Cowardly Cameron still trying to duck out of TV Debates
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeeh...ending-not-to/
David Cameron just just chickened out of TV Debates while pretending not to
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Originally Posted by The Spectator
So David Cameron has made his ‘final offer’, his final condition on which he will or won’t sign up to the TV debates. And it is a clever way of appearing to care about the TV debates while ensuring that they don’t happen at all.
In a letter to the BBC tonight, the Prime Minister’s Director of Communications Craig Oliver has said he will only agree to one debate – lasting 90 minutes, between seven party leaders.
And that’s it. Number 10 sources are briefing that the Prime Minister’s rejection of a two-way with Ed Miliband is because we have left the era of two-party politics. Well yes, but we also left the era where no one had a television much longer ago.
No10′s letter says:-
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“As well as the Prime Minister, the leaders of the Green Party, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, SNP and UKIP should invited. The leader of the DUP should be allowed to make his case for why he should be involved. If the broadcasters cannot agree amongst themselves who hosts the debate, lots should be drawn, though the debate should be freely available to whoever wants to broadcast it.
“This is our final offer, and to be clear, given the fact this has been a deeply unsatisfactory process and we are within a month of the short campaign, the Prime Minister will not be participating in more than one debate.”
So why isn’t this a proper offer? As Cameron knows, whoever is excluded from the seven-way will kick off with legal action that threatens to scupper the whole thing. Already Sinn Fein has also complained about being excluded from the current proposals. Cameron can just drop his letter in the post and watch the other parties tear it to bits, before gliding on to the election campaign.
And as for Ed Miliband’s offer of a one-to-one debate? No10 has rejected that as well. An unnamed Tory source has this to say:-
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‘The idea of a two-party debate sounds like the 1960s and 1970s and won’t work in an era when the broadcasters themselves have designated four parties as ‘major parties’.
And yes, this is the same Tory party that is so fond of telling us that this election comes down to a choice between two people. Ah the games, the games. But the Prime Minister is indeed running chicken from televised debates because he does not believe he will benefit from them. From a campaigning point of view, that is perhaps fair enough, but it is not a fair enough reason for scuppering debates that you once insisted were important for engaging voters and were here to stay. Tonight the Prime Minister may be cancelling any preparation sessions he had booked in for the TV debates, but he also appears rather dismissive of the electorate – and quite arrogant to boot. The only people to come out worse from this are the broadcasters, who have allowed the Prime Minister to wrap them around his little finger.
This guy is a joke.
First he demands the Greens are included as to muffle Farage in the debates. Then as a result, it opens it up to the SNP and Plaid which he then says should be included despite those two parties only standing in a small proportion of all 650 seats across the UK. Then, as a result - which he knew would happen - it then opened it up to legal challenges from the DUP and Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland. NOW he's demanding his own creation of two 7-way debates and one head to head are scrapped in favour of just one 7-way debate. In other words, he's taking the piss.
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Originally Posted by Best-rated comment
Cameron might be chicken, but he is not a headless chicken, he knows the television media without exception are Labour supporting, why go into the foxes den.
He does not fear Miliband, he fears Nigel, he saw Nigel eviscerate Clegg and go on to win the Euro election, he is afraid of a similar type of outcome, even if UKIP fail to win as many seats.
It's time to empty seat him.
Thoughts?
