The First Televised Debate

Much has been made of Britain’s first televised leader’s debate. It has been labelled a game changer by most of the media with the Lib Dems now enjoying a 2 point lead over Labour with 30% according to the latest YouGov poll.

Personally I’m not quite sure why the Lib Dems have risen by so much in the polls. I should first off say that I only managed to watch 30 minutes of the debate before switching off in complete boredom – and this is coming from someone who actually finds politics interesting. Of course the debate could have livened up after that but I doubt it.

Mr Brown was his usual dull self, trying to defend Labour’s record and seeking re-election on that – a bad policy considering their appalling record. Mr Cameron seemed to be giving the most sensible answers but failed to get his message across effectively. I’m not sure whether it was an attempt to act serious and Prime Ministerial or whether it was a touch of the nerves but again he seemed incredibly dull. Mr Clegg was in fact the only person who seemed energetic, enthusiastic and interesting, which can be the only reason I can think of for his rise in support because what he was actually saying was complete rubbish. His policies were vague and incredibly idealistic – Mr Cameron and Mr Brown should have been able to pick holes in his arguments easily and exposed the Lib Dems for the idealistic party they are – none of their policies would work in practice. Instead Mr Brown and Mr Cameron chose to argue with each other and ignore Mr Clegg.

Of course the easy way to have made this debate enjoyable to watch would have been to cut the constraints that all the parties signed up to – in particular the ban on applause. If this debate had been more along the lines of Prime Minister’s Questions (which I generally enjoy watching) with jeering and applause from different members of the audience then this would have livened the debate up substantially.

Instead I rather suspect that no-one will be able to remember Britain’s ‘First Great Televised Debate’ for the boredom and monotony it produced. However I shall not say that the debate was insignificant – clearly it has had an effect on the polls and certainly if it stays the way it is then this election will have turned into a 3 legged race. However if the Conservatives and Labour have any sense they will concentrate their efforts in the next two debates to taking apart Mr Clegg’s policies and showing how they are unworkable in practice.

So I shall not follow in the footsteps of most other commentators in proclaiming the rise of the Liberal Democrats, not until the dust has settled and we have seen the next two debates. After all there are still two and a half weeks of the election campaign left to run, and as we all know even one week is a long time in politics.