In among much more important events this past week, David Cameron’s statement that the Conservative Party will not participate in UK-wide election TV debates without a Green presence is … interesting. Also stirring the pot are Ofcom, who have announced they do not consider the Greens a ‘major’ party in UK terms.
Putting to one side advertising revenue, broadcaster motivation, party advantage and individual leaders’ egos and sense of pecking order (if we can), let’s state some principles. A key thing that makes me a Liberal Democrat voter is that I back a political process that promotes choice and diversity, yet I also seek procedural fairness. David Cameron – for the wrong reasons, in the wrong manner – seems to have on this occasion hit on something alarmingly like a principle; the principle of voter choice. But how is choice to be delivered fairly?
The standing problem that confuses the presentation of genuine choice to voters and viewers is the contrast between ‘national’ and ‘provincial’ debates solely for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales whilst there continue to be ‘UK-wide’ debates for everyone else. This is to ignore and trample over the increasing development of a regional politics in England.
In addition Ofcom has not, unfortunately, clarified matters as much as might be hoped; it would help to have access to the rules they are using to clarify ‘major party’ status. Are they in fact, using any? What is their mandate?
One way of resolving such tensions, and creating ongoing clarity in place of horsetrading, smoke and mirrors, would be an agreement to hold regional debates in England between regional leaders or spokespeople as a complement to the ‘UK-wide’ debates (which need to be genuinely cross-national in a way they are not now, but that’s another point). They would all use the same criteria as to what constitutes party ‘strength’. MP representation, share of popular votes, change over time, and votes in non-parliamentary elections, all need to be balanced and considered, but all of these must be primary over transitory and partial opinion polls.
Let’s take my own region, the South West, as a test-bed for what such rules might look like:
• For each MP in the region elected at the start of the parliament, a party receives 0.5 points
• For each MP in the region in post at the end of the parliament, a party receives 0.5 points
• For each 1.6% share of the vote in the region in the last general election, a party receives 1 point
• For each 1.6% share of the vote in the region in the last EU Parliament election, a party receives 1 point.
• A party is considered to be a ‘significant party’ for that region if it scores 10% or more of the available points.
By my crude calculations (feel free to check them), in the South West were this to be applied, it would lead to:
1) CONSERVATIVE: 79 points
2) LIBERAL DEMOCRAT: 42 points
3) LABOUR: 21 points
4) UKIP: 20 points
5) GREEN: 7 points
So the Green Party would not be allowed a regional debate in this region, but would have the clarity of being treated equally in each region of the UK and knowing the rules before the game is played, something no-one can say is the case now.
In any case, such debates need to be held in a structure way, under agreed rules, not meddled with constantly for the benefit of broadcasters and their sponsors.
We all – politicians, press and people – need to keep on the path we find ourselves on, towards a fairer, more diverse, plural, politics that integrates the UK together, without continuing to smile placidly on dominance from the (London) centre, whoever ‘wins’ this coming election.
* Matthew Campbell is a member of Bristol LibDems, lives in South Bristol and works for a local authority in the South West of England. He also posts on this site as Matt (Bristol).
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30 Comments
I agree on fair and immutable criteria, but I think regional debates (although desirable, as well) must bow to UK wide relevant debates.
I would suggest any Party who has paid deposits to stand in 80, 85, or 90% (up for debate!) of UK seats by, say, end of February of an election year, should be included in the debates. Scotland, Wales, NI (and even perhaps England, or its regions, in the future) would then be free to run debates featuring regional leaders on similar principles for regional (and online) transmission. You could even see a London debate, between GLA members, perhaps.
As far as UK general election debates are concerned, participation for a national debate should be based on being a UK-wide party with a chance of winning more than a handful of MPs. i.e. the chance of wielding power at Westminster. The debates are about what a party would do with power at Westminster.
The Greens do not meet that criterion. UKIP barely clears the hurdle.
Interesting article but I a, not tempted to get engagein a discussion of the arithmetical formula.
It is a scandal that the Green Party has been gerrymandered out of the TV debates by some Quango (OFCOM) bureaucrat who ultimately works on instruction from a Conservative minister. No doubt OFCOM are dancing to Cameron’s tune. Someone in our party should be making a fuss about this.
