The BBC 1 'Prime Minister' debate

[Stunsworth]

It was dreadful. Is this _really_ the best the country has to offer? The five constantly talking over each other and the presenter, and not answering the question.

If I hear once again Hunt telling us he's an entrepreneur, Gove telling us he has a detailed plan (without managing to ever reveal the details) and Javid letting us know his dad was a bus driver, I'll scream. Johnson looked shifty and Stewart looked like a man who realised it was a farce.

Maitlis was overwhelmed, perhaps Andrew Neil would have done better.

[french frank]

Agreed, but as an ad for the Tory party...............crikey!

There is another point (clutching at straws? moi?) that the average 'voter' in this election can't, or won't be bothered, to attend a real hustings (do they have such things in the Tory party?) so that if there happens to be any member who hasn't yet decided/doesn't yet know who they will vote for, this gives them the chance to see the candidates at their loveliest. Will it cause any of them to adjust their views? Not, on the whole, how human psychology works, I think. So all it does is lets the rest of us get a more informed idea of what we're in for … And if possible decide where we're going to emigrate to.

[DracoM]

Emily Maitlis is one the very best BBC TV journalists, and what she was given to handle there was de facto a complete fiasco in one sense.
BUT
if you wanted a neat, one hour way to see what kind of people the Tory aspirants are, where they are taking this country, etc, then maybe that fisco was emblematic of what we are, where we are, and why we are where we are.

[Old Grumpy]

I felt the BBC handled this programme amateurishly. It needed a far stronger hand to keep things in order and to divvy up speaking time equally. It would also have helped at times if the candidates had been facing the right camera when speaking. The final member of the public popped up on screen just before the penultimate one. The programme ended with an awkward silence where everyone shuffled uncomfortably.

I don't quite see the point of this programme anyway, as we, the public are not sadly choosing our next Prime Minsiter. So was it screened for the benefit of a few thousand Conservative party members?

Many of whom are probably over 75 and don't pay a TV licence fee anyway!

OG

[DracoM]

It was dreadful. Is this _really_ the best the country has to offer? The five constantly talking over each other and the presenter, and not answering the question.

If I hear once again Hunt telling us he's an entrepreneur, Gove telling us he has a detailed plan (without managing to ever reveal the details) and Javid letting us know his dad was a bus driver, I'll scream. Johnson looked shifty and Stewart looked like a man who realised it was a farce.

Maitlis was overwhelmed, perhaps Andrew Neil would have done better.

Esp poor Stewart, as if he knew within 30 seconds he didn't want to be there at all.

[jayne lee wilson]

It was dreadful. Is this _really_ the best the country has to offer? The five constantly talking over each other and the presenter, and not answering the question.

If I hear once again Hunt telling us he's an entrepreneur, Gove telling us he has a detailed plan (without managing to ever reveal the details) and Javid letting us know his dad was a bus driver, I'll scream. Johnson looked shifty and Stewart looked like a man who realised it was a farce.

Maitlis was overwhelmed, perhaps Andrew Neil would have done better.

"I have a plan!"
A bit like this....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC8qrH3Zwog

Oh God, don't bring Neil into it... he really is from the parallel universe of himself....

[johnb]

I thought it was was absolutely dreadful.

The format and set seemed to have been dreamed up by one of the more way-out characters from the "W1A" series.

Emily Maitlis appeared to be completely out of her depth and the debate often degenerated into shouty chaos.

There was little intelligent testing of the views of the candidates.

The Channel 4 debate was much, much better.

[eighthobstruction]

....funny when Gove said to Rory - but do you have a plan....

....watched on catch up and learned to fastforward thro unctuous Gove drivel....

[Richard Barrett]

Well, I didn't watch it, and after all of these reviews I'm glad I didn't! Just seeing stills from it in the news send a chill down my back that one of these appalling individuals is going to be prime minister in a few days' time and, as Dr Johnson put it: "Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea."

[LMcD]

Well, I didn't watch it, and after all of these reviews I'm glad I didn't! Just seeing stills from it in the news send a chill down my back that one of these appalling individuals is going to be prime minister in a few days' time and, as Dr Johnson put it: "Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea."

Same here … perhaps Baldrick, who recently left the Labour Party, could be persuaded to ride to our rescue with a cunning plan … I've never felt quite so pessimistic before about our prospects as a nation.

[Serial_Apologist]

Same here … perhaps Baldrick, who recently left the Labour Party, could be persuaded to ride to our rescue with a cunning plan … I've never felt quite so pessimistic before about our prospects as a nation.

It was actually the original Baldrick (Tony Robinson) I watched, leading us down yet another river (in a Channel 5 documentary about the Thames), rather than this.

[Frances_iom]

Each wanted to be the crowing cock on top of the dung hill

[jayne lee wilson]

I thought it was was absolutely dreadful.

The format and set seemed to have been dreamed up by one of the more way-out characters from the "W1A" series.

Emily Maitlis appeared to be completely out of her depth and the debate often degenerated into shouty chaos.

There was little intelligent testing of the views of the candidates.

The Channel 4 debate was much, much better.

Very unfair on Maitlis, an excellent & very adaptable presenter/interviewer for Newsnight who was up against a stiff and misconceived format. If a more aggressive, interventionist compère had been in charge it could have become an even worse shouting match. But it needed a live studio audience, like the C4 debate or Any Questions each and every week...in the latter context, a bit of raucousness does no harm at all.

In fact, just letting the contenders debate on without interruption between questions might have been a better or at least more revealing option...
This was a media event - and on that basis I did find it revealing & engaging.......we may not like personality-politics, but it is the inferno we have around us so one might as well try to understand the personalities and the real-life implications of the power they bear.

[DracoM]

Very unfair on Maitlis, an excellent & very adaptable presenter/interviewer for Newsnight who was up against a stiff and misconceived format. If a more aggressive, interventionist compère had been in charge it could have become an even worse shouting match. But it needed a live studio audience, like the C4 debate or Any Questions each and every week...in the latter context, a bit of raucousness does no harm at all.

In fact, just letting the contenders debate on without interruption between questions might have been a better or at least more revealing option...
This was a media event - and on that basis I did find it revealing & engaging.......we may not like personality-politics, but it is the inferno we have around us so one might as well try to understand the personalities and the real-life implications of the power they bear.

Totally agree.
EM was fine but drowning because of the format - not her strength. One to one, she is deadly.
BUT the bottom line is.............
The demeaning of our nation continues in plain sight, IMO.

[johnb]

Very unfair on Maitlis, an excellent & very adaptable presenter/interviewer for Newsnight who was up against a stiff and misconceived format. If a more aggressive, interventionist compère had been in charge it could have become an even worse shouting match. But it needed a live studio audience, like the C4 debate or Any Questions each and every week...in the latter context, a bit of raucousness does no harm at all.

In fact, just letting the contenders debate on without interruption between questions might have been a better or at least more revealing option...
This was a media event - and on that basis I did find it revealing & engaging.......we may not like personality-politics, but it is the inferno we have around us so one might as well try to understand the personalities and the real-life implications of the power they bear.

Let's accept that Maitlis is an excellent interviewer (though sometimes I find her intensely irritating). However, IMO her skills weren't suited to chairing yesterday's debate. Yes the format was misconceived but that is a separate issue.

"Revealing" and "engaging" aren't exactly the words I would have used about the debate.

Just my thoughts, for what they are worth.