Mike Club

Consider a simple mechanism: a chess clock connected to two microphones. The mikes are switched on and off by the clock, so that when one opponent's mike is on, and the time available for them to talk is elapsing, the other's is off, so that they cannot interrupt, and vice versa.

Choose a simple topic on which two opposed points of view might reasonably be debated. Allocate, say, ten minutes to each opponent, or whatever seems a reasonable amount of time given the topic, then let them debate the topic.

Imagine how this will unfold. The set up preserves the sense of an entertaining adversarial contest and ensures it is decided purely by the opponents' powers of persuasion. Some of the frustrating behaviour seen in recent television debates would be discouraged. Each opponent would be likely to cede control before they use up their time because they need to retain an opportunity for rebuttal of points made by their opponent. It would be interesting to see how they end up managing their time.   

1. The first rule of mike club is you talk about mike club.
2. The second rule of mike club is you talk about mike club.

In general, if you want an outcome, to decide who the "winner" is, you could have an audience who are polled before and after the debate, with the winner being the one whose vote goes up. The outcome then relies on the persuasiveness of the speakers and not on the underlying weight of opinion prior to the debate. 

It seems to me this system would be useful just now as we discuss the pros and cons of Scottish Independence. Rather than debate that as a single issue using this format, I would break it down into a number of debates on related topics such as

• Social justice
• The future of the NHS
• The removal of Trident
• Environmental issues and climate change
• Energy policy and renewables
• Foreign affairs and the European Union
• The oil industry
• Currency

and so on. Each side could put forward a different spokesperson best equipped for each debate.

In general, a useful variant might have three polling options, to include undecideds, polled using a traffic light system of red, amber and green. This would allow badly posed topics involving, for example, imponderables, straw men, and false dichotomies, to be trapped as a win for the undecideds.