[Neil Jones]

IIRC the whole concept of these election debates have their roots in the presidential debates they have in the US, and have done for the last sixty odd years. There may have been a reason why we never had them before IIRC 2010, and I think they're so American in nature and its just not the sort of thing we really do that well over here.

I know we've sort of tooted the idea off and on as well since the 60s, but nothing ever got off the ground. Tonight just proves the point; its such a stilted format compressed into a short timescale and if you remember the 2010 incarnation had 76 "rules" to it, and it was so dry it was practically suffocating.

15 years later little changes to be honest. The US debates boil down to who can shout the loudest, and the UK version boils down to who can think for themselves as opposed to being puppets.