PRESENT TENSE:THE BRITISH general election campaign is not exactly setting party conversation alight here. It's their business. Nick Clegg was their flavour of the week. It is their battle involving a couple of public schoolboys trying to de-posh themselves. It is their leader who looks like he's been taught to smile by someone who's never actually seen a smile.
In a week when Europe suddenly became an extra in One Million Years BC, we had something bigger on our minds. It smouldered more than David Cameron ever will.
But from this distance there have been a couple of curiosities out of it; notably how the commentary has embraced the immediacy of new technology, yet how everything has focused even more on the traditional medium of television.
The television debates have brought showbiz to the campaign, and a pronounced giddiness from journalists. They gathered inside and outside a Bristol building on Thursday night, spotlights sweeping its walls, and bounced with excitement. On ITV, Alastair Stewart looked as if he might succumb to gibbering mania. He assaulted an audience with shouted demands for “instantreaction!” and jabbed at them with rolled-up paper. “Instantreaction!” He represented only a slightly more pumped-up version of the British media in general. The debates were clearly the most exciting thing to happen to them in some time.
Irish election campaigns could do with this kind of showbiz, rather than the traditional type that involves the back of a truck and the gale scratching at a mic. The Irish debates have been important – Ahern’s clobbering of Kenny last time around was crucial – but they have always taken place in an atmospheric vacuum. No audience. No standing. And only two leaders. There will be no excuse next time around.
The British debates have been a decent introduction, following years of being fretted over and avoided. They had an instant impact.
Without the first, for example, there would have been no “audacity of Clegg”.
That line came from the Guardian, which this week created a poster of Nick Clegg rendered in the Obama "Hope" style. It ran a pretty funny headline with it: "The fierce urgency of Nick; the audacity of Clegg." It was fun, but if its coverage could be summed up in a noise it would be the snort of someone enjoying their own jokes. It also ran a mildly amusing April Fool story saying New Labour was going to run anti-Cameron posters that featured Gordon Brown and the line "Step outside, Posh Boy". That was fine, but the newspaper has since treated it as if it was a joke that gave the whole world a stitch, and gone as far as to print T-shirts with the slogan on it.
Still, it reflects the way in which the attitude of Twitter and viral e-mails has influenced the commentary in the older media.
Newsnightfeatured a painful section after each debate in which a reporter read Tweets about the debates, not understanding that a Tweet dies when isolated from the torrent and read aloud.
Most obvious, though, has been the arrival of “the worm” into the mainstream. The polling device – manifesting as a scrolling wiggle on the screen – will be familiar to those who watched the RTÉ specials before the 2007 election, when US pollster Frank Luntz showed an audience various leaders’ speeches and the people indicated positive or negative responses to each. It was notable for showing that, when listened to for a sustained period, Michael McDowell could elicit a certain sympathy previously unsuspected by science. This was just before he was kicked out of his seat.
In the British election, several of the major media outlets have had their own worms, some encouraging participation online, others – such as ITV and the Tigger-like Alastair Stewart – using a small panel of undecided voters. (“These. Are. Gold dust,” said Stewart, coming over all 300.) The resulting squiggle was then examined in “stop it there!” detail; how it spiked or slumped when they discussed immigration or the health service or when Brown tried to smile.
In the post-debate discussion, the worm became guru-like. What did the worm say? How did the worm react? Behind it was a tiny sample of knob-twiddling voters, smaller than any standard survey. But that was unimportant. The worm has turned.
At last, punditry is as instant as it can get. It comes as quickly as a neuron can fire. Is it reliable? Possibly no more so than any traditional method. But the debates have been vital and if the worm is only a doodle on the surface of public discussion, at least it comes in several colours.