The 2015 UK general election leader's debate might not happen. But is that a bad thing?

As January sees the campaign for the 2015 UK general election begin in earnest, so too does it see the negotiation over possible televised debates become more intense. Following the impact of the 2010 debates between Prime Ministerial candidates, there are obviously those who want more of the same this time around.

A group including YouTube, The Guardian and The Telegraph have proposed to expanding the format with a digital debate between the five main UK-wide parties (The Guardian, 2015). However, all of the proposed debates have already resulted in a lot of squabbling.

The rise in polling support for UKIP and the Green Party has seen demands for the presence of their leaders on the podium alongside those of the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats (Hodges, 2014; Morris, 2014). Yet, the presence of reactionary right and radical left parties at the debates are only likely to make the bigger parties less interested in the debates happening at all - no one particularly wants to be upstaged (Rentoul, 2015).

In fact, those in power see so little reason to voluntarily put themselves on the same platform as those claiming to offer even slight alternatives, let alone drastically different approaches, that the debates may not even happen at all (Rentoul, 2015). UKIP and the Greens may want in, but Cameron and the Conservatives, it appears, do not (Watt, 2015) and without the sitting Prime Minister the debates would struggle to be considered representative.

From one perspective, being denied the opportunity of seeing the five UK wide parties debating would be a disappointment. Politics in the UK already struggles to engage with voters, is already too remote and inaccessible, without then cutting off one main focal point through which the majority can stay in touch.

However, the short format of a couple of hours of television makes it difficult to ensure depth of discussion and analysis of the ideas presented. The ideas and critique are reduced witty or snide one-liners, jabs aimed at the subjective weak spots of an opponent.

Informative analysis - something needed to keep the people, who ultimately have to make the choice, well informed - can be given much more space when offered in other formats, like newspapers (print and online) and blogs. If done well, and presented well, they can even reach as wide an audience, if not wider, through the internet than might engage passively with a couple of hours of prime time television.

Whether or not we want to see the political parties debate their ideas, there are still some things to consider about the format. Do the televised debates increase visibility and engagement enough to make up for its fairly limited approach to analysing the facts? Or does it just present grandstanding populists with an opportunity to score cheap points with simplistic sentiments, and so to distort the facts and the argument?

We must be wary that, in seeking to increase the visibility of politics and in attempting to reach out to engage with people, we do not lose the depth and complexity of analysis required for the making of sound decisions.

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References:
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+ 'An invitation to UK party leaders digital debate'; The Guardian; 9 January 2015.

+ Dan Hodges' 'Nigel Farage is desperate for Ukip to join the cosy Westminster clique'; in The Telegraph; 14 November 2014.

+ Nigel Morris' '260,000 people sign petition to include Green Party in election debates'; in The Independent; 12 November 2014.

+ John Rentoul's 'I agree with David Cameron – there will be no TV debates'; in The Independent; 11 January 2015.

+ John Rentoul's 'Footnote on TV debates'; in The Independent; 11 January 2015.

+ Nicholas Watt's 'Cameron is running scared from TV election debates, says Ed Miliband'; in The Guardian; 11 January 2015.

Arts of Leadership: Part 2 - The Fallacy of Stability

Subjective truths, by their nature, are difficult to argue with. They are also a useful tool of persuasion. Attempts to draw grand conclusions from ambiguous statistical observations are a sure sign that someone is trying to convince you of something they can't (or couldn't be bothered to) provide evidence for, or they're trying to sell you something.

The essential factor in such statements is context.

'We've got an economy mired in debt and we badly need to get it growing... Now ask yourselves, who is going to get that job done?... Is a hung parliament going to get that job done? A hung parliament will be a bunch of politicians haggling, not deciding, they'd be fighting for their own interests, not fighting for your interests.'
(Cameron, 2010)

In some fields, it is impossible to avoid arguments such as these. In politics half of everything is justification for ideologies. But as any good Sociologist could tell you, the difference between honest and crooked uses of them are in the clear signposting of all such assumptions and biases. In this instance, the assumptions made about the stability of a hung parliament against a majority, and the evidence that such a claim is based on.

This brings me to the great fallacy spun during the elections that I feel needs to be addressed. The great argument, from all ends of the political spectrum, was to avoid hung parliaments at all cost. The reasoning given is that it chokes off chances for stability. I'm afraid I have have a bone to pick with that argument.

