How you can judge someone's leadership credentials from a three-way TV bunfight?

Lots of Election talk in my office this week, and as you'd expect, most of it has been about these leaders' debates. Now I don't know about you, but it seems to me that a three-way live TV debate is a pretty idiotic way to pick a Prime Minister. In a televised bunfight like that, the whole thing just gets reduced to a soundbite-off, and people end up electing the guy who looks best on the telly. I know that's an important skill these days, but surely it's not the only one that matters? Surely you want the guy who's going to run the country to get a better examination than that?

I've been on TV a couple of times, and it was a pretty odd experience: since you know you're only going to get a very short time slot, it encourages you to talk in pre-prepared soundbites, as opposed to actually conversing like a human being. And these leaders debates will be even worse, because all three of them will have spent the previous night being prepped to the eyeballs by their eager minions, who spend their lives boiling policies down into catchy slogans. Besides, when have you ever seen a three-way row actually get anywhere? If I wanted to see three men shouting at each other for an hour, I could just go to my local on a Friday night.

Personally, it just seems a weird way of assessing people. I hate the idea that someone might have decided how good an entrepreneur I was just by watching me on the telly (though I'm sure some did). All sorts of the stuff that makes good businesspeople good just doesn't come across on TV - like your assessment of risk, or how good you are at working out what makes people tick. I know being Prime Minister isn't quite the same, but surely the same principle holds?

Put it this way: if you had three job candidates at final round, you'd hardly decide who was best by putting them in a room and letting them argue the toss with each other, would you? No - you'd set them various challenges to test the different bits of their skill-set, and then you'd personally grill them afterwards on their strengths and weaknesses. So why aren't we doing the same with the people who want to run the country? If people are willing to watch the Apprentice, I'm sure they'd watch that.

Although to be honest, I'm not convinced that knowing more about our potential future leaders would give us greater respect for them. Probably the reverse, if anything.