will do to our living room and economy in general,
but it is felt there is a greater damage and that is the threat it could pose to the democratic system.
It is accepted that in a democracy,
dissent must be allowed and the voice of
the opposition must be heard.
So we have, on one side, Debaters,
rather than listen to the dissenters, seek to silence them.
On the other side, the abuse
directed at debaters by dissenters and this suggests that they are unwilling to
engage with the difficult reality of the negotiations; they just want to
suppress the uncomfortable facts.What
we instead see is bad news is turned into good…… .
