Debates Come to the United Kingdom: A Functional Analysis of the 2010 British Prime Minister Election Debates

Abstract

The year 2010 ushered in the first ever televised leaders' debates for the Prime Minister of Britain. Incumbent Gordon Brown (Labor), David Cameron (Conservative) and Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat) participated in three debates in the run up to the May elections. Millions of voters watched these debates. These messages merit scholarly attention as the first ever debates in this country. This study applies the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse to investigate the functions (acclaims, attacks, and defenses), topics (policy and character, along with the 3 forms of each topic), and target of attack. Acclaims were the most common function and defenses the least common; policy was discussed more often than character. The 2 front-runners (Brown and Cameron) were the targets of more attacks than the trailing candidate (Clegg). Brown, the incumbent, acclaimed more, and attacked less, than the two challengers.

Keywords:

• Britain
• Election Debates
• Functions
• Incumbency
• Prime Minister
• Topics

Notes

We prefer the term policy to issue because the latter has two meanings. It can be synonymous with policy; however, issue can also refer to a debatable question. Thus, one can speak of the issue of a candidate's character, which could be confusing. We use character instead of image because it is possible to say that candidates craft an image of their policies.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

William L. Benoit

William L. Benoit (Ph.D., Wayne State University, 1979) is a Professor of Communication Studies at Ohio University.

Jennifer M. Benoit-Bryan

Jennifer M. Benoit-Bryan (M.A., University of Missouri, 2006) is a Ph.D. student in Public Administration at the University of Illinois, Chicago.