The leaders of the main UK political parties have agreed the terms with broadcasters which will see them go head-to-head in a series of three US-style live television debates, complete with studio audience. Each will be produced by a different broadcaster and all three will be recorded in different English regions. The BBC is also to hold separate party leader election debates in the devolved countries of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; I've already discussed my doubts over the benefits of such events here previously.
Whilst Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg have all welcomed the news, fears previously expressed by smaller parties that they will be excluded appear to have come true. The SNP's Angus Robertson has been particularly scathing, arguing that "London-based parties are going to receive exponentially more exposure and coverage than other political parties. I think licence fee payers and voters in Scotland will be asking themselves why they are being treated as second class citizens."
This charge may be a little unfair; the main debates, after all, are specifically 'Prime-Ministerial' and aimed accordingly at parties which both stand throughout the UK and whose leaders can potentially become the country's next Prime Minister. The SNP, of course, match neither criteria; that they demand equal footing with the Big Three despite being effectively irrelevant to most of the British electorate outside Scotland come election time seems strangely at odds with their stance that - politically speaking - they want nothing to do with the rest of the United Kingdom in the first place.
There have also been concerns raised in certain quarters that - should the topic stray to matters pertaining only to England - the debates will become largely irrelevant to those regions of the UK with devolved administrations with their own particular remits. Again this seems unfair, given that these are Westminster-specific debates and that Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are to have their own tailored events.
Where a trick does seemed to have been missed, however, is that all these debates are to be filmed in England. That Westminster issues still have the potential to impact devolved regions of the UK would have been made all the more apparent had local audiences in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland had their chance to grill the UK's next Prime Minister.
2 comments:
Hi Keith,
Thanks for an interesting post, as always. I'm really despondent about these toothless, sterile, controlled debates. Since the three of them are not even going to shake hands its hardly worth being in the same room. I would far rather see them debate the issues down on the hustings in the usual way, or at least out on the road, which would at least be interesting. And the "selected" audiences not even able to applaud or heckle means that having one, local or otherwise, is pretty meaningless too, seems to me. I have a feeling that "grilling" is a generous term for the kinds of questions that will be posed!
But I'll be watching anyway!
Thank you Sarah, very kind!
I have to admit that, a bit like the proverbial car crash, I'm going to find it hard not to watch the debates too and I'm fairly sure that they'll be entertaining to boot.
But saying that I'm not really convinced that they'll tell us much about our next potential Prime Minister other than which one can perform well in a television studio. A triumph of style over substance perhaps...!
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