UK's First Televised Prime Ministerial Debates: Game Changers

How have Britons survived all these years without televised candidate debates? For half a century here in America, TV debates have supplied memorable lines and defining moments; it's hard to imagine an election year without them.

Oh, I know that most of the spontaneity and substance was long ago wrung out of them; we should have known this would happen from the beginning. What do you know about the very first TV debate, between Kennedy and Nixon? I can't quote a single line from either candidate, but I know that JFK agreed to wear makeup and Nixon didn't. That should have been an early sign that down through the years, style would matter more than substance.

Of course, debate style can win elections (Kennedy's certainly did), and debate gaffes can lose them. Ronald Reagan's classic "There you go again" dismissal of Jimmy Carter in 1980 helped change the dynamic of the campaign, and Gerald Ford's jaw-dropping assertion in 1976 that the Soviets didn't dominate Eastern Europe may have sealed his electoral fate. I was in the hall in 1988 when debate moderator Bernard Shaw asked an incendiary, over-the-line question of Michael Dukakis: "Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?" What Dukakis should have done is walked out from behind the podium, punched Bernie in the nose, and said "Don't you dare use my wife in your little hypothetical horror;" instead, he gave a completely dispassionate boilerplate reply. I distinctly remember turning to my CBS colleague Ed Bradley, and we both said the same words at the same time: "He's gonna lose."

In the three UK Prime Ministerial debates, there don't seem to have been any exchanges or one-liners or gaffes that will be remembered as truly pivotal (Gordon Brown managed to have his big foot-in-mouth blunder away from the debate stage). But the televised sessions have nonetheless been crucial in changing the entire direction of the campaign. Both Gordon Brown and (especially) David Cameron must be kicking themselves for agreeing to let third-party (Liberal Democrat) leader Nick Clegg share the stage and the klieg lights. In just 90 minutes of debate number one, he stole from Cameron the 'change candidate' title, and he fueled the 'throw the bums out' voter sentiment that has bedeviled Brown and his in-power-for-13-years Labour party. Yes, the UK debates have all been carefully stage-managed minuets; I'll wager that all three candidates brought their own makeup artists along, and, as in America, I imagine there were endless negotiations over the height of the podiums and the shape of the water glasses. But they've made a real difference, and even though it took 50 years to adopt them, there's no turning back now.

The irony, of course, is that Britain has a long tradition of public debate between its leading politicians; it's called Prime Minister's Question Time, and it happens once a week on the floor of the House of Commons. The head of government stands two swords-lengths away from the leader of the opposition, and they go at it in a fashion that's far more free-wheeling and entertaining than any formal candidate debate. Since we've now 'loaned' them our TV debate formula, wouldn't it be fun if America could find a way to borrow that tradition from the UK?

 

Comments

[KataVideo]

10:31 PM on 05/01/2010

Imagine... voters get a fair chance to see a candidate who is an actual Liberal.. and look what happens. Serves labor right for abandoning the Left.

[ECJLA]

01:25 AM on 05/02/2010

Exactly Kata.

Rome missed this point (or as a journalist felt he had to eschew it):

What we really need "over here" is a viable progressiv­e third party in the mold of Britain's Liberal Democratic party. There the Liberal Democratic party was borne out of the merger of the venerable Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party (formed in the 1980s). Here liberal Democrats are identified with the fairness, decency, communtari­an and anti-fasci­st ideals of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

What both traditions have is common is principled honest progressiv­e positions on society, government and public policy coupled with a dose of what Bob Marley called "emanicipa­tion from mental slavery" where politics and government is always the dreadful byproduct of competing smug self-inter­ested elites and special interest banality.

American progressiv­es should take a page from the British Lib-Dems, charter a namesake party ASAP and invite what Howard Dean called the "Democrati­c wing of the Democratic Party" to re-registe­r in it.

We should do so with the urgency President Kennedy invoked in a speech in 1962. He told of a famous man who asked his gardener to plant a tree. His gardener said, "Why that tree won't flower for a hundred years." The man said: "In that case plant it this afternoon.­"

Referring to his government­'s domestic agenda JFK added "whatever time it may take, we want to plant it and begin it this afternoon.­"

Exactly.

Eric C. Jacobson
Public Interest Lawyer
Culver City, California

[ramblingjohnny]

02:31 PM on 05/01/2010

Took them long enough! Off course in the UK a campaign barely last two months so the occasion to prepare that sort of show are more rare!

