The most famous TV election debate image is a sweaty and unshaven Richard Nixon up against the telegenic JFK in the US in 1960.
Here in the UK, the most decisive debate game-changer was Gordon Brown and David Cameron conceding “I agree with Nick” in 2010.
That sparked the “Cleggmania” which propelled Nick Clegg to the post of deputy prime minister in Mr Cameron’s coalition government.
Mr Nixon’s disaster under the harsh TV lights came in the first TV debate held in a US presidential election, one of four during the 1960 campaign.
At the time, Mr Nixon was Republican vice-president and John F Kennedy a young Democratic Party senator. But Mr Nixon was cruelly exposed as a TV novice and looked shifty.
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He was pale, after a hospital stay because of a knee injury, his suit colour blended in with the set and his refusal to wear TV make-up revealed a five-o-clock shadow.
The debate was a turning point in the campaign and changed US politics for ever: just as the 2010 Brown-Cameron-Clegg debates blazed a trail in the UK.
It was 50 years after the Nixon-JFK clash before TV debates between party leaders in general election campaigns began in the UK. There were three in 2010, hosted by ITV, Sky News and the BBC.
Prior to 2010, the lack of debates wasn’t for the lack of trying, however, with opposition leaders or prime ministers behind in the polls issuing a challenge and then being rebuffed.
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