I get the impression that the UK media is still trying to find its feet when it comes to election reporting and providing the voters with the best forum possible for hearing the leaders express their vision for Britain. This big debate thing with all candidates in a room together strikes me as a bad idea.
The big story about the debates is the failure of the Prime Minister to show up and take on the other party leaders. After having watched the chaos that it was I’m not as sure as I was that she made a mistake. That’s actually rather irrelevant. Electioneering is as much about what the story is as about what actually happened and by not making an appearance she looks like she’s running scared. An awful performance probably would have been better than this. Putting that to one side for a moment she appeared on the Channel 4 grilling along with Corbyn and she’s appearing on a Question Time special tomorrow night along with Great Leader Corbyn so I’m wondering what we gain by having her stand amidst the chaos of a bunch of people who don’t have a glimmer of hope of coming close to forming a government (in the case of UKIP it’s unlikely they’ll have a single seat) and trying to shout louder than them.
I think Amber Rudd was right when she decried Corbyn’s policies as fantasies but his fantasies have managed to galvanise people into supporting him. I wonder whether the polling can really be right and that he will be brought back into Parliament with a truly strong mandate to continue being…himself.
