Televised leaders’ debates came late to British general elections. Margaret Thatcher never appeared in one. Nor did Tony Blair. It was not until 2010 that the main UK party leaders took part in the first debates. Since then, debates have become an accepted part of the election campaign landscape. Apart from Theresa May, who refused, to her cost, to take part in 2017, party leaders now recognise that such debates come with the territory.
The 2024 debates have occasionally been illuminating but have generally been uninspiring. Few can argue that they either defined or answered the big questions, on the economy, health, climate and defence, facing Britain. In Wednesday’s BBC debate, the final one of this year’s contest, Rishi Sunak opted for repeated attack as the best form of defence, hammering the line that Labour could not be trusted on tax and migration. Sir Keir Starmer opted for steady reassurance, while attacking the Conservatives over the betting scandal. It was negativity versus safety first.
These approaches reflected the parties’ respective current poll standings – Labour defending its lead, the Tories trying to undermine it – rather than any attempt to illuminate or inspire. Instant polling said it was a draw, which probably counts as a rare piece of good news for Mr Sunak. But the debates, as ever, are unlikely to have changed many opinions. Few will probably wish to have seen even more of them.
For all their faults, though, televised debates are an essential part of the modern campaign landscape. In the absence of policy speeches or local public meetings, which no longer feature much on the parties’ campaign grids, and in a campaign culture now dominated by targeted messaging on social media, the debates are now the only way in which large numbers of voters can get to see and listen to party leaders in real time in a reasonably unmediated way. This matters. But it is a bare minimum.
The 2024 televised debates have taken multiple forms. Mr Sunak and Sir Keir took part in two head-to-heads. There have also been multiparty debates, debates in the devolved nations, and public interviews with party leaders. It can sometimes feel like too much, generating too little. After the electoral dust settles, the parties and the broadcasters should come together, within an independently accountable framework, to agree formats and objectives for future elections that prioritise the interests of the public rather than those of the parties or the media.
Televised debates reflect rather than define the politics of the day. The current abject levels of trust in politics and government, which were highlighted recently in the British Social Attitudes survey, will barely have been lifted, if at all, by this year’s head-to-heads. With public confidence near rock bottom, politicians need to recognise how much is at stake. If they merely sloganise, interrupt one another and reflexively deflect difficult questions by robotically repeating lines-to-take, the decline in trust will continue and the field will be left open to demagogues brandishing simplistic solutions.
This is part of what has happened in the US, where the first presidential debate of 2024 between Joe Biden and Donald Trump was due to take place on Thursday. In the past, Mr Trump has used televised debates as an opportunity to bully, lie and provoke. Britain needs to do everything it possibly can to prevent our own debates from being dragged down a similar path.
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