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BROWN’S SHAMEFUL PLAN TO HOLD ON TO POWER: NO DEBATES

Gordon Brown, Britain’s unelected Prime Minister, admitted last night that he had walked away from negotiations regarding the live, televised debates the country expects to see before the next election.

Demand for the debates, organised by a campaign run by Sky News, has never been higher as Britons will go to the polls next year to make a clear choice – clean, fresh politics from David Cameron’s Conservatives or the tired incompetence of Gordon Brown and Labour. But Brown’s team walked away from the negotiations with the television companies – Sky News, ITV and the BBC – after the PM made a unilateral decree that he and everyone in the government now has no intention of participating in what he mockingly called ‘Presidential-style debates’. Peter F’ilth, Sky News’ spokesperson at the talks, said ‘we are very disappointed by the Prime Minister’s decision, and we know the British public will be too.’

But Bottler Brown is not out of the woods yet – F’ilth went on to say that Sky are looking into ways of challenging the legality of Brown’s decision based on the contracts already agreed to, and also the possibility of organising a debate between David Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg so the public get (continued page 4)
- Front page of The Sun, 3 October 2009



‘Empty Chair’ Becomes Empty Threat As Debate Chances Collapse

Sky News were forced into a humiliating climb-down yesterday as their campaign for live TV debates at the next General Election finally came to an end with a joint statement from ITV and the BBC that said the two companies saw ‘no significant public interest’ in a debate that did not involve the Prime Minister. The BBC went further, appearing to accept Gordon Brown’s argument (that he has been putting forward since October) that any such debates would ‘remove all chance of a fair, open and public campaign of ideas’. The BBC statement described the style of debates proposed as ‘needlessly Presidential’ and ‘inappropriate for a Parliamentary system’. Asked to comment on why the BBC had expressed interest in them before now, their spokesman said that ‘the revelation that Sky News intended to represent the absent Prime Minister with an empty chair or podium made it clear to us that they intended for this to be a piece of political and media theatre, not something that would add to the national conversation that will take place next year.'
- Fourth page story in The Daily Telegraph, 5 December 2009



Gordon Brown still smirking over the fact he won’t face your questions in May

Despite the old media calming down over this (little darlings couldn’t handle two stories at once about Gord being detrimental and undemocratic over the New Year and so the Hoon/Hewitt coup hoovered up the narrative) our glorious leader is still beaming about his victory over the forces of democracy, a source tells Guido. He’s apparently cracking jokes about it outside cabinet meetings and saying it’s almost a shame that the country wouldn’t get to see David Cameron’s ‘Sarah Palin moment’.

Guido thinks that the public aren’t stupid, and neither is Dave. If Gord thinks the Tory leader would be the one worse off out of a debate, why did he run away from them and hide behind Bruiser Balls’ petticoats? Guido thinks he knows, and he suspects the public know too.
- Blogpost at order-order.net, 2 February 2010



Why does no-one care about the debates scandal anymore?

As the campaign begins in earnest, one thing that we won’t be seeing is TV debates. This was a major issue for voters last year but support for it has all but evaporated since Brown walked away in October. The latest ICM figures (above) show less than 6% of people are concerned by this attack on our democratic process.
I don’t go in for hysteria but the debates were a very real opportunity to change the way GEs work in this country and it’s saddening to see the public forgive the man who shut down their chance to engage directly with the party leaders.
I’m well aware I’m quite a lone voice on this issue, as coverage in the newspapers (or rather, the lack of it) has shown, but today’s figures were surprising even so. Will we see a backlash as the campaign goes on, and how can Cameron and Clegg hit Brown with this as they’ve made noises about trying to do in the past few months?

The all-pollsters average remains the same as yesterday, at Con 36, Lab 33, LD 20 and others 8.

Mike Smithson

Comments

6. Come off it, OGH. The only people who thinks or ever thought this is a scandal are you and Staines, and we know that you only wanted them because you have some misguided notion that your Golden Boy would do well in them and maybe even let you keep 50+ seats. Those figures are perfectly in line with the public’s reaction to a non-event that happened six months ago and that has been succeeded by bailout crises and Europe practically going up in flames. This is the economy election, not the personality election and everyone knows it but you. (for what it’s worth I wouldn’t have minded seeing Dave send Gordon packing before a live audience but it’s really not worth losing sleep over)
- IainM at 1:17pm

17. 6 - anyone who thinks MORE exposure for Nick ‘who?’ Clegg is going to improve the liberals’ poll ratings is clearly from another planet. The man puts me and everyone I know to sleep
- tim at 2:01pm

81. Another day, another piece of meaningless drivel about something that isn’t even in the headlines. Last time I checked, there’s no markets open on the debates suddenly springing up out of nowhere so this post is completely unnecessary. Next, please (can we have something about the English Democrats’ expected successes? About time PB stopped kowtowing to the Sharia brigade)
- SeanT at 4:45pm
- Blogpost and comments at PoliticalBetting.com, 7 April 2010​
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