Guest Author - Joanna Czechowska
‘An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry’, George Eliot
A general election is due to be held in the UK on 6 May. There are two main contenders: The ruling Labour Party led by grim, unfashionable, super intelligent Scot Gordon Brown and The Conservatives, out of power for 13 years and led by young, slick, rich aristocrat David Cameron. It is a two-horse race – or so we thought…
This week, we had the first-ever televised election debate between the party leaders. Why has such a feast of televisual oratory never happened before? Partly because every week in the House of Commons we have Prime Minister’s Question Time where Gordon and David trade insults and barbs across the dispatch box. It’s like a bear pit and they must endure this week in week out. However, after much discussion and prompting from David Cameron and reluctance from Gordon Brown, it was decided a television debate was just the thing.
ITV hosted the event and it lasted for an hour and half in front of a studio audience. Newsreader Alistair Stewart acted as moderator and he introduced the audience questions and kept the politicians to their allotted time. The leader of the third smaller party, the Liberal Democrats, also had their man in the frame. He is called Nick Clegg and that is almost as much as anyone previously knew about him.
So the three men were positioned behind their podiums, Alistair was in place, the studio audience, who were forbidden to clap but were allowed to laugh in the unlikely event one of the three said anything funny. ITV normally broadcasts adverts but they declared there would be no advert breaks as this would damage the continuity of argument.
Gordon Brown appeared as stiff and grumpy as always, David Cameron looked terrified and his big shiny face seemed to glow in an odd way. In the meantime, everyone said, ‘Oh, is that Nick Clegg?’
There were questions about the National Health Service and they all vied about how much they would spend on it, comments on crime, schools, immigration, Afghanistan, army equipment and the nuclear submarines, etc, etc. As we all watched, and there was a good TV audience of about 10 million, some people did drift away. BBC was showing Have I Got News For You? followed by Outnumbered on the other side. They are both very popular shows and many people turned over.
Those who stuck with it seemed to come to the same conclusion – Gordon Brown was just as everyone expected, David Cameron came across poorly but Nick Clegg – well Nick seemed relaxed, personable and confident. He could rail against the old guard of the two main parties and portray himself as the young outsider, untainted by their sleeze and self-interest.
Nick Clegg is only 43, moderately good-looking, a competent speaker and he seemed at ease with himself, which the other two didn’t. Let’s not get carried away. In the oratory stakes he had nowhere near the skills of Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama but he wasn’t too bad. And the main thing, he was a surprise, he was unknown and as a result the opinion polls declared him the winner and the Liberal Democrats were given a huge surge.
It seems the UK’s first ever leaders’ television debate has brought about some surprising results and has thrown the election wide open. That must be a good thing and makes for interesting times!
