There has been a fair bit of chat in recent weeks about the prospect of a televised leaders’ debate in the run-up to the next general election. This sort of chat always comes up in the run-up to any election, but there appears to be an extra momentum this time round.

It seems as though the promise by Sky News to televise a debate come what may — even if the debate was between tubs of lard — has forced everyone’s hand, broadcasters and political parties alike. It seems as though now it is going to happen, with the involvement of all the major broadcasters. It also appears as though the three main party leaders are on board (albeit with varying degrees of enthusiasm).

The end of the issue? Of course not. This is just the beginning of the matter. More details will need to be fleshed out. What format should such a debate take? Will there be a number of separate debates? And what about the role of smaller parties?

I am normally fairly ambivalent about calls for televised political debates. Those politicians who call for such a debate usually do so because they perceive that it would advantage them.

Someone like David Cameron will go for it because he is a confident performer, the momentum is behind him and the media appears to have declared him the winner already. Someone like Gordon Brown will reject it because he does not come across so well on television. This time he has been forced into it, partly because of Sky News’ promise to “empty chair” him if he didn’t, but also because refusing to appear would further the idea that Brown is a coward with poor leadership qualities.

The prospect of a televised political debate fills me with dread rather than excitement. I doubt it does much for democratic accountability. Part of me suspects that vain politicians just crave appearances on the television.

No doubt we will be served up a rather unedifying spectacle, like PMQs on steroids. I predict Punch and Judy politics a-plenty. Most likely, as with Question Time, it will be a platform for the most appalling demagoguery, complete with an audience that will clap like seals at any old nonsense.

Most of all, I think the idea of a leaders’ debate just misses the point. While it is useful to know what the major party leaders think, focusing on leaders too much is damaging to the health of our parliamentary democracy. Once again, there is a clamour to bring to Britain a feature of US politics which is a square peg in a round hole.

Televised debates are highly popular in the USA. But that is because the format is practically ready-made for the US political system. For one, the US system is a Presidential system, meaning that voters actually do elect the country’s leader. The US system is also a truly two-party system, with two Leviathans totally overshadowing any minority candidates. This makes it easy to adopt a one-on-one, head-to-head debating format.

Even though the televised debate is more-or-less a perfect fit for a US Presidential election, the format’s success is a matter for debate. In years gone by it may have provided some election-defining moments. But as I recall, the debates involving Barack Obama and John McCain, and Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, hardly set the world alight.

So what on earth makes anyone think that this gimmick will suit British politics? It seems like just another outcome of politicos’ obsession with America. It seems like the idea of someone who has mistaken his DVD box set of The West Wing for real pornography.

Our Parliamentary system doesn’t — or at least shouldn’t — place so much focus on party leaders. Very few voters will actually have any sort of say on who the Prime Minister is. I will have the option to vote for or against Gordon Brown, but only because I happen to live in his constituency of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. I will have no say whatsoever on David Cameron or Nick Clegg.

And what of the smaller parties? In the UK, broadcasters are required to be impartial in the run-up to an election, meaning that legally broadcasters will find it difficult to lock out the small parties. Even if these other parties have little or no chance of forming the government. Even if most viewers will not be as interested in hearing from these parties.

The most noise is being made by the SNP. They are threatening legal action if an SNP representative is unable to play a part in a televised leaders’ debate.

The SNP may have a point. Even though they have only a handful of MPs, and are only contesting seats in a portion of the UK, they have a lot of support in that portion. They are not a loony fringe party. They are in fact in government in the UK. Viewers north of the border will certainly be interested to hear what the SNP have to say in the run-up to the election.

At the same time, their presence may be a distraction from the real purpose of the debate, which is basically to watch the potential future Prime Ministers partake in a spot of verbal mud-wrestling. It is, after all, a “leaders’ debate”. Despite all his ambition, Alex Salmond is highly unlikely to be the next Prime Minister, as is Angus Robertson.

Yet, what if there is the prospect of a hung Parliament? The collapse in Labour support has not been met with a real surge in support for the Conservatives. With so many parties having moderate levels of support, it is conceivable that a party like the SNP could play a king-maker role.

There is no easy answer. This is the core problem with the idea of a televised debate. It might be good for a simple, true two party system such as the USA’s. But for the UK’s more subtle and diverse politics, it won’t fit quite so well.

