{"id":237,"date":"2015-04-03T15:35:12","date_gmt":"2015-04-03T14:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/copyright.lboro.ac.uk\/general-election\/?p=237"},"modified":"2016-05-13T13:27:57","modified_gmt":"2016-05-13T12:27:57","slug":"reinforcement-not-change-reflections-on-the-2015-leaders-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crcc\/general-election\/reinforcement-not-change-reflections-on-the-2015-leaders-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Reinforcement not change?  Reflections on the 2015 Leaders\u2019 Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 2015 Leaders\u2019 Debate was a markedly different affair to the first ever debates held in the 2010 General Election.\u00a0 Five years ago the platform was limited to three representatives of parties who were each comfortably attracting at least a quarter of the electorate\u2019s support.\u00a0 Now seven politicians, four of who lead parties currently polling less than 10%, were able to take part in what will be the sole face-to-face Debate between all of the key protagonists in this election.\u00a0 And even this nearly didn\u2019t take place due to various disagreements between the party and media negotiators involved in tortuous and highly publicized rows over the format.\u00a0 So perhaps the most significant consequence of the 2015 Debate is that it has established a trend that makes it very difficult for leaders to avoid participating in these kinds of campaign event in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2015\/mar\/07\/ed-miliband-leaders-tv-debates-guarantee-law\" target=\"_blank\">the future<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Predictably\u00a0the various parties <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/election-2015-32172871\" target=\"_blank\">claimed their leader triumphed <\/a>in last night\u2019s encounter.\u00a0 The rival post-Debate polls as to which candidate did best offer comfort and support to each of them but none has seemingly emerged as the <a href=\"http:\/\/ukpollingreport.co.uk\/blog\/archives\/9325\" target=\"_blank\">stand out winner<\/a>.\u00a0 This may simply reflect voters\u2019 more heterogeneous patterns of support so that relevant portions of a more fragmented electorate are just backing their preferred choice.\u00a0 However from this it is also noticeable that the SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has <a href=\"https:\/\/yougov.co.uk\/news\/2015\/04\/02\/leaders-debate\/\" target=\"_blank\">performed strongly<\/a> . Sturgeon leads a party that is contesting less than 10% of the UK parliamentary seats so her showing represents a vote of confidence from many non-Scots.\u00a0 Nigel Farage also performed well although simultaneously scored the best and worst ratings in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.itv.com\/news\/update\/2015-04-02\/itv-news-poll-farage-voted-as-best-and-worst-in-debate\/\" target=\"_blank\">ComRes\u2019s<\/a> \u2018half-time\u2019 survey, reflecting his status as the \u2018Marmite\u2019 politician different groups either laud or loathe.<\/p>\n<p>The Debate reportedly attracted 7 million viewers so this audience considerably down on the\u00a09.4 million who saw the first encounter in 2010.\u00a0 Famously the latter ended in a unanimous declaration by pollsters and pundits alike that Nick Clegg had triumphed against his then opponents David Cameron and Gordon Brown.\u00a0 This changed the dynamic of the 2010 campaign but it did not significantly alter voter behavior to make a major difference in the subsequent election.\u00a0 It is difficult to see the 2015 Debate having a pivotal influence on this General Election.\u00a0 Many less committed voters will not have seen the programme.\u00a0 Furthermore of the available reports on the Debate many may have read or seen there is little by way of a conclusive narrative of the <a href=\"http:\/\/content.time.com\/time\/magazine\/article\/0,9171,1983876,00.html\" target=\"_blank\">\u2018Cleggmania\u2019 <\/a>kind from last time.<\/p>\n<p>In the 2015 Debate most of the leaders including the rivals for the premiership Cameron and Ed Miliband mostly put in a competent performance but had little opportunity to make a distinctive impression.\u00a0 This was primarily because of the involvement of so many protagonists and a two-hour format that limited the kinds of spontaneous interactions between candidates that could have left a memorable impression.\u00a0 The nearest thing to this was Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood\u2019s denunciation of Nigel Farage for his comments on drug treatment for migrants with HIV.\u00a0 And yet Wood did not see any noticeable success for her performance in the post-Debate polls despite her winning the first round of applause from audience members present.\u00a0 But this is perhaps to miss the main point of participating for the Plaid leader as well as her SNP counterpart and their fellow progressive, the Greens\u2019 Natalie Bennett.\u00a0 It has given these representatives as well as Nigel Farage unprecedented exposure to a mass audience.\u00a0 Regardless of their levels of polling support, what were once labelled \u2018minor parties\u2019 now have equal billing on the same stage alongside a serving Prime Minister.\u00a0 Much indeed has happened since 2010.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lboro.ac.uk\/departments\/socialsciences\/staff\/wring-dominic.html\">\u00a0Dominic Wring<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2015 Leaders\u2019 Debate was a markedly different affair to the first ever debates held in the 2010 General Election.\u00a0 Five years ago the platform was limited to three representatives of parties who were each comfortably attracting at least a quarter of the electorate\u2019s support.\u00a0 Now seven politicians, four of who lead parties currently polling [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-election"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Reinforcement not change? 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