Posted by Dr Simon Parker
One thing that every social network savvy commentator appears to agree on is that the Britain’s first series of prime ministerial TV debates is also likely to be its last in this format. The 1970s stage set, the appalling lighting, dodgy camerawork and the wooden dialogue made me wonder if I had accidentally switched to an episode of ‘Life on Mars’. An impression that was confirmed when the camera trained on a late middle-aged man who enquired what the candidates planned to do about the problem of immigration.
Cameron rushed to pledge that his government would reduce immigration by a factor of 10 and impose rigid annual caps on work permits. Brown countered by enthusing about the prospect of our restaurants being liberated from non-European chefs (black pudding bhaji anyone?). While only Clegg questioned the wisdom of leaving a special baby care unit unstaffed because there are not enough EU resident nurses to run it.
Clegg was vulnerable on the subject of regional migrant quotas –which unlike Australia and Canada where some of the states and provinces are bigger than the UK—would be difficult to enforce and unpopular with employers, but Cameron failed to push the point home. However, when Brown and Cameron tried to outdo each other in the ‘prison works’ stakes, Clegg was far more convincing in showing that with a youth offender recidivism rate of 90%, prison certainly doesn’t work in terms of cutting crime. When the subject moved onto education Clegg began to come across as the new boy in the playground who everyone wants to be mates with—“I agree with Nick”, Gordon and Dave chorused as Nick promised upper sixth former Joel smaller class sizes, a freedom of education act and an end to the micro-management of the curriculum. Which is ironic, given that the post-16 curriculum has never been so diverse, or the range of qualifications on offer so varied, nor have such a high proportion of Joel’s generation gone on to university. Brown missed a chance to celebrate achievement here, which he can’t afford to do in the remaining debates.
Not many middle-ranking servants of the people and defenders of the realm would have enjoyed last night’s debate though. Mr Cameron’s efficiency savings mean that a great many of them will need to leave Her Majesty’s Service until enough money has been saved to pay off the deficit. Surplus rear admirals are going to get dry docked by the LibDems, and under Labour the local police will be served with people’s ASBOs if they fail to rid the streets of anti-social louts or face a hostile take-over from the neighbouring constabulary. Which prompts the question—should we not extend the principle to failing national governments?
My 11-year-old daughter and her friend were forced to watch most of the debate before ‘Outnumbered’ came on. Who did you think was the most convincing? I asked. Who would you most trust? Although they struggled to muster enthusiasm for any of the three speakers, it was Cameron least, and Brown second, with Clegg just shading it. Meanwhile over on BBC1 Ben’s mum was trying to explain by means of a series of equally meaningless synonyms what “inappropriate” meant. All the candidates agreed that MPs taking large amounts of public cash for moats, duck houses and lavish home improvements had been very inappropriate. “Does that mean naughty?” enquired Ben. “Yes,”conceded his weary mother, while the rest of us drifted back to our iPhones and laptops for a bit of welcome social networking distraction from the debate on the other channel. Never mind the polls, if @Nick Clegg can out trend Justin Bieber (who the young people tell me is a popular R&B artist from Canada) then tonight was his night.
