Leaders should step up to inform voters

AGENERAL election campaign should provide an opportunity for voters to assess the politicians who are seeking their support.

Of course, the policies put forward by the parties are an essential part of this process.

But seeing leaders and would-be leaders debating with one another is surely equally important.

From this point of view the election got off to a bad start when the Conservative Party made it clear that Theresa May was not prepared to participate in debates with Jeremy Corbyn or other party leaders.

At the time she was riding high in the polls and Mr Corbyn was languishing with historically low levels of popularity. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that her advisers took the view that Mrs May had nothing to gain and everything to lose by debating with her Labour rival.

The Prime Minister’s refusal to debate appears to have had an impact on her colleagues in Wales. Last night it was not Alun Cairns, the Secretary of State for Wales, or Andrew RT Davies, leader of the Welsh Conservative group at the National Assembly, who represented the party in BBC Wales’ leaders’ debate.

Instead it was Darren Millar, the Welsh Conservative education spokesman. Mr Millar is a capable and articulate politician, but he is not his party’s leader.

Clearly the issue of who should have represented the party was a matter of some squabbling behind the scenes. From their on-therecord statements to us, on top of off-the-record conversations, it is clear that Mr Cairns and Mr Davies have different views on who should have appeared and why.

Ultimately, however, it’s the voters who have missed out by not having all the leaders participate in a leaders’ debate.

It is no wonder that many members of the public do not have an accurate grasp of which level of government is responsible for which service when politicians themselves fail to take devolution seriously at election time.

Next week we will be voting for members of the UK Parliament, but only one of the “leaders” who represented their respective parties last night – the Welsh Liberal Democrat Mark Williams – is standing for election. The four others – Carwyn Jones, Leanne Wood, Darren Millar and Neil Hamilton – are all AMs. Why couldn’t each of the parties put forward leaders who have a personal stake in the outcome of the General Election?

In building their campaign around the personality of Carwyn Jones, Welsh Labour was always going to be represented in these debates by him rather than the little-known Shadow Secretary of State Christina Rees. But the time to defend and promote the achievements of the Welsh Government was at last year’s Assembly election. By making Mr Jones the central figure of its General Election campaign, Welsh Labour has done the voters a disservice. The same point could be made about Plaid Cymru. At least, though, they didn’t squabble among themselves like the Conservatives.