Ask the Chancellors debate on Channel 4
Updated on 29 March 2010
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While the showbiz sparring between David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown will certainly have me gripped, there is only one issue that really matters in this election: the economy. So while the leaders get the glamour, it is their money men, who would be chancellor in the next government, whose decisions affect most of us far more deeply.
Our jobs, pensions, benefits and businesses are just the obvious things that depend on the judgment of these men. They are the ones who also wield power over the schools our children go to, the hospitals our families are treated in, the transport network we use and the equipment our armed forces are sent to battle with.
At a time when the economy is so damaged and so fragile, and when we are all anxious and insecure about our futures it is the chancellor of the exchequer and his two shadows we must put under the microscope before voting.
That is why Channel 4 has spent three months negotiating with Alistair Darling, George Osborne and Vince Cable to mount the first ever televised election debate between the rivals.
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To their immense credit, all wanted something more unrestricted than the Prime Minister debates. The politically balanced audience will not be required to sit in silence. The questions they send in advance will be selected by a Channel 4 panel but kept strictly secret from the politicians.
The three men will each get to answer uninterrupted before debating each other freely with interventions from me if they stray off the topic, go on for too long or dodge the questions. No subject is off limits.
Each of them believes he has a unique advantage. They all think their ideas and policies are radically different to those of their rivals.
But for the first time television viewers will be able to see how far apart they really are when lined up next to each other.
Of course, the delicious tension in all this is that the opinion polls right now are still pointing towards a hung parliament. Knockout performances by any of the three men could make all the difference between Labour or the Tories being the largest party. And Vince Cable could end up being installed as chancellor as the price of Liberal Democrat support to prop up a minority government.
So it is crucial that the three men most likely to become chancellor are given the opportunity to debate the fine detail of economic policy and we might - finally – cut through the sound bite nonsense and expose what lies beneath it.
The obsession with the leaders’ wives is a symptom of just how trivial election coverage is in danger of becoming. That is why Channel 4 is so proud to put this hard headed and ground breaking debate into the prime time of our schedule and drop all the commercial breaks.
For so long the phony war of this interminable election build-up has been frustrating to watch. Now the three men who want the most important job in the next government are finally coming together to debate Britain’s economic future it is time for the real battle to begin. I can’t wait.
Ask The Chancellors will be broadcast live on Channel 4 at 8pm tonight (Monday 29th March)
