General Election Thread

I thought it was too long and it needed some interuptions for a break. In an entertainment context, the novelty wore off about half way in and it just became very boring.

I don't think 'entertainment' is exactly what the broadcasters (or politicians) had in mind ...

You think the broadcasters cared about the issues! They wanted a full blown row, gaffes, one liners etc.

Was it me or did Cameron at one point talk about a 40y/o he met who had been in the armed forces for 30 years? Did he join at 10?

The incessant Cameron "I met..." was patronising and very annoying...

Interesting to see that Clegg chose to address the camera a bit more than the other two, and Brown probably adressed the audience more.

Clegg seemed to have a much more "natural" approach - and came out as the most normal of the three to me. (Though do you want "normal" as your leader? Personally I want the best - rather than the most normal)

Very interesting - and as everyone is saying, and will continue to say, ad nauseum, a seismic shift in UK politics with the Lib Dems being given equal status. We live in interesting times.

(Thought the ITV1 set looked like a 90s Krypton Factor or You Bet! - very dated, and the bevelled chrome opening title sequence looked like a student TV station. Alistair Stewart didn't impress me - but then who have ITV1 got left? The BBC have a choice between David Dimbleby, Jeremy Paxman, Huw Edwards and Andrew Marr - all of whom could credibly anchor such a show. ITV don't really have anyone. )

To be fair, Brown and Clegg both made statements like these. At one point it became a bit like a competition to who has the best emotive story about someone they had met.

To be fair to Alastair Stewart he had to keep try to keep to more than 70 rules. It already run over by more than 5 minutes - if he hadn't cut them of, it would have gone on all night. Also it was a first, both Adam Boulton & David D will have the advantage of learning from Alastair's mistakes.

On the set - ok it could have been better ( If anyone saw Campaign 2010 after NAT , that set was much nicer. But again I think they were restricted on colours ect - so not to seem polictally biased, so they wen't for a dull white coulor.

I imagine the BBC and Sky will have lots of (actual) white, grey and chrome, with highlights and panels in the party colours, and lots of truss/pillars and perpex. I can't imagine either of them going "what have we got laying around we can use for this?" and chucking it up and pointing a couple of solar 250's at the wall for some detail. I think we should all be glad that ITV didn't discover a stash of red, blue and yellow neon in a cupboard.

Yeah, when they were talking about crime, it was getting like the Monty Python Four Yorkshiremen sketch, each one of them trying to outdo each other by telling a story about someone they'd met who had it even worse than the last.

A cynic might suggest that as the set was reminiscent of something from 1997, it might have subliminally lulled the viewer into forgetting the last 13 years ever happened, thereby creating the feeling that Gordon Brown's slate is clean.

Of course, I'm not a cynic and would never dream of suggesting such an outlandish thing.

On the subject of sets, it was quite interesting playing the 'how many different ways can you redress the same regional set' game last night. It says a lot about ITV these days that I never even realised the late politics show was a regional programme until after it had started.

Granada
http://www.tvwhirl.co.uk/junk/granadaelection.jpg

ITV Wales
http://www.tvwhirl.co.uk/junk/waleselection.jpg

I'm not sure where London's lot were based (I obviously don't watch much from London so don't know their sets, I just catch bits of it now on ITV1 HD), but they seemed crammed round a tiny coffee table with some over cosy sofas rather than the usual London Tonight set. Reception room at ITN somewhere?

Granada's version seemed to be doing quite a bit of regional namechecking too. Being based at the studios where the main debate was, they were obviously in an advantageous position for reporting. On all live reports I saw they still seemed to be referring to them at all times as the 'studios of Granada' never ITV, with a nicely positioned shot showing the 60's 'GRANADA TV' lettering. They also referred to themselves as being in Studio 12 (from memory) at Granada at one point. It's quite surprising how big their regional news studio still is, from the wide shot above.

I believe it's still the studio they had in the late 90s when it was an hour long and had all sorts of different elements in, could be wrong though. No wonder that tiny set makes it look a bit empty!

In London the generic titles had been redone in the yellow format for the first time last night - didn't think they would bother to be honest (it's been 2006 ITV News-green since, well, 2006). The London show came from Millbank, which is where most of the monthly politics shows are normally recorded. However last night there was a requirement for them to be live, or recorded post-2200, which is why they ended up in the normal news sets.

I think the criticisms made of Alastair Stewart are completely unfair. I thought he was very professional. He was just what you want in a moderator - the viewer hardly knew he was there except for moving the debate forward or stopping one of the leaders talking. He was quite strict with the leaders when he needed to be and overall I think he did a great job.

I think David Dimbleby will be good as he has the experience of Question Time to bring to the programme. I don't know very much at all about Adam Boulton, so can't comment on him. However, I disagree that Jeremy Paxman or Andrew Marr would have been good alternatives. Both of them come across as a bit smug/arrogant and constantly interject during interviews. I concur that Huw Edwards would be a suitable BBC candidate.