It may register little amid all the vast changes going on around the globe at the moment, and, in our little world at least, it pales into comparison with more important leadership decisions this year in football and athletics. But in Britain it is General Election time next month, and the focus ramped up last week with a much anticipated television debate featuring leaders of the seven leading parties.

A fairly nauseating spectacle, it showed more than anything else that we Brits aren't natural TV debaters, certainly not like our American cousins. With representatives from smaller parties all faring well, it also posed worrying questions about a "first past the post" voting system which boasts as its main asset a tendency to create strong Governments, but, for the second General Election in a row, now seems unlikely to produce a majority winner.

When watching the debate, I was struck by how crafted and choreographed it seemed. Every smile, every soundbite and every sarcastic dig at an opponent was pre-planned, ironed out meticulously by a posse of public relations gurus. All newspapers will inevitably have since been "briefed" by "figures close" to most of the parties afterwards, just to "check they understood the main points".

This style of PR politics, based on image as much as if not more than substance, is a product of our 24-hour, technology driven times. This has been the norm since the 1990s, when the likes of Bill Clinton in the United States and Tony Blair in Britain created the "New" Democrats and "New" Labour, where the change from the past was more one of rhetoric than real action.

Britain's General Election TV debate was largely an exercise in public relations and "spin" ©Getty Images



Sport is perhaps the most PR driven industry of all, and access to a top athlete today is generally possible only at a press conference, in a mixed zone, or at an interview set up by a sponsor or promotor where questions and time is rigorously control and subsequent articles are usually accompanied by a "Joe Bloggs was speaking on behalf of such and such manufacturer" message.

Our world of sports politics is slightly different, and it is still possible to speak to some of the main players in a bar or quiet corner, or, perish the thought, contact them directly rather than through an intermediary. But even this is limited, and during the two Evaluation Commission inspections for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic races over the last month, access to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and to a lesser extent bidding officials, was limited, with both Almaty and Beijing hiring a gaggle of European and American PR executives to try to keep the media in check.

More than anything else, the IOC's Agenda 2020 reform process is turning out to be similarly PR savvy, designed to signify progress, although if you look beyond the spin and press releases, few concrete changes have actually occurred. Through its "Transformation 2022" process unveiled last week, the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) has now begun a similar campaign.

As my colleague Mike Rowbottom pointed out in a wonderful piece a few months ago, you don't half hear some rubbish in interviews these days, the same old lines pandered out about "respecting your opponents" and "focusing on the next match" over and over again. Such is the extent of this that anything approaching an interesting quip is striking purely for being unusual, such as when Arsenal's teenaged Spanish defender Hector Bellerin joked about learning English with a Cockney accent in a recent BBC post-match interview.

A normal, unscripted comment, and a very refreshing one.

Arsenal's Hector Bellerin produced a rare glimpse of humour in a post-match interview ©AFP/Getty Images



The great thing about the Olympic Movement is that we still have some great characters, who will still make insightful and honest remarks regardless of how much pressure is on them not to. Unfortunately, two of the best examples have moved on this year, and their replacements conform much more to the modern stereotype. The first of these sadly departed officials was CGF chief executive Mike Hooper, who told me when I was first introduced to him, with a smirk and a wink in what he clearly meant as an affectionate way, that I looked like a "f****** little baby" in a picture accompanying an article I had written.

The other is former IOC executive director for the Olympic Games Gilbert Felli, who remains involved in preparations for Rio 2016. He was always great at giving a straight line, once answering "that is your job" when we dared to ask him why the IOC had not produced a Youth Olympic Games medals table.

Their replacements, David Grevemberg and Christophe Dubi respectively, both seem great, and their positive input has already been felt, but answers to every question are peppered with clichés and management speak (although judging by Dubi's meticulously kept hair, I feel he spends more time reading fashion manuals than management ones.)

Canada's IOC backbench stalwart Richard Pound, International Ski Federation President Gian-Franco Kasper and IOC vice-president John Coates are three other good speakers who remain.