It’s week five of the UK General Election Campaign: very soon indeed, Britain will be catapulted into a new idea of itself. New because, after five years of clear decline of trust in political leadership overall, such is the general certainty of a Labour win that whether they win or lose, change is guaranteed.

If they win, we are into the game called “the first hundred days” of a new government. This is when Keir Starmer and the new cabinet will do their utmost to prove the people made the right choice. Expect symbolic moves more than crazy gambles, and lots of ‘hard choices’ amidst calls for patience.

If the Conservatives pull off a shock win – with Farage back in the fold maybe – that will also signal change as the party will have to reinvent itself radically. Not least in the relationship between press and public: how much would the polls and daily headlines have misled us?

At least Starmer and party are already preparing themselves to be disappointed, with calls this week to distrust the polls that give Labour an historical lead and act as if it’s still neck and neck. Like footballers insisting on a 0-0 mentality, even after they go three up.

For ourselves, even the new is the old when a first past the post system cannot deliver the true subtlety of the British vote. Until we get proportional representation, the results will always be a distortion. However, that’s not to say there’s nothing interesting occurring in this campaign – mostly by shifting our gaze somewhat, zooming out from the politicians presenting, to a wider observation.

Whereas in the past these General Election TV debates have been engaging, the format is now tired and remarkably ineffective. Except maybe to witness the increasing lawyerly calm of Keir Starmer, confident of his case, in comparison to Rishi Sunak’s losing his friendly capaciousness.

No longer PM as bank manager, the multi-millionaire is turning nasty – around immigration in particular – in ways he may regret down the line. What is more interesting overall might be the growing confidence of the audience – willing to set the tone and the moral ground on which the elections are being fought.

Questions about the economy highlight the metacrisis – the inability of politicians to give a straight answer. Not because they are lying necessarily, but because we are all much more aware of the complexity of our global economic conditions than before. The old political divisions are no longer enough to satisfy our thirst for good choices.

One audience member asked Starmer “isn’t it true that your budget depends upon growth, something we cannot any longer depend on or even choose?” It suggested that the issues are bigger than this simple race to the bottom on the economy.

Another challenged Sunak: “are you really willing to leave the European Court of Human Rights just to get your way with sending immigrants to Rwanda? When you yourself are fighting with the far-right in your party, why are you delegitimising the very thing that protects Europe from extreme populism?” Again, a question that moved way beyond counting the numbers on immigration.

In both cases the leaders of our two biggest parties blustered. Maybe they could have sat and talked through their position with their audience. Yet there was no capacity or time to do that in the moment: hustings are about scoring quick and easy points. The spectacle is farcical and demeaning of democracy.

But where do the public go with their advanced awareness when the politicians will not engage with them as equals, worthy of serious engagement? From that perspective, the real debate is always happening off screen. Somewhat (we hope) in private spaces, somewhat in the inside pages of newspapers rather than front and back. Certainly, here in The Daily Alternative.

Meantime European Football is regularly drawing ten times more viewers than the election debates. Both the English and Scottish teams have faltered but their fans are enjoying the international gatherings for their own sake.

In that spirit, here are a few political footballs that we have noticed are unlikely to result in goals for either side – except possibly an own goal. Skirmishes that are nevertheless being played out elsewhere, with far more creativity:

· Tax versus no tax in an economy that should be diversifying, redistributing and greening rather than simply accelerating. While Starmer and Sunak accuse each other of stealth taxation, the Danes make it a point of pride to be paying more

· Hard or soft on immigration at a time when our care services are being crippled by the loss of immigrant labour. In addition – in direct contrast with Nigel Farage’s claims about a population crisis – the UK’s natural population will be in net decline by 2025, two decades earlier than predicted says the FT. Till now only Scotland has faced this reality and made an explicit welcome to immigrants.

· Jobs first or last? Starmer believes handouts, benefits, or redistribution – whatever you might call paying people without expecting labour in return – will never replace the inherent dignity of wages. Maybe, but increasingly time is becoming the big issue. Labour’s biggest backers Unison are calling for a right to a four-day week to be enshrined for all, citing work related stress as detrimental to social cohesion. Meantime, trials in Universal Basic Income repeatedly show increase in mental health and individual autonomy. Can Labour move beyond labouring?

