TV election debates don’t fit the UK democratic system. Hence the chaos

I wish I could get worked up about the televised election debates (or lack thereof). I can understand that it’s a very important to the broadcasters, who don’t mind reducing the campaign to three US-style standoffs. But if they don’t go ahead, is it really an outrage? Is our democracy really the poorer for it? When broadcasters are angry, they have a platform to vent – which is why the furore is been given disproportional coverage. But without the debates, the election will go on in the way that every election before 2010 went on. And I rather welcome that. The TV debates do make good entertainment but they do rather take over the campaign – and put the whole thing a little more in the hands of the political and media elite. And a little less in the hands of voters like Mrs Duffy who torpedoed Gordon Brown last year. Also, 98pc of us don’t get the choice to vote for or against the people we watch on the telly in these debates.