A Cameron vs Brown TV Debate

There has been a suggestion recently that there could be a TV debate between the Prime Minister-for-now Gordon Brown and the Prime Minister-to-be David Cameron. I suspect it will all amount to little more than a wicked tease for us political anoraks as one side will always jump at the chance while the other will calculate they have little to gain in taking part.

For now, it is Gordon Brown who has the most to gain, behind in the polls it would only take one slip of the tongue from David Cameron to pull Labour out of the mire and goodness knows that David 'Twat Your mother's a bike' Cameron is capable of that, though my personal prediction of how a confrontation would go would be that Gordon Brown's performance would merely compound his polling misery as we are reminded of just how god-awful he is at the simple act of communicating.

Gordon Brown has strengths, no really he does, and it is these he should focus on. The Government Asset Protection Scheme may be a better area to place his energies than taking on Cameron at verbal jousting. If he really did save the world and the banks, he'd win Labour a fourth term. He won't win it by looking better in make-up and drumming up a few decent soundbites for an hour of tv.

Don't get me wrong, we probably should have such a debate in the near future, let alone during an election campaign. There is so much change occurring within our borders at the moment (and outwith) that sitting back and taking stock of all of it, with our leaders leading the discussion, would be very welcome indeed.

But the greatest TV debate in history is the fictional one in the West Wing for a reason, reality never quite lives up to expectation and hype, not that we shouldn't try of course. Did anyone else stay up for the Obama vs McCain debates? Painful, wasn't it.

So I don't see it happening and although that is a shame we shouldn't be too down-hearted as that's just the way the political game goes.

And hey, Mandelson vs Hague would make for a much better TV debate anyway so we're not missing much despite what our feverish imaginations may say...