Televised debates in pre-2010 UK elections?

Not really. Heath always did very poorly in matchups with Wilson in terms of person popularity; one of them generally lost elections, the other generally won them. Wilson was avuncular; Heath was, well, Ted Heath. Although Labour was in the pits for most of the '66-'70 period in the polls, by the election they'd recovered and most people expected Labour to win with a small majority. Heath won in spite of himself.Heath would be very much not 'the man' going into a TV debate.

As Lord Roem suggested on the other thread, I direct you to Andrew Marr's 'History of Modern Britain' on Youtube (episode 3, part 5). If Ted Heath wasn't a truly sucessful meretricious* individual at that time then Marr has been fooled into believing otherwise.

Is there opinion polling from the late sixties measuring the popular support of both as leaders? Heath won the first of the three confrontations, you know.

V-J said:
So a lot would depend upon his performance. Presumably Wilson would have the good sense to sidestep invoking Powell directly to attack the Tories; although he could attempt to tie him into a 'Selsdon Man' image and try to brand the Tories as split. Although if the moderator asks about Powell, clearly Heath would have to denounce him in some form or other. That would not really help the Tories.

I think you're right that Wilson doesn't go after the Tories' malevolent mad uncle, but that has the potential to create as many problems as it solves for him.

*According to at least two definitions of that word.
 
As Lord Roem suggested on the other thread, I direct you to Andrew Marr's 'History of Modern Britain' on Youtube (episode 3, part 5). If Ted Heath wasn't a truly sucessful meretricious* individual at that time then Marr has been fooled into believing otherwise.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what your point is here.

Is there opinion polling from the late sixties measuring the popular support of both as leaders?

Yep. I can dig it out if you wish.

This was always Maudling's big card against Heath - Maudling was personally popular.

Heath won the first of the three confrontations, you know.

No, he didn't. (There were four of them)
 
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No, because these were privately arranged debates on a personal level between Cameron and Brown and Sky/ITV/BBC, Ofcom had no precedent or, barring obvious things like nudity (!), authority over the events. It was indeed Cameron's insistence that got Clegg into the debates (and possibly cost him an overall majority, if you take into account the fact the Lib Dems may have done even worse if Clegg hadn't done as well as he did).

Indeed- I think had it not been for Cleggmania casting doubt on Cameron being the real "force for change" we'd have seen a slim Conservative majority of perhaps ten or fifteen seats- the Tories would've picked up a handful more Labour seats and perhaps a dozen Liberal ones. It's open to debate as to how stable that majority would've been for Cameron, but personally, I'm of the opinion that he'd be able to coast through the first couple of years of the Parliament quite nicely even on a tiny majority- he'd be a hero to the party in a way that even now he isn't quite.
 
I'm sorry, I'm not sure what your point is here.

Andrew Marr isn't a good source? Of course it's only Television, but I'm sure his companion book about the series is as good as any other non-academic source.

'The Writing On The Wall' was recommended to me by my British uni lecturer as the best single volume work about the UK politics of this era, and it's based on a TV documentary series (though in that case the producers had the advantage of securing hours of interviews with many of the leading figures of the day. Marr's show is the work of a pure essayist.)

V-J said:
Yep. I can dig it out if you wish.

Well, I suppose getting some raw data from 1970 might be the only way for us to prove or disprove our respective theses... Ignoring the raw data of that year's general election, of course.

V-J said:
No, he didn't. (There were four of them)

Correct.
 
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