Brown should join in and I believe Clegg will be the loser in this. But why will it be on Sky, a station that not everyone has access to.

Maybe this is a done deal between Sky and Cameron. as he is cosying up to the Murdochs.

I’m generally in favour of a debate and I agree, it shouldn’t be on Sky but on a free to air station. Can we have the cricket back as well please

Sky have offered a live and unedited feed to any broadcaster that wants to show it I believe.

I’ll be surprised if Brown says yes. Incumbent PMs have repeatedly said no to such a debate regardless of party. What we have now is yet another attempt to bounce Brown into saying/doing something on terms set by everyone else: Cameron thinks he can repeat his Question Time form; Clegg needs the airtime to show that Vince Cable isn’t really the leader of the LibDems, and both would benefit if Brown said no and Murdoc– sorry, Sky News went for an empty chair/lectern complete with clucking noise on the effects mike. Plus, Salmond would want a Scottish version. The media want this in much the same way they’d want to film a live execution: ratings, rather than information, and Sky would definitely want their logo splashed all over everyone else’s news broadcasts if it went ahead.

Further down the line of presidential politics,appearnces over substance etc so not to my liking, I’m afraid. Also missing the point a bit, as the real power player in Labour is of course Mandelson.
Oh, and the inevitable wrangling over format, who the question-master should be (Frost has been floated, but I’m sorry to say he is well past it, and it shows), which channel, whether or not it is live, or ‘as live’, any potential studio audience and its composition, any questions from the floor, will follow-ups be allowed etc etc.
In the US, there is a bipartisan committee that works just about all the way through the four year cycle ironing out these issues. What are the odds of our politicos getting it sorted before June next year?
This idea keeps resurfacing, but remains ill-conceived.

I agree with a debate, but SKy is the wrong channel.

Let’s remember, Murdoch has already basically given his backing to Cameron. Andrew Coulson, Cameron’s main man, is a Murdoch friend, and ex employee. Cameron caused controversy only last year, by meeting Murdoch on his private yacht, and accepting free flights in his private jet.

For it to be fair, it has to be on more neutral ground.

Whatever Brown’s attributes are, and I cincede that he has some, this type of debate does not suit him. This would be a bigger embarrasment to him and would kill off any lingering hopes he had of pulling an election out of the fire.

Blair of course would have been good at this type of thing, but he never needed it bcause he won the elections by the time they were called and could only lose such a debate.

Brown could and would only look even more at ease and his poll would suffer.

Chris:

For it to be fair, it has to be on more neutral ground

Bid-Up TV it is then.

BTW am I the only one who finds the ‘edit’ facility a bit rubbish?

It’s not rubbish, just a bit anxiety-inducing if you’ve lots of edits to do, and the clock is tick-tick-ticking.

As much as I hate to say it, Brown could actually do quite well in a debate like this. Dave Chameleon seems to be changing his message every 5 minutes and Clegg… well, I hold much the same opinion of him that Tom Harris does.

And this is coming from someone who absolutely hates McBroon.

TheGrimReaper:

As much as I hate to say it, Brown could actually do quite well in a debate like this. Dave Chameleon seems to be changing his message every 5 minutes

True, but Brown doesn’t seem able to nail him for it (yet?).

The grim reaper @ 11

The problem for Brown is that he is not media savy or good with the witty one-liners. He may have the intellect to tear apart Cameron’s, ‘sound bite’ policy pronouncements, but can he do it in a two-minute reply?

If Cameron has his two-minute speech reciting a few figures outlining the cost and employees in the Nation’s QANGO and says we should scrap them. What does Brown Do? Something like the health service is a huge entity, which requires highly complex decisions; you cannot possibly explain those functions in a two-minute reply. No way can he do justice to the vast issue in the same time.

This is where Cameron scores easy hits. He can say ‘We should defend marriage because…’ and no-one can really challenge him. The attention span of the media does not lend itself to tackling the huge implications such a statement warrants. Does that mean that Cameron wants women raped by their husbands forced to stay within that family home? Does that mean that people who hate each other to stay together regardless? Does that mean that he will look at what makes marriages successful and replicate those conditions across the Country?

