Image has never been more important than it currently is in politics. In the week after the oft-talked about televised debates were confirmed, young hopefuls in the next generation of politicians may as well incinerate their power suit now if they have so much as a vaguely amusing accent or asymmetrical hands. To succeed as a politician in modern Britain you need to command a stage like Roger Daltrey, harness the wit of Oscar Wilde and not be Robert Kilroy-Silk.

For the three party leaders, nothing could possibly be more terrifying than these debates.  Despite the apathetic derision that they’ve attracted from the public it’s inevitable that huge numbers of people will tune in, if only for the very real possibility of witnessing the televised disintegration of each man’s lifetime of ambition and effort. It’s taken each party leader decades of painstaking study and slog to get to where they are now, but one slip of the tongue would forever consign them to the dusty archives of televised bloopers next to the elephant who shat on the floor on Blue Peter.

The three men would only take such an enormous risk for an enormous benefit, and that would be an improvement in each of their public images. None of them are held in particularly high regard at the moment. David Cameron has a deplorable back-of-a-spoon-reflection face and his attempts to come across as a humble man of the people are the political equivalent of a ‘Dress Like A Chav’ fundraising day at a public school. Gordon Brown is in the unenviable position of half the country believing him to be a lumbering buffoon and the other half insisting he’s the most dangerous and violent leader Britain’s seen since Anders Bollockgobbler pillaged York in 934, and Nick Clegg has fewer distinguishable characteristics than Wilson from Castaway. If one party is to pull ahead in this election race the image of their leader is, rightly or wrongly, absolutely key.

It is barely conceivable now that, little more than sixty years ago, the public would have had to have voted for a man who they’d only seen as a polished figure in a newspaper or, depending on their popularity, as a lewd etching inside a toilet cubicle. It’s impossible to tell just how much history might have run a different course if our media existed in the time of Winston Churchill and, just before a vital election, he was photographed topless on a beach with the headline ‘V For Voluptuous’. An image-centric world of politics has the capability of pushing a potentially great leader down and of hoisting a vacuous please-all non-entity up.

However, as for the televised debates, I see them doing more good than harm. Although it will mark the crowning triumph of personality politics, voter apathy needs to be combated in Britain. At the very least, the debates will be widely-viewed opportunities for each leader to extend upon the usual snippets of Prime Minister’s questions provided by the news and there’s no question that it will allow the public to make a more informed choice come the election. At the very best, the footage of David Cameron being dragged from the studio after pissing his trousers and treading on David Dimbleby’s foot will be replayed on Auntie’s Bloomers forever more.

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Image courtesy of World Economic Forum