Leading the debates

Friday, April 30, 2010

For all the chicken dressing, egg throwing and bigot calling, the 2010 general election will be remembered for one thing – the televised debates.

They may have been branded "undemocratic" by the SNP for excluding Alex Salmond and been criticised for bringing US presidential-style politics to Britain, but their introduction was a landmark in election history.

Never before had the leaders of the three main UK parties stood toe-to-toe for 90 minutes in a live televised public debate.

Many predicted the Conservatives' David Cameron would be the big winner, with his PR skills, but that accolade instead went to Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats who received an unprecedented career boost. It changed the nature of the election campaign from the usual "two horse race" between the Tories and Labour to "hung parliament panic".

With many issues that affect the ordinary voter devolved, questions were raised over whether the debates would have the same meaning to Scottish voters. The Nationalists seemed to think so, with the SNP and Welsh cousins Plaid Cymru forming a tag-team to press the BBC for inclusion in the debates. When the parties failed to persuade the BBC Trust that their exclusion amounted to a breach of impartiality on the broadcasters' part, Salmond took it one step further.

After months of threatening legal action, the Nationalists finally took the BBC to court over the issue, just a few days before broadcast of the final debate. However by then it was too late, as Lady Smith refused to grant the interim interdict on preventing the broadcast of the debate in Scotland without the SNP's participation. She also dismissed allegations of impartiality.

But while the SNP may have failed to involve themselves in the main debates – instead relegated to the fringe television debates with the main parties in Scotland – the exercise did give them something that the leaders' debates were threatening to destroy; a voice.