You and me both, mate. Instead I'll end up in the position of supporting Ed Miliband's authoritarian centre-right party as the only credible alternative to further ruin wrought by the Tory part.
Poll: General election voting intentions poll
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You and me both, mate. Instead I'll end up in the position of supporting Ed Miliband's authoritarian centre-right party as the only credible alternative to further ruin wrought by the Tory part.
Interesting analysis on patterns in poll leads: All the CON leads are from phone polls – all but one of the LAB leads are from online surveys. Interesting as well that Con leads rely on likelyhood-to-vote weighting.
Heh, were you watching Question Time last night?
Way I see it they should schedule an hours debate between Cameron and Milliband, if Cameron doesn't turn up then empty chair him, turn it into a 30 min Q&A session between the host asking questions submitted by the public to Milliband. If Milliband performs well, I expect he'll become PM and I will revel in the seethe from the Tories, if he performs poorly then he doesn't deserve to be PM or leader of the Labour party.
You really think they would have learnt with Kinnock not to choose unelectable leaders...
Broadcasting impartiality laws during elections being ignored I take it?
Presumably it would be OK for another channel to run anti milliband propaganda exclusively, or is your position just plain biased?
Or we could run the debate against a bacon sandwich?
Despite what the right-wing press would have you believe, Milliband regularly gets the better of Cameron in PMQs these days. He's not as bad as they want you to think. Personally I don't really judge a politician on their bacon sandwich eating style.
Bit rich complaining about refusing an invitation to appear at a debate then complain about it not being impartial. The broadcasters are saying they have the legal authority to empty chair Cameron or anyone else who doesn't turn up, if they really do I hope they have the guts to go through with it.
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I'm not so sure, Milliband's been doing pretty well at PMQ's recently - certainly seems to have his game face on.
The morning catchups on R4 don't seem to suggest this. However it's quite difficult getting decent coverage over here.
Is this your opinion or the opinion of the left wing media? We are looking at a subjective assessment either way.
So if I request you to attend something at a time different to those you requested, with a makeup that is inconsistent and likely to work against you far more than another attendee, when you say you aren't coming I can do whatever I wish to you in the debate?
The reason for the problems is that the broadcasters have not been impartial in the setup of the debates. Any doubt that this was inadvertent was dispelled when they did the same thing again in the second proposal.
I don't watch PMQ's but listen on the radio, from that perspective, I'd say he's not doing well at all!
It's not clear that broadcasting impartiality laws are being violated if Cameron refuses to take part. The broadcasters would have offered him completely equal opportunity to defend his ideas that he's then refused. And, yes, despite your obsession with partisanship, if Miliband was refusing to take part in the debates then I'd support empty-chairing him too.
The debates were a vibrant and successful last time and should feature this time. It's true that the broadcasters have fumbled it this time, and we need an independent body to decide the format for future elections, but Cameron is clearly and deliberately playing silly with this. Honestly, the 4:3:2 option originally aired was the best option put forward so it's a pity that didn't fly in the end.
I do not think that they were either vibrant or successful. The format was fairly bland and obviously stage managed. Personally I would prefer a professional interviewer putting hard questions to party leaders on a one to one basis.
This is obviously not so easy for the X-factor generation and even the politicians would find it harder to manage an unscripted interrogation of their policies. Soundbites would hopefully be fully explored and disposed of properly. The TV 'debates' do not do this.
Party leaders are not the party, and most people have seen the leaders often enough to have formed an opinion on them already. I am more interested in the secondary actors who could get more exposure without the spotlight shining only on the leadership.
I don't think that's an alternative to the debates, but rather something that will happen as well. Personally I find that most professional interviewers, particularly on the BBC, are very bad at their jobs and seem to think that Paxman is the pinnacle of interviewing.
There should be a leader debate but this should be the final summary. We need a Chancellors, Health, Education, Defence and Envirmonment ministers debate at the least.
Such a lot of time is spendt talking about the leaders and the parites but no time is spent analysing their policy. I find the whole situation pantomine and quite patronising to the electorite.
Such a lot of time is spendt talking about the leaders and the parites but no time is spent analysing their policy. I find the whole situation pantomine and quite patronising to the electorite.
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