I see there has been a frisson of activity over the suggestion that some councils are looking to hold their counts on a Friday rather than the traditional Thursday night / Friday morning when the General Election comes round. The Sunday Times has reported that the BBC believes that up to a quarter of councils are considering making the switch to sociable hours.

The fear is that such a move would ruin general election night, the greatest political television show going. There have been plenty of passionate defences of the show, and the “Save Election Night” campaign has true cross-party support: see Jonathan Isaby of Conservative Home, Labour MP Tom Harris, SNP activist Will Patterson and Liberal Democrat Voice’s Mark Pack.

Without a doubt, it is fun to stay up all night watching power switch hands from one MP to another, and gradually from one government to another. And there is no denying that the television show has brought us some of the most memorable political moments of recent times. Everyone knows what you mean if you mention “the Portillo moment”.

But is it important? Is it even right? The political class treats a general election like a big sporting event. It is our Superbowl, and David Dimbleby is our John Madden. Coverage of politics is heaving with horse racing and other sporting metaphors. Correct me if I’m wrong, but an election is supposed to be about the serious business of government, not an entertaining night in front of the box.

Adam Smith famously wrote, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public.” I do think the cross-party support for election night coverage may be to the detriment to what is good for the public.

It is interesting that three of the biggest stories of the past week or so have been about the entertainment side of politics. There is a big debate just now about whether there should be a presidential-style leaders’ debate in the run-up to the election — Sky News is promising to plonk three chairs on a stage and give anyone who doesn’t turn up the “tub of lard” treament. (Of course, all the smaller parties cry, “Why can’t I be on a fourth chair?”) I’m not sure that anyone genuinely thinks such a debate would be a valuable addition to our political discourse, but it will be entertaining so that’s all right then, huh?

Then there is the controversy over the BBC’s decision to invite Nick Griffin onto an edition of Question Time. Chris Dillow summarises Paul Sagar’s point that Question Time is “not a platform for debate but merely a zoo in which soundbites are vomited into an audience who clap like hyperactive seals.”

Now there is this controversy; this fear about the future of election night coverage. Don’t get me wrong. I like a bit of political rough and tumble as much as the next person. And I agree that the votes for a general election should be counted as quickly as possible. There are very valid arguments against moving counts to Fridays, as you will see in the articles I have linked to above.

But the focus on the entertainment value of staying up all night is something that I find a tad distasteful. I am particularly surprised to see this point of view being advocated so strongly by any Liberal Democrats.

That party is quite rightly in favour of reforming the voting system. Most electoral reformers agree that single transferable vote (not to be confused with STV) would be the best (or least-worst) system to adopt. That move would almost certainly put the kibosh on any notion that we will find out the result before breakfast time, but it would still be right.

What is important is that we have a result that is fully reflective of the wishes of the people. In comparison to getting the right result, the speed of finding it out or the entertainment of the televisual spectacle pales into insignificance.

I would rather see a complete end to those sporting analogies I referred to earlier — “first past the post” and “two horse race” being among the most important ones to consign to history. I would happily see the television show “general election night” consigned to history too if need be.

So sacrifice your psephological salivating. Yes, election night can be fun and entertaining. But it would be better for democracy if our democratic institutions operated for the good of the voters, not for the good of politico television viewers.

There is an amusing video on YouTube of a couple of people giving a running commentary over BBC News wondering why they haven’t mentioned the earthquake (via Media Monkey).

The people in the video make some amusing comments, although they do exhibit the worst of the victim mentality that a lot of people in this country have. An inch of snow has fallen and it is the end of the bloody world. A train is five minutes late and it is an abomination that would never have happened under British Rail. An earthquake has hit us, woe is me. Etc, etc.

Maybe the guys in the video were being ironic when they kept on shrieking, “There’s been an earthquake! Hellooo? BBC? There’s been an earthquake!” But it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of people genuinely were enraged when the BBC didn’t cover the only interesting that has happened in their dull little lives. I have heard that Radio 5 Live has had a record number of text messages. That doesn’t surprise me, 5 Live being as it is the country’s premier forum for self-important people with anal passages in place of their mouths, wanting to phone in and describe how the world revolves around them.

Victoria Derbyshire’s programme in the morning was even worse than usual, amazingly enough. The callers I heard all said much the same thing. “My house was shaking! I thought a lorry had crashed into my house!” “I was lying in my bed and I was woken up. At first I thought it was a burglar. Little did I know that it was something even more serious!” YAWN

So parts of England got the shakes. Big deal. The stories about it on the BBC News website are a parade of mediocrity.

