Televised debates
Mr Eugenides is right on the money wth this post: http://mreugenides.blogspot.com/2010/03/on-debates.html
I strongly recommend that you read it.
I am personally wary of the idea of televised election debates between prospective prime ministers taking off in the UK. In my opinion, politics is already 'dumbed down' enough; with too many voters utterly unaware of the policies or ideological standpoints of the main parties or their leaders, ending up voting on the basis of 'first impressions' or similarly irrelevant bases. Another soundbite rich platform, with the best presented politician 'winning' and then forever lauded in a press that should know better will only make this worse.
People say that such debates would 'raise public awareness of political issues' but I disagree; people uninterested in politics won't watch the debate(s) anyway and will only have their preexising ideas reinforced by what they read about them afterwards.
Ho-hum.
