The invitation is out there so why oh why hasn't Gordon Brown jumped at the chance of going head to head with David Cameron and Nick Clegg in a live televised debate ahead of the next election?

From where I'm standing he's got absolutely nothing to lose. The only reason I can think of is the PM views these events as little better than beauty contests where the smooth talker wins every time and while he may have many attributes, a silver tongue is not one of them.

If that is his rationale he should remember George W Bush, a politician capable of some breathtaking verbal mangling like: "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully" and "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?" But that's the same George W Bush who embraced the Presidential debates, saw off far more eloquent opponents and ruled the world for the best part of a decade.

Downing Street reminds us that the party leaders do face each other off at Prime Minister's Questions once a week. It's usually quite an entertaining and combative half hour but instructive? Not really, it's theatre. It is an opportunity for Cameron and Brown to try to outperform each other, their rhetoric carefully rehearsed and their sound bite sentences scripted with the TV news bulletins in mind. PMQs seldom illuminates voters on the issues of the day but a genuinely free-wheeling debate, hosted by the right person, just might.

I can understand Brown's reluctance: He is probably well aware of his presentational shortcomings and it is far easier to argue from the opposition benches than it is when you're in government. But because he is getting a reputation for ducking uncomfortable situations, most recently when he went to ground after the release of the Libyan bomber, and because his personal popularity is dragging along the bottom of the sea bed, he should be devouring this opportunity. He famously said that a time of crisis was not the time to hand over power to a novice – this would be his opportunity to expose his fresh-faced combatants as nothing more than Great Pretenders. In fact it is David Cameron who has most at stake because, lets face it, he already has a size 10 Oxbridge Brogue in Downing Street and one of the few things that could stop him moving right in is if Brown gave him a good old fashioned intellectual kicking on live TV in front of the nation.

If the Prime Minister doesn't go for it, he is underestimating us, the voters. Thanks mainly to the state of the economy and the expenses scandal, a politician's stock has never been lower and our cynicism has never been greater.

So much so that even if the debates do go ahead we may insist that Brown, Cameron and Clegg are wired up to lie detectors and waiting in the wings is an army of bean counters ready to disprove the avalanche of statistics, or political chaff, the leaders will inevitably throw out to back up their arguments.

You of course might be so disillusioned you want to play around with the format and make it a little more extreme. How about the Westminster equivalent of Gladiators? Dressed in spandex the first up the Travelator and through the paper burst gets the keys to number 10. Even better what about Total Wipeout? Now that would be entertainment with a capital E!

And don't accuse me of trivialising politics – I reckon some of our MPs have done a pretty good job of that themselves recently and are now getting the respect they deserve, which let's be honest it isn't much.