Vote 2010: gearing up for the leaders’ debates
Alastair Campbell plays David Cameron. Chris Huhne is Gordon Brown. Michael Gove plays Adam Boulton. There’s a debate you’d like to watch.
Alas these are private events being played out in the rehearsal rooms of our main party leaders. Gordon Brown has upset some in the team who thought there was a window in the diary for rehearsals on Sunday only to discover that he intends to watch Raith Rovers instead.
I hear that President Obama’s former press chief Anita Dunn has brought some New York bluntness to the Cameron team talk-throughs. David Cameron has his first full dress rehearsal this week in the lecture theatre at Millbank currently used as a press conference venue for the party.
What will all this mean for British politics? We have a look at the debates on tonight’s programme with contributions from Paddy Ashdown (who’d have given his right arm to get an equal parity prime time showing like this), David Davis (who debated David Cameron in the 2005 Tory leadership contest) says Gordon Brown’s been getting better of late and is not the easy win for the Tory leader that he might be – he compares him to a flabby Olympian who’s been getting back in training).
We’ve also dug up a forgotten moment from Channel 4 News’ chancellors debate in 1997 when Malcolm Bruce appears to shove Gordon Brown for interrupting him.
For the record I understand these are cast lists for at least some of the rehearsals:
Gordon Brown’s team:
David Cameron (Alastair Campbell); Nick Clegg (Theo Brennan – No10 staffer); Alastair Stewart/Adam Boulton/David Dimbleby (David Muir – Labour’s top pollster)
David Cameron’s team:
Gordon Brown (Damian Green); Nick Clegg (Jeremy Hunt); Alastair Stewart/Adam Boulton/David Dimbleby (Michael Gove)
Nick Clegg’s team:
Gordon Brown (Chris Huhne); David Cameron (David Laws)
You can see the film on the leaders’ debates on tonight’s Channel 4 News at 6:30pm.
Ask the leaders: Channel 4 News will be liveblogging key election events throughout the campaign including the live leaders’ debates with Nick Clegg, Gordon Brown and David Cameron. You can follow at http://channel.com/news, on twitter @c4election and you can comment on if you include the hashtag #asktheleaders.