Do the leaders debates have any impact on General Election results?
The leaders debates were introduced in 2010 and since that time have been an ever present, albeit in a variety of formats, in each subsequent election, but have they actually had any impact on the way people voted at the subsequent elections?
The easy answer is probably no. The very first debates in 2010 were a series of three debates held between the Labour leader Gordon Brown, the Conservative leader David Cameron and the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. It was the performance of Nick Clegg that most caught the eye with the phrase ‘I agree with Nick’ being repeated by both Brown and Cameron throughout the first debate. ‘Cleggmania’ soon ensued and it was believed that the Liberal Democrats would perform strongly in the General Election. They didn’t. In fact in 2010, the Liberal Democrats only polled 1% higher than they had done in 2005 and they actually lost 5 seats. Much of this has been obscured by the fact that the Liberal Democrats entered government as part of a coalition with the Conservatives but the simple fact is that ‘Cleggmania’ really didn’t translate into many additional votes.
In 2015 the debates had a change in format. There were only two real debates, one featuring 7 leaders of the main UK political parties and a second featuring just the major opposition parties. With so many different parties in the debate each leader received far less airtime and found it harder to get across their message. The second debate with all the major opposition parties was interesting. Usually, it is the government who has most to lose in a debate and will sustain attacks from all others in the debate. However, without Cameron in the debate it was Ed Miliband as leader of the Labour Party had to take most of the attacks from the other party leaders, which probably did little to enhance his chances of success. The Conservatives won the 2015 election with a small majority but the debates were of little significance and can’t be said to have influenced the result.
In 2017, the debates were slightly more consequential. The decision by the Prime Minister Theresa May to not attend the leaders debate, and instead send Amber Rudd in her place, was seen as arrogant and aloof by the Prime Minister. Did this have an impact on May losing her majority? Perhaps but a closer look at the figures in fact shows that Theresa May gained an extra 2 million votes, so maybe her failure to attend the debates wasn’t as important in her loss of the Conservatives majority as was led to be believed.
In 2019, the debates again had little clear impact on the result of the election. The main debate saw a two way debate between Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. There was no clear winner in the debate and given that most people already had a negative view of one or both of the two leaders, the debate did little to change these perceptions.
Perhaps the most significant impact of the 2019 debates in fact came from the seven way debate in which the Conservatives and Labour both sent other figures within the party other then the leader. The Conservatives sent Rishi Sunak who was a relatively unknown junior minister at the time. His creditable performance helped to elevate him to the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer two months later. So do the debates have an impact? Not really, but they might have helped the career of Rishi Sunak.