“The room just started shaking” Shaking?! How will you ever recover? “The quiet market town at the epicentre of the earthquake recovers”. Yeah, recovers from a few toppled chimneys!

The only casualty from the whole episode appears to be one poor man with a broken pelvis. While I certainly would not like a chimney stack to fall on top of my pelvis, it isn’t exactly September 11 in terms of casualties.

So I am not surprised that BBC News decided not to give it so much coverage. It is worth bearing in mind that after 0100 BBC News 24 ceases to be a UK service. What we get in the UK is essentially a simulcast of BBC World. As such, it reflects a global news agenda.

This is the way it should be really. UK news seldom breaks during the night, and there are few people in the UK watching at that time of night anyway. News channels are notoriously expensive to run anyway. I know certainly that Sky News makes a loss.

It would be difficult for the BBC to justify spending license payers’ money on a near-useless overnight UK service that would be watched by very few people. The BBC has a 24 hour UK news service anyway — it’s called BBC Radio 5 Live. From what I heard of their coverage, they did a pretty good job — as you would expect from the Up All Night crew.

If BBC News 24 / BBC World were to slavishly cover the earthquake like Sky News did, the majority of the BBC’s viewers scattered across the globe would have been equally indignant as the people in the UK complaining about the lack of earthquake coverage. I can just imagine people around the world uploading their commentary onto YouTube. “5 on the Richter scale? I have taken naps through that!”

People across the world look to the BBC as a source of authoritative world news. A piddly wee earthquake in Lincolnshire just doesn’t cut it. If it was an exclusively UK service like Sky News then you would indeed expect them to cover it. But it isn’t, so you wouldn’t (or at least shouldn’t).

I did actually watch a bit of Sky News’s overnight earthquake coverage and it was indeed execrable. In fact, the video I have embedded above highlights the completely different approaches of the two channels and why Sky News falls flat on its face so often.

BBC News might have been late to mention the story, but notably they got it right. They did not spend longer than required on the story, and they got the important details such as the epicentre correct. Meanwhile, Sky News were showing a map with Birmingham and Manchester pinpointed. Why? We don’t know. Sky don’t care about getting it right, as long as they can convey that something is happening — NOW!

In fact, Sky News’s coverage of the earthquake highlights everything that is wrong with 24 hour news. Media Monkey highlights their typically insightful coverage:

Sky News interviewer Faye Barker: “So, what were you doing when the quake shook?” Eyewitness, or should that be earwitness, from Lincolnshire: “I was in bed.” Barker: “Oh… [Pause]. And would you say it felt more like a juggernaut or a freight train going past?” Woman: “Er… a freight train.”

Sky News is also rightly being criticised today for a truly disgusting interview conducted by the diabolical Kay Burley. She was previously famous for her measured response on September 11: “If you’re just joining us, the entire eastern seaboard of the United States has been decimated by a terrorist attack.” This week she asked the wife of recently convicted serial killer Steve Wright the following question:

Do you think if you’d had a better sex life, he wouldn’t have done this?

What a vile question to ask. Not surprisingly, the interviewee burst into tears upon being asked that question. Imagine having that thought running through your head — “If only I had sex with my husband a bit more, those five prostitutes wouldn’t have been murdered.”

Unity, Jennie and Mitch Benn say all that needs to be said.

If BBC News lost respect for its slow response to the earthquake, goodness knows what Sky News must have lost.

It’s funny how I was writing about media hypocrisy in relation to the premium rate phone-in scandals, only for the entire issue to resurface in a major way the following day. I have the power!

Anyway, I think the way the latest revelations have been covered by the media prove my point. Predictably enough, many people have sprung up to bash the BBC for fixing competition results. And while this is indeed despicable, what these people have ignored is the fact that every single other major broadcaster has done this. This is not a problem with the BBC. It is a symptom of the state of the MSM as a whole.

Earlier this year, record fines were handed out after viewers of Channel 4 and Channel Five were defrauded. Votes cast via premium rate phone lines were not counted on ITV programmes. Today the boss of GMTV resigned.

It is worth also remembering that the BBC is the only major broadcaster in the country that hasn’t had its fingers in the utterly deceitful quiz scam channel craze that has dogged airwaves of the past two years. In this sense, the BBC looks pretty clean compared to its commercial rivals.

Because most of the faked BBC competition results (with the exception of the truly shocking Liz Kershaw ones) were of the “panicking producer” variety. Meanwhile, the commercial broadcasters built up an entire industry that was desliberately designed to misleadingly part viewers with their cash.

