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Inclusion of green party/plaid cymru/SNP etc al in TV debates
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Link 1 (guardian)
Link 2 (38 degrees)
Link 3 (BBC)
Personally, I feel the exclusion of any party (especially one who has more experience in goverment in favour of one who is more sensationalised by the media) is incredibly undemocratic, and potentially illegal.
what are your thoughts?
Link 2 (38 degrees)
Link 3 (BBC)
Personally, I feel the exclusion of any party (especially one who has more experience in goverment in favour of one who is more sensationalised by the media) is incredibly undemocratic, and potentially illegal.
what are your thoughts?
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Comments
You have to draw the line somewhere and neither Plaid or SNP will form a Government (they don't put up enough MPs) and are essentially 'local' parties rather than ones aiming to run the UK
That said I think there is an argument that the Greens should be treated as similarly to UKIP, though the evidence from the 80s is that giving the voters greater exposure to the Green's policies tends to result in support falling dramatically away
That said a more partisan argument is that by having UKIP, Tories and the Lib Dems right leaning voters are being split three ways and Labour will be seen as the only vote of the Left, adding the Greens would split some of the left vote, which is why David Cameron is supporting their inclusion (though he's not saying that is the reason)
I do agree with the plaid Cymru/SNP thing, but those debates should be able to be seen by all not just Wales and Scotland!
I think that the way they campaigned in the 80s was part of what lost them support. The number of people who do a blind test to see who they should vote for has been coming out highly in favour of the greens. But it's still a personality contest!
I'm not sure I understand your point about the vote being split tbh!
This Buzzfeed article says that Britain First is now the most popular political party on Facebook. While that maybe says as much about social media as the British public, it's a worrying sign ...
I think that's misleading though. A lot of BF's traffic comes courtesy of the click bait pictures they post, such as 'like if you are against animal cruelty'.
I'm sure you're right
It does raise an interesting question as to how you decide which parties are worthy of airtime though - do you base it on media popularity (which I suppose is the current argument for UKIP), or votes in the last elections, or opinion polls, or to represent the broadest possible range of political views ... ?
If your centre right the debates remind you there are three centre-right parties (assuming the Lib Dems aren't centre-left anymore, if they ever really were) and the vote get split between them. Centre left parties only see Labour so more votes gravitate towards them, if they had the Greens as well at least some of the centre left would go Green and split the left wing vote.
Wow, that's amazing. The last party you would expect to do this. Are they fairly ineffectual then in Brighton and Hove? What's the likelihood they will retain that seat next May?
Also - on the subject of the Green Party - they are a bit mad, great policies on housing and local issues but they too would withdraw from the EU and NATO http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29642613. Not things that I'd necessarily comfortable with and it's amazing that people are looking at them as an alternative left when they're really something else (I'm just not sure what yet, and they probably don't know either)
I've certainly heard some other anecdotes about Brighton and Hove Council having gone downhill and being unable to manage the simplest tasks, though how much its down to the councillors and how much to the executive (ie the full time staff) isn't as clear (probably a mixture of both). I imagine it not doing much for their being a future Green MP though...