Election Marathon: the verdict
It’s all over bar the shouting

What the Parties Thought
Northern organisers of political parties on both sides of the Pennines seem agreed on Marathon. They liked it.
These were some of their comments:
Mr. Arthur N. Banks, Secretary of the N.W. Provincial Area of the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations: “The Granada Election Marathon was a great, helpful and revealing pioneer effort in television electioneering. It succeeded in bringing candidates of all parties into the homes of many thousands of electors who do not attend meetings or get the opportunity of seeing their candidates face to face. I thought the presentation of Marathon was completely fair, most interesting, and admirably executed”.
Mr. Reg Wallis, North-West Regional Organiser of the Labour Party: “Marathon proved of very real interest to large numbers of electors and contributed to the interest in the Election, which led to a higher poll than 1955. Electors were not only interested in their own candidates, but in comparing them with those from other constituencies. A programme well worth reproduction.”
Mr. Albert Ingham, Chief Agent of the Liberal Party and Secretary of the Yorkshire Liberal Federation: “The idea of Marathon was a most effective and practical contribution to the General Election. Naturally there was a bit of repetition from candidates quoting policy and giving facts and figures, but all that made the vast television election audience General Election conscious. The times of the broadcasts could, perhaps, have been better selected, perhaps just after the evening news. The absence of an audience with its background of an odd heckler or two left Marathon a little lacking in colour, but, of course, time was the major, vital factor. All candidates in all parties had a fair crack of the whip and Granada did a first-class job…. Marathon was a success”.
What the Papers Said
Whatever their critics might think of it, the newspapers treated Marathon as news.
The nationals reported after the first day:
“Marathon Gets Off to No-Hitch Start” (News Chronicle).
“Barbara (on TV) Attacks ‘Bubbly Boom'” (Daily Express).
“Labour Daubs Tory TV Whitewash” (Daily Herald).
“That certain Smile Steals TV Marathon” (Daily Mail).
The Mail story began: “Is a good TV smile a vote winner? Every party will be pondering that one today after the hit success of Mrs. Barbara Garden, a Conservative candidate who stole the Granada election marathon”.
The Express gave a column to the first show. It reported that after it Mrs. Barbara Castle said: “Electors can see their candidates but there isn’t enough time to impress them either with personality or argument”.
The Express did a survey of reactions, but apparently it had difficulty finding anyone who watched:
“I would have like to have looked in but it was rather a difficult time — I was getting my husband’s dinner ready” — Mrs. Catherine Farr, Blackburn.
The Express also reported: A snap check on five homes in Bolsover revealed that only one family watched.
The Daily Herald, dabbling in metaphor, reported: “Granada’s TV Election programme Marathon started last night with a dreary procession of Tory candidates — each armed with whitewash”.
The local papers told their readers what their candidates said on Marathon:
“Tory and Socialist fight it out on TV Marathon” (Oldham Evening Chronicle).
“Hull’s Lively Eight on TV” (Hull Daily Mail).
“Clash on TV Over Schools” (Keighley News).
“That Pension Quote Comes Up on TV” (Lincolnshire Echo).
“Blackpool Candidates Make History on Television” (Blackpool Gazette. The Gazette gave the candidates’ remarks in full.)
In Sheffield what happened on Marathon rumbled in the headlines for several days afterwards — and came back on Marathon. The argument was about newspaper articles the Labour candidate for Attercliffe, Mr. J. B. Hynd, produced on the show. “Look at these headings in the Tory press — ‘Redundancy is feared at English Steel Corporation’ and ‘Longer Dole Queues’,” said Mr. Hynd.
“Outside the studio”, reported the Sheffield Star, “the real row started when Mr. Hynd showed Sir Peter Roberts the copy of the Star he had produced. Indignantly Sir Robert pointed out: ‘But look at the date, that was in November last year . . . Bad show that, John, to produce an old copy of the Star. Just not cricket.’ Mr. Hynd: ‘But unemployment still exists’.” Two days later on Marathon another Conservative candidate criticised Mr. Hynd for displaying the newspaper — and the Labour candidate hotly defended him.
In Chorley, the Evening Telegraph reported that the Labour candidate had challenged his opponent to debate nationalisation after something said on Marathon. In Blackpool the Gazette reported that the Conservatives were “indignant” at a statement about evictions a Labour candidate made on Marathon. The Yorkshire Post gave half a column to the debate between Mr. Gaitskell and his Leeds South Conservative opponent, Mr. J. Addey.
