A leaders' debate or presidential debate is a public debate held during a general election campaign, where the candidates expose their political opinions and public policy proposals, and criticism of them, to potential voters. They are normally broadcast live on radio, television and Internet. The events may be organized by media corporations or non-government organizations.
James Gordon Brown is a British politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1997 to 2007. Brown was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1983 to 2015, first for Dunfermline East and later for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.
The debates ran without a break for 90 minutes and were broadcast weekly by ITV, BSkyB and the BBC over three successive Thursday evenings starting on 15 April. They were moderated by Alastair Stewart, Adam Boulton and David Dimbleby respectively. The first half of each debate focused on a particular theme (domestic, international and economic affairs), before general issues were discussed. The questions were not disclosed to the leaders before the debate.
ITV is a British free-to-air television network with its headquarters in London, it was launched in 1955 as Independent Television under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to BBC Television, that was established in 1932. ITV is also the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, its legal name has been Channel 3, to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time, namely BBC 1, BBC 2 and Channel 4. In part, the number 3 was assigned because television sets would usually be tuned so that the regional ITV station would be on the third button, with the other stations being allocated to the number within their name.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters are at Broadcasting House in Westminster, London, and it is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees. It employs over 20,950 staff in total, 16,672 of whom are in public sector broadcasting. The total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time, flexible, and fixed-contract staff are included.
Alastair James Stewart OBE is an English journalist and newscaster, employed by ITN where he is a main newscaster for ITV News.
The Chancellor and Under-Treasurer of Her Majesty's Exchequer, commonly known as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or simply the Chancellor, is a senior official within the Government of the United Kingdom and head of Her Majesty's Treasury. The office is a British Cabinet-level position.
Alistair Maclean Darling, Baron Darling of Roulanish,, is a British Labour Party politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 2007-2010 and as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1987 until he stepped down in 2015, most recently for Edinburgh South West. He was one of only three people to have served in the Cabinet continuously from Labour's landslide victory at the 1997 general election until their defeat at the 2010 general election; the other two were Gordon Brown and Jack Straw.
The Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer in the British Parliamentary system is the member of the Shadow Cabinet who is responsible for shadowing the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The title is in the gift of the Leader of the Opposition but is informal. The Shadow Chancellor has no constitutional role.
Debates were also held in Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland, due to the devolved nature of various aspects of government in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland and Wales, representatives of three main parties were joined by respective nationalist party representatives who stand MPs only in Scotland and Wales, while in Northern Ireland, due to the main parties having no seats, debates were held between the four largest Northern Irish parties. The arrangements for the UK-wide leaders debates were criticised for being restricted to the main UK parties excluding other national minor parties and nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales, for covering many domestic matters which are devolved from Westminster, and also for being held in three locations solely in England.
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Sharing a border with England to the southeast, Scotland is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, by the North Sea to the northeast and by the Irish Sea to the south. In addition to the mainland, situated on the northern third of the island of Great Britain, Scotland has over 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in 2011 of 3,063,456 and has a total area of 20,779 km2 (8,023 sq mi). Wales has over 1,680 miles (2,700 km) of coastline and is largely mountainous, with its higher peaks in the north and central areas, including Snowdon, its highest summit. The country lies within the north temperate zone and has a changeable, maritime climate.
Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares a border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. In 2011, its population was 1,810,863, constituting about 30% of the island's total population and about 3% of the UK's population. Established by the Northern Ireland Act 1998 as part of the Good Friday Agreement, the Northern Ireland Assembly holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters, while other areas are reserved for the British government. Northern Ireland co-operates with the Republic of Ireland in some areas, and the Agreement granted the Republic the ability to "put forward views and proposals" with "determined efforts to resolve disagreements between the two governments".
History
A proposal for leaders debates was first mooted at the 1964 general election[1] when Harold Wilson challenged then Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home to an election debate. Home rejected the proposal on the grounds that: "You'll get a sort of Top of the Pops contest. You'll then get the best actor as leader of the country and the actor will be prompted by a scriptwriter."[1] Wilson himself rejected Ted Heath's proposal for debates, worried about the unpredictability of such a debate[1] and not wishing to give Heath exposure as a potential Prime Minister.[1] In 1979, Jim Callaghan became the first incumbent Prime Minister to agree to a debate[1] but the idea was rejected by Margaret Thatcher on the grounds that presidential-style debates were alien to Britain.[1] Both Thatcher and her successor as Prime Minister, John Major, rejected Labour leader Neil Kinnock's debate proposal, with Major commenting that "every party politician that expects to lose tries that trick of debates and every politician who expects to win says no."[1]
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, was a British Labour politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1964 to 1970 and 1974 to 1976.
Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel, was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1963 to October 1964. He was the last Prime Minister to hold office while a member of the House of Lords, before renouncing his peerage and taking up a seat in the House of Commons for the remainder of his premiership. His reputation, however, rests more on his two spells as Britain's foreign minister than on his brief premiership.
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He was Leader of the Opposition from 1994 to 1997. As of 2017, Blair is the last UK Labour Party leader to have won a general election.
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster. Officially, the full name of the house is the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. Owing to shortage of space, its office accommodation extends into Portcullis House.
The idea of holding leaders debates for the 2010 election was first supported by David Cameron and Nick Clegg, with Gordon Brown later agreeing.[4] In 2009, Sky News began a campaign for leaders debates which was followed by a joint proposal from the BBC, ITV and BSkyB to stage three live election debates between leaders of the three main political parties, one debate for each broadcaster.[5]
On 21 December 2009, agreement was reached between the three main parties and the three broadcasters, BBC, ITV and BSkyB, on the key principles behind holding live election debates for the 2010 election campaign.[6][7] On 1 March 2010 a set of 76 detailed rules for the leaders debates were announced.[8][9]
Leaders' debates
Principles and rules
The December 2009 key principles agreed were that the three main party leaders would appear together in three separate live television debates, and be given equal treatment. The debates would be held during three weeks of the election campaign, or over two weeks if there was less than four weeks between the election being called and polling day. Each broadcaster would produce one debate using the same format, ITV first from the North West, Sky from the South/South West, and finally the BBC from the Midlands.
Broadcasts would be between 85 and 90 minutes in duration with half focused on a specific theme. There would be no commercial breaks and each debate would take place in peak time. ITV was required to make their transmission available simultaneously online and to radio, and to other television broadcasters immediately after the programme, while BSkyB and the BBC were to make their programmes available to other broadcasters simultaneously.[7]
In March 2010, 76 separate rules governing the programmes were published, along with the names of the members of the three editorial panels which would be selecting audience questions for each broadcaster. The rules specified how the audience was to be selected and presented on television, what role the audience would play in the debate, the structure of the programme, the role of the moderator and the layout of the set. In addition, it specified the three themes and their order: Domestic affairs, International affairs and Economic affairs, drawn by lots by the broadcasters.[9]
Audience and question selection
The audience for each debate is made up of around 200 people selected by polling company ICM mainly from within a 30-mile radius of the venue and a broadly demographic cross section of the country. The audience is selected to ensure that at least 80% declare a voting intent, with the final selection to ensure a ratio of 7:7:5 between Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat voters and also including those showing a voting preference for minor parties.[9]
Each broadcaster's selection panel pre-select the debate questions from suggestions made by the ICM selected audience, as well as selecting a maximum of four questions from suggestions submitted by the general public from around the UK submitted by email and read out by the moderator, or read out in person as an extra audience member. In selecting questions, the panel take into account factors such as the prominence of certain issues in the campaign, the distinctiveness of the different parties' policies on election issues, voters' interest and issues relevant to the role of the Prime Minister.[9]
Programme format
The leaders open the programme with a one-minute statement, and close with a one-and-a-half-minute speech, with the questions asked in between. The first part covers the theme subject and in the second half on any other subject. For both the themed and unthemed sections, the pre-selected questions are asked by the audience member, without deviation, and answered by each leader in turn for one minute each. They then have an additional minute in turn to respond to each other's answer. At the programme editor's discretion, following each question, there is a maximum of four minutes of free debate between the leaders. No audience applause is allowed during the programme. In the themed half of the debate, audience members can ask a maximum of three questions on each sub-theme, while in the unthemed portion, a maximum of two questions are allowed on the same subject.[9]
International relations; Afghanistan; Iraq; Iran; Middle East; UK defence; International terrorism; Europe; United States; Climate change; China; International Development[9]
Average viewing figures for the debate were 9.4 million, with a peak of 10.3 million, equivalent to a share of the audience of 37%.[18] The BARB produced audience figures indicated that the total television audience for the event on ITV was 9,679,000 viewers.[19] The debates caused a large, immediate, and unexpected impact on opinion polls in favour of the Liberal Democrats, leading to many headlines regarding a 'Yellow Surge'.
Commenting on the debates, the leaders of three minor parties who were not invited to participate were disparaging. SNP Leader Alex Salmond said, "You had three Westminster politicians who agree with each other on 99% of issues, and therefore the debate couldn't really come alive because of that convergence on the things that matter, and also, of course, because the audience weren't allowed to really participate." Former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage said there was not a "single memorable phrase" in the entire debate and Plaid Cymru leader Ieuan Wyn Jones said: "In what was a very sterile debate, not once did we hear the word Wales mentioned by any of the leaders. Indeed much of what they said was irrelevant to our communities."
