Last night the ITV channel broadcast an election debate between Jeremy Corbyn the Labour leader and Boris Johnson the Prime Minister. I watched it and thought that I would give my own impressions of the debate.
Although both men went over their allotted time spots for their responses to questions and neither Mr Johnson nor Mr Corbyn looked completely at ease in the studio, I got the impression that Mr Johnson came across much better than Corbyn did. Boris Johnson looked much more the happy warrior then did Jeremy Corbyn. Mr Johnson batted away questions about his character and record relatively easily although didn’t really deal with the substantive part of the question. Corbyn looked really uncomfortable when questioned about the Jew hatred that Labour is mired in. Rather than try to steer the conversation back onto a more comfortable area, which is what Johnson did when faced with the character question, Corbyn relied on a string of anti racist platititudes to counter this question.
As regards personality, Boris Johnson for me came out higher than Corbyn did. Boris looked like a man who has had some sort of life with all its good and bad parts. Corbyn on the other hand looked like some low level local council functionary who has little in the way of any hinterland. Despite being on Boris’s side in this election contest, although Corbyn was bad, I think that Boris should have turned out a much more dynamic performance than he did.
This could have been a much better debate than it was. I think that ITV could have organised it better and with a better set. The presenter was pretty awful and seemed to be a bit too enamoured with the sound of her own voice. The set and the presentation looked a bit cheap and for such a major debate, a bit more gravitas should have been present. If this debate was a football match, then I’m afraid that it would have been a nil nil draw.