When did we start asking OFCOM and the Ministry of Sport to decide on important matters like the conduct of Democracy and Elections?
Meanwhile perhaps we should just re-run this excellent film from Clement Davies (the Liberal leader who saved the party from being swallowed whole by the Conservatives by refusing a Ministerial job) —
http://streaming.britishpathe.com/hls-vod/flash/00000000/00047000/00047367.mp4.m3u8
David Faggiani 14th Jan ’15 – 11:26am
David,
are you sure that the Liberal Democrats would qualify according to your criterion?
In 2015 will Liberal Democrats have enough candidates to stand in 80, 85, or 90% of UK seats ?
I would be delighted to be told it has improved dramatically but the last I saw we were 200 candidates short.
If it helps, Ofcom has published its criteria for deciding who they believe constitutes a major party:
You can read their analysis in full here: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/consultations/major-parties-15/summary/Major_parties.pdf
Helpful link provided by Stephen Tall in his comment.
I note that people have until the first week in February to send feedback to OFCOM.
I also note that Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland is now considered to be a Major Party by OFCOM.
How things have changed since broadcasters had to employ actors to speak the words of Martin McGuinness in case we simpleton voters were corrupted by hearing the actual voice of the real Martin McGuinness.
Perhaps OFCOM envisages a Coaition Government on 8th May made up of these three Major Parties —
Liberal Democrats, UKIP and Sinn Fein.
I don’t think that David Cameron has hit on a principle at all. He may actually have noticed that an increase in the Green vote is more likely to come from the Lib Dems and Labour than from the Conservatives .
Its now clear what Cameron is up to, he wants to water down the effect of UKIP in the 3rd debate by including The Green & scrap the 2nd debate altogether – effectively demoting The Libdems to Minor Party status. We cannot let him get away with this.
On topic, Regional debates are a good idea but as an addition to National ones, not a replacement.
You can always rig the statistics to exclude parties you don’t like. If UKIP is included and the Greens aren’t, UKIP policy will govern the debate and reporting of the debate. I shan’t bother to watch because I’ve heard that happen often enough. If the Greens are included, the remit of the debate will be wider and more interesting and I will watch. My suspicion is that the Tories don’t want to debate while Labour and Lib Dems want the Greens out of the picture because they fear the awkward questions they might raise in debate. The position Labour and the Lib Dems have taken on this makes it more likely that I will vote Green. (The coalition government has turned me into a floating voter.)
Support Cameron on this. The greens are a national party and should be included. The decision to exclude the greens smells of corruption due to some vested interests who are extremely frightened by the green agenda
Hi John Tilley – no, I am not sure the Lib Dems would qualify under even my 80% of deposits criteria, and no, I’m not even sure they’re on track to by the end of this February.
Someone who understands more than I do about the Party’s mechanisms may have to explain to me one day why this is. Why, for instance, has there not been a crowd-sourcing effort set specifically at securing the goal of 100% constituency-standing going since June 2010? Would this not attract local interest from membership? Are deposits not the only problem, in terms of candidate selection? (I can probably answer that one ….) I’m genuinely interested in this question. What’s the earliest an individual or Party can put the deposit down, so to speak?
I believe the Greens are ahead of us on this, currently. How has this been allowed to happen?
Obviously Cameron has a point. Call it a pretext if you like, the two are not incompatible.
My own feeling is that inclusion of the Greens would increase the likelihood of a ding dong between the Greens and UKIP, which could neutralise UKIP’s ‘odd man out’ appeal.
As for what would be most advantageous for Lib Dems; I think we need to be wary of what we wish for. Some might say that Miliband and Clegg’s ratings are so low that the exposure could only be a boost, however this is not necessarily so. Threats, that I do not take too seriously, of leaving a Tory ’empty chair’ could be particularly difficult on some issues for Lib Dems placed as the sole defender of the government’s record.
It is possible we could lose votes to the Greens, but my hunch is that this would not be such a great danger. In fact the exposure alongside Greens could help votes go back to us. I am more worried by the possibility of three others ganging up against us.
As
It seems to me that the Green Party of England and Wales, legally an entirely distinct entity from the Scottish Green Party, is trying to call itself one party for the purpose of the TV debates.
