Cathy Newman:
Live debates give a chance to speak more-or-less directly to the people calling the shots: voters
Television debates have, over the past seven years, become an immovable feature of the British political landscape. A staging post on the way to the polling station, a focal point on the journey to government or opposition – and, most importantly of all, a chance to speak more-or-less directly to the people calling the shots: the voters. Yet Theresa May has decreed she won’t agree to one. Instead she might take part in some stage-managed Q&A, which won’t set her head-to-head with her political opponents.
It won’t do. It’s more than half a century since America invented the televised presidential debate. Iran, Mongolia and Afghanistan have followed suit. But Britain’s Prime Minister has now decided this particular aspect of a modern democracy is not for her.
Her allies say this is politically sensible. A woman renowned for her caution has just taken the biggest gamble of her life. Despite the evidence of the opinion polls, in these volatile times Theresa May knows she is in no way assured of the thumping majority she craves.
Exposing herself to a live TV joust with her opponents could add unnecessarily to that risk. Sure, she does it every week at Prime Minister’s Questions, but this time millions of voters would be hanging on her every word.
This, however, is a 21st-century campaign. Mrs May wouldn’t dream of suggesting modern politicians should revert to yelling slogans from a tree stump. Politicians have moved on from that, and so should the Prime Minister.
She said yesterday that she relished the ability to “actually get out and about and meet with voters … I still go out and knock on doors in my constituency. That’s what I believe in doing, that’s what I’m going to be doing around this campaign.”
Even with some very fancy footwork though – whether trainers, ballet flats or her favourite kitten heels – the PM would be hard pushed to knock on millions of doors. If she wants to reach out to people, it’s televised debates that do the trick – 7.4 million people tuned in to the seven party leaders strutting their stuff on ITV in 2015, and 9.4 million for the three-way debate in 2010. It’s rare these days that politics transfixes so many people.
Julie Etchingham, anchor of News at Ten and moderator of ITV’s seven-way Election 2015 Leaders’ Debate, tells me how “people watch debates with their families and how it often prompts discussion and debate between them. They are also a unique way to see how leaders interact with one another when under pressure and facing direct questions from the audience.”
Handing out leaflets in cul-de-sacs up and down the country is the stuff of parliamentary democracy, but so too are tussles with unexpectedly obdurate opponents, some of whom are unknown quantities, and have the capacity to surprise not just their political adversaries, but the watching nation too.
Usually such unknown quantities do not include the Prime Minister. But for all those who might miss out on a Mrs May door-knock, her appearance on a live TV debate would allow them to get to know a leader who remains something of an enigma. She doesn’t enjoy talking about herself – “My whole philosophy is about doing not talking,” she once told this paper – but this means voters don’t know a great deal about her.
She not the only one. This time, the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon is the oldest hand on deck, having been elected leader in 2014. Last election time, in 2015, she was the fresh face. Perhaps that’s what Mrs May is worried about: that televised debates will give relative newcomers Jeremy Corbyn and Tim Farron an unexpected boost, like “Cleggmania” in 2010.
Really, though, how much does she have to fear? Mr Corbyn has hardly proved himself a smooth operator on live television, and Mr Farron, though more assured, yesterday struggled to answer a simple question about his religious beliefs on homosexuality.
Mrs May has thrown down the gauntlet by calling the election in the first place. Now she needs to screw her courage to the sticking post, and take the podium alongside her rivals that the broadcasters are offering.