These type of Presidential debates reduce highly complex policies into sound bites. This is why so many people think you can fix complicated problems like unemployment overnight. This why you get people who think getting people of incapacity is just a case of cutting benefits. This is why we have people who think legal immigration/illegal immigration/asylum are the same thing. We have reduced debates to sound bites.

Cameron is quite happy at the two minute sound bite simply because that is where he is best. Let us get him in front of people who understand how (for example) the National Health Service actually works. Let him get in front of people who can spot a glib answer and can pounce on his sound bites. Not for two minutes and twelve seconds, but half an hour of close contact grilling. Let him explain who does the HR function once he has sacked the lot of them. Let him explain who determines what the drug budget on once NICE has been abolished.

This three way debate should be strangled at birth.

@Jim, “[Brown] may have the intellect…”

He really, really doesn’t. Have you listened to him at PMQs? It’s not just that he can’t do soundbites, he can’t do thinking or talking.

Alix @ 14

But you are not judging him in a fair manner though, are you? PMQs are not not about defining public policy, they are punch and judy shouting matches. All good knock about stuff, but not Government act is decided at the despatch box.

Brown has made really ropey appearences at PMQs and would really have to be as slick as Blair to have any chance of taking on Cameron. However, politics is not about slick performances in stage managed vingettes. You cannot formulate policy to look good at PMQs, they need to work on the ground , every day and be seen by the electorate.

@ Jim (15)

However, politics is not about slick performances in stage managed vingettes.

Hmm, it shouldn’t be about that, would be more accurate than saying it isn’t

You cannot formulate policy to look good at PMQs, they need to work on the ground , every day and be seen by the electorate

And that is where the case for Brown collapses utterly

Alisdair Cameron @ 16

It [b]shouldn’t[\b] be about slick performances, I stand corrected. The reason it has become so is because we, as a Nation, expect glib easy answers to difficult and complex problems, we allow people away with one line answers to say, the number of NHS managers, when we should be getting to the nuts and bolts of the issue.

“And that is where the case for Brown collapses utterly”

Is that because we try and make poulist policies? Or are the policies fundimentally wrong when compared with what is on offer?

@ Jim, bit of a narrow/false alternative question there, surely…

Is that because we try and make poulist policies?

Umpteen contradictory policies could be viewed as ‘populist’: it’s a party and/or the Govt’s choice which ones it pursues and seeks to implement and the manner of implementation (which for New Lab has meant marketisation, outsourcing and/or incompetence).By the way who is the ‘we’?

Or are the policies fundimentally wrong when compared with what is on offer?

Not sure why there need to be any comparisons: yup, the Tories will offer much the same or worse,(two cheeks of the same market-obsessed arse), but does not mean Brown or New Labour’s policies have worked on the ground, as you put it, nor that there is any widespread perception (despite the copious spin) that they will.

@Jim, yeah, I thought you’d try that anti-slickness stuff. But I’m not talking about performance, or policy, or the effectiveness of Brown’s defence of it (none of which are completely within his control), I’m talking about his seeming inability, at times, to construct coherent sentences. There are times when he rambles dangerously close to nonsense, whether or not he’s actually got the facts on his side. Now, PMQs is pressurised but even if you can’t do the pantomimic element it should not make a properly first class brain lose all grasp of basic grammar. A confused syntax is usually the sign of a confused mind. This article of faith that because Brown appears to be slow and incoherent he must obviously be possessed of a deep intellect is illogical. Occam’s razor, he’s just slow and incoherent.

In fact, on that tangent, and at the risk of sounding like an old colonel, it strikes me as a shame that we’ve become so allergic to anything that could be perceived as “slick” that we’ve started rejecting logic, coherence and the ability to express oneself with it. Actually, I do want a Prime Minister who has a “slick” grasp of the English language, thank you very much.

Huff, nearly time for my sherry.