I just searched the electoral commission and yes, two separate entities. So no, the Greens probably should not be included.
https://pefonline.electoralcommission.org.uk/Search/EntitySearch.aspx
@Eddie Sammon
You are probably right even though I would personally love to see the Green Party feature in the debates as the green agenda had been sidelined by the major parties. I find it a bit worrying though that the Lib Dems, Labour and UKIP got together to produce an identical letter for publication. I don’t like the idea of the Lib Dems cooperating with UKIP on anything!
I’d have thought inclusion in a UK-wide debate should depend upon:
1. having more than a certain number (to be decided) of MPs in present parliament, and
2. standing candidates throughout said UK.
Just as a side point and I’m sorry to be contrarian – am I alone in thinking that the TV debates last time out were awful, contrived and added just about zero to politics? Can anyone explain quite why these are seen as so essential to democracy, because I can’t see it.
If (if) the issue is concern for smaller parties I would have thought that grasping the political funding nettle would have been more useful.
I think lets keep it simple – if you are contesting say 500 seats and already have an elected MP who was elected by the electorate (not a defection without a by-election) you can contest if not bad luck.
I wonder if the SNP would try and stand candidates in English seats?
Evening, all and thanks for your comments.
I do have opinions on the criteria for a ‘UK-wide’ debate, but felt I had too many opinions for a 500-word article! I shall sit on them for now and focus on the regional argument – but to make it clear, I envisage UK-wide and English regional debates all taking place during the same campaign, much as the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish debates do.
To me the underlying problem in the Ofcom report Stephen helpfully links to is the consideration of ‘England’ as a whole. So a party could easily in theory have a greater number of votes in England than a Northern Irish party, but not be considered an English major party as its vote share in England was not as good as others’. With all due respect to our Alliance brethren, they polled less than the BNP in 2010. Considering England by regions, however, means we are considering units of more similar sizes. I don’t see why this would be problematic when at present there is no English-wide political body outside the UK parliament.
David Fagiani, I don’t see why regional debates during the general election would be necessarily participated in by members of devolved assemblies – I still envisage them as debates on who should lead / represent the region in the UK Parliament, just carried on at a regional level, allowing parties who only have regional strength to put their case to that region; there are still going to be tensions between regional strength and local strength, of course (the Greens in Bristol outpoll UKIP at Council elections but are they ‘strong’ across the South West even if council seats are considered, for which I do not have figures?)
Going back to Ofcom, I continue to be dismayed that they put such emphasis on opinion polling over actual electoral performance and in general I agree with John Tilley that the matter may need to come under another entity, such as the electoral commission. Can’t see it happening immediately, though. There is a vagueness in the way the Ofcom thinking is presented that suggests they are making the ‘rules’ up on the spot and would be under no obligation to apply the same rules in the same way next time round. I can see why the Greens and annoyed in this context…
As to deposits, at this distance out from the election its not useable as a criterion.
Hi Judy, I agree co-operating with UKIP is not good. However, I am glad that in a recent speech Clegg criticised the Greens, because without doing so it just made us look like we had a pre-occupation with UKIP.
I thought the Greens ran a good EU election campaign. They have some distinctive and credible positions on TTIP and potentially fracking, although I lean towards not rocking the boat on that one and getting energy prices down. I also agree with the Greens on dismantling Nato. Of course, it could remain in de facto existence, but it would send a message of peace to Russians.
Matt (Bristol) I didn’t realise you had written this article! You should use your real name more – sometimes when I have been unsure whether to respond to a comment I have decided against if they are anonymous. I’m fairly relaxed about whether clear criteria is used or simply discretion, I just think Scottish voters shouldn’t have to listen to the Green Party of England and Wales and they are still fairly minor.
David Faggiani 14th Jan ’15 – 5:12pm
Hi David, you ask some extremely good questions about how badly served we have been as ordinary members by the powers that be in the party. They have failed badly in this simple task.
A General Election in May 2015 should not have come as a shock to our party leadership.
They must have noticed it when they voted through the fixed term parliament legislation.
I have read here in LDV that Mr Coetzee reports directly to Mr Clegg on preparations for the general election.
Have they ever discussed important details like getting candidates in place ?
Have they any concept of doing this in time to give those candidates a fighting chance of saving their deposit?
