Party Leaders Hold Debate

Reluctant Hero · Party Leaders Hold Debate

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6514403.stm

Party leaders hold first debate

Major figures from Scotland's main political parties have taken part an election debate for TV in Edinburgh.
Scottish Labour leader Jack McConnell faced SNP chief Alex Salmond, Lib Dem leader Nicol Stephen and deputy Tory leader Murdo Fraser at the hustings.

The event was organised by Sky News and the Sunday Times.

Last month the SNP accused Mr McConnell of being scared to join a debate. The Labour leader said he wanted to challenge Mr Salmond on independence.

Mr McConnell said devolution had "matured" over the past eight years.

Policy by policy

He said the Scottish Executive coalition between Labour and the Liberal Democrats had been the right way to bring stability to devolved government.

But he added that after the Scottish Parliament elections on 3 May it could be the case that the largest party tries to govern without an overall majority on a "policy by policy, bill by bill" basis.

The SNP leader clashed with Mr McConnell over his reasons for discounting independence.

Mr Salmond said: "The arguments that Jack deploys are identical to the arguments that the Tories used to deploy on devolution."

Mr McConnell responded by saying that devolution and independence could not be compared.

He said that there was never a proposal under devolution for Scotland to have "a separate currency, a separate Scottish membership of the European Union and to break Scotland away from the rest of the United Kingdom".

The Labour and SNP leaders then started talking over each other, and the din ended with Mr Salmond telling his adversary: "Your argument two minutes ago was uncertainty.

He said: "The Tories used the same argument. They were beaten then and you will be beaten now."

Sniff of power

The debate also saw the Scottish Lib Dem leader spell out his party's stance on an independence referendum.

"If there is a majority in the parliament after 3 May for parties in favour of independence, of course they can proceed to the next step as they want to deliver independence, and that's through a referendum," Mr Stephen said.

"But the Liberal Democrats don't believe in independence and we don't support a referendum - and can you think of a single party or government which promoted a referendum on an issue it doesn't support?"

But he faced a taunt from the Tory deputy leader that Lib Dems were political "prostitutes".

"They are the party who in the past tended to ditch every principle for a sniff of power," Mr Fraser said.

"I just hope you are prepared to stick to your guns on this."

SLG

Never even knew this was happening. Was it broadcast at the time? Did anyone see it?

kenbob

its on tonight, stv at 5.

darkside

SLG

Cant' find it online, but the front page of the Sunday Times was saying that McConnell was as good as offering the Tories a coalition deal to keep the SNP out at the Sky debate.

I missed the STV one tonight. How did it go?

Economist

I only saw some of it as I was working, and I missed about half

But....from the bits I saw, Jack McDonnell doesn't seem to be brimming with confidence, and at one point he descended into a shouty rant. Alex Salmond didn't seem to be as arrogant and cocky as he sometimes can be (that advice about not having to wipe the floor with your political opponents seems to have worked

) but what about Annabel Goldie and Nicol Stephen?

darkside

http://www.stv.tv/content/news/Politics_NEW/POLITICS_Video/index.html

watch it there

SLG

Cheers darkside.

darkside

George

kevin04

STV, Grrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm living abroad at the moment and tried to access the site at 4.57pm to be told "sorry, your too late!" how could they no do it like bbc and question time? when you can watch any part of the question time show live and don't need to sit by their webpage half an hour before the program stars, very dissapointed with the stv network have let them know aswell,

anyone tape it or got a link to youtube? Would loved to have seen this debate,

cheers

darkside

skip

I agree with George's analysis on the performance. Heres a few more observations on the debate:

Annabel Goldie can come away with some quite funny lines but it doesn't really help me take her anymore serious. I did laugh when she was asked about how she was different from the other candidates and she shouted 'sex' !! Then went onto say her personal attributes were that she's not a big 'feartie' Laughing

She's not a vote-winner but can be entertaining!! Bravely dared to mentinon the poll-tax and they audience reacted with a pantomime groan! It's not quite like the old days when arrogant Mickey Forsyth would appear on these programs and one's first instinct was to send a brick crashing thru the TV screen.

McConnell looked very desperate and sometimes unable to answer questions. When he doesn't have an answer he goes off at a tangent on a huge irrelevant monologue. I think really what really damaged his performance was the format of the show which he should have been briefed in. Quite simply it looked to me from the outset that the 'chair' of the show Michael Crow was trying engineer equal time for replies. By the halfway stage I think the other three leaders had grasped that they need to give concise answers or be cut off in their prime... but time and time again McConnell needed to be cut-off and spoken over in mid flow. Salmond sometimes does this too in other debates - but the difference is that he does so in my opinion to lands a final blow. McConnell was doing so without ever reaching a punchline!

