Is this logical next step in UK's increasingly presidential politics?

IN A last-minute change, David Cameron used his party political broadcast last night not to attack Labour as planned but to make a personal plea to voters to avoid what he believes is the danger of a hung parliament.

By making the focus of the broadcast the claim that only the Conservatives can deliver the much vaunted but still ill-defined "change", Mr Cameron was acknowledging the impact made by the performance of Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg in the first prime ministerial debate last week.

Given that a large number of polls, including one by YouGov for this paper and our sister publication Scotland on Sunday, have shown a surge in support for the Lib Dems, it is clear the threat posed by Mr Clegg's party to Labour and the Tories is very real.

However, both Mr Cameron's response and Labour's decision to continue to focus on the Conservatives, in the hope the Tories will be squeezed, are merely tactical decisions. They do not address a far deeper question that last week's debate threw up over the constitutional arrangements that prevail in the United Kingdom.

The three-way debate was the logical end to the increasingly presidential nature of politics in Britain, a process that first properly took hold when the Conservatives introduced the US style of campaigning to sell Margaret Thatcher in the late 1970s.

But consider this: the UK is a parliamentary democracy; we do not have a president. In theory, we elect local members of parliament, albeit mainly under party banners, to individual constituencies who travel to Westminster and vote through the formation of an executive arm, the government, which is accountable to parliament.

Yet, over the years, starting with Mrs Thatcher and accelerated under Tony Blair, the role of parliament in holding the executive to account has been stymied as the government, and specifically the prime minister, acquired more and more power.

So, as we ponder the outcome of the first debate and look forward to the next one this Thursday, we would do well not merely to think in terms of who bested whom, or who deployed the best television technique, but also to consider what this new form of election exchange means for our country.

Do we, as a nation, want a quasi-presidential system without the checks and balances that exist in a country like the United States? If we do not – and there are legitimate fears over too much power being concentrated in the office of the prime minister – then what do we do?

Is it, in other words, time to begin a debate about radical parliamentary reform in which the UK might have a directly elected political leader, held properly to account over legislation and spending by a more independent and assertive parliament? It is a question of fundamental importance to this country and one which it is in the interest of those who value the principle of real democracy to answer.