This year, the voting public of the UK are witness to the development of a totally new kind of electioneering with the implementation of TV election debates between the party leaders in the run up to the General Election on May 6th. Last night saw the third and final live showdown between Brown, Cameron and Clegg, with the state of the economy raising its ugly head as the main topic of discussion.
But the real question is, do these televised ‘debates’ really contribute anything to the campaign and are they actually useful when it comes to deciding which box you want to ‘X’ on polling day?
Nick Robinson, the BBC’s political editor felt that after last night, he saw no clear winner in terms of the debate, but said that the momentum currently seems to lie with the Conservatives and Mr Cameron who has gone up 5% in YouGov polls.
After a catastrophic week for the Labour party, with Mr Brown referring to a local constituent in Rochdale as ‘a bigot’, he had a lot to make up for last night. In his opening statement, the Prime minister seemed to want to draw a line under the row saying; “There is a lot to this job and, as you saw yesterday, I don’t get all of it right.” But does this not suggest that perhaps a part of him is tired of the job and is giving up?
The ‘darling’ of the debates is undoubtedly Nick Clegg who has boosted the Lib Dem party’s popularity to a height that it hasn’t seen in over 60 years. But will his charming exterior be enough to get him into power?
Who knows?
The leader of the English Democrats, Robin Tilbrook said that the 3 “motor-mouthed leaders showed increasing desperation” throughout the debate, and I completely agree.
Should any of these men, with their schoolboy tantrums and tactics, really be in charge of running the United Kingdom?
Contributed by Jenny Wren-Charlton
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