It’s on. Brown… Cameron… Clegg (Ok, so maybe not a Titan) on the telly together, answering questions that they don’t have prepared answers for. It’s going to be class. David Cameron’s forehead is going to be so shiny it may create too much glare for human eyesight, Gordon Brown’s jaw will be worked overtime with all the intakes of breath he’s going to need and Nick Clegg will be something, something, something (honestly I couldn’t pick the guy out of a police line up).
The schedule for the debates will be finalised when the date of the election has been announced, but whenever it is, it’s going to be surrounded by massive media coverage.
Lasting 90 minutes each, the debates will be screened midweek in the run up to the election. The first of the three will go to ITV, hosted by Alistair Stewart, focusing on domestic policy questions from the north-west. The second will be aired on Sky News with Adam Boulton taking foreign policy questions from the south-west. And finally, the BBC’s debate will be covered by David Dimbleby and centre around questions about the economy from the midlands.
While the questions will be pre-approved and come from a carefully selected audience, none of the leaders will know what they are until they are faced with them live on th’telly.
Cheering and jeering have been outlawed from the studio audience, but despite the bubble wrap that has been put in place, the debates should still serve as perhaps the easiest way to find out about the main aspects of the different party’s policies in the build up to the election. However, I don’t expect too many straight answers.
