The Guardian view on the Salmond-Darling debate

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/06/guardian-view-salmond-darling-debate

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The absurd handling of the STV debate between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling on Tuesday night is a worrying symptom of the patchy grasp of the significance of next month’s Scottish referendum. STV offered the debate to the whole ITV network. It preferred to carry on with gardening and reality TV. Neither the BBC nor Sky was allowed to broadcast it live. That left everyone outside Scotland watching online, overburdening the system. Fragments of argument were interspersed with long periods of silent buffering. This was a misjudgment by STV and the ITV network. The referendum may matter most to voters in Scotland, but it is wrong to suppose it is not also hugely important to the rest of the UK.

The debate was all the more important because it marked the start of the countdown to the vote on 18 September. The questions addressed are ones that will dominate serious domestic politics for the next six weeks. The format STV adopted, with opening statements followed by cross-examination and audience questioning – managed with great competence by STV political editor Bernard Ponsonby – did a good job of creating a space where the first minister Alex Salmond could not escape the unexpectedly effective cross-examination of Better Together’s Alistair Darling. For political junkies, it was a high adrenalin 100 minutes of fast political swordplay.

The Guardian ICM poll taken immediately afterwards seemed to confirm that Mr Darling had pulled off a coup against odds that had widely predicted a Salmond triumph. Privately, the SNP campaign managers acknowledged that Mr Salmond had underperformed. More sober analysis shows that behind the headlines, the debate had worked rather less well where it mattered. In the main, people who were already No voters thought their man had won, and the Yes camp were satisfied with Mr Salmond. Mr Darling’s lead in the debate reflects the poll averages over the past year. The No campaign, despite a post-Commonwealth Games bounce for the other side, remains comfortably ahead. But the 15% of undecided voters were left largely unmoved. Both sides need to reconsider how they present their case.

Part of their problem is that each has come to personify in their style the substance of their argument. For a generation, the nimble, witty Mr Salmond with his salesman’s reputation has represented the idea of a Scotland unshackled from the constraints of English neoliberalism. For almost as long, Mr Darling has been the lawyerly student of the small print who feels obliged to tip cold water on romance. In front of an audience who fear their personal economic wellbeing is at stake, his attention to inconvenient detail exposed the flaws of a campaign based on Mr Salmond’s big picture rhetoric.

It is now known that there will be at least one more debate, on BBC TV on 25 August. Sky is hoping to get one too. The campaign strategists will already be calculating how to improve their impact. Towards the end of the exchanges on Tuesday, Mr Darling hinted at an alternative to the kind of eyeballing confrontation of STV’s debate. “I want a prosperous Scotland too,” he said, “I just don’t think that’s the way to do it.” That tone should be developed. The debate needs to be more positive. Mr Salmond should acknowledge (his team would like him to) that there are uncertainties and risks in independence, and he should stop acting as if pointing them out is an affront.

But Mr Darling also needs to present a more positive case for Scotland’s future in the UK. He was weakest on Tuesday when he was challenged on what extra powers he could promise. Part of his difficulty is that Labour’s offer on further devolution is less ambitious than either the Conservatives’ or the Lib Dems’. More detail, and more thoughtfulness, about the shape of the future Scottish economy and how it benefits from the union may be a better way of engaging the disconnected in a vote that is going to shape the future of the UK.