When I first saw on twitter that the Green Party had been excluded from the TV debates, I had to do a double take. I distinctly recall David Cameron favouring a 2-3-5 (2- Conservative/Labour, 3 -Conservative/Labour/LibDem and 5 - Conservative/Labour/LibDem/UKIP/Green) approach to the TV debates.
Spontaneously, petitions and suggestions of action were being circulated on social media. One of the first I read was to telephone OFCOM. I did this . I must have been one of the first because the agent didn't know about the proposal from BBC, ITV, SKYNews and Channel 4. He advised that he couldn't take the complaint for BBC but would send the complaint to the other three stations and the Contents and Standards Team will post on the OFCOM web site if there indeed is a breach of code.
There are possibly three reasons why the Greens are being excluded:
1) A combination of position in the polls, elected MPs and by-election results.
2) Conducting a debate with five candidates is not conducive to good TV or easily manageable*
3) "The powers that be do not want the Green Party message to be heard." Something that Dave from Watford thinks on the radio phone-in vid.
* Darren Johnson AM has suggested this format if he were in charge - which is fair:
Debate one - Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem, UKIPDebate two - Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem, Green.
Debate three - Conservative, Labour, SNP, Plaid Cymru
Northern Ireland - given the choice of parties is entirely different here I'd also run an additional debate for Northern Ireland voters.
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Tags croydon, greenparty
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