The best line in the presidential debate was when President Trump said he had achieved more in 47 months than Joe Biden had in 47 years in the Senate.

Democrats cringed and the mainstream media kept it quiet.

The presidential debate was a success for Trump.

Biden, while describing the terrorist group Antifa as ‘only an idea’, could not bring himself to give an unqualified endorsement of the fundamental civilised requirement of ‘law and order’. Imagine the impact on those not enjoying the high walls and security detail of  bolshevik billionaires like George Soros and millionaire politicians like Speaker Pelosi .

Then, as an on-and-off supporter of police defunding, Biden could not name one police union which had endorsed him. Repeating the pathetic lie that Trump abused soldiers killed in war as ‘losers’ and ‘suckers’, only drew attention to the fact that the Obama-Biden administration had run down the armed forces and seriously failed veterans while Trump had done the opposite.

Nor could Biden deny his threat to close down the economy again if told to do so by ‘experts’. His disowning support for the far-left agenda, the Green New Deal, invites Republicans to remind voters of the fact that this was the price paid to Bernie Sanders and the far left for his nomination.

Refusing to answer questions about the substantial sum Hunter Biden received from the Mayor of Moscow’s wife only reminded electors that the Biden family was extraordinarily generously enriched by foreign oligarchs during his vice-presidency.

Refusing to name potential appointees to the Supreme Court or discuss its packing ensured everyone assumes they are all far-left activists and he’ll most certainly pack the Court.

As for the debate, the format was a failure. It encourages the moderator to make himself a co-equal, like Speaker Bercow during Brexit or Bishop Curry at Harry and Meghan’s wedding.

If the debate format invites the moderator to become a centre of attention, instead of someone who recalls the Inquisition’s Tomás de Torquemada, why not have someone witty and entertaining, like Dame Edna Everage? Just recall her videoed appearance in Prince Charles’ box at the Royal Variety Show.

A registered Democrat, moderator Wallace thinks Christine Blasey Ford’s evidence against Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh was ‘credible’ and that more witnesses should have been called to the Senate hearing on the impeachment. He condemns President Trump for naming the mainstream media ‘enemy of the people’, even if they knowingly published four years of ‘fake news’ on the unconstitutional and illegal attempted coup against him.

Not surprising then that although Biden was the first to interrupt and the one who resorted to rudeness and insults, Wallace was more inclined to name the president.

And why did he resort to the tired Charlottesville fiction that Trump supported and did not condemn white supremacists there?

The question was: ‘Are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups, and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in Kenosha and as we’ve seen in Portland?’

Apart from implying that Trump has not yet condemned supremacists, when everyone knows he has, this question denies the facts.

These are that what seems to have become if not the Democrats’ mobile and very well-funded military arm, its allies, BLM and Antifa, are responsible for almost all of the looting, burning, assaulting and killing in the Democrat-governed cities. It suggests white supremacists are at least equally culpable, which is obviously untrue.

Trump replied in the affirmative more than once, to be faced with an increasingly shrill demand from Wallace, joined by Biden, that he do what he had already done. Wallace knows this. He asked much the same question when he was co-moderator for the Detroit Republican primary on 3 March 2016. He received yet another spirited condemnation from Trump four years ago

Yet following the debate the mainstream media repeated Wallace’s demand. You could almost think this was planned in advance.

Why did Wallace and the rest of the media indulge themselves in this fiction? Rush Limbaugh offers the plausible answer that this may be because Democrat in-house polling is showing a significant leakage of male Afro-American votes to Trump. Perhaps. It already seems to be happening with the Hispanic vote.

As to the polls, like modelling, they are no more than useful tools, provided they are used only to measure opinion. Knowing that the corrupt US mainstream media will never embarrass pollsters over anti-Trump predictions has probably encouraged some to attempt to shape opinion by announcing an implausible Biden landslide.

And even the honest polls have problems with ‘shy’ Trump supporters who fear that telling a pollster their  intentions is like telling the Stasi in communist East Germany they’re migrating to the West.

Which brings me to the question Gallup has been asking since the 1996 election, the answer to which  has always proved correct: ‘Regardless of whom you support, and trying to be as objective as possible, who do you think will win the election in November?’

This time, 56 per cent think Trump will win ‘a landslide’.

Returning to the debate, Trump was asked another loaded question, this time suggesting the Californian forest fires are caused by global warming, now called climate change.

The question implied that failure to believe this is heretical and not based on any scientific assessment. Designed to make Trump debate with both the moderator and Biden, it demonstrated yet again the format is a failure.

The debate should be a series of short questions and answers between the contenders. There should be no restrictions on either, thus ensuring everything is covered. The moderator would be invisible, just watching the clock.

The result would be a lively, entertaining and above all informative debate. And we wouldn’t have a reborn Torquemada seeking the limelight.