WITH THREE weeks to go, the election campaign in the UK has not caught the public imagination and is suffering from a severe deficit of vitality. And the hope was that Thursday’s first TV leaders’ debate would provide the necessary shock to the system to get it going. But this so-called “broadcasting milestone”, which drew an average audience across the 90 minutes of more than 9 million, will probably be no more than a mild fillip to turnout.
In Ireland we have been having such TV confrontations since Garret FitzGerald and Charles Haughey went head to head in the 1980s. In the US every presidential election since 1976 has seen them – some 50 million watched the Obama-McCain debate. Belatedly embracing yet another step in the remorseless movement towards presidential-style elections, the UK followed suit with its ITV debate on domestic issues, the first of three. But the rigid format seemed to de-emphasise differences between the three nervous, well-rehearsed politicians.
In the event, several polls conducted in the debate’s immediate aftermath found Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg the runaway winner. Prime minister Gordon Brown, weighed down by the repeated “well why didn’t you do that in the last 13 years in power?” question, lived down to expectations by faring worst. Tory leader David Cameron was the real loser.
There were no killer punches or one-liners, no howlers, nor any decisive winning of the political argument. In the end Clegg came out on top because his outsider pitch best chimed with the popular disillusionment with politics in the wake of the expenses scandals. He spoke of the need for a “new politics” and a break with the sterile establishment duopoly. He astutely continued in a similar anti-political vein over care for the elderly, taking a leaf out of the Obama playbook, by appealing for a common non-partisan approach.
Whether his success can be turned into votes is another matter, but the Lib Dem leader has most certainly proved himself a heavy hitter and may have helped redefine the campaign. From now an even closer focus of the big two will be on how to relate to the Lib Dems in the aftermath of an election. Brown, mindful of hung parliament maths, sought to co-opt Clegg on a number of issues. Cameron will be rougher – the Tories have more to lose from a boost in Lib Dem votes. As ever, how that third-place squeeze plays out in the marginals will be central to the election.