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Leaders' debates are a bad idea & encourage all the worst trends in UK politics: presidentialisation, the cult of personality ("Cleggmania"?), the reduction of parliamentary parties to fandoms for their leaders and the mistaking of fluency/"authenticity" for statecraft. #NoThanks
These presidential-style debates also raise yet another barrier to new entrants/smaller parties, at a time of widespread disillusionment with the Big Two. You either shut out the Greens/LDs/UKIP/SNP/Plaid Cymru etc, or the format becomes hopelessly unwieldy.
There's also a constitutional issue. Leaders' debates make elections more explicitly about a personal mandate for a potential prime minister. That creates a legitimacy problem if the PM changes mid-term - yet the Fixed Term Parliament Act makes it harder to seek a fresh mandate.
