PERSONALLY, I have never thought television debates by party leaders are suited to our representative parliamentary democracy.

They are an import from the United States of America, where the system is very different. In US presidential elections there is a choice between candidates, for whom every voter has the opportunity to vote.

Those candidates are competing for the chance to exercise the enormous executive powers of the presidency and there is a case for placing such great emphasis on seeing how they debate the big issues between one another.

Our parliamentary system is very different indeed. Unlike the US president, we do not directly elect a person to wield executive powers. On the contrary, we elect members of parliament, whose duty it is to hold the executive branch of government to account.

Also unlike the US, in the UK not every voter has the opportunity to vote for potential prime ministers. For example: only constituents in the parliamentary division of Witney will have the opportunity to vote for David Cameron; only those in Doncaster North have the opportunity to vote for Ed Miliband; only those in Sheffield Hallam for Nick Clegg; only those in South Thanet for Nigel Farage; and, absurdly, nobody anywhere will have the opportunity to vote for Nicola Sturgeon of the Scottish Nationalists because she isn’t even standing in the election and neither is Peter Robinson, leader of the Democratic Unionists, standing – but he demands to be heard in the debates too.

Then there is also Natalie Bennett for the Greens standing in Bristol somewhere. There are others too, such as Leanne Wood of Plaid Cymru.

To subject all these candidates to the scrutiny of a contrived television debate and to treat them as if each and every one of them has an equal chance of being prime minister is a deception, and an absurd one at that.

Notwithstanding the furore in the press and among broadcasters, not a single constituent has contacted me to express a view about any of this. I doubt people care much about it.

The notion that some great principle is at stake, or that voters might be denied some vital spectacle to which they are democratically entitled, is just ridiculous.

“Spectacle”, on reflection, is probably the right word for it. I doubt that much light will emerge from the suggested formats –and they are certainly not debates.

I think that the TV companies regard them primarily as a form of entertainment and are more interested in ratings than democracy.

The emphasis placed on leadership TV “debates” runs counter to one of the more promising political developments of recent years. Voters in the UK elect members of Parliament, not leaders or prime ministers.

So the interest in the role of individual MPs has been a welcome and positive development.

Firstly, there has been increasing use of “open primaries” which have enabled voters to have a direct voice in the choice of who their party political candidates are.

Secondly, we are putting in place legislative provisions to enable constituents to “sack” their MP. I suggest that voters take more interest in the opportunities that will arise during the election campaign to engage in debate with candidates in their own parliamentary divisions, and who they can actually vote for.

At the last general election there were four public meetings where anyone had the opportunity to ask questions of all the candidates in the New Forest West parliamentary division.

It is my intention that the same opportunities will arise in this year’s election.

I hope voters will come along and participate, rather than be mere spectators in front of the telly.