I watched the leaders debate tonight with keen interest. I'm going to try to avoid the usual habit of the Tory pundit saying the Tory speaker did best, the Labour pundit claiming the Labour speaker did best, etc, and give you instead my honest opinion, which is that Clegg probably did best, Gordon Brown's performance was consistent with what people expected of him, and Cameron failed to dazzle. The reason why Cameron disappointed was that while the PM came over as a man of substance (agree with him or not), Cameron didn't give voters much reason to pick him over Clegg - both young-ish (43), both relatively telegenic, both pitching for the middle ground, with Clegg edging it. In the long-term, I doubt tonight's debate will change many people's minds - I certainly can't imagine anyone would be any less inclined to vote Labour having seen Gordon Brown's performance that before, with GB you know exactly what you get - but I welcome it as an important new piece of furniture in British political life. Like it or lump it, our political system has become a de facto Presidential system, so we might as well have Presidential debates to go with it as well.
Thursday 15 April 2010
Leaders debate: thoughts
I watched the leaders debate tonight with keen interest. I'm going to try to avoid the usual habit of the Tory pundit saying the Tory speaker did best, the Labour pundit claiming the Labour speaker did best, etc, and give you instead my honest opinion, which is that Clegg probably did best, Gordon Brown's performance was consistent with what people expected of him, and Cameron failed to dazzle. The reason why Cameron disappointed was that while the PM came over as a man of substance (agree with him or not), Cameron didn't give voters much reason to pick him over Clegg - both young-ish (43), both relatively telegenic, both pitching for the middle ground, with Clegg edging it. In the long-term, I doubt tonight's debate will change many people's minds - I certainly can't imagine anyone would be any less inclined to vote Labour having seen Gordon Brown's performance that before, with GB you know exactly what you get - but I welcome it as an important new piece of furniture in British political life. Like it or lump it, our political system has become a de facto Presidential system, so we might as well have Presidential debates to go with it as well.
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"Like it or lump it, our political system has become a de facto Presidential system, so we might as well have Presidential debates to go with it as well."
Well, yes and no! Specifically we do not directly elect our head of government.
This means that the party system has a stranglehold in that the legislature effectively elects the head of the executive (the PM) who then usually selects the rest of the executive from amongst the legislature. And the voting for the legislature is horribly flawed; you can win the popular vote, but lose the election; you can see your vote go up but your seats go down (and vice versa) - and it is only the swing voters in the marginals who really count.
Only "good boys" get promoted from the legislature to the executive. (And heaven help the PM who puts too many people into the Lords so that they can be part of the executive.) Now if we were to separate legislature and executive (a proper presidential system) all sorts of interesting possibilities open up. Sort of a bit like locally elected mayors?
What we heard in the debates were three leaders reciting policy briefings that they had received and trying not to make mistakes (like watching safety play in snooker - fascinating for the cognoscenti, but deadly dull and possibly pointless for the occasional viewer).
The Debates might have had more bite if the relevant spokesmen were debating (Home Secretary against his shadows, Foreign Secretary against his shadow etc.) I would buy tickets for Johnson vs Grayling!
The final debate could then be between the prospective Prime Ministers and could concentrate on the major themes that have arisen from the campaign, such as possibly "Big Society" or "Big State". (Do you trust the NHS, LEAs etc. or would you rather put your trust in groups of amateur busybodies possibly funded by insurance policies created and traded in the city? Either way it will still be your money.)
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