David Maddox: Pizza and beer for the new political blockbuster

They may well be seen as boring men in grey suits talking about dull economics but it seems that the Chancellors' debate last night drew amazingly high viewing figures.
According to one of the Tory spindoctors 7 million people, more than one in ten people in the UK, tuned in to Channel Four to watch Messrs Darling, Osborne and Cable talk about the economy. The peak viewing according to figures they received was 2 million.
This compares to the normal Channel Four News viewing audience of 1 million and Dispatches audience of 1 million.
It would be a good omen for interest in the political process and the forthcoming election.
However, perhaps a more accurate assessment of the viewing audience appears in the Guardian Media Guide which reports that there were 1.6 million viewers, a 6.6 per cent share of the total UK TV audience.
Let's hope that the Conservative estimates on potential savings they can make are more accurate.
Whatever, the truth of the figures, it seems that the Tories at the party's London HQ at Millbank Tower decided to have a night of it with the debate and ordered in pizza and beer before settling down to watch the first political blockbuster of the election campaign.
The choice of cuisine is largely because there is a Pizza Express nearby, but perhaps it is a sign of how far David Cameron's party has come from the days of champagne and caviar, just as Labour is returning to its traditional beer and sandwiches union tucker.

Eddie Barnes: Salmond having his cake and eating it

Watching BBC's Question Time, broadcast from Glasgow last night, was to marvel once again at Alex Salmond's ability to have it both ways. The First Minister was (no disrespect to Chief Secretary fo the Treasury Liam Byrne) easily the most influential minister on the panel; he is, after all, the First Minister of Scotland. But he did not have to answer a single question about his policies and record in office - not a single one. Instead, he was able to enjoy his usual role as the dis-interested pundit, jovily prodding and mocking the Tory and Labour parties.

He also used the show to make his case against the Prime Ministerial debates, to be shown on the BBC, ITV and Sky during the election campaign. And it's a good case, helped by the fact that these debates are a constitutional anomaly; a Presidential TV show awkwardly stuck onto our own constituency-based electoral system. Salmond made some fair and justified points about how much of the debates, for Scots and Welsh voters, will be entirely meaningless - for example, when Brown, Cameron and Clegg start discussing all their policies on health and education.

In other words, he had it both ways. Salmond used the fact that last night's programme was UK-wide to get away with not answering any questions about his own record - after all the BBC knows that to start asking the Scottish First Minister about his policy on local income tax, or class sizes, is irrelevent to the 90% of viewers from outside Scotland. But, at the same time, when the BBC decides to focus on those 90% of viewers (by going ahead with their TV debate) he was up in arms, complaining about bias and unfairness. Brilliant!

I do hope that Mr Salmond will at least take part in the Scottish TV debates which are also to be broadcast in the coming few weeks. If he were to take part in those, where - let us hope - his own record and policies might come under some light scrutiny, it would make it slightly easier to watch him having his cake and eating it.

Eddie Barnes: The SNP should be grateful for being left out of debates

My views on the rights and wrong of the forthcoming TV debates, and the fact that the SNP aren't going to be involved, are on record but I'm beginning to wonder whether this is really going to be that bad for the Nationalists after all.

On the downside for the SNP, the fact that Messers Clegg, Brown and Cameron will be on our screens vying for our votes - with no sign of the SNP - can only help the other three parties in their efforts to show that the SNP isn't really involved in what is a UK general election.

But, as I read through the 76 (count them!) rules which are going to govern these debates, there are actually going to be some upsides as well. Obviously, the SNP can play the victim card, rousing its support by accusing the Beeb and the other broadcasters of unfairness. But on on top of that, they can join the rest of the country in now royally taking the mick out of the whole affair. Those 76 rules - which will bar applause, booing, hissing or heckling - look set to ensure that the UK debates will follow the example of the US TV debates which, if you've ever had the misfortune to watch them, are almost always bore-fests of titanic proportions. The last interesting thing that happened in a US TV debate was Lloyd Bensten's immortal put-down to Republican VP candidate Dan Quayle ("Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy".) Nowadays, in the era of endless prep work, it can be said with almost total conviction that none of the three combatants will be tripped up by one another. They will have anticipated every single possible line of attack from their opponents. I fear we will simply witness all three playing a conservative game, parroting out their pre-prepared lines, with some rubbish jokes sprinkled here and there in between.

There's a semi-serious point here. The most damaging thing to have happened to any leadership candidate in the election campaign so far has been the accusation of "air-brushing" levelled against David Cameron following his now notorious poster. I suspect air-brushed is what we are going to get in these debates, unless one of the threesome has the guts to ad lib. So, watched by a sour and scunnered electorate, none of them is likely to come out of particularly well. Perhaps the SNP might just benefit from not being part of something which, I suspect, most of the population will resent for getting in the way of their evening viewing.

David Maddox: The great TV debate debate (again!)

There was an air of predictable inevitability over the announcement on the election debate and its consequences.
The broadcasters were never going to countenance having Alex Salmond et al joining the big three, or rather the big two (Brown and Cameron) and medium sized one (Clegg). I gather that they were reluctant even to include Clegg but could not get away with it.
And, of course, apparently in the name of democracy we are to get legal challenges from the Nationalists in Scotland and Wales. But as I predicted in my Steamie debate with my colleague Eddie Barnes virtually every other minor party in British terms is also demanding a place in the debates - UKIP and the Greens have already said so. Maybe they will try legal challenges too.
However, I stand by my earlier comments that I cannot see a democratic justification for stopping Scots, or Welsh for that matter, watching a debate between the men contending to be prime minister.
These debates are nothing to do with proportionality and everything to do with the presidential style of election we now have, like or hate it. In that sense Alex Salmond and his Welsh counterpart stand no chance of being PM and their value in them is limited at best.
The issues of constitutional nature, which is what they stand for, can be dealt with in separate Scottish and Welsh debates, which should deal with the legal issues too.
The only down side is that discussions on health and education or anything else devolved will be of little interest to those of us north of the Border. However, the defence and economy debates should be fascinating and will be worth broadcasting in Scotland for that reason alone.
Economically especially we are on the verge of a new era and this election will decide whether it will be a future of far less public spending or more taxation. The two main contenders appear to offer very different futures and Scots should not be excluded from that.