· Defence budget: Sunak attempts to tie together a growing threat to national security and an increase in military budgets with fear of juvenile delinquency, by announcing a programme of national service. Yet he ignores the facts: it’s not a lack of money but a failure to recruit that leads to a shrinking army. Young people no longer want to go to war and will not respond to a national call. The situation in Gaza is intensifying the rejection of political killing: we need a new vision of moving beyond violence as a response to aggression. At the same time, it’s not laziness that stops young people wanting to dobullshit jobs. Why not offer them training in responding to environmental crises? Armies of environmental responders already exist in India.

· Environment first or last? Young people ask candidates (see editorial 331): what’s more important, saving the planet or growing the economy? They ask it like a trick question, knowing there is no economy without a planet. Even so, all candidates obfuscate. Whether they are pretending the two are easily integrated (green economy growth which comes after a mixed economy approach ref). Or scoffing at Net Zero goals, claiming we only contribute 1% of the globe’s excess carbon emissions so nothing we do matters.

See here for AG Co-initiator and Editor Pat Kane’s recent column on Just Stop Oil’s successful grabbing of our attention by throwing coloured cornflour over Stonehenge:

The current SNP campaign line on the commissioning of new oil and gas fields - which, to be accurate, is continuity-Sturgeon - is that each field should be assessed on a case-by-case basis, according to criteria like “climate compatibility” with net-zero carbon targets.

But there’s also an “energy security” consideration (listen to Putin’s sabre rattling in the background here). As well as an assessment of whether skills and facilities needed for new renewable energy system aren’t lost, in a too-hasty transition.

“It’s complex”, say Swinney and Forbes. In this week’s Question Time leaders’ debate, the FM was deriding the hundreds of oil and gas licenses being proposed by Rishi Sunak as destructive of climate goals. But he left himself the possibility of expert review leading to the opening of new fields.

So, will an SNP-led Scottish Government, on the basis of its energy pragmatism, find itself at loggerheads with these nothing-left-to-lose generation of radicals (most young, but some old too)?

I’d hope not. If there are plans out there for Scotland’s transition to a new energy regime that doesn’t depend on the egregious opening-up of new fossil-fuel fields, we need to hear them.

I know, from experience, that the transition is on. In my other musical life, Hue & Cry did a celebration gig, on-site, for the renewables company Haventus recently, up on the Moray Firth, near Inverness. It’s a massive port-building exercise, for the assembly and launching of off-shore windfarms.

There are some challenging issues here. It’s headquartered in Houston, not Scotland, so susceptible to the charge of being yet another “branch plant” operation. It’s also part of a “greenport” zone, with all the fiscal murkiness involved in those set-ups.

But I couldn’t repress my essential admiration here. The optimism of the staff, and the sheer engineering scale of the operation, gave me a rare sense of a whole industry shifting between mighty paradigms. And that it can be done, and is being done, in Scotland.

I think the pressure point might be the science itself. On his digital channels, Roger Hallam is pretty meticulous about the scientific papers he brings to his fight.

As an answer to a journalist’s inquiry about the Stonehenge incident, Hallam tweeted a paper from Science Advances, claiming that the Gulf stream - part of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) - is 40% likely to collapse in the 2030s, as freshwater from melting icecaps disrupts its flow.

The consequent winter temperature cooling (between 10 to 30 degrees) would destroy European agriculture and set many millions on the move. The OECDs 2022 Tipping Point study, and COP28’s Tipping Point report, only compound the point: global warming as a result of ever-rising fossil-fuel us imperils us all.

So, when you see the next Just Stop Oil stunt—its reminder that any sense of calm normality we enjoy has future catastrophe and destruction running underneath it—let them guide you to the scientists, at least.

What more can we say than bring on the election - if for no better reason than to stop the parade of illusions. Next week we vote – but for who?

Alternative Editorial: Stop The Parade