Yawn Alert: Debate on English Domestic Affairs to be Broadcast Tonight at 8.30 on Scottish Television

As The Times puts it, Presidential politics arrive in Britain tonight.

I hope someone remembered to tell the Queen!

I was totally unaware of it, but apparently the broadcasters have been trying to get a debate running for decades, but tonight the big show is one. At prime time on ITV there will be the Nick, Dave and Gordo show. A carefully scripted, rule and regulation bound question and answer session, in Manchester, England, with an audience chosen from a thirty mile radius, thus excluding any Celts, as James Kelly points out so eloquently in this article on Scot Goes Pop.

This show will also be run on BBC’s Radio 4, and presumably because of this it was the subject of much debate on that station’s “Today” programme this morning.

A lot of the feeling was negative, which is, quite apart from the Scottish dimension how I feel about it. “Polls suggest that 20 million voters will tune in to ITV, putting the debate on a par with an ENGLAND football international or an X Factor final”, says The Times, but somehow I can’t imagine it. The competition on other channels includes “Have I got News for You”, a documentary about Lagos (both of which I’d rather watch), a film and some quizzes. (Yes, I know you can record stuff or watch it online.) I noticed too that for those who can get the channel, the National Geographic has a documentary about the Glasgow “underbelly” which would be interesting.

This evening’s debate is a complete waste of time for Scottish watchers as the matters for discussion are domestic and almost everything will be English or maybe English and Welsh only in nature. The danger is that some Scots may watch and believe that the “promises” made in this party political broadcast will affect them. This is certainly a debate in which there should have been representation from the Celtic parliaments. The argument that they won’t be prime ministers holds no water. Nick Clegg won’t be prime minister and he’s there.

Who will win? Well, the consensus was that Vince Cable won the Chancellors debate (which I didn’t know was on, much less watched). Will Nick Clegg with his boyish charm and good looks and of course the certain knowledge that he is just there to make up the numbers pull it off? Will it be suave Cameron with his easy fluency and confidence born of his background, education and natural status in the upper echelons of society? Or will it be grumpy, old, worn Brown with his uneasy, stuttering style beloved only by a few, and without Sarah there to rein him in?

Who cares? Who will watch? It’s an hour and a half of what at best will be aspirations and at worst downright lies. Clegg can say whatever he wants; it makes little difference. He won’t have to deliver. Cameron doesn’t really know how bad the figures are, so anything he says is based on a guess about how much can be afforded and anything Brown says is bound to be greeted with scepticism. He’s had 13 years to make things better, like they promised.....

Although normally the tv remains off in this house, tonight I’ll be watching the Lagos programme and will catch up with “Have I got News....” on the iplayer. I have no interest in fibs about English domestic policy.

Just out of interest, I wonder if the Queen will be watching the Presidential debates.





Pics: The two contenders for "president" and the sop (whom I prefer of the three) and the poor old woman they are usurping, looking as if she's waiting for a bus.

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NATIONAL PARTIES UNITE OVER LEADERS' DEBATE FURORE

The SNP and Plaid Cymru are to review their policies in regard to the BBC licence fee in the wake row over the presidential-style debates to be broadcast in the run up to the Westminster election. Each party will look again at its broadcasting policy in response to what they call a 'stitch up' over live prime ministerial TV debates.

The BBC says that separate leader debates will be held in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This does not, however, alter the fact that the three English based parties will have 3 x 90 extra minutes of exposure beamed in to every home in Scotland, Wales and NI.

Labour’s Anne McGuire MP said on Newsnight Scotland that the three debates will have interest for people UK wide. After being corrected by Gordon Brewer, she acknowledged that the first debate will concentrate on Health and Education with Immigration tacked on, although neither of the main topics are relevant to the Celtic countries and the immigration situation in England is entirely different from that, at least, in Scotland.

Many of the topics which may be discussed will not be relevant in the Celtic countries. For some this will simply be boring, but for others it will be misleading, and in extreme cases may lead to someone voting for a policy which will not be enacted in their country.

Labour and the Tories insist that, as Alex Salmond is not going to be the next Prime Minister there is no reason to ask him to debate even on devolved matters. As the SNP’s election co-ordinator, Stewart Hosie MP (pictured) pointed out, we do not vote for a prime minister in the UK. We vote for a person, usually representing a political party, in any one constituency.

It follows from that that it is the monarch who, theoretically, decides who will be the next PM when she asks them to form a Government.

As Stewart pointed out, it is not a potential prime ministerial debate but a leaders’ debate and as such should include Alex Salmond. The BBC’s own website continues to call them prime ministerial debates possibly as an excuse for not including the SNP and Plaid. But why then are they including the Liberal Democrats? We know that either Gordon Brown or David Cameron will be the next PM. We also know that Nick Clegg will not, so why is he included?

Stewart pointed out that Canada's state broadcaster manages to have leaders’ debates across five parties, in two languages. He has sought to enter into discussions with the BBC but he said that whereas Sky had engaged with him, the BBC had not given substantive answers to his points. At that point, unfortunately Brewer cut him off. It is perhaps ironic that the state broadcaster for which we all pay is less inclined to take a non partisan line than an organisation which is commercial and owned by a foreign media mogul with a reputation for promoting a strongly partisan agenda.


Plaid's Westminster leader Elfyn Llwyd said: "We met to discuss the unfair treatment of Welsh and Scottish licence fee payers who are being denied the opportunity by the public broadcaster to hear from their respective national parties in these set piece leaders debates. It is unacceptable for the people of Wales and Scotland to be short-changed in this way and for the leaders of London parties to be given an additional 90 minutes of prime time exposure.”


Is there an answer to this problem? From my personal point of view given that: all over the UK there are parties who have the right to be heard; only two could provide the next UK prime minister; since devolution many policies do not affect the whole of the UK; the UK has a parliamentary democracy and not a presidential system.... We should not have presidential debates.


This article from James Kelly on Scot Goes Pop, one of my favourite blogs, is worth a read.



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