Or is all this type of essential organisational ground work a bit beneath them?
Are they too busy crafting and perfecting ‘Brand Clegg’ for their much talked about ‘Air War’ ?
It would be a handy excuse after 8th May to say that they had spent all their time on the ‘Air War’ : they would then be able to blame any disastrous drop in the number of MPs on the local parties.
Clegg’s people did precisely that after 2010 so we should not be surprised if the poor bl##dy infantry get blamed again.
Agree with Jackie Paper. I find these debates shallow, distracting, and completely unedifying. I’d much rather do without them altogether. The inclusion of Farage will make the quality of debate even worse, if the Clegg/Farage debates are anything to go by. Not only did Farage talk rubbish, but Clegg gave the most inept debating performance in history against him.
To answer Jane Ann Liston – when we remember that Northern Ireland is part of the UK, there is not a party I know of who is standing candidates across the UK.
Kathz – I totally understand the risk and viewer concern that UKIP policy will determine the content of the debate, but I think we need fixed rules particularly so that aesthetic and preferential concerns about content and format are not allowed to present a false, shifting and manipulable impression to the voters about who the ‘major parties’ are or are not.
In terms of UK-wide debates, I would personally argue that a ‘major party’ is one that can meaningfully impact the outcome of the election (ie has or is highly likely to have more than 10 or 20 MPs) AND has a proven track record of ability to do so based on track record in several elections (including non-parliamentary ones). I still would argue against using opinion polls for establishing this, though as they’re too malleable in the hands of vested interests.
That would probably make ‘major parties’ in the UK at this time as Tory, Labour and LibDem, with a reasonable likelihood of a UKIP or SNP breakthrough to ‘major party’ status soonish.
However, it is in voters’ interests that they can see the relationships between the major and minor parties, particularly if some or all of the so-called ‘major parties’ are not credible contenders (or just not contenders) in a particular region or locality.
So … if I ruled the world (which I don’t) I would (in this case, this year) have 2 debates UK-wide between Con, LD, Labour, and then 2 debates UK-wide where those three leaders answered questions from all parties in the HoC with 1 or more MPs. There would also during the same campaigns be 1 or 2 regional/national debates in each of Scotland, Wales, N Ireland, London and all the other English regions. I feel this would be fair and clear.
But that’s a lot of debates. Would anyone watch?
Apologies to Matt (Bristol) and all Northern Irish readers – that did occur to mr after posting. So, let me amend my second criterion for the UK-wide debates to ‘standing candidates in more than one of the constituent nations of the UK’.
I certainly fail to see why opinion polling, an indication of intent, which may to be translated into reality, should determine inclusion in these debates, as opinion polls are somewhat volatile. Nor do I see why party membership, which also comes and goes, should be a factor, as it depends wholly upon a self-selecting group who have a specific interest. It could mean that the party with the largest number of wealthy supporters, i.e. who felt they could afford the membership fee and other associated expenses, would have an unfair advantage. Also, I suspect that the membership fees for the different parties are not all the same.
I am though in the fortunate position of not having a TV, so will not be watching the debates or any other ‘reality’ shows!
Sinn Fein elected 5 Westminster MPs in both the 2005 and the 2010 General Elections.
At the moment Sinn Fein has more MPs than UKIP, The Greens, amd Respect all put together (they have 4 between them).
Existing number of MPs is a red herring and should be entirely irrelevant.
Why should voting in May 2010 have any influence on which political parties are allowed on TV in 2015 ??
The Elephant in this thread is why in all logic should the Liberal Democrats be included in TV debates?
The party is at the moment 200 candidates short of a full slate.
As the strategy from the top of the Liberal Democrats is to seriously fight only a few dozen seats, why should it be considered a proper a national party?
Well, John, the party is at this point (I have no crystal ball) a ‘major party’ because it has to date been able to fight, win and hold that ‘few dozen seats’ covering areas throughout England, Wales and Scotland, and because it has been thereby been a ‘major’ contender in terms of the number of MPs participating and voting on motions in the House of Commons for 5 years.
Whereas others such as UKIP who claim to be ‘proper national parties’ have not, so far had such a ‘major’ role.
We can tell from past experience in many places that incumbency is relevant to the results of elections; of course it’s not