David Cameron told: stop cowering over election TV debates

[muriel_volestrangler]

Prime minister’s insistence on one event exasperates broadcasters, who threaten to go ahead with series of debates, while rivals say he is ‘playing chicken’

The prospect of any repeat of the 2010 election TV debates appeared to be drawing to a close on Thursday night as exasperated broadcasters desperately suggested they might screen the events by replacing an absent David Cameron with an empty chair.

The high-risk proposal is fraught with legal difficulties because of broadcasters’ obligation to remain politically impartial, but they say was forced on them because of Downing Street’s continuing refusal to allow the prime minister to participate in the debates without various pre-conditions being met.

The prime minister ruled out a head-to-head debate with Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, and attacked the BBC, Sky, ITV and Channel 4 for letting the talks descend into a “mess”.

Having made a “final” offer on Wednesday night of agreeing to appear in one seven-sided TV debate, Cameron said on Thursday he was not running away from democratic scrutiny and said he was merely “unblocking the logjam” created by the broadcasters’ inept handling of the issue.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/05/spectre-of-empty-chair-haunts-david-cameron-in-leaders-tv-debate-farce

Hard to see this as anything except Cameron chickening out of the debates. The first proposal from the broadcasters was 3 debates: 2 with Tories, Labour, Lib Dems and UKIP, and 1 with just Labour and Tories - because Labour and Tories are the only parties that will win hundreds of seats, Lib Dems currently have over 50 (and even though they are likely to suffer a disaster this time, will probably hang on to at least 20, and are thus a very likely part of talks if, as likely, no party gets an absolute majority of seats), and UKIP are consistently getting 15% or more in opinion polls, though that looks unlikely to translate into more than 10 seats. And at first, people seemed to think this was OK.

But then Cameron said he refused to debate with UKIP and the Lib Dem leaders if the Green leader wasn't also there - because her party is polling about 8%, about the same as the Lib Dems (but, because of the distribution and people voting for incumbents, the Lib Dems will get a lot more seats - the Greens might only hold on to their one existing seat). There were also murmurings about the SNP who, although they only stand in Scotland, are quite likely to get the 3rd largest number of seats in the UK, because they're taking most of Labour's Scottish vote this time. So TV added the Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru (Welsh nationalist party, who will probably only get 3 seats or so).

For a bit, this seemed to mollify Cameron; his purpose had looked like he didn't want Farage, the UKIP leader, to look important by being the 4th one included, and the Tories really need to stop their votes leaking to UKIP. But now he's come up with this "only 1 debate, with at least these 7, and maybe the DUP (biggest Northern Irish party - Unionist, and right wing) too". And he wants it before the party manifestos are published (before his is, anyway), so that he can't be held to account for what goes in it, and it's sufficiently before the election that any effect will be small. So that's why it looks cowardly. And though it's the Tories that have been throwing up objections when everything looks sorted, they try to blame the broadcasters for being 'chaotic'.

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. TV election debates will 'go ahead' say broadcasters

The BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky News said they would forge ahead with plans for three debates in April.

Two of these are scheduled to include seven party leaders with a head-to-head between David Cameron and Ed Miliband.

Downing Street, which has called for one multi-leader debate, said the TV firms' stance was disappointing.

But Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg urged David Cameron to drop his objections, tweeting: "you haven't got your own way so accept it and take part".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31771198