The final showdown

The general election debates have come to a climax.

Three weeks ago it looked like it would be a two-leader shoot out at the OK Coral.  Then, as with the best spaghetti westerns, out from nowhere rode a new kid into town. Everyone was for themselves.

The debates, the first of their kind in the UK, marked a milestone in British political history.  From the start, pundits and commentators, cast aspersions over the merits of each leader’s presentation style.

Before the first line was drawn in the first debate, the press eagerly scoured the annals of political debating history in search of classic political golden clanger or debating debacles from the past.

You Tube clips from the Nixon vs. Kennedy debate of 1960 received record numbers of hits.

The crucial question was, would this turn out to be more of a political beauty contest offering brand buff than a serious showdown delivering product substance?

In terms of brand delivery, the first debate, which attracted nine million viewers, felt ‘clunky’.  The austere poker-faced PM hedged his bets, repeatedly saying, “I agree with Nick”; leaving the TV audience with no real choice than to concur with Mr Brown’s sentiments.

The second debate attracted some four million viewers. In addition to witnessing a son et Lumiere branding spectacular on behalf of SKY TV, the audience was treated to the leaders gaining greater confidence in their saddles.  Undoubtedly advised by his brand image consultants, Mr Cameron fired off round after round of promises starting with the line: “If I was your Prime Minister…”

Even the media trained Mr Clegg, looked assertively down the barrel of the TV camera – in an attempt to connect directly with the viewing audience.

The third debate had to concentrate on the deal clinching key issues of recession, immigration, housing, the national debt and employment.  The ritzy brand pitches had set the agenda, now people needed to know, one way or the other, what was meant by policies such as, ‘The Big Society’, amnesties for illegal immigrants, jobs for the long term unemployed, or what the parties would do in the event of a predicted hung parliament or what a fair future for all actually meant?

From style or substance to recession or Rochdale

Throughout the three-week debating period, the media had clung on in desperate hope for that ‘golden clanger’ which would lay a media egg for them to hurl with a reassuringly gooey ‘splat’ in the politicians’ faces.

Their opportunity finally arrived within 24 hours of the final debate, in the shape of a 65 year old from Rochdale  – Mrs Gillian Duffy.

Gillian asked Mr Brown what would his party do about immigration?

Whilst initially the PM handled the question with professionalism, in private – but caught on a microphone, he called Gillian a ‘bigot’.

It was exactly what the media yearned for – mud – glorious mud – ready to enliven the debate the next day.

Working on the premise that when credibility is rock bottom the only way one can go is up, the PM opened his ‘pitch’ with the words: “There’s a lot to this job and as you saw last night – I don’t always get it right.”

Once in the swing, the leaders agreed that difficult decisions would need to be made in order to help the economy recover. Rather than accept responsibility for political mismanagement, bankers instead were universally made scapegoats.

In supporting his tax pledges and policies, rather than pointing to economists and think tanks, Cameron turned to high street brands as his greatest advocators (A sure sign of an era where high profile brands rather than anonymous ‘civil servants’ are used to carry weight for the public in national debates).  Even Clegg lamented over how workers at a great British brand, Cadbury’s, had been short-changed by government policy.

Within minutes of the debate an instant poll from YouGov revealed:

Leaving aside your own party preference, who do you think performed best in tonight’s debate?

• David Cameron: 41%
• Nick Clegg: 32%
• Gordon Brown: 25%
• Don’t know: 2%

YouGov questioned 1,151 viewers of the TV debate among the party leaders immediately after tonight’s debate. The data were weighted to the profile of all those ‘absolutely certain to watch’ the debate from a nationally-representative sample.

The real change in Britain

In hindsight, the debates turned out to be less of a media circus and more of a stage which helped opened up politics to a much greater conversation -including on the web – than may have remained under stimulated without the televised pitches.

For example in 2005, voter turnout only reached 61.28%  (although that was better than the 2001 election which only saw a 59.17% turnout out at the ballot boxes).

So now the studio lights have been switched off all that is left for the leaders is to make their way home in the Birmingham rain and wonder who this time next week will be looking forward to a ministerial saloon and who will have to ride off into the sunset.

Jonathan Gabay

www.brandforensics.co.uk

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