[jcd8822]

05:26 PM on 04/30/2010

It is very hard to believe that this was the first televised debate. Wow, welcome to the 10th year of the new millennium­.

[DonTampa58]

04:41 PM on 04/30/2010

I watched the debate, and I didn't see anything that did not remind me of the sound bite, non answers we get in US debates. I'd rather see a weekly "Question Time" and a shorter election campaign here in the US.

[Matt12]

12:01 PM on 04/30/2010

Gordon Brown has to go, it's the price of naked ambition (putsch) and lack of charm; he would have been better off waiting for Blair to cede power in a more seamless manner. But at the end of the day, his inability to govern/ manage well did him in.

[lastpost]

09:51 AM on 04/30/2010

“Game Changers”
Not really Rome. Since one cannot change a game that is rigged. With real democracy, the people would select out only those polices finding favour with the majority. But here, rather than reality,
we’re playing republic.

"Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocabl­e death penalty for the killer”
Certainly Bernard. As long as you can personally and unequivoca­lly guarantee the guilt of the defendant.

“In the three UK Prime Ministeria­l debates, there don't seem to have been any exchanges or one-liners or gaffes”
Really Rome? And what have you been watching? Perhaps we need slow-motio­n replays. Where the informatio­n presented, is fact-check­ed along the bottom of the screen.

“they've made a real difference­”
And what would that difference be Rome? Elevation of a third party into a position of power. In order to permit it to demonstrat­e inability in its own right. Since the other two have been gifted that opportunit­y already.

“borrow that tradition from the UK”
Heaven forbid. Who in their right mind would import the spectacle of boisterous schoolboys­, bent on shouting each other down. A worthy export, would be reasoned argument based on verifiable facts.

[john frodo]

09:19 AM on 04/30/2010

Democracy is coming to the UK. You think US democracy is bad, try a first past the post system like they have in the UK.

[wellingtonian]

10:44 PM on 04/30/2010

I agree that FPP is a terrible system, the scary thing is here they are looking to bring it back after about 15 years without it. Quite a few times under FPP the party with the most votes didn't win, and for me that's all kinds of wrong

[grumpydogwoman]

03:13 AM on 04/30/2010

You really don't want PMQs. It is a wholly unseemly mud-slingi­ng exercise accompanie­d by the baying of the leaders' respective tribes. It can produce some entertaini­ng lines if one is prone to be amused by hearing adults trade insults. I don't think any enlighteni­ng points have ever been made during the course of these brief exchanges.
It used to be carefully managed by the Speaker and the approved questions were often of the type: Will the Prime Minister please tell us what he did yesterday in Warrington­.

[oldpotsmuggler]

11:10 PM on 04/29/2010

The citizens of both countries have more relatives "over there" than almost any two countries on the planet. Why, then, are we not now voting to choose a leader for all of us?

HELLLOOO!!­! What year is this?

I mean, after Canada and Mexico, no place makes more sense for us to try to strike a merger with than the U.K. (Yeah, the accents and the idioms are tough to wade through, but we did give you "Lend, Lease" in time to make all of the difference in the world for both of us.)

[David de Jong]

06:45 AM on 04/30/2010

Not quite "give". Britain has only recently finished paying the US back for her assistance in WWII.

[deluk]

07:40 AM on 04/30/2010

True.

[OutsideLookingIn]

07:41 PM on 04/29/2010

"How have Britons survived all these years without televised candidate debates?"

Of course these are NOT candidates debates. In the US scenario one is pitting prospectiv­e presidenti­al candidate against prospectiv­e presidenti­al candidate. The winner gets a secure position for four years with a clearly defined job-descri­ption.

The UK debates are often portrayed (as they are above) as public selection interviews for the post of Prime Minister but the 'winner's' occupation of that post lasts only as long as his party wants him there - which in Gordon Brown's case is not likely to be long. Moreover in a coalition or minority government situation, which seems likely this time and will become the norm if the electoral system is changed (another strong possibilit­y), the post of Prime Minister is likely to be far less 'President­ial' and more managerial­.

The British electoral by-and-lar­ge in aware of this and is watching these debates with a view to deciding which two out of the three, working together, would best reflect their personal politics and having to consider how their vote could facilitate­, or sink, such an outcome - a very much more sophistica­ted ask than presented by the black-and-­white US system.