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Three Men in a Vote: The Leaders' Debate. General Election 2010 Ch. 3
Posted by Tracey Cheetham (@tchee)
Friday, 16th April 2010
The Leaders' Debate was always Cameron's to lose. Expectations of Brown were low, even within his own party - but Cameron was supposed to come out and show everyone that he could be statesmanlike, presidential and a true leader. For Clegg on the other hand, the pressure was off, as the "third man" in this debate, he had no more to prove than to be credible to his party. This benefitted Clegg and allowed him to put in the performance that Cameron was hoping to give us. Polls of immediate public/viewer opinion back this up with all that I have seen giving the "win" to Clegg. But, no one emerged with a bloody nose and no one made any major blunder; except for Cameron's possible hinting that he may wish to nuke China at some future time, it was all pretty tame really.
Before the debate began, I asked Twitter, whether they thought that the Leaders' Debate would have an influence on the election. The majority of responses were in the negative and the summary of the opinions I received was that those viewing were already engaged with politics and the majority had already decided who they were going to vote for. This really made me think that the debates are going to miss the point. The people we need to reach are those who are politically disengaged, we need to demonstrate the value of their vote, show them the impact they can have on a local and national level.
This whole General Election campaign has taken on a new style of operation. It is not about reaching the politically disengaged, it is about Leaders. We are increasingly seeing a presidential campaign and this is not going to benefit any of the other 647 PPCs who are wanting to be elected. Essentially, what we saw tonight was a Party Election Broadcast for the constituencies of Sheffield Hallam, Witney and Kircaldy and Cowdenbeath, for it is only voters in these areas that will be able to vote for Clegg, Cameron and Brown. The rest of us, we vote for a local MP, whose job is to represent our views.
The media are dictating the focus of reporting and even the direction and priorities of the campaign. The next few days will not be about what was said, what the policies and priorities of each party are, or ultimately about who won. What we shall now see, is the media patting themselves on the back, saying "look what we made them do". The analysis and soundbites will fade and it will become reporting about the debate, not the content of the debate.
The build-up to the next debate will begin in earnest and I am fully expecting the media to place more extreme hoops for the leaders to jump through as each is faced. Maybe next time they will request a Krypton Factor style assault course and for the final debate there will be silver lycra costumes, rapidly approaching polystyrene and David Dimbleby will flamboyantly shout, "Bring on the Wall!"
