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Already, Britons have derided the current national parliamentary election—which pits the dour Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown against the handsome Tory leader David Cameron—as needlessly American. Both candidates bared their souls in emotional TV interviews discussing the deaths of their children (they each lost one); both of their wives have joined the campaign fray (a first for a British election); and, last night, the contenders tried on another one of those much-derided slick Yankee political innovations, the televised debate. From the perspective of this jaundiced viewer of hundreds of U.S. candidate debates, the stuffy old Brits—who also included the leader of a third party, the Liberal Democrats—did pretty well.
The "town hall" format used tonight is one of the trickier ones, minimizing the amount of time the participants could spend on canned statements, and also reducing the role of the moderator. (Questioners who spring "traps"—or focus on perceived candidate weaknesses like birds of prey—are a common problem of American political debates.)
You could see the advantage right away of a system in which party leaders are recruited and groomed from a relatively early age. None of them became flustered, looked ignorant, or blatantly ignored questions. All of them made a real effort to treat questioners like real people and not props, and none of them significantly lapsed into parliamentary jargon or program acronyms, despite some intensively wonkish discussion of the specifics of crime policy, the National Health Service, the M.P. "expenses" scandal, weapons systems, and government finance. (Though this American did have to do some research to understand the several references to "duck houses," a detail of the expenses scandal.)
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And despite a reasonably civil tone, the three certainly got their licks in and their basic messages across. Gordon Brown reminded me of Al Gore in 2000, in his incessant efforts to raise and repeat a very limited number of doubts about the Tory commitment to spending in key areas like crime and education. At one point, claiming that Cameron was being evasive on Tory intentions, Brown quipped (in a reference to the House of Commons' famous Prime Minister's Question Time): "This is not Question Time, this is answer time, David."
David Cameron uttered the word "change" as often as Barack Obama did in his 2008 debates, and he generally tried to look reasonable, friendly, and apologetic for the sins of the entire political class.
But it was LibDem Nick Clegg, who, as many expected, starred. The format, along with the focus of Cameron and Brown on each other, allowed him to repeatedly deplore Tory-Labour squabbling as two sides of the same old political coin: "Don't let them tell you that the only choice is between two old parties that have been playing pass the parcel with your government for 65 years now making the same old promises, breaking the same old promises."
Clegg's performance was bad news for the Tories, who need all the anti-status-quo votes they can get to avoid a hung Parliament, which might even produce a Labour-LibDem coalition government (which Brown was probably hinting at in his frequent efforts tonight to form a common front with Clegg).
The most surprising thing from an American perspective was the relative lack of real ideological clash among the three leaders, considering the ancient class antagonisms of the two big parties and the generations of rather vicious interplay between them. Yes, Cameron indulged in a little mild demagoguery on immigration, but by and large, he could have passed for a moderate Democrat in the U.S., passionate as he was about neighborhood policing, the quality of public services, and focusing on "results" rather than "inputs" (very old Clintonian themes in the United States). Brown came across as the green eyeshade that he undoubtedly is, and he seemed more worried about business investment than his Tory rival. With those two playing against type and pitching a small number of swing voters, Clegg was free to roam the field and sound like someone who wasn't trying to remember his advisers' talking points.
There are two more of these debates scheduled in the breakneck sprint (by American standards) to the May 6 elections, and I have no idea how the British public itself will respond. Right now, most Brits are exhibiting a surly hostility to the political class that would feel quite familiar to Americans; these encounters with party leaders could either confirm their cynical suspicions or open a few minds. But all in all, this "Americanized" political ritual came off pretty well. There was certainly nothing to haunt the memory like the absurd omnipresence of Joe the Plumber in the final Obama-McCain debate of 2008. Let's keep it that way, my British friends.
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