Election Debate Reaction
Dr Paul Baines
Andrew Kirchner
With the reaction to last night’s first election debate, I am joined by
Dr Paul Baines.
So Paul, the polls – the first polls – coming out showing that Nick
Clegg won; what is your reaction?
Paul Baines
Well I think probably he was the better performer on style; I think his
style was certainly better. He was able to balance the position of
the Liberal Democrats as a party that was against the status quo.
And the electorate want change – actually, this electorate
particularly this time want change. And he was probably most able
to illustrate a change from the past. So I think he won from that
perspective.
I think Cameron will probably be disappointed with his performance
when he is talking to his strategists. I think he unfortunately came
across as a little bit light on policy; and I think Gordon Brown, of
course, was never going to win this – as the incumbent unpopular
Prime Minister he was never going to do particularly well, but he
probably did better than he expected.
And I think that all told this first debate really doesn’t give us a clear
winner; I think it is going to take the second and third debate to
really turn the tide for a particular party.
Andrew Kirchner
So what do David Cameron and Gordon Brown need to do to up their
game for the next one?
Paul Baines
Well, I think what we are seeing is a conflation of message and policy
and they think by making a few bland statements they can argue that
that is policy. It is not. There is a clear difference between message
and policy.
The Liberal Democrats are the only party that have costed their
proposals; I think we need to see costed proposals from both Labour
and the Conservatives.
Andrew Kirchner
Well that is an interesting point, Paul; so how do you think the
message and the policy are being conflated?
Paul Baines
Well, I think if you look at what Labour were saying, for example, one
of their – almost that it is becoming a mantra, is secure the recovery.
Now to secure the recovery is an aspiration, it is a message
statement, but it is an aspiration. But it is not enough to say we are
going to secure the recovery, you have got to talk about exactly how
that will be done. And again, we get some vague sorts of
statements about spending more on the NHS and all the rest of it,
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April 2010
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Dr Paul Baines
but it is not a clear set of policies.
Just saying you are going to spend more on the NHS isn’t a policy per
se; in fact it is a budget statement. So how are you going to spend
more money on the NHS? In what way? That is what I think the
voters want to hear. So that is one example from the Labour side.
From the Tory side, one of the things that David Cameron is saying –
which actually I think is starting to resonate, it does have some
persuasive power – is this idea that the Government has got to save
1% of its budget, £6bn. But it is still an aspiration. Saving £6bn is
not policy; it is an aspiration. What are you going to do with the
£6bn that you have saved? And what are you going to do in terms
of some of the other policies that he has?
I would say that we need to hear a lot more about policy and a lot
less message aspiration.
Andrew Kirchner
Do you think these debates will have an actual outcome in terms of the
percentage share of the vote?
Paul Baines
Well it is interesting that you ask that question Andrew because in a
Mori poll at the end of the 2005 election, something like 18% of the
electorate said that the previous debate with Dimbleby actually
influenced the way that they vote. Now, that is quite a lot of
people; its about 7.5 million people – in fact it is more people than
watched the debates which is interesting. So it is not necessarily the
debate itself, it is the buzz around the debate, what the newspapers
report and so on.
But I have no doubt that that is probably the biggest influence;
bigger than billboards, bigger than party election broadcasts,
probably far bigger that online – at least at the last election.
So I think that the debates do have the potential to turn the election,
but with the kind of performance we saw yesterday, I don’t think
that is going to happen; not with yesterday’s performance.
Andrew Kirchner
So it is still all to play for?
Paul Baines
All to play for in this first debate; let’s see what happens with the
second and third.
Andrew Kirchner
OK, thank you Paul.
So, one down, two to go. Paul will be back next week when we will
be following the international affairs debate which will be on Sky
News next Thursday.
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