A Good One to Miss?

Tuesday night, ah just pottered about a bit, made dinner, watched a bit of the England friendly and headed up to my beloved's after her choir rehearsals had finished. Leader's debate? Ah… what leaders debate?

The first indication I had that a televised Leaders hustings had taken place was listening to "Good Morning Scotland" heading into work the next morning. From what I gather, Salmond kinda coasted it, Gray was like a nippy dog that probably lost votes because of his aggression and his faux pas over Council Tax. While the other two were… well the other two. All in all, and with no policies to attack, much ado about nothing. If there is a way of seeing some of it (as it does not appear to be available "On-Demand") I'd like to know where it is available.

Which brings us to the curious question of why? Last year's "Leaders" debates were well publicised, were scheduled at peak time viewing and were scheduled during the Westminster Election campaign – the first one was just before the mid point of the General Election campaign. So why was the first debate scheduled for a Tuesday night, up against an England friendly, will little advanced warning and at a time when campaigning is barely luke warm? STV surely should have done a better job of promoting the programme and they should have done a better job of scheduling the debate.

Surely this far out, the broadcasters aren't a little embarrassed at the quality of the candidates.  If the Scottish based media are embarrased, what will the London-centric one's be thinking?  Apart from Salmond, and Tavish Scott's beard (which sadly has disappeared), none of them really portray a sense of identity or personality. As for a vision on how the next four years are going to pan out for Scotland, forget it. It does bear thinking about, that an election as crucial as this one, and already the Glasgow based broadcasters are showing a slight disinterest. Still, the campaign proper hasn't started yet, plenty of time to get the campaign up to luke warm.