General election: TV showpieces prove public yet to be convinced by party leaders
We won't know if TV sessions change voters' minds until 12 December - but the public see the problems each of the leaders face.
Tuesday 26 November 2019 09:42, UK
In this election it's not journalists who are forcing the best answers from politicians, it's members of the public.
Perhaps because the leaders know they have a battle on their hands to change minds and no result is guaranteed.
In such an unpredictable election where leaders are fighting to win over voters who may never have considered backing their party before, everything is up for grabs. So relying on traditional party loyalties won't be enough.
Last night, like earlier this week when Boris Johnson was asked about taxes and let slip a May party policy on cutting them, it was a plain question about Jeremy Corbyn's Brexit stance which finally got an answer.
The Labour leader has been asked repeatedly throughout the campaign how he would fight a second referendum, in favour of leaving or remaining inside the EU. Until now he hasn't answered.
He will remain neutral on the question, he twice confirmed to the audience. The question now is what will his shadow cabinet do?
Just minutes after the Question Time session finished, Andy McDonald, Labour's shadow transport secretary, said he would be campaigning for Remain. Others will no doubt follow suit, it being too difficult for them not to take a position while fighting to keep their seats.
This is Labour's central battle in this campaign and one, clearly, the leader has decided to settle once and for all - at least for his personal view.
Some had expected him to dodge the question for the next few weeks, perhaps party strategists have calculated that ambiguity is more harmful to his chances than setting out a definitive answer, even if it is to decide nothing at all.
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The Conservatives though will be over the moon. For them his decision is a big win to prove they are the only party with a grip on the Brexit issue and a credible plan to finish it. Mr Corbyn's decision to hand that choice to the British people in a second vote allows them to argue that he isn't a leader and can't be relied upon to tackle the tough questions.
None of the leaders got an easy ride. Boris Johnson faced a number of questions about trust. Again and again the audience asked whether they could believe he would deliver on his pledges or whether he thought it was important to tell the truth.
It is a recurring theme, having reared its head in the debate between him and the Labour leader. Polling after that clash showed Mr Johnson was seen as the least trustworthy of the two men.
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He was also asked about whether articles he had written had fuelled racist incidents across the country and invited to apologise, he didn't.
Instead he defended the articles, calling on the audience to read them and discover he was defending women's rights to wear anything they wanted and not be oppressed.
Another audience member suggested you don't need to insult Muslim women to defend their right to wear traditional dress.
Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson faced the most hostile time of all, getting not one positive question throughout her half hour grilling. A number of Remain supporters said her revoke policy was too big a step for them and criticised her party for being too focused on division and not enough on working with Labour to block a Conservative government.
The party claimed later it had researched the decision to back revoke carefully and the audience doesn't represent the wider view in the country. But there is no doubt the Liberal Democrats haven't had as easy an election trail so far as they'd have hoped, amid rumours they are now scaling back their ambitions.
Nicola Sturgeon knew what message she had to deliver and she did it clearly and repeatedly. Despite Jeremy Corbyn's pledge there will be no second Scottish independence referendum in the first two years of his government she willed voters not to believe him, claiming he would change his mind in order to grasp the keys of Number 10 and reverse austerity.
Tough questions on the record of Sturgeon's government and whether too much focus on independence had led to failures in other areas followed.
So do sessions like these really change minds? We won't know for sure until 12 December but the questions revealed something even more telling: the public see the problems each of these leaders face and they are yet to be convinced. All four candidates have just weeks left to do it.
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- Watch Dermot Murnaghan live from 9pm on 12 December
- See the exit poll at 10pm
- Watch KayBurley@Breakfast election special on 13 December
- Find out what happens next in All Out Politics special from 9am with Adam Boulton