23 June 2016
Anatomy of a Debate
A different way of keeping the score
by Don Urquhart
The worst are full of passionate intensity wrote Yeats just after the Great War. The words came into my mind just before the great EU referendum debate.
On Tuesday 21st June 2016, David Dimbleby hosted a debate at Wembley. On the Remain side were Ruth Davidson, Sadiq Khan and Frances O’Grady. Speaking for Leave were Boris Johnson, Andrea Leadsom and Gisela Stuart.
Earlier in the day political journalist Tim Montgomerie had averred that Ruth Davidson’s job would be to savage Boris and, watching the debate, I had the impression that the Remain side were going at it the more aggressively. So I watched it again, this time counting the number of times each speaker made ad hominem attacks on the other side or interrupted an opponent.
Here’s how it worked out. The person who spoke most was Sadiq (14), followed by Gisela (12), Andrea (11), Frances (9) and Ruth (9) with Boris surprisingly speaking the least number of times (8). So the Leavers addressed us 31 times and the Remainers 32. So who was the most aggressive? Here I noted each instance where lies or other failings were attributed to the other side or there was an interruption.
Ruth Davidson achieved a score of 37 with Sadiq just behind on 31. Frances was third with 15. Not surprisingly Boris was the most aggressive of the leavers on 11. Andrea scored 7 while Gisela had only 3 naughty points. The Remainers totalled 83 and the Leavers 21, which reinforced my original impression. One day we might find out whether the Remainers had a consciously aggressive strategy. One had the impression that Sadiq and Ruth’s more ranty passages were attracting crescendos of applause in a Nuremberg rally fashion. The contrast with the quite civilised and calm debating style of the two Leaving Ladies was quite marked. Boris seemed relatively subdued but attracted the biggest cheer of the night with his Independence Day climax.
No doubt spinners like Alastair Campbell or Lynton Crosby could be wise about the correct debating style to adopt in each situation. I know what I like in my debaters but it is clearly different strokes for different folk.
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