The decision last year by the political parties and the broadcasters to show leaders’ debates during the next election was welcome, but developments since confirm the view that it’s also a missed opportunity.
The intention to move the debates round the country is laudable (there will be one in the north west, one in the south west, and one in the midlands), as are the arrangements which sort out the problems in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but overall what we will see is likely to be the white, male, middle-aged face of our politics.
This is a pity, if only because the face we see will be the one which even now is on its way out. There will be more women standing at this election than ever before, and more candidates – both male and female – from BME communities. The average age of candidates will be younger. The next parliament will, whatever happens, look different from this one. Why could the leaders’ debates not have reflected this?
The picture presented of British politics will be depressingly traditional and stereotypical. Three white men at varying points of the age spectrum will line up wearing three dark suits, three plain shirts and three carefully chosen ties. Their ‘debate’ will be chaired by three more slightly older white men similarly attired (Alastair Stewart for ITV, Adam Boulton for Sky, and David Dimbleby for the BBC). Women may be present in the equally carefully chosen studio audience, and will probably ask some of the carefully vetted questions, but they will not be centre stage. Neither will anybody else not meeting the implied criteria.
It did not have to be like this. The leaders are who they are, but there must have been options when it came to the presenters. There are any number of able women on television news programmes; it would be interesting to know whether any of them were considered, or whether it was simply assumed on all sides that since gravitas would be required, middle-aged white men were the only option. Or did this aspect of things not even occur to them? Are there really no women in television current affairs who can be considered seriously for serious political occasions? Was the choice based on seniority alone? Or was it perhaps decided that the egos of the big political beasts required the egos of the big beasts of television to keep them in order. Hard to tell, but the outcome is all too clear.
So there will be nothing unpredictable about our debates this year, and no amount of clever set-building or graphics will disguise how old-fashioned they will look. Those six white men between the ages of 42 (Cameron and Clegg) and 71 (Dimbleby) will address one of the most diverse electorates in the world. Applause – or any other expression of opinion – will be limited. Questions will be screened by ‘a panel of senior journalists’. The first debate will have the merit of novelty, but after that audiences may well tail off. The intentions are good, but the outcomes will do nothing to re-engage a disengaged body politic.
If we really want to improve political and democratic participation we will need to do better than this.
I couldnt agree more about the issue of the leaders debates giving the appearance of politics being very white and male. And of course coverage of the development of the coalition government have been similarly male – even though I think Harriet Harman was on the Labour team, the newspapers and media concentrated on the male members. Yvette Cooper was interviewed as ‘Mrs Ed Balls’ on her husband’s prospects of becoming leader and there appeared to be no sense that as a long serving Labour Cabinet member she might have ambitions of her own.
I did want to raise a question on age (and probably should make clear I am an older woman) but for women often we start business, change or restart careers and enter political and community life at an older age than men because we are often already juggling caring responsibilities with other things we do. I think we do want a more representative age profile in public life but women already face significantly greater barriers in obtaining top roles and I would want to support the involvement of older women as well as younger women.