“Hot Studio with Cool Atmosphere: Sharp TV Answer for Mr. Gaitskell” was the Yorkshire Post‘s headline for the last day of the Election Marathon.
Some of the critics tended to treat the Election Marathon simply as entertainment.
Richard O’Sullivan of the Daily Express thought Marathon too fast: “The programme was a flier — but not a flop, though it was too fast to have much impact”.
The Manchester Guardian, however, thought differently. It said: “A marathon of a minute”.
“One minute,” wrote Guardian critic W. J. Weatherby, “can still be a long time”. He found Marathon without much profit in political argument, psychological case-study, or visual entertainment. He wrote: “Perhaps some of the candidates would not have been so eager [to appear] if they could have seen themselves as we have seen them. A few of those minutes have already seemed even longer than 60 seconds….”
It was, of course, a conscientious public-spirited offer on Granada’s part, but a minute’s sober and cynical reflection might have suggested what the result was going to be for the poor viewer. Face after face like election posters or pictures of wanted men, have devoted their minutes laboriously and dogmatically to such topics as Suez or old age pensions or themselves. The result has been as boring as watching every lap of a real marathon race’’.
Nor did this critic like the camera staying focused on the candidate full-face (the idea had been that an unchanged picture was the fairest for all), or the chairman’s “poker-face throughout, as if he is afraid that the slightest change of expression might lead to charges of favouritism”.
It was, however, this scrupulous impartiality that most favourably impressed Maurice Richardson in the Observer.
He thought that Marathon was conducted “with impeccable fairness”. But he, too, was worried about those faces: “the production was strikingly like the Police Gazette’s ‘Wanted Men’ photographs”.
T. F. Lindsay in an article in the Daily Telegraph “’Prentice Hands at the TV Hustings” took the same view as the Guardian: “Granada’s Marathon may have been imaginative but it has not made enough allowance for human weakness. Very few candidates have stood up to the test of the unforgiving minute without taking on the appearance of ruffled and harassed parrots”.
Peter Black, in the Daily Mail, analysed the assumption that an inexpert performance would harm a candidate. He wrote: “The job is so big, involving so many different candidates, that the bogy of partiality has been dealt a severe blow which may, with luck, prove fatal. It is obvious that if there is partiality it can come only from the comparative merits of the candidates which are bound to even themselves out. And are these merits as unmistakable as some observers think? Candidate A talks on TV as confidently as though it owed him money. Candidate B is nervous as though the camera were his old headmaster. It is usually assumed that A will impress more than B, but why should he ? Why should not people be as impressed by diffidence as by confidence? In fact, we know that in real life they are equally impressed in roughly equal numbers”.
Marathon was too tame for Jon Akass, the Daily Herald columnist. He wrote: “The idea is to give all candidates in the area a chance to show their face on the telly for an equal length of time. Most of the candidates also say something, probably because they feel foolish just sitting there…. It doesn’t much matter what they say because the whole thing is so hemmed in by statutes that any sort of live controversy would be like dancing the can-can in a minefield … I don’t like this sort of caper. It might be very British and gentlemanly but I don’t like it. Elections get really interesting when the candidates begin to get on each other’s nerves”.
Norman Hare agreed, at the end of his account in the News Chronicle: “Only the children were likely to be upset by the start of Marathon. It delayed Popeye’s appearance on the screens in Northern homes for 25 minutes”.
The northern press notices were equally mixed.
After four days of Marathon, the Yorkshire Post critic, Peter Jackson, said: “Granada have fulfilled their obligations towards the electorate with Marathon. It is bound to stimulate interest in itself and the speakers we have seen so far have, for the most part, broken away from party politics and discussed the problems of their own constituencies. The initiative taken by Granada may mark the beginning of an entirely new form of electioneering … but I cannot help feeling that a great deal would be lost in the way of interchange of ideas if the personal touch were to go”.
The Liverpool Echo thought Marathon too long: the Bradford Telegraph thought it too short. The Bradford Telegraph critic was angry about the brevity of Marathon: “Nine West Riding candidates were shot through in almost as many minutes last night and at a time when most people would be on the bus going home or having tea….” There was a glimpse, said the critic, of the Prime Minister’s son, but “for any expression of policy or even collected thought the time available was farcical and produced some irritating results with the would-be MPs being cut off abruptly in the middle of a sentence”.
