Humphries , John Snow and Eddie Mair this should be sufficient to ensure that the voters can understand what the main political parties stand for so that the quality of UK democracy can thus be safeguarded. However even in relation to the careful mass media coverage of general election campaigns problems do remain. The politicians will have been coached in advance by "spin doctors"  or media consultants with answers to potential questions; they may evade questions and simply make the statements which they intended to make irrespective of the questions asked; they may attack opposition policies rather than clarify their own;  they may implicitly intimidate the interviewer by giving the impression that they will complain to a higher level if they are toughly interviewed. Also although they must agree to some "serious" interviews  they may also seek interviews with say Piers Morgan in  attempts [not always successful] to illustrate aspects of their lives away from politics.  The effectiveness of serious interviewers in calling politicians to account is open to question . Often the politicians and the interviewers are quite well matched and it may be that many potential voters will lack the interest or, very unfortunately, the understanding to assess the details of political argument. In view of the fact that, unfortunately, many UK citizens are unable to name Cabinet Ministers or their own constituency MP, it seems doubtful that they are dutifully watching ,say, Newsnight on a regular basis. In any case the politicians believe that many voters may