'In the 50 years since the World War ended, Italy had an equal number of governments. Thus, governments in Italy lasted on average barely a year. Yet, Italy today is among the most industrialized countries in the world. This, if nothing else, should make us wary about drawing any facile conclusions about the effects of political instability on the economy.'
(Thakurta, 2008)

'(In) Nordic countries and the states of northern Europe, election days there are seen as just the beginning of a frequently protracted negotiating period over the composition of the next government. This is normal. The sky usually doesn't fall in.'
(Tisdall, 2010)

First, a question. In what way has the first-past-the-post, two party dynamic, in anyway, offered the British people 'stable' government? We have spent the years since the great wars lurching from one extreme to the other; the Labour Party nationalising everything in sight on the one side, before the Tories return five years later to privatise it all again.

And so this pattern went, until Mrs Thatcher decimated the power base of the Labour movement opposition by crippling the nation's industrial base. Even now, as a Conservative Government sits again, the effects of the Thatcher administration's focus on economy based solely on financial speculation is being felt.

In Europe by comparison, they have had no shortage of stable governments despite having an average of five mainstream parties, each covering five relatively concrete positions across the political spectrum. Now while this might not produce majority governments, it does encourage stable government, because potential coalition partners don't have to face the enormous task of overcoming huge political differences. Instead stable yet co-operative government is encouraged by the room for agreement to be found.

'It's clear that, in my view and in our experience at A.T.Kearney, European companies tend to take a longer term view of world and global developments; they're less likely to react very quickly and be constrained by daily events and quarterly earnings statements... which could serve them well on the one hand, and on the other hand create a certain lack of flexibility or dexterity...'
(Paul A. Laudicina, 2010)

The tendency for the Euro area countries to lean towards coalition offers companies a fair degree of stability in economic policy, not just thanks to negotiation between parliaments for moderate policy, but between nations themselves. These systems of cooperation and negotiation foster respect for aspects of 'tradition which... cannot be substantially changed', again forging an area of stability that allows business to act in a long term fashion (De Benedetti, 2010).

A simple means of demonstrating stability might then be through competitiveness. In the Global Competitiveness Ranking of 2009, in Business Week, showed that nations with coalition or minority governments dominated the top ten.

1.SWITZERLAND, 2.United States, 3.Singapore, 4.SWEDEN,
5.DENMARK, 6.FINLAND, 7.GERMANY, 8.Japan, 9.CANADA,
10.NETHERLANDS,... 13. Britain.

The nations in bold all possess coalition or minority governments, with the major majority government in the top ten being the United States, whose economy has the stigma of instability. The quotation from Mr Laudicina, above, was in comparison to the US approach, where businesses are forced to be flexible in order to survive in a market that lacks the long-term stability afforded to European business (Laudicina, 2010).

Even these brief statistics suggest that the two party arguments are off the mark. This system has stifled our democracy with partisan fears of a return to a 20 year Conservative Majority, or elective dictatorship as majority may also be read. This fear has forced a tolerance of excesses from Labour Party leaders who have been quick to exploit the trust of their supporters; in exchange for remaining a watchdog, a bastion against the right that leftist voters fear. This cows the voices in the Labour movement from speaking out against their own party's excess in case it brings the house of cards down.

This all forces the lines between social movements and populists to blur, forcing the use of contemptible politics in order to hold onto the shifting middle ground. This means resorting to tactics of coercion, of negative reinforcement, and negative out-group stereotypes. My concerns are that:

+ First, this narrowing of our political options is leading to a 'trickle-down' system of policy for a party's taken for granted voting core.

+ Second, that these bi-partisan swings are damaging to the nation's economy, preventing businesses from making long term plans, which in turn prevents any kind of long term employment plans.

+ Finally, that all of this serves only to exacerbate my fears that the two party majority system is marginalising even democracy itself, by making parties less diverse but policy more radical and unpredictable.

This is just one example of an issue that is easily manipulated in the public imagination. The scary thing is how little effort it takes to shift polling results from the UK general election debates to election night on an issue like this. During the debates, Mr Clegg was widely shown to have won at least one and polls reflected this by putting the Liberal Democrats a competitive second, at least. By election night this expected turn out had shifted with a drastic speed, following campaigning by both ends of the spectrum to avoid the centre.

Next week will be the third and final part of this short series about leader 'tricks of the trade'. Last week covered misdirection, this week we have had confuscation and next week will be looking at how the language of leaders can be used as a weapon to control image, identity and choice.

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References:
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+ David Cameron, addressing a Crowd in Gloucester; April 17 2010;

+ David Cameron, dismissing talk of a Lib Dem deal; May 7 2010;

+ Paranjoy Guha Thakurta's 'Political instability and Growth'; 2008;

+ Simon Tisdall's 'Coalitions are the norm in democracies';

+ Paul A. Laudicina of A.T.Kearney at 'European Companies and the Great Recession: A view from the trenches'; October 5 2010;
+ Carlo De Benedetti of Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso at 'European Companies and the Great Recession: A view from the trenches'; October 5 2010;

+ Global Competitiveness Ranking in Business Week, 2009;