Prime Ministerial Debates- Thread

[Lothian]

I see. You're using UK wide figures. How very... ...selective.

It is a UK wide election and the debate is for the potential leaders of the UK wide parliament. I simply provided the figures to back up Undesired Walrus’s claims. Given his references to Plaid; Sinn Fein etc I think it was quite clear that he was not just talking about Scotland.

The fact you think quoting national figures in a national election is being selective says a lot.

 

[zooterkin]

The latest edition of Feedback on Radio 4 talked about the debates, and who should have been on them. There were no great surprises, but you can listen to the podcast for the next few days if you are interested.

They also raised the question of whether the impressions taken were the same for radio listeners and TV viewers, but didn't have any answer (which was a shame, as it was an obvious question, which would have been fairly easy to set up a test for).

 

[Lothian]

I see that the extremist parties will not be involved in the next debate.

 

[Darat]

Damn - I was hoping they'd be able to get it cancelled.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

I'm still failing to be informed on why weekly PMQ's shouldn't be held with Clegg, Cameron and Brown if these debates shouldn't be allowed to happen.

 

[richardm]

I'm still failing to be informed on why weekly PMQ's shouldn't be held with Clegg, Cameron and Brown if these debates shouldn't be allowed to happen.

Que?

 

[Rolfe]

I see that the extremist parties will not be involved in the next debate.

I didn't think they were going to win that appeal. Maybe they thought the publicity surrounding the appeal was worth it?

Rolfe.

 

[Lothian]

I didn't think they were going to win that appeal. Maybe they thought the publicity surrounding the appeal was worth it?

Rolfe.

I think it is obvious. They choose to spend the money on the legal action rather than leaflets as they knew you would insist on delivering them. This was the only way to give your foot a rest.

 

[funk de fino]

I didn't think they were going to win that appeal. Maybe they thought the publicity surrounding the appeal was worth it?

Rolfe.

Salmond has blown this one. There were better ways to deal with this.

 

[richardm]

I think it is obvious. They choose to spend the money on the legal action rather than leaflets as they knew you would insist on delivering them. This was the only way to give your foot a rest.

They are the most caring party! <applies tipp-ex to voting form and marks SNP>

- actually I think taking it to court made them sound rather petulant, which is a bit unfortunate.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

Que?

I mean

I'm still failing to be informed on why weekly PMQ's should be held with Clegg, Cameron and Brown if these debates shouldn't be allowed to happen.

 

[Rolfe]

They are the most caring party! <applies tipp-ex to voting form and marks SNP>

- actually I think taking it to court made them sound rather petulant, which is a bit unfortunate.

Yes, that's certainly a possible impression. I wonder if the thinking was that it would mostly be people who weren't going to vote SNP anyway who would think that?

This could have been one big mistake, I really don't know. The SNP occasionally does some rather non-strategic things, shall we say. On the other hand, I don't know what they could have done about this. The logic of the "potenital Prime Ministers" debate not including the SNP is pretty straightforward. And yet the fact is that this format excluded the party that has topped the polls in Sciotland in the last two Scotland-wide elections, and it seems to have disadvantaged the party significantly.

Catch 22.

Rolfe.

 

[Debaser]

I didn't think they were going to win that appeal. Maybe they thought the publicity surrounding the appeal was worth it?

Rolfe.

Well the only way this could ever have worked is if there was some Big Brotheresque time delay, meaning Alex and Ieuan could blather on like the other three, but when some overseer in the control room spotted they were drifting off into devolved matters suddenly mute their voices and play birdsong instead, with a caption explaining why.

 

[Darat]

Yes, that's certainly a possible impression. I wonder if the thinking was that it would mostly be people who weren't going to vote SNP anyway who would think that?

This could have been one big mistake, I really don't know. The SNP occasionally does some rather non-strategic things, shall we say. On the other hand, I don't know what they could have done about this. The logic of the "potenital Prime Ministers" debate not including the SNP is pretty straightforward. And yet the fact is that this format excluded the party that has topped the polls in Sciotland in the last two Scotland-wide elections, and it seems to have disadvantaged the party significantly.

Catch 22.

Rolfe.

I think it would have looked better if they had gone to court before the first debate - to go after two have already taken place seems rather odd.

 

[richardm]

Yes, that's certainly a possible impression. I wonder if the thinking was that it would mostly be people who weren't going to vote SNP anyway who would think that?

Maybe, but then the point of an election campaign should be to convince non-SNP voters to come onboard, not to confirm their preconceived impressions.

I doubt it's a major mistake, though; no doubt some people will see it as yet another "kick in the teeth from the Westminster Oppressors", some people will regard it as "typical SNP Pomposity"; probably most people won't think much about it either way.

Edit:

I think it would have looked better if they had gone to court before the first debate - to go after two have already taken place seems rather odd.

I don't know, but I suspect that they weren't very much bothered beforehand, really, because they thought Cameron would come out top and he's got very little chance of threatening the SNP in Scotland.

However, when they saw the humungous fillip Clegg got for the Lib Dems after the first debate they began to flap a bit, because the Lib Dems really could do them some damage. It then took them a little while to drum up cash for lawyerin' . QED

 

[Rolfe]

Partly what Richard said, but also, the earlier debates weren't on the BBC, and the basis of this complaint was related to the BBC charter. I think that might have had some bearing.

Rolfe.

 

[geni]

I didn't think they were going to win that appeal. Maybe they thought the publicity surrounding the appeal was worth it?

Well the evidence from the US suggests that all the adverts and leaflets in the world can produce a swing of about 2%. So the case may have been worth taking if the odds of winning were as low as 1 in 7.

 

[ohms]

Partly what Richard said, but also, the earlier debates weren't on the BBC, and the basis of this complaint was related to the BBC charter. I think that might have had some bearing.

Rolfe.

It wasn't live but the second debate was shown on BBC2 later on that same evening.

Not sure how that might affect matters but I thought I would mention it anyway

 

[Rolfe]

Yes, I don't know how that affects the issue. The case seemed very much based on the BBC charter, and I'm not sure how repeating another channel's material fits into that.

I only noticed the appeals for funds for the court case in my inbox this evening. I didn't think it was likely to succeed and I'm very unsure of the wisdom of the strategy. I'm glad I made my election donation directly to our branch (which is on a bit of a shoestring), even though the convener said HQ might make better use of the money as we're not a target seat. So at least they didn't squander my money!

Rolfe.

 

[Architect]

I'm not convinced that it cost £50k but have no objection to my tenner (last of the big spenders, me) going elsewhere in the election campaign if it's change left over.