[thegeek]

The debates were not good viewing. Julie found it hard to take control, mixture of the format of it and the people themselves.

The Election Interviews currently going out with the other 4 parties seems to be going out live from the News at Ten studio with Anushka at the desk. I thought it may have been pre-recorded but as you can see the time in the background, it does seem to be going out live.

In case anyone's wondering, the leaders interviews in 2019 came from the BT Sport studio, using a slimmed down version of the debate set:
www.youtube.com 

I'm not sure if different candidates would have fared better with the 45 second rule - Starmer seemed to be taking a long-winded route to get to answering the question and seemed to be just reaching the point at the time he was cut off, and Sunak was prefacing his answers with standard soundbites. Would we have just seen the same result with a 60 second limit?

I thought the director was doing a good job of anticipating reactions as the show went on, and there was some judicious use of the split-screen.

One-on-ones with the candidates do feel like a better format for this kind of thing though - there really needs to be more robust fact-checking by a moderator rather than claim and counter-claim.