Day TV election debate was born

It is 60 years since the then Tory Prime Minister went before the cameras seeking another term in office.

It was all to play for as Sir Anthony Eden had only recently taken over from the elderly Sir Winston Churchill, who had returned the Tories to power three and a half years earlier.

The Prime Minister gathered 10 newspaper editors to put questions to him on screen. They were polite, they rambled on for longer than the Prime Minister took to answer them. And they never really gave a proper response. Some things never change.

Contrast it with the long-winded row over whether or not David Cameron would go head to head with Ed Miliband (he won't) or face a debate of seven party leaders (eventually he agreed he would on April 2) and the 1950s seem a gentler time where the issues took precedence over the spin and the style. The 1955 contest was unremarkable and brought about little change. Labour had descended into infighting (will it never learn?) between the Bevanites on the left and Gaitskellites on the right. But it was the first campaign where television took on a key role as 40 per cent of homes now had a set.

At the time there were around 4.5 million TV licences, an enormous jump on the 344,000 in 1950. By 2010 there were 22 million people tuning in for the debates between party leaders.

The 1955 campaign was also the first time the election night programme was recorded and archived, anchored by Richard Dimbleby, the father of BBC stalwarts David and Jonathan.

Eden seemed quite comfortable in front of the camera, presenting his own programme and introducing the assembled great and good of the free press.

It was certainly nothing like the 2010 debates in which Sky's Kay Burley would be whirling around in the 'spin room' talking to assembled hacks, hangers on, policy wonks and politicians as they all tried to claim their man had won.

"We haven't, of course, the least idea what the questions are going to be," Eden said. "I only hope we shall know the answers."

A reporter from the Northern Echo stood up first and said: "Eighty years ago the Northern Echo was saying the most shocking things about Disraeli and it remains stoutly, though independently, Liberal. It would like to know what a returned Tory administration might do about the Liberal proposal of a royal commission to enquire into the present functions of trade unions."

The Prime Minister dismissed it as a wide-ranging question, acknowledging only that there were 'problems to be dealt with there' and suggesting a royal commission might not be the way to do it.

Hugh Cudlipp of the Daily Mirror was next. "The Daily Mirror which I represent is not among your principle flatterers," he said with a wry smile.

Oh, if only he could see 60 years into the future and how his paper followed David Cameron around with a man in a chicken suit for ducking the series of debates the broadcasters had planned. "But we have and always have had a high regard for your integrity," Cudlipp continued. "I would therefore be obliged if you personally would answer this question. During my time there have been two sorts of Toryism.

There has been the Toryism of the small majority. There is the Toryism of the welfare state, the more humanitarian form of Toryism than we've known before.

"In pre-war years there was the Toryism of the big majority, the Toryism of neglected housing, neglected national defence, slums and massive unemployment. You were a minister at that time and were therefore responsible at any rate for a number of years. If you go back with a very big majority what sort of Toryism can we expect from your government?"

It was a little more academic than the headline 'Don't Be A Chicken Mr Cameron'.

Eden replied: "I hope and believe a progressive Toryism which tries to build Mr Cudlipp on the basis of what we've been doing the past three and a half years."

Blimey Sir Anthony, it sounded almost like you're the inspiration for George Osborne and his 'long term economic plan' which he shoehorns into every single interview.

"Our housing record in the pre-war years was remarkable and made possible what we go for now, the clearance of the slums," he continued. "We would like to be judged on what we mean to do by the extent to which we fulfilled what we undertook to do when we were returned under Sir Winston three and a half years ago."

James Holburn of the Glasgow Herald was next. And unsurprisingly the Scots were saying they were getting a raw deal. Admittedly, back then, they were. But what would he make of Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond of the SNP holding the prospect of the balance of power?

He said: "The unemployment rate is 2.9 per cent, more than double the unemployment rate in England. What proposals does the Conservative party have to remedy that state of affairs?"

Anthony Eden batted the question off to his colleague, the health minister Iain McLeod, whose parents were from Scotland, saying 'it's your native country'.

David Cameron will appear on TV alongside six other party leaders on ITV on April 2.

Two weeks later, April 16, five opposition leaders will debate on the BBC. Then on April 30 David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg will appear on a special edition of Question Time.

They are bound to involve petty point scoring, ruthless spinning and personal attacks aplenty. But at least they won't be as dull as the day Sir Anthony Eden met the Press.

l Watch the video at expressandstar.com