by James Kelly
PRIOR TO 2010, Britain had no tradition of televised debates between the party leaders during general election campaigns. But there was a very long-standing tradition that almost every general election campaign would see a debate about whether or not there should be debates. Typically the underdog in the race would challenge the frontrunner to a TV showdown, and the frontrunner would then have to dream up a plausible-sounding excuse for saying “no”. The theory was always that if you were winning, it would be stupid to do anything that might risk altering the trajectory of the campaign.