It is nigh on impossible to think of a commercial broadcaster that has not played a part in this massive scam. Programmes such as Quiz Call (set up and formerly owned by Channel 4; still broadcast to this day by Channel Five), ITV Play and Quiz Night Live (produced by Endemol and broadcast on a channel owned by Telewest / NTL / Virgin). Viacom’s TMF broadcast Pop the Q, Emap’s channels featured the truly dire Cash Call. BSkyB have Sky Vegas. Few commercial broadcasters are clean.

None of this is to excuse the BBC though. Encouraging viewers to use premium rate phone lines to enter non-existent competitions is unacceptable. But the BBC cases do not have nearly as strong a whiff as the ones involving its commercial rivals.

And there is not a smidgen of the hypocrisy that has come from the newspapers surrounding the premium rate scandals of this year. Newspapers were quick to jump up and down when Richard & Judy and The X Factor got caught up in it all. But they remained conspicuously quiet when it came to similar premium rate phone lines used by themselves.

Meanwhile, the BBC’s own coverage of the scandal was notable for how harsh it was on itself. I have always felt that, despite (or perhaps because of?) the constant allegations of bias, the BBC provides incredibly dispassionate coverage on any stories that involves itself.

I remember that on the day of the Hutton Report I was glued to BBC News 24. While you could argue that the BBC would be biased in favour of itself, for the same reasons Sky would be biased against the BBC.

It’s just that the magnifying glass is forever focussed on the BBC, so they cannot afford to be biased, particularly when talking about themselves. So they way they covered it was professional and detached, although there was a slightly surreal moment when you could see everyone in the newsroom rushing towards the corridor where Greg Dyke appeared. For a journalist to maintain a stiff upper lip when the story literally surrounds them in this way is seriously impressive.

I first learned about the BBC phone-in problems on BBC News 24 itself, and you would have thought that the scandal was almost as seismic as Hutton. But the problems seem to be roughly on a par with ITV’s problems with The X Factor, and certainly nothing reaching the outright deception of, say, Richard & Judy or GMTV.

And, as Matt Wardman points out:

have Sky manipulated their phone-ins? If they had, how would we find out?

That is the key. Only the BBC has the ability to be as self-critical as it is, even though it can sometimes do a lot of damage. And they never seem to get any thanks for it.

• More on the fake television scandal from Scaryduck

This is unusual for me (in recent months at least). I am going to defend the MSM and journalism.

Bishop Hill is a blogger who often criticises the BBC. So it should not be a surprise when he takes any opportunity to have a pop at them. But his complaints about the BBC’s coverage of the Alan Johnson [sic] kidnapping are wide of the mark.

When you think about it, isn’t it just wrong that Alan Johnson got a slot on the BBC news and on the front of the website, pretty much every day for the last four months, while the other hostages were all but forgotten? It rather nicely encapsulates the problem with the BBC, or even the public sector as a whole.

It’s run for the benefit of its staff, rather than for the public who pay for it.

First of all, it is hardly as if the BBC was the only media organisation that was covering the kidnapping of Alan Johnston, the BBC’s Gaza correspondent (as opposed to Alan Johnson, the Labour MP). In fact, quite a diverse range of news outlets covered it.

When I heard the news on the radio when it broke at around 2 o’clock yesterday morning, I switched on the television to find that Sky News was covering it just as much as the BBC was. The Telegraph had buttons prominently displayed on its blogs. I doubt there was any major newspaper or broadcaster that didn’t cover the story.

Terry Lloyd, who was an ITN — not BBC — journalist, was also given similar coverage upon his death.

The comparison to the five British hostages being currently held in Iraq also does not make sense. Of course, on a purely personal level, the kidnapping of any individual is every bit as despicable as the kidnapping of a journalist. The trauma and anguish that the individuals and their families must go through will be exactly the same. But beyond that, it has no real effect on the wider world.

The kidnapping of a journalist — particularly one like Alan Johnston — has a real effect on the rest of the world. The job of a journalist (even if it is employed by an organisation that you don’t particularly like) is to tell people what is happening in the world.

Alan Johnston was the only Western journalist who was based in Gaza. The only one. In a sense, he was the world’s only pair of eyes and ears in Gaza.

The kidnapping of Alan Johnston was not just an assault on an individual’s freedom. It was the attempted blindfolding of the world.