To the Blackburn Evening Telegraph critic this was not the point: “What they said is relatively unimportant. What matters is that they accepted the challenge to appear on television in front of people whose only chance to see them this would be…. Even in three minutes the cameras can say a good deal more than words”.
What the Candidates Said
Finally, those most concerned personally — the candidates: How did they react to the experience, often their first time before the cameras? Did the programme help them at all in their campaigning? What kind of reaction did it bring in the constituency?
Granada invited the candidates and their agents to give their opinions on Marathon, for this was an experiment as new to Granada as to those taking part.
This is a summary of their reactions:
81 letters have been received from MPs and ex-candidates. 41 commented on the favourable reception of Marathon in their constituencies. 32 felt the time allotted had been too short. 26 said the hours of transmission had been unsuitable. 13 praised Marathon for giving viewers the chance of seeing their candidates. 10 were surprised at the wide coverage of the programme. 8 thought the programme had been well worth doing. 7 were amazed at how much could in fact be said in one minute. 6 said the programme was boring and that there had been too much repetition. 4 were convinced Marathon had increased public interest in the election. 3 complained of uncomfortable seating. 3 complained of bad make-up and lighting — said they were made to look old. 3 felt there should have been a different system for the order of speaking; the last person to speak having a distinct advantage. 3 said Marathon was of no benefit to those who had already been MPs: it gave their opponents an advantage in getting themselves known. 2 felt that advance publicity had not been good enough: they would have liked to include times of appearance in election addresses; only Marathon was mentioned in TV Times, not the names of the constituencies and candidates. 2 would have liked a rehearsal. One would have liked a clock with seconds hand. One complained that the Chairman did nothing but keep time. One would have liked a drink of water or preferably something stronger, before and after the programme.
Some of these points are enlarged on in extracts from letters printed hereafter.
Those Who Were For
By no means every candidate thinks more time is needed. Mr. Peter Cameron (Labour, Bolton West): “General opinion seems to be that a brief appearance on television is a good idea, and people seem happier watching a large number of candidates making short speeches than they do listening to one long-drawn-out lecture …. From the number of people who have commented on Monday’s broadcast, it can be assumed that we had a fairly large audience in Bolton.”
Two candidates said they had changed their opinion about Marathon, in its favour.
Col. Douglas Glover (Conservative, Ormskirk) says: “I am going to be quite honest and say that my original view of this programme was that it was a waste of time and after the first performances I was rather confirmed in my opinion. However, as I see the programme unfolding, I believe that the final conclusion will be that it has served a very valuable purpose”.
Sir Roland Robinson (Conservative, Blackpool South) says: “It was the first time I had appeared in a television programme in this country and I had serious doubts as to whether it was possible to make an effective contribution in the short space of one minute. Now that it is over my doubts have resolved themselves, and I feel that you have a very interesting programme which gave a fair chance to all…. Obviously all members and candidates would like to have more time, but if we get down to it, it is possible to say something useful in a short time. The broadcast seems to have been well received in Blackpool. A great many people seem to have listened to it, and I get very favourable comments about it when I am out canvassing”.
Indeed, “I saw you on the telly” seems to have been said to a number of candidates on their canvassing rounds.
From Huyton, Mr. Ben Woolfenden says this: “We were overwhelmed with messages from constituents who stayed up to see the programme. My personal reaction is that the programme enabled me to be seen by many thousands of electors, who otherwise would never have been able to see me. I admit that before attending your studios I had some doubts about the value of accepting your invitation, but now I am delighted I accepted…. Quite apart from the residents in the houses I visited yesterday I was hailed by many people such as a coalman and a milkman who called across the street to me something like ‘Saw you on telly last night, mate’.”
And from Westhoughton, Lt. Col. John E. Gouldbourn: “All sorts of people I speak to in the streets say ‘I saw you on the telly’. And this remark is said with a smile and obvious pleasure”.
When the Conservative candidate for Wrexham went on Marathon, his agent had an inspection panel of supporters (“specially selected to criticise”) waiting in Wrexham. He sends Granada this report:
“The immediate reaction from the panel was that Mr. Pierce had scored heavily for the following reasons: though his opening speech had been carefully rehearsed — again before a panel of three with a tape recorder and a final rehearsal of 21 hours — it seemed spontaneous. He had an intimate approach from the commencement…. His final remarks caused a laugh, which was considered to be effective…. He appeared alive throughout”.
