2010 United Kingdom general election debates
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.
The first half of each debate focused on a particular theme (domestic, international and economic affairs), before general issues were discussed.
[1] The proposed 1979 debates were put forward by former Labour MP turned broadcaster Brian Walden and would have been produced by LWT and shown on ITV on 22 & 29 April 1979.
While Callaghan had immediately accepted Walden's proposal, Thatcher decided to "wait a few days before replying", with some of her advisers concerned that she had more to lose from such debates, fearing that it would lead to a "presidential-style 'Her or me' campaign" which would see policy issues become of less important.
[2] At the insistence of the Liberals, their leader David Steel was also invited to take part in the debates, and accepted the offer.
However on 3 April, Mrs Thatcher wrote to LWT to decline the offer to take part, saying that the election was for a government, not a president, which meant that the debates did not go ahead.
"[1] However at the 1997 general election, Major then called for similar debates, which did not take place as the political parties and the broadcasters could not agree on a format acceptable to all sides in the time available.
The idea of holding leaders debates for the 2010 election was first supported by David Cameron and Nick Clegg, with Gordon Brown later agreeing.
[10][11] 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.
[9] 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.
[11] 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.
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.
[21] 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'.
His colleague Michael Gove told Sky News that Clegg could "play the role of the sparky and feisty outsider."
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.
[24] Authorities had tried unsuccessfully to keep the location of the debate secret from the public before the broadcast,[24] 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.
"[27] 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.
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.
[44] 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.
The party's leader, Alex Salmond said it would be "unacceptable"[50] 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.
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.
Whilst Salmond declined to attend those held on the BBC and ITV, Angus Robertson agreed to take his place in these debates.
[54] 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.
