The format of UK election debates has been highly unstable since the first broadcast occurred in the 2010 General Election. Ahead of an upcoming general election, Nick Anstead writes that the absence of a governing body or even clearly understood guidance to regulate such debates does a disservice to their democratic potential, creating a system that is rushed and haphazard

Anstead, Nick

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Nick Anstead January 23rd, 2024The UK needs an organised system for TV electiondebates0 comments | 4 sharesEstimated reading time: 7 minutesThe format of UK election debates has been highly unstable since the  rstbroadcast occurred in the 2010 General Election. Ahead of an upcominggeneral election, Nick Anstead writes that the absence of a governing body oreven clearly understood guidance to regulate such debates does a disserviceto their democratic potential, creating a system that is rushed and haphazard.That a UK general election will be called this year reopens what has nowbecome a recurring discussion about televised election debates. Broadly, theconversation tends to boil down to two questions. First, are they going tohappen at all? And second, if they do happen, what format should they take,and who will be invited to appear on them?The heavy focus on election debates during campaign period is perhaps ironic,given that the academic evidence for them actually changing election results islimited to non-existent. But we do know that debates are central to manyvoters’ election experience, and that decisions taken about their format canembed a variety of democratic attributes.The UK’s short history of TV election debatesIn this context, it is worth noting two things about the history of televisedelection debates in the UK. First, it took the UK a long time to hold its  rstdebate in 2010. This was a half century after the world’s most famous earlytelevision debate, Kennedy vs Nixon in the 1960 US Presidential elections. Anobvious explanation for the UK’s failure to hold debates for such a long time isthe system of Parliamentary democracy, where a general election is made upof 650 individual contests, each with their own candidates, dynamics andplausible winners.In every election until 2010 where debates weresuggested, there was always one candidate fromeither the Conservatives or Labour Parties whovetoed proposals for a broadcast.However, this obvious explanation is also wrong. As I detailed in my 2016article on the subject, plenty of Parliamentary democracies (including Canada,West Germany/Germany and Australia) managed to hold election debatesdecades before the UK. The real explanation for the UK’s late adoption ofdebates seems to have much more to do with the self-interested calculationsof politicians. In every election until 2010 where debates were suggested, therewas always one candidate from either the Conservatives or Labour Parties whovetoed proposals for a broadcast.The second observation about the history of UK TV debates is the instability ofthe format since 2010. Every general election in this period (four in total) hasfeatured different types of debates — no format has ever been repeated.  The debate format has changed so much for several reasons. No attempt hasever been made to clearly de ne  xed criteria for inclusion in the debates,which is different to other countries where various formal and semiformalinclusion rules operate — for example, having a seat in the legislature orregularly polling over  ve per cent. Instead, the UK’s format is renegotiatedeach election. Furthermore, the arrangement used in the 2010 negotiations,when the three major broadcasters (BBC, ITV and Sky) acted as a consortiumand negotiated together, has now largely broken down, with each broadcastermaking their own offers. This means politicians can pick and choose theproposal that most closely aligns with their interests.The relevance of changing political attitudesThere are also structural causes of instability in the debate format. Thisre ects a major change in how British citizens (and indeed citizens in variousliberal democracies in the West) relate to the political system — speci cally, adeclining propensity to strongly identify with a particular political party and, asa result, continuously support them over multiple election cycles. This is whatpolitical scientists refer to as dealignment.In the context of TV debates, dealignment has had contradictory effects. It hasdegraded the traditional party system as more voters are willing to consideralternatives to the Conservatives, Labour, and even the Liberal Democrats.Scotland and Wales now have large nationalist parties, the Greens have had anMP for over a decade, and UKIP has had a massive in uence over the course ofBritish politics. It was these dynamics which framed the 7-way debate formatchosen in 2015.At the same time, though, declining long-term a liation with political partieshas made elections more leader-centric, with an increased proportion of theelectorate basing their vote on party leader preferences. In such anenvironment, it makes sense for debates to focus on the leaders who are mostlikely to win executive authority, a logic embedded in the 2019 Johnson vsCorbyn debates.Is one of these formats better than another? It is a question of trade-offs.Instinctively, many of us might favour pluralism, and seek to include a range oflarge and small parties (certainly something I argued for in interventions Iwrote before the 2015 election). Retrospectively, though, I think I missed somedrawbacks of this approach. As viewers of the 2015 debate will remember, itwas quite a confused spectacle. More voices on stage made it harder to havein-depth, focused conversations. Genuine democratic goods, such as increasedpublic knowledge or the chance to hold politicians accountable, mighttherefore be undermined.A way forwardThe problem is that debate negotiations tend to be rushed, often taking place inthe months or even weeks before an election, so there is no real time toconsider these sort of trade offs. Instead, they are driven — as they havealways been — by the self-interest of political and media actors. It is thereforeworth asking how debates can be better organised.Canada, a comparable Westminster-style parliamentary democracy, offers onepossibility. In the run-up to the 2019 election, the country established anindependent debate commission (a distinct model from the AmericanCommission on Presidential Debates, which is technically a bi-partisanorganisation). Signi cantly, the Canadian Commission has not only beencharged with organising election debates but also produces post-debatereports and research, making recommendations for future election cycles. It isthis kind of re ection across elections that the UK has so clearly lacked in itsshort but eventful debate history. It is probably too late to instigate such asystem for the likely 2024 general election, but we can at least hope it is thelast British election where debate organisation occurs in such a haphazardmanner.All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not theposition of LSE British Politics and Policy, nor of the London School ofEconomics and Political Science.Image: A viewer watches election live TV debate on a computer monitor on Apr4, 2015 in London, UK. Credit: 1000 Words on Shutterstock.About the authorPosted In: Electoral and constitutional reform | General Election 2024 | LSECommentNick Anstead is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media andCommunications at LSE and the Director of the MSc in Politics andCommunication. Nick's research examines political communications,political institutions and elections. In 2021, his book “Fake News: What DoWe Know and What Should We Do About It” was published by Sage. Atthis moment, Nick is working on the history and evolution of the idea ofpublic opinion.Nick Anstead

The UK needs an organised system for TV election debates

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The UK needs an organised system for TV election debates

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