While I’m sure Nigel ‘Playground’ Mirage is right when he says the Prime Minister is running scared of TV debates prior to the 2015 Election, for once I agree with Mr Cameron: it would be extremely hard to trivialise British politics any further, but I for one remain confident of TV’s ability to do just that.

I remember in 2010 being horrified when, after the first debate, commentators I had previously admired heaped praise upon “this long overdue mean of galvanising the electorate”. The following day, a poll showed that 32% of the country suddenly felt Nick Clegg should be Prime Minister. There was a LibDem surge. If the trend continued, said a poll conducted among telegraph poles, we would be a One Party State by election day.

We would all do well to remember exactly what it was that put Cleggover in pole (or poll) position for Downing Street:

1. He managed to get through ninety minutes without soiling himself, or nodding off.

2. He explained how the other two big boys had stolen his bus fare, and then run away.

3. He made a cast-iron promise that he, Nick Clegg, was neither Gordon Brown nor David Cameron.

Now look at Slick Nick’s track-record over the last four or more years. Is it a vindication of TV political debates, or a damnation of them?

I cannot remember a single TV debate in the US that ever tackled a real issue – or threw useful light upon what was really going on.

But I do remember Reagan v Carter, and Peanuts Jimmy talking about investing in US infrastructure; and I also recall vividly how seasoned B-movie actor Ronald Reagan kept saying over and over – as if the Southerner might be a raging bestial pervert – “There you go again, spending taxpayers’ money”. The idea of taxpayers’ money is that the Government uses it sensibly to improve the lot of the citizens. You can’t do that if you don’t spend any of it. You may get a huge surplus, but there will also be a lot of dead people as a result of house fires, bankers, market manipulation, bankers, holes in the road, bankers, murderers, bankers who are murderers, urban anarchy, bankers, State bankruptcies, bankers, food poisoning, bankers, neo-natal mortality rates, bankers, uncontrolled pandemics, and of course bankers.

Anyway, Ronnie romped home….and left the country with the biggest Sovereign debt increase in its 200 year history.

There are two overriding problems with television as a political medium:

1. It isn’t real – but a frightening number of people think it is. Think ‘Piers Morgan interviewing Gordon Brown in 2010’. A supposedly spontaneous exchange that was scripted tosh from start to finish.

2. Some of the most almighty sh*ts in history have performed rather well on it: Simon Cowell, Robert Maxwell, Jim Bakker, Bill Clinton, Kate Burley, Hughie Green, and Kelvin Mackenzie…and yes, I could go on all night if you wish.

Doubtless, if he thought he had the upper hand, David Cameron would be first to the TV podium. And in my view, that’s the best possible reason for strangling the TV Candidates’ Debate before it becomes yet another regrettable feature of our dustbowl political landscape.

Earlier at The Slog: don’t bank on a strong Dollar for much longer