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Want to ‘bring the nation together’? Have a leaders’ TV debate

Julie Etchingham prepares for ITV’s leaders’ debate before the 2015 general election.
Julie Etchingham prepares for ITV’s leaders’ debate before the 2015 general election. Photograph: Getty Images

Last year’s American presidential plus this year’s Dutch, French and German elections all have one thing in common. TV debates are a necessary, normal part of the electoral scenery, an underpinning to public engagement and understanding. Did Mark Rutte defeat Geert Wilders in Holland’s screen battle, defending the centre ground? Is Macron a serious French contender because he survived his first ordeal by television? And, since Britain doesn’t seem to feature on this democratic list, can a word from Sir Lynton Crosby choke off debate? Take control: raise two fingers.

There are plenty of reasons why Theresa May can reckon to get away with playing shrinking violet this time round (“reluctantly”, she’d probably add). One is that just banging on about “best possible” unspecified Brexits leaves no room for detailed argument. Another is the renowned inability of TV executives to concert a clear offer across channel lines – or settle their individual anxieties about prestigious ratings. A third – slight grimace hidden behind hands – features newspapers’ resentment of TV and its overmighty presenters. Nice to see them left in the lurch, too, eh?

But none of this is serious stuff. On the contrary, it is piffling calculation. Sir Lynton may want Theresa to take no risks, say and do as little as possible. May may prefer to chat with tame audiences in Bolton or Maidenhead. Hardened Westminster observers see only humiliation for Corbyn or Farron ahead. Not the point. It’s general election time. That means it’s time to watch the champions joust on TV.

Our PM says she wants to “unite Britain”, to bring every part of the nation together. But how does she even begin to do that if halfway-proper debates – scoring over 7 million then over 8 million viewers in 2015 – are off the agenda? Debates attract healthy audiences because they seem to be special events, moments when young and old, rich and poor sit down together. Hour-long interviews with Paxo or Peston don’t do that. They’re more of the same.

Debates, in spite of being too nervous, too arthritic, too weighed down by rulebooks, can still broaden agendas. They can test whether the conversational style that made Jeremy Corbyn Labour’s leader survives in a different arena; whether Farron or Sturgeon have new themes to exploit; whether the company she’s obliged to keep gets too obviously up Theresa’s nose.

One more major change of mind, then; one more united push to do the obvious, the expected, the vital thing. You won’t build a “united” kingdom from the often-snarling individualism of social media or the ritual warfare on Fleet Street. You need national moments to do that. And Lynton Crosby has nothing to do with them.

• As we embark of six weeks of fake facts and phone furies, it’s instructive to see where trust and perceived impartiality stand across 28 British media outlets, as measured by Ipsos Mori on a ratio of between 1 and 10.

No surprises really. BBC News commands a winning 6.5 for impartiality, 7.4 for trust, while ITV News (6 and 6.6) and Channel 4 News (6 and 6.2) take the leading places alongside it. Indeed, broadcasters generally – people you see or hear reading bulletins – always have a palpable advantage over words on paper or screens. Human connections.

Thus Channel 4 News (6.4) and Sky News (6.2) hold a clear lead over the Times and the Guardian (both 5.9). Thus a variety of relative newcomers – Yahoo, al-Jazeera and the Huffington Post – are less trusted than commercial radio or even Richard Desmond’s Express. And meanwhile the mystery of tabloid influence remains.

The pollsters’ “impartiality index” shows the Mails, Sun, Facebook and Twitter all clustered in the relegation zone (4.1 and below); a bargain basement of doubt and special pleading propped up by Twitter, with the Daily Star, Facebook and Sun jostling in the pits of cynicism.

So can anyone explain to me why, at make-or-break ballot time, it’s the least revered, the least trusted, voices that boom loudest? Crush the Saboteurs! See politicians come running when such cries go up. Believe that shouting loudest gives you the greatest clout. But why is all this so allegedly influential, worth tea and buns for editors or proprietors at Downing Street? The voices we don’t believe are the voices we quake before most. Crush common sense!