Some speakers play to the gallery because they may be good at manipulating public support and need to judge general reaction, some require heavy preparation and others are intinctively nimble on their feet.

So the only way to ensure fairness is to have a series of debates in different areas and under different conditions where different characteristics can be put under the spotlight to give a rounded view.

If you’re going to support debating then it must be done properly. All major broadcasters should be given an appropriate slot to devise their own format, or none.

If you had more back-and-forth, and a moderator who could adjudge an answer to be inadequate or incomplete and a question to be unfair or irrelevant (the dreaded “have you stopped beating your wife” question where neither yes nor no is accurate) then you could get useful and helpful conclusions from a debate. You’d probably be better off with the two candidates asking each other questions and the moderator just selecting topics (like “health” or “education”, possibly a bit narrower like “HE/FE student finance”).

Of course, the problem is that the candidates would be unlikely to accept such a format where they would be forced to ask fair questions and to answer them if asked.

I have watched a lot of US / NZ / Australian leaders debates over the last 30 years + and have to say that it comes down to the pre-agreed rules and format, the quality / attitude of the moderator / where there’s a media panel to probe answers / whether people can comment on each other’s answers & question each other, etc.

There have been good and bad debates, but they are not of any instrinsically “bad politics”.