Point-scoring TV debates are just a waste of time

PETER OBORNE got it exactly right (Mail). Sadly, the election debates and TV interviews have just been about egos, point-scoring and trivia. The real questions facing the country, such as who is going to stop the tens of millions of pounds wasted in the NHS, what the various political parties are going to do about the £1.7 trillion national debt and why we continue to import foreign labour when we have 1.6 million unemployed of our own, have gone unasked and unanswered. PHIL GRANGER, West Malling, Kent. I COULD not have agreed more with Peter Oborne’s view that far too much of this election campaign has been about self-important interviewers and presenters making their encounters with politicians all about them. The BBC in particular, with its baying Left-wing audiences, seems to have given up any pretence of impartiality. As for Jeremy Paxman’s interviews with Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, you were left with the impression he has nothing but utter contempt for politicians of any persuasion.

DAVID MATTHEWS, Cheshunt, Herts. THE BBC should not have tried to select equal numbers representing the political parties for its audiences in the TV debates. To reflect public opinion, the audience should have consisted of ‘don’t knows’. RUSSELL AVINS, Pinner, Middx.