And the reaction in Wrexham generally. “Though the broadcast was at a bad time for maximum appeal, within an hour people in Wrexham were heard talking about it. The discussion on the programme was at a peak on Saturday mid-day (shoppers, etc.) and in the evening, too, frequent references to the broadcast were heard. Mr. Pierce walking with the agent in Wrexham on Saturday evening was stopped several times: ‘Weren’t you on TV last night 7’ And we heard talk, ‘That’s the man who was on TV last night*.”
That seems to have been the main favourable impression of candidates who liked Marathon: it introduced them to the voters.
Mr. Frank Pearson (Conservative, Clitheroe) reports: “I have found in this constituency that my appearance was of the very greatest value, particularly in that as a new candidate it served to introduce me for the first time to many of my constituents”.
And Alderman J. E. McColl (Labour, Widnes), though he was not a new candidate: ‘‘I found the television appearance very unnerving, but appreciate the chance it gave me. My impression from canvassing here and from the comments of election workers is that a large number of people watched the programme and expressed their satisfaction that at least they knew what their candidate looked like”.
Miss Pat O’Gara, who fought Manchester (Cheetham) and lost, sums it up thus: ‘‘When all came to all, I didn’t feel nervous on Marathon…. I’m dying for the next election now”.
Those Who Were For (With Reservations)
The cameras owe an apology, it seems, to Mrs. Lewis Carter-Jones. She did not appear on Marathon, but her husband did and he writes: ‘‘My wife did not recognise me!” Apparently, Dr. Edith Summerskill’s husband had moments of doubt, too, for she writes: ‘‘So far as the make-up is concerned, although I realise that the lights are pretty cruel, I think in the future I shall appear with my own face! My husband found it difficult to recognise me…. I have had the most encouraging reports on the Election Marathon”.
Strangely enough, Dr. Edith’s opponent in Warrington, Mr. Frank Stansfield, had reports that he didn’t look well. He writes: “From what lots of people have told me here my effort was a great success, the only criticism being that I appeared to look ill. Perhaps this was due to the lighting. Anyway, it is a comparatively unimportant point compared with the main issue”.
But Mr. Carter-Jones, despite his disconcerting domestic experience, found that “one minute certainly tends to condense the mind”.
Of reaction in the constituency he says: “It was quite varied. Most people thought the time permitted was all too short… Again most people seemed pleased that their constituency had at least been represented in Marathon, and that they had been given an opportunity of seeing and hearing their candidates”.
Unknown to Granada there was apparently another distraction, revealed by Mr. Frank McManus (Labour, Morecambe): “Rather a lot of people here told me they weren’t free to see the broadcast. One said it clashed with Mrs. Dale’s Diary”. Mr. McManus, however, also writes: “I think Marathon was a splendid idea. Limiting the speeches to one minute made the event less of an ordeal for us newcomers. Most of those who saw the programme say they liked it”.
One or two other candidates comment on the experience of going before the camera. Mr. David Crouch (Conservative, Leeds West): “It is a nerve-racking experience to sit before the camera knowing you have only 60 seconds, no time to waste and no time for mistakes…. I think your staff in Leeds where I was televised were excellent in somehow managing to create the atmosphere ‘don’t worry, it’s all great fun’.”
Mr. Crouch says that he watched Marathon before he went on “and must say I got a bit bored with it. It was a case of ‘one damn candidate’ after another. Potted politics of this sort are somewhat boring. On the other hand, I did find that my own constituents, the people who were personally interested in me, were interested in the few minutes we were on…. I think that is the way the programme should be judged. It was an opportunity for reaching probably more of one’s constituents in a few minutes than one could meet in the whole of an election campaign. I certainly found that a lot of people I canvassed had seen me on TV”.
Criticisms from Mr. Crouch are that the time for speaking was too short and more advance publicity was needed. But he takes this look into the future of TV electioneering: “I welcome your innovation…. Another time it might even be a good thing if the candidates were to publicise their television appearance in their own election literature. I think that the time should be used to put over personality rather than politics which, after all, is what we are trying to do when one goes canvassing”.
Or as Mr. Walter Clegg (Conservative, Ince) put it: “I am convinced the experiment was worth trying — it blooded many of us in the new art and even a candidate in a difficult seat hopes one day he may be a by-election star”.
Several candidates make good-humoured points about the production itself. For instance, Mr. John Price (Labour, Westhoughton): “The seating of the ‘pugilists’ is rather crude, and is too far from the bench on which any notes may have to be placed, causing a tendency which I felt throughout my couple of minutes to lean forward, as one does in a pulpit…. I suppose that would be all wrong from the point of view of the cameras, but that was my impression”. He adds: “I have made door-to-door tours of my constituency during the past two days in widely scattered areas and was astonished at the number of people who have made reference to the programme in complimentary terms”….
