Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham are the chosen venues. The topics will be domestic politics, foreign affairs and the economy. They will be shown by ITV, Sky News and the BBC. The presenters will be Alistair Stewart, Adam Boulton and David Dimbleby.
The three main UK party leaders: Brown, Cameron and Clegg have finally agreed to live televised debates. Like the X-Factor auditions over summer, politics will be touring the country. Well, England anyway.
The debates have been a long time coming. David Cameron has been calling for them since 2007. However, the negotiation for final agreement on them has been a long and drawn out one. All parties involved finally settled on a 78-point agreement (no audience applause, equality of the ticket allocation to supporters, “I want the same airtime as him” and so on).
It is also becoming evident that the debates could go a long way to winning – or losing – the election. Everyday new poll results are released and everyday it seems that the outcome of the election is becoming less and less clear. These numbers can only be to the dismay of the Conservatives and to the encouragement (and unyielding joy) of Gordon Brown who after umpteen failed coups, countless attacks over his stewardship of the country and his character still retains an outside chance of continuing as PM.
However, it is not all bad news for the Conservatives. Cameron is arguably the most effective orator of the three and with his long-time advocacy of TV debates must be feeling confident going in. Gordon Brown should also be looking forward to these debates in order to build on the goodwill garnered from the Piers Morgan interview and to dispel the allegations of him being bully (frankly, I think we’d all lose the rag a bit if we were in his shoes). However, he never looks the most comfortable on camera so his prep team have some work to do. Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats could be the biggest beneficiaries, though.
For so long the election has been depicted as a straight choice between Labour and the Conservatives. The debates though provide a level playing field and with Vince Cable due to debate against Alistair Darling and George Osborne, the Liberal Democrats have the chance to emerge as the voices of reason come Polling Day. It won’t be enough to win, but could give them great sway should the result be a hung parliament.
Obviously news of the debates was not greeted with joy everywhere. The SNP, along with the likes of Plaid Cymru in Wales and UKIP are unhappy that they have been excluded from the big debate. Instead, the SNP will be debating with the leaders of the Scottish parties. One could argue that they have every right to feel aggrieved. Brown, Cameron and Clegg are the leaders of their parties, not Gray, Goldie and Scott. The former should be speaking to the whole of the UK but the format they have chosen – for a separate Scottish debate – could be interpreted as only speaking to England.
On the other hand, the SNP could use this to their advantage arguing that a ‘them and us’ argument is being articulated at Westminster however unintentionally it has come about. It surely makes the argument for a referendum on extended powers and, potentially, independence easier to make. For this General Election at least, they will have to live with the situation as it is.
In the run-up to the debates expect to hear a lot of ‘reconnecting with the people’ and ‘rebuilding trust in politics and politicians’. All fantastic buzzwords for them to use but it will take a lot more than four and a half hours of TV to build the bridges that have been burned in recent times. Nonetheless, I think it’s exciting times and something to look forward to. If the right questions are asked and three different, competing views of the country and its future are presented we could be in for a treat.