Who has the most to loose from the Leaders Debates?

Tonight will see the first of the three Leaders Debates that have been floating around for the past six months or so. So unless you have been hiding under a rock you are unlikely to have missed them no matter how much you wished you had. Admittedly the format of the debates isn’t exactly that thrilling with the audience barred from clapping, booing and it seems: from the seventy-six different rules showing any independent thought at all. Add to that the strictly controlled audience selection process we may be looking at the most boring couple of hours in recent political history.

Tonight’s debate will air at 8:30pm on ITV hosted by Alistair Stewart who won’t be pinning down the three leaders but merely fielding the questions from the audience. Which could mean the whole exercise is a whole waste of time if no-one is going to challenge any of the leaders and hold them down until they give a straight answer.


But who has the chance of “winning” the debate and who needs to appear to win? Cameron is in desperate need of a boost, a turn around from just a couple of months ago where he enjoyed a comfortable lead against Gordon Brown who at the time saw the debates as the last throw of the dice against a younger challenger. Fast forward to now and the roles are now reversed as Brown now has Cameron fighting for his political life.

Cameron desperately needs to come off looking well in these debates, even with a high lead in the polls things were not as easy as they seemed with the Conservatives needing the biggest swing in eighty years to secure even a narrow victory of just a one seat majority against Labour. However Cameron is looking shaky these days after his previous highs and long leads in the polls again Gordon Brown. With shadow cabinet faux-pas’ and a slightly too highly polished an image he has a lot of work to do.


Labour as well has its problems with the economy being the big one however things have been improving in that sector with the OECD now predicting that Britain will now after a shaky start, be the fastest growing country in the G7.

It gives Gordon Brown the ace he needed to face off both of his younger more photogenic competitors. Labour certainly aren’t dead yet and they have the fear of the Tories being in power to capitalise on in many parts of the country.

The party that probably has the most to loose tonight is Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats after the trouble with their tax proposals which were found to be not that radical at all. Not with giving the same rise in the tax threshold to £10,000 to the super rich as they would to the lowest earners. It didn't help either than VInce Cable was quietly taken apart in the same week by Jon Sopel over VAT rises. As well as the Fabian Society stating the Liberal Democrats were being dishonest. Ouch.

The Lib Dems as a result of having less coverage as the two other parties now run the risk of being flattened under the full media glare with a dose of sunshine on all their policies. Being sheltered from this may have been a shield from the criticism that may soon come their way.

Something that may have actually benefitted them in the past when it came to policymaking. Both the Conservatives and Labour have played it very cool in this election with neither making big promises that could return to haunt them come May the 7th.

With all this in mind DIF predicts that Gordon Brown will emerge the winner of tonights debate. Join the twitter feed to have up to date commentary of the debate @debateisfree.

Debate is Free interviews Tommy Sheridan

This week we will be interviewing Tommy Sheridan co-leader of Solidarity as part of Debate is Free's series on the party leaders in Scotland. Sheridan has had a controversial and colourful past especially in the past couple of years. The former MSP has been jailed three times in the past once for his opposition against the Poll tax and twice for his protests against Trident at Faslane Naval Base.

Tommy is one of the most recognisable politicians in Scotland and the UK and makes numerous appearances across the country. Tommy Sheridan has been a councillor for the city of Glasgow, MSP and recently stood to be an MEP in the European elections this year.

He has also appeared on Celebrity Big Brother and at the Edinburgh Fringe

We will be talking to Tommy Sheridan as he is on the campaign trail in Glasgow North East so get your questions in quickly before 4pm today (29th October) either to the blog page or via email on debate@subcity.org.


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