The Media Column: 'A TV debate between party leaders would bring politics alive. Or would it?'

For the BBC and ITN it is the Holy Grail of election coverage. A live televised debate between party leaders would bring politics alive. So earnestly do they believe this that, in the prelude to the 2001 general election, the rivals set their differences aside to mount a common crusade for two hour-long confrontations between Tony Blair, William Hague and Charles Kennedy. Steve Anderson of ITN said, "We are setting aside the usual trench warfare between news broadcasters and uniting behind this important project." For the BBC, the then-director of news, Tony Hall, declared that television debates were accepted elements of the democratic process elsewhere, and implored the parties to give "British voters the same opportunity to see the politicians in action".

Charles Kennedy made the idea of slugging it out on a show chaired by David Dimbleby sound like the key to reinvigorating politics. "One means of re-engaging people with their politicians would be through leaders' debates," he explained. "I have long felt that this would be a useful addition to the democratic process."

It did not happen, and going by last week's elections to Britain's devolved parliaments, it is not clear that it should. I watched the debates between Jack McConnell (Labour), John Swinney (SNP), David McLetchie (Conservative) and Jim Wallace (Lib Dem) on BBC Scotland and Scottish Television. Each took tedium to a new low. If there was an effect on popular interest in politics, then it was best summed up by the 48 per cent turnout.

The broadcasters were not to blame. In their presenter Anne Mackenzie, BBC Scotland has found a talent who makes Kirsty Wark look average. Bernard Ponsonby of STV was excellent, too. But Mackenzie and Ponsonby were both trapped by formats that suited the politicians' primary objective: to get through the experience without making a single gaffe, and ideally without saying anything. Each show was paralysed by an insistence on audience participation, and the resulting failure to subject the leaders to prolonged interrogation.

Scotland's politicians had done their homework. They know all about that legendary 1960 confrontation between the glamorous John F Kennedy and an unshaven, sweating Richard Nixon. On radio, where his dark facial shadow and damp brow were invisible, Nixon's command of detail won him new admirers. On the television, however, appearance was all, and television was the dominant medium. The Republican's intellectual sophistication did him no good whatsoever. Conclusion? Look smart, avoid howlers, play to the gallery and don't waste effort on serious argument.

It worked. None of the Scots fouled up. Nor did they shift opinion-poll ratings. These grand confrontations were billed as the climax of election coverage, but extended one-on-one interviews broadcast earlier in the campaign generated much greater value.

Live debate between leaders has become an obsession for broadcasters. But while they regard it as a novelty capable of adding spice to our national conversation, the politicians have already become adept at managing the idea to death. Rigorously balanced audiences of "real voters" do not pin down political leaders. Their participation fragments potential lines of attack and encourages the contenders to engage in cheap point-scoring.

Compelling two contenders to engage in extended argument could work. But only a desperate prime minister would offer an opponent that opportunity, and then the opponent might have good reason to refuse. Britain's political classes know that debates in which contenders respond to the voice of the people are less threatening than traditional interviews. When the number of participants is greater than two, they are almost risk-free.

If Alastair Campbell has seen BBC Scotland's Your Election – The Leaders Debate (pictured above) or STV's Scottish 500, he may be nurturing an idea. Why subject Tony to cross-examination by Jeremy Paxman when he could glide through an hour with Iain Duncan Smith and Charles Kennedy? Just making the offer would excite enthusiasm. Broadcasters would promote the result as democracy in action. The evidence from Scotland's national election is that it would amount to rather less. The debates broadcast in devolved areas of Britain will be paraded as models for a future nationwide experiment. They proved only that politicians have learnt to neutralise the format before it has enjoyed a proper airing.

Timlckhrst@aol.com