Nor is Mr. Robert Sheldon (Labour, Withington) entirely happy about how the candidates looked to the voters: “One change I would urge: instead of the candidates appearing as members of a panel they should sit round a chairman with more informality… This would give the viewer a look at the whole candidate and present something more than an animated police photograph”.
But Mr. Sheldon considers Marathon, on the whole, worthwhile: “It is very easy to criticise Marathon because of the obvious defects due to shortage of time and the number of candidates who had to take part. On the whole I think you did a splendid job in bringing some of the electors their first sight of their candidates contesting the General Election. For this you deserve high praise for a sense of social responsibility unique in independent television companies”.
Or as Mr. Horrocks (Conservative, Ashton-under-Lyne) puts it: “It would seem that the minute allowed was, of course, hardly sufficient to allow a reasonable line of political approach…. But it did at least allow the dog to see the rabbits”.
Mr. W. S. Shepherd (Conservative, Cheadle) suggests three minutes to a candidate might be reasonable, and he also has this to say about going on the air: “The physical and psychological conditions within the studio are bad, as you will appreciate. It is not perhaps quite so bad for those who have some little experience of the medium, but it must be pretty terrifying to the man who is a complete newcomer”.
Mr. Shepherd adds: “Some screening between groups of candidates might help in this respect”. (Mr. Tony Leavey, Conservative, Heywood and Royton, confirms that he found it unnerving to be in the same studio with other candidates: “It is an alarming experience when the little red light is upon you for the first time”).
Those Who Were Against
The commonest complaint from the candidates about Marathon was that it was too short; and few liked the afternoon and late-night viewing times.
The strongest criticism came from Mr. Ludovic Kennedy, himself a television personality, who appeared on Marathon as the Liberal candidate for Rochdale. But it was not the time that worried Mr. Kennedy. He didn’t like the whole experiment.
His forthright letter touches on many points: “As a viewer on the nights preceding my own participation, I found the whole thing a colossal bore, and for two reasons: First, to talk to a television camera well is something that requires not weeks but months of experience. Nine-tenths of those taking part had no such experience, and so were totally unable to communicate. Instead of what the participants had to say being communicated in a relaxed intimate sort of way, we were treated to a succession of wooden statements, most of them either learned by heart or read from a script”.
Mr. Kennedy goes on to give the second reason why he found Marathon “a bore”:
“I was not a voter in any of the constituencies and so did not have the interest an elector might have of seeing and summing up his own candidate. While the parading of them before the public in this way was obviously a public service on behalf of Granada (most of any electorate never set eyes on their candidates), I doubt whether it would make much difference to the voting one way or the other. (My own view on all political broadcasts during the election was that if we had never had any of them the result would have been just the same).”
Mr. Kennedy then discusses his own night on Marathon when he appeared with Mr. Jack McCann (Labour) and Mr. Tom Normanton (Conservative):
“I have two comments. The first is that one minute is ample time to make one or two good points, providing one talks and doesn’t recite. My second comment is that I did my best to answer Mr. Normanton’s first statement and Mr. McCann did his best to answer mine. But Mr. Normanton merely recited a second prepared statement which bore absolutely no relevance to what either Mr. McCann or I had been saying. This was not only avoiding awkward questions on his part but very poor television.”
Finally: “This applied on other occasions, too, when I was looking in — people just would not or could not reply (the actual word in Granada’s instructions) to what their opponents said. Next time I hope you’ll make them.
“Apart from all this, thanks for asking me. I enjoyed it”.
Mr. Bernard Taylor (Labour, Mansfield) summed up the criticisms that Marathon was too short: “I think it was a waste of time travelling 120 miles away from home for two minutes”. He adds, however: “Personally I enjoyed it…. I am not complaining for I appreciate you were anxious to afford the facility to everyone”.
Two candidates said they found Marathon made no impact. From Chester, Mr. Jack Temple (Conservative) wrote: “So far the television programme does not appear to have made such impact on the City of Chester constituency”.
And Mr. W. Geraint Morgan (Conservative and National Liberal, Denbigh): “In such a widespread constituency as this it is very difficult to assess the effect of my brief appearance on the television screen. Not many of our viewers are looking in at 4.15 p.m. and I cannot report any positive reaction”.