A presidential debate went viral last week—and it’s not the one you’re thinking of. That one was, depending on your point of view, a bearpit of snarling smears and lies, or a narcoleptic sleepwalk by—in Yeats’s brutal phrase—a tattered coat upon a stick.
No, the one that went viral intercut the Biden-Trump horror show with a televised encounter between two presidential hopefuls, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, in 2012. Posted by @IrishPatri0t, a map-maker with a modest Twitter/X following, it was viewed 43m times.
Let me describe to you a kinder, gentler age. A dozen years ago two men were speaking in Denver at a debate whose format had been intelligently devised by the Electoral Commission. The audience listened in intent silence. Five meaty policy areas were discussed over 90 minutes. The two candidates greeted each other warmly and engaged seriously with each other’s arguments.
If you watch a fuller version of the debate, you’ll find a conversation in which there were several areas of willing agreement as well as difference. The two men listened to each other respectfully. The moderator allowed them time to construct an argument. The candidates enjoyed the odd joke. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of every fact and data point, but I’ve seen no evidence that either man was lying through their teeth.
Or go back a little further to 2008 and another clip of a style of politics which seems inconceivable today. The Republican contender, John McCain, declines to rubbish his opponent, Obama, at a GOP rally, telling a questioner: “He’s a decent person and a person you don’t have to worry about as president of the United States. I just happen to have disagreements with [him] on fundamental issues.”
What happened? How could we, in 12 short years, have descended from civilised discourse to a kind of demented freakshow? And it’s not just that the candidates are of a different generation—as one commenter observed, “65 & 51 vs 78 & 81”.
All of which made me reflect on what has become of Rishi Sunak. You remember Rishi when he first broke through into wider public consciousness? Nice guy, a little nerdy. Honest, competent, courteous and pretty thoughtful. Just what the Tories needed after the corruption, lies and cronyism of Johnson and the 49 fruitcake days of Liz Truss.
Nice Rishi made a brief return on the steps of Downing Street yesterday in his farewell speech. But he didn’t last when he was actually in office. He could have ditched the Rwanda fairy tale and governed on economic rectitude. Instead, he put Rwanda front and centre in his shop window. He could have spurned populist culture war goading, but he chose to embrace it. He could have assumed a more statesmanlike approach in his weekly parliamentary encounters with Keir Starmer, but he soon adopted a sneering, jeering persona that was, I suspect, as inauthentic as it was unattractive.
Faced with real people he seemed incapable of empathy. Coached in the Lynton Crosby charm school, he became ever more robotic, aggressive, repetitive, shouty and petulant. In the final TV debate against Keir Starmer, this new hectoring style was not ineffective. But nor was it very likeable.
We don’t need our leaders to be likeable. I don’t think Churchill scored well on that front, nor perhaps Lloyd George or Harold Wilson. But in that viral debate between Romney and Obama, there was a glimpse of two politicians who seemed decent and respectful; who didn’t rabbit pre-coached soundbites; who were prepared to search for common ground. Hence the 43m viewers who were, I suspect, mourning something lost.
Which brings us to our new prime minister. Starmer came to politics relatively late in life and is, perhaps, not much of a politician. Like Sunak, he seems nice, a bit nerdy. But honest, competent… and with a smidgeon more warmth and empathy.
This is not a universal view. Peter Oborne, the veteran and maverick commentator, pronounced the past month of politics as “one of the ugliest and most scurrilous election campaigns I can remember in 30 years of covering Westminster”.
But let’s, for the moment, give Starmer the benefit of the doubt. How can he regain some of the spirit of Romney-Obama and nurture a form of politics that is decent, respectful and honest?
He can’t change the voting system overnight, but a long overdue retreat from the outdated two-party parliamentary vote would do much to dilute the narrowly adversarial context in which our political debate currently festers.
Would anyone weep genuine tears if Starmer scrapped the weekly sterile ritual of PMQs? Maybe make it monthly, and volunteer instead to do more televised press conferences and/or appearances before select committees?
Social media has undoubtedly played its lousy part in making politics shoutier, noisier, more dishonest and more polarised. But mainstream media has questions to answer as well. TikTok may thrive on reducing our attention spans to a few seconds, but there’s no reason why a public service broadcaster like ITV should have wanted to reward the politician who could best punch through in 45-second bursts. Why not ask the UK Electoral Commission to oversee the terms of future general election debates?
Starmer should prioritise media that matches his own inclination towards careful argument. He should heed the advice former Sun editor David Yelland gives to his global business clients: on no account read the Daily Mail before 11 am. Do not even think about allowing it to shape your actions or your worldview.
End the jobs-for-the-cronies culture. Appoint the best people to the most important roles in public life. Rory Stewart? Dominic Grieve? Andy Street? Sayeeda Warsi? Ruth Davidson? Create a genuine big tent. Absolutely take Friday nights off when you can. Nip up to the Emirates Stadium when you’re free. Be kind, be empathetic, be genuine.
Impossible? I don’t think so. We’re likely to see the right of British politics imminently enter into a period of the most savage in-fighting. It will be unedifying, brutal, myopic and bloody. What a chance for a British prime minister to rise above the fray and show how politics doesn’t have to be like that. Things can only get better.