Both Gordon Brown and David Cameron agreed that Nick Clegg did well in the debate. Brown said Clegg had been "introducing himself in many ways to the public, in a mass way, for the first time. I think he'll be rightly pleased with his performance. I think at the end of the day... when all the dust settles, when people start sort of examining what are the policies, I don't think people know much about Liberal policies, and I think they do know more about our policies”. He said he had "enjoyed" the debate, adding: "I think it's part of the debate we should have in Britain. I think it's energised the campaign."
Cameron said, "I think he had a good debate but I must say I just enjoyed being able to talk to people at home, to address the questions that I think are the big questions at this election like immigration and the economy and crime." His colleague Michael Gove told Sky News that Clegg could "play the role of the sparky and feisty outsider."
Clegg said it had been an "important moment in this campaign" while one of his predecessors, Lord Ashdown, said the debate was "potentially a game changer." BBC political editor Nick Robinson said the emergence of Clegg as a serious player would be the most significant development. He added that, amid predictions of a hung parliament in which Clegg's party could hold the balance of power, the Lib Dems would be "wooed, attacked and scrutinised with renewed vigour."[20] The body language expert for Sky News Dr. Peter Collet revealed that Clegg had been the strongest as he looked down the lens, he also revealed that Cameron had been weaker than suspected as he stepped away from his podium.[citation needed]
Sky News Debate: international affairs
Prior to the debate, several hundred demonstrators gathered close to the Arnolfini,[21] including anti-capitalist groups, Palestine groups and some English Defence League members.[22] Between six and nine demonstrators were arrested before the debate for public order offences,[21][22] as demonstrators clashed with Avon and Somerset Police with shields and horse-mounted officers.[22]
Authorities had tried unsuccessfully to keep the location of the debate secret from the public before the broadcast,[22] however three days before the event, security barriers had already been put up outside the venue, with around a dozen television production staff on site. Bristol City Council attached notices to the security barriers giving advice of traffic restrictions in the Bristol Harbour area.[23]
Results of opinion polls asking voters who they considered to have won the second debate
Polling after the Sky News Debate declared Nick Clegg and David Cameron the joint winners in the polls, with all three leaders considerably closer than the previous debate.
ITV News/ComRes: 33% for Clegg, 30% for Cameron, 30% for Brown.[24]
The Times/Populus: 37% for Cameron, 36% for Clegg and 23% for Brown[24]
The Sun/YouGov: 36% for Cameron, 32% for Clegg and 29% for Brown[24]
Angus Reid Public Opinion: 33% for Clegg, 32% for Cameron, 23% for Brown[24]
The total viewing figures for the debate were 4 million, with 2.1 million viewers watching the Sky News coverage.[24] The viewing figures produced by BARB showed that the viewing figures for the debate were 2,212,000 viewers watching it on Sky News, 584,000 on Sky3 and 1,388,000 watching it on BBC News.[19]
Nick Clegg said of the debate, "I thought it went well. I enjoyed it a lot", while David Cameron commented "It was great, there were some very good questions. I enjoyed it. The main thing is the people will decide. I hope they will vote for change on May6 and we can do something to change our country."[25]
Prime Ministerial Debate: economic affairs
The final round of the first ever televised leaders' debates, hosted by the BBC, was held in the Great Hall of Birmingham University on 29 April 2010. The background to the debate was overshadowed a day before by a remark made by Gordon Brown in private, while being driven away after canvassing in Rochdale, when he met retired council worker Gillian Duffy.[26][27] In the remark, caught by a lapel microphone, Brown said that "...she was just a sort of bigoted woman who said she used to be Labour".[28] At the beginning of the debate, Brown mentioned the gaffe by saying "There's a lot to this job and as you saw yesterday I don't get all of it right."[26]
The snap polls after the debate showed David Cameron as the winner of the debate, with most showing Nick Clegg in second, one showing Cameron and Clegg tied for first, and one showing Brown in second.
