The Green Party is taking legal advice after the four main national broadcasters excluded Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas from the televised election debates.
The BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky have said that the UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage is to take part even though he is not an MP.
Mr Farage is, though, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England, which includes Brighton and Hove and the leader of his party.
Dr Lucas tweeted: “Taking legal advice over Green exclusion from TV debates. Apparently ‘messy’ to have too many candidates. Democracy IS messy – sort it out!”
Taking legal advice over Green exclusion from TV debates. Apparently “messy” to have too many candidates. Democracy IS messy – sort it out!
— Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) October 13, 2014
She won her seat at the 2010 general election to become Britain’s first green MP having previously served as an MEP. She was also the leader of her party until two years ago.
The plan outlined today (Monday 13 October) would see Sky and Channel 4 broadcast a head-to-head debate between Prime Minister David Cameron and Opposition Leader Ed Miliband next April.
The BBC would host the second debate with Mr Cameron and Mr Milband joined by the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. The debate would be fronted by David Dimbleby and broadcast live on television, radio and online.
ITV would host a third debate, fronted by Julie Etchingham, with Mr Farage joining the three main party leaders.
Each of the three debates would take place in front of a studio audience who would be able to put questions to the party leaders.
Well big deal – the DUP have EIGHT Westminster MPs and yet are excluded from national debates (despite the fact that their 8 pro-tory votes can be very handy in a hung parliament)…
and Sinn Féin hold FIVE Westminster seats, and have also PERSONALLY MURDERED 1,823 people. What other party can boast that?
I would love to see a televised debate with Gerry Adams and Nigel Farage, it would be amazing! 😀 How many people have UKIP ever murdered, eh? NONE WHATSOEVER, that’s how many. Bloody lightweights.
AFAIK the reason that the watermelons are not considered is that they typically get 2-3% of the vote and so will not get any seats except, possibly, the Brighton Pavilion one supported by students.
They may have increased the number of paid members, but their results in recent elections (i.e. Blackpool, Clacton and Heywood) show they have very little support across the UK and in the latter elections patently lost their deposits.
If the greens get the right to debate then they would also need to include other lunatic minority issues such as Galloway’s Respect party.
How about if the greens tried to actually run a council responsibly or have an MP that doesn’t act like an angst immature teenager?
If the greens really want be treated seriously then perhaps they should concentrate on actually achieving something in the city and that Caroline stops pursuing her own personal, non-environmental, ambitions.
Otherwise, perhaps they should concentrate in growing their MEP contingent and start looking at pragmatic, realistic, environmental solutions rather than sitting in trees, or in the road, or doing a show-and-tell in Westminster of what little Caroline did at the weekend.
Labour and the FibDems don’t even field candidates in Northern Ireland, so how can they be considered “national” UK parties?
The Greens are a chaotic irrelevance.
The day that they are removed from office in Brighton can’t come quick enough
UKIP have a chance of being winners and the Green’s obviously don’t,
That is why they will be on the TV debates and the Incompetent Greens will not be 🙂
They cant even run Brighton and Hove never mind a whole country.
Nobody wants to replace the Car with a Bicycle so I think the Green’s will be nothing more then a bad memory by next year.
The media have made a real mess of it as usual.
From broadsheets through to the BBC and all points inbetween, journalists and editors want to tell simplistic parables and easy to digest and sell saccharine sweet stories.
Sorry, but the political landscape, like life, is complicated and the media need to step up to the plate and start reporting politics and the diversity of views properly. The cosy days of LibLabCon carving up the country between themselves are coming to a close and the smaller, dynamic and rapidly growing parties like the Greens or SNP are not going to let the British people down by putting up with second best.
And we can certainly rely on Sinn Féin not to let the British people down 🙂