I don't undertand why McConnell doesn't echo the Rhodri Morgan line in wales and make one or two criticism of the uk government. If he wants traditional labourites to respect him then he should have made wee quip about getting the troops home last year and perhaps oppose new generation nuclear power stations. I think Rhodri Morgan is respected a bit more because he sometimes says 'off-message' things which are more in tune with the people. At this stage I think McConnell should be interested in getting his own supporters to the polls and not fight the battle on two fronts independence and the SNP.

Alex Salmond gave the usual fairly polished performance and he seemed at ease. He didn't interupt as much as usual or shout people down. He was sitting next to McConnell and the contrast in body language and manners was there for all to see.

Nicol Stephen - inoffensive chap, is probably trying to portray salmond & mcconnell as the squabblers. I think he will always it problems on two things: being a democrat but not entertaining a referendum; and trying to tell us what he would do, when his party has had bargaining power to actually do it. Recognition factor is not good, in party politics terms Ming is worse than Chas at Uk-level as well which can't help matters.

Decent debate overall. I think Bernard Ponsonby might have gone a bit more 'paxman' on mcconnells problem over timing of the referendum. There was a suggestion two that snp sums didnt add up on tuition fees which may have been worth exploring and also nicol stephen could have been pushed more on the question of coalition deals. I guess it comes down to time constraints.

Reluctant Hero

Here are my thoughts:

I thought Goldie was totally relaxed and she came across pleasant enough. Apart from agreeing that there should be more powers for the Scottish government, I didn't agree with much she said though.

McConnell - Admittedly it is harder for the party in power as they have the task of actually doing things whereas other parties just need to say what they would do. Having said that, McConnell made an absolute meal of it. He was like a boxer on the ropes, with two and a half minutes left to go in the eleventh round. Loved it when he said that all Salmond wanted to talk about was issues that were reserved. Salmond pointed out that the issue was raised by someone in the audience and he was just answering it.

Salmond - He handled the occasion excellently. Was streets ahead of the rest. Whilst others got embroiled in negative comments about other parties, Salmond by and large kept to what the SNP would do. And while the others would talk at length and often over other speakers, Salmond kept to his time and remained quiet while others talked. Excellent presentation.

Stephen - I thought he was out of his depth. He (and the others) continued to pluck figures out of the air when he was slagging off the SNP policies, but when asked how much it would cost for the Lib Dems policy to replace the council tax with a local income tax, he said it would cost nothing. Really?

Overall, I thought the majority of the crowd were on Salmond's side and he came across as the best candidate to be the next First Minister.

Rinty

I agree re nicol stephen, he looked poorly prepared and was out of his depth, his answers on the council tax were fudged.

Salmond won this hands down and was very confident, McConnel looked like a leader who was being interviewed after losing an election, Goldie was polished but had zero content to any of her "common sense" type arguments.

This was a triumph for almong and the SNP, in my opinion, they are stroking the ball around like a confident team who know they are well on top.

SLG

I just hope they don't take their eye off the ball. 31 days is still a long way to go.

kevin04

Just watched the debate aswell, Overall I didn't think Crowe did a bad job at hosting it I read a few comments saying he was shouting down the leaders too much, I don't think so at all, Many of them continued to blaber on and on esp McConnell, How many times did he mention "holding a referendum in 3years will cause uncertainity to Scotland" He tried to bring it up on almost every issue,

Goldie - I thought again came across quite clear, well and added a slight bit of humour and even took the poll tax joke with a bity of banter, I don't agree with the conservatives policies so I'll not support them but if your looking for a leader who gives you real answers, doesn't dodge questions and basically "tells it how it is" She is the woman in my opinion, Creditability level and performance was good, I'll give her a 7/10.

McConnell - How many times did he continue to keep pushing on with answering more than he should, got caught out with the "Normally I'd support a referendum on Independence" and continued to repeat answers that he had said earlier on in the show, Came across pretty desperate, I thought after watching the first part he came across ok but nothing more than a back-bencher MSP, He really does come from the same school as Andy Kerr MSP, Overall did his best but not up to scratch, I'll give him 4/10

Salmond - Answered every question very well and I thought came across well and did not interupt people or come across as arrogant as he can sometimes, I think he answered the questions well and even when someone disagreed with him I felt he put his point across well, One thing I can gripe about about him is the way he doesn't look at his opponents when talking to them , for me it's just not the way to speak to people even if you strongly disagree with them, In my opinion is the man for First Minister and really is passionate about Scotland and will always stick up for us, I hope he's First Minister come May 9/10

Stephen - "The Liberal Democrats" He really knows how to use the party name in his quotes and every question he stated this or almost, Overall came across not that well at all, Kinda back-tracked on working with the SNP in a coalition, His policy not towards Independence but to a referendum is totally flawed for a party that's called LIBERAL DEMOCRATS, I think just came across to the general punters as "he puts me up nor down" and they always will, It's frustrating that with what in recent opinion polls having the Libs on 12% that they will make up the coalition of the next executive, Overall a 5/10 a bit better than McConnell,