The Sun/You Gov: 41% for Cameron, 32% for Clegg, and 25% for Brown[29]
ITV/ComRes: 35% for Cameron, 33% for Clegg, and 26% for Brown[30]
Angus Reid: 37% for Cameron, 29% for Clegg, and 23% for Brown[31]
The Times/Populus: 38% each for Cameron and Clegg and 25% for Brown[32]
The Guardian/ICM: 35% for Cameron, 29% for Brown, and 27% for Clegg[33]
The viewing figures produced by BARB showed that the total viewing audience was 8,596,000 viewers, with 7,428,000 viewers watching it live on BBC One, 618,000 on BBC News, 337,000 on Sky News and 213,000 on BBC HD.[19]
Gary Gibbon, political editor for Channel 4 News, has questioned the methods employed by YouGov and ComRes. YouGov "tend to include more prosperous voters, more broadsheet readers, older voters, who are slightly more Conservative and sometimes more male-dominated than the voting population as a whole." While ComRes polled people who expressed their voting preference as 35 per cent Conservative, 24 per cent Labour and 36 per cent Liberal Democrat. "And here's how those same people voted on the instant poll on who performed best in the debate: 35 per cent Cameron, 26 per cent Brown and 33 per cent Clegg." Therefore, the result showed that, compared with their previous voting intention, after the debate Clegg had lost 3%, Brown had gained 2%, and Cameron's support was unchanged.[34]
In the analysis of psephologist John Curtice, "... ComRes found that 73 per cent of Conservative supporters reckoned Mr Cameron had won, 64 per cent of Liberal Democrats thought Mr Clegg had won, and 68 per cent of Labour supporters thought Mr Brown had won."
About uncommitted voters, Curtice wrote, "Among this group it appears it was Mr Clegg who scored a narrow victory. On average, across the four polls that have published the necessary details, 34 per cent thought Mr Clegg did best, while Mr Cameron's score of 27 per cent was even lower than Mr Brown's 28 per cent."[35]
Ask the Chancellors, also known as the Battle of the Chancellors,[37][38] was a debate between the parties' financial spokesmen, Alistair Darling (the incumbent Chancellor of the Exchequer), George Osborne (Conservative) and Vince Cable (Liberal Democrats) took place on Monday 29 March on Channel 4. Lasting for 60 minutes, it featured the three men taking questions from a studio audience. This debate was chaired by ITN's Channel 4 News presenter and journalist Krishnan Guru-Murthy.[39]
The viewing figures for the debate were 1.8 million, 7.7% share of the television audience, rising to 2.1 million in the final 10 minutes of the debate. A spokeswoman for Channel 4 was said to be "really pleased" with the figures.[40]
An online poll conducted by Channel 4 after the debate, gave Cable 36% support, with Darling and Osborne both with 32%.[37][41]
Daily Politics debates
The Daily Politics, a BBC political TV series, held a series of debates between members of the incumbent LabourCabinet and their Conservative and Liberal Democrat equivalents. Starting on Monday 19 April, there were nine debates held on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays for the three weeks before 6 May. Andrew Neil acted as moderator, along with a specialist BBC correspondent.[42]
National debates of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales
Exclusion controversy
Other parties criticised the decision to hold television debates, the Scottish National Party (SNP) which forms the devolved Scottish Government,had insisted that as the leading political party in Scotland in the latest opinion poll, it should be included in any debate broadcast in Scotland, adding "The broadcasters would do well to recall the debacle experienced by the BBC’s Panorama programme in 1995, when they were forced not to broadcast an interview with the Prime Minister in Scotland because it breached the rules of impartiality during a Scottish local election."[43] On 22 December 2009, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) leader, Lord Pearson stated that his party should be included because it "would be wrong for UKIP, which came second in the last test of national political opinion, to be excluded from these debates."[44]
The SNP had threatened to prevent any such debates being screened in Scotland should its leader not be included.[45][46] On 25 April they announced that they now planned to raise the £50,000 that would allow them to proceed with legal action over the third and final Prime Ministerial debate on BBC One on Thursday, despite the fact that the SNP had mounted no legal challenge to either ITV or Sky Television for their decision to not include the SNP.[47] The party said it was not trying to stop the final broadcast, but that it wanted an SNP politician included "for balance". The party's leader, Alex Salmond said it would be "unacceptable"[48] for the SNP to be excluded from the debate, and sought "guarantees of inclusion from the broadcasters, given their inescapable duty to ensure fairness and impartiality in election-related coverage in Scotland" in the buildup to the general election. The party used the Freedom of Information Act to determine whether the BBC could have broken its own rules. Salmond said it is entirely unacceptable to Scotland as well as to the SNP for the broadcasters to exclude the party that forms the Scottish Government and leading in Westminster election polls.[49] The legal challenge duly went ahead at the Court of Session in Edinburgh. Despite earlier reassurances by the SNP that it was not trying to stop the broadcast, it sought an 'interim interdict' to prevent the debate being broadcast without the participation of the SNP. However, on 28 April 2010, the Court of Session dismissed the SNP's complaint, and refused to prevent the BBC from broadcasting the third debate in Scotland, on the grounds that the SNP had left the bringing of the case "far too late", had not contested the broadcasting of the first two debates by ITV and Sky Television, and that the third debate would in any case be broadcast by Sky on satellite across the UK, which a Scottish court had no power to block. The judge, Lady Smith, further ordered the SNP to pay the BBC's legal expenses. The SNP's political opponents described the SNP's contesting of the case as a "stunt".[50][51]
However, there were Scottish debates dealing with specifically devolved issues which Salmond had accepted the invitation to attend along the other parties within the Scottish Parliament on Sky TV. Whilst Salmond declining to attend those held on the BBC and ITV, Angus Robertson agreed to take his place in these debates.[52]
UKIP, which is a smaller party, but came second in the 2009 European elections, complained about having been denied a chance to appear in the televised debates. TV companies agreed the deal based on which parties were standing across Great Britain and already have existing seats in the House of Commons. The Green Party, UKIP, the SNP and Plaid Cymru all protested.[53]
On the announcement of the UK party leader debates, it was also announced there would be separate debates between the main parties of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.[6] The BBC would broadcast these on their respective BBC national region channels, BBC Scotland, BBC Northern Ireland and BBC Wales, and across the UK on the BBC News Channel.[6]
Public sector pay, tax, immigration and Afghanistan.[62]
Debates in Wales
The Welsh debates featured a mixture of Welsh party representatives in Westminster for Labour and Conservatives, and party representatives at the National Assembly for Wales for the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Conservatives, with Nick Bourne in the BBC debate only, with debates occurring between:[63]
Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon is a Scottish politician serving as the fifth and current First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) since November 2014. She is the first woman to hold either position. Sturgeon has been a member of the Scottish Parliament since 1999, first as an additional member for the Glasgow electoral region from 1999 to 2007 and as the member for Glasgow Southside since 2007.
In British politics, a Lib–Lab pact is a working arrangement between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party.
Johann MacDougall Lamont is a Scottish politician, who was the Leader of the Scottish Labour Party from 2011-2014. She served as a junior minister in the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition Scottish Executive from 2004 until the coalition's defeat by the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 2007. She was subsequently elected deputy leader of the opposition Labour group of MSPs in 2008, and was elected to the leadership of the Scottish Labour Party in December 2011. She announced her resignation in October 2014, and following a leadership election to replace her, was succeeded by former Secretary of State for Scotland Jim Murphy in December 2014.
The 2010 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 6 May 2010, with 45,597,461 registered voters entitled to vote to elect members to the House of Commons. The election took place in 650 constituencies across the United Kingdom under the first-past-the-post system. None of the parties achieved the 326 seats needed for an overall majority. The Conservative Party, led by David Cameron, won the largest number of votes and seats, but still fell 20 seats short. This resulted in a hung parliament where no party was able to command a majority in the House of Commons. This was only the second general election since the Second World War to return a hung parliament, the first being the February 1974 election. Unlike in 1974, the potential for a hung parliament had this time been widely considered and predicted, and both the country and politicians were better prepared for the constitutional process that would follow such a result. The coalition government that was subsequently formed was the first coalition in British history to eventuate directly from an election outcome. The hung parliament came about in spite of the Conservatives managing both a higher vote total and higher share of the vote than the previous Labour government had done in 2005, when it secured a comfortable majority.
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Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond is a Scottish politician who served as the First Minister of Scotland from 2007 to 2014. He was the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) for over twenty years, having served for two terms, firstly from 1990 to 2000 and subsequently from 2004 to 2014. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Banff and Buchan between 1987 and 2010, when he stood down to focus on his other roles, and then for Gordon from 2015 to 2017, when he lost his seat to Scottish Conservative candidate Colin Clark. During the 2015–2017 parliament, he was the SNP International Affairs and Europe spokesperson in the House of Commons.
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The United Kingdom's component of the 2014 European Parliament election was held on Thursday 22 May 2014, coinciding with the 2014 local elections in England and Northern Ireland. In total, 73 Members of the European Parliament were elected from the United Kingdom using proportional representation. England, Scotland and Wales use a closed-list party list system of PR, while Northern Ireland used the single transferable vote (STV).
Events from the year 2014 in Scotland.
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Salmond & Darling: The Debate is a Scottish television debate that was first broadcast on STV on 5 August 2014. The two-hour broadcast marked the first face-to-face debate between First Minister Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling ahead of the forthcoming Scottish independence referendum, in front of a studio audience of 350 people.
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