Without sounding premature- and with the risk of looking stupid after tonight- I have two objections to ‘presidential style debates’ between party leaders. They are both linked but separate.
The first one is just coming from the perspective of being a pedantic purist. Unlike in America, we are not voting for head of state or even a head of government. We are voting for a local candidate to represent the interests of their constituency. Of course, they will usually (but not always) subscribe to a broad programme of action that will link them with other candidates as a ‘party’. The party with the largest amount of candidates will have the strongest mandate to rule, and will be prudent for the Queen to ask the leader of that party to form a government.
Here, party rule and the recognition of a prime minister are outgrowths of the process and not its object. This is why (so i believe) a candidate may change party mid-term. It is also why there didn’t need to be an election when Tony Blair stood down as leader of the Labour party. People complained that Gordon Brown hadn’t been given a mandate by the British people. HE didn’t need one- he had the support of the largest amount of candidates that we had supported.
From this perspective, there is a risk in these debates that we vote on which person we want to decide the laws of the country. However, most decisions will not be made by that person (alone) but by 646 people we vote for. And there is, at least in theory, a distinction between the people we vote for and the party they belong to.
The second reason is linked but from a more practical perspective. The idea of the debates, I suppose, is to open up a wider audience to the ideas and policies of the different parties. However, the head-to-head format is such that it will focus us on the personalities and not the policies:
- It will create an adversarial atmosphere and they will not be able to reflect on past-mistakes or the trade-offs inherent in their policies without the other candidates just using it as a weapon to rubbish them with.
- To score points, they will immediately have to debate which policies are better, without having the time to say what the policies actually are (beyond a punch-line).
- It encourages scrutiny of body-language, confidence and presentation- everything apart from substance.
- They won’t (can’t) dignify one another’s points by debating specific points, but just as a springboard to make a speech about their own policies in that area.
- They will need to find that 'key quote or slogan’ which will appear on the news.
Both criticisms are this: what is important is what the candidates we vote for want to do and not who it is that does them. We don’t need to vote for someone to head up the country or embody the country. We have that already. The Queen. As her (and because we vote for them: our) loyal servants, the M.Ps are the people to carry out her (and because we vote on it: our) program. There should be no importance to a PM other than in that regard. Their personality is, therefore, irrelevant and so the debate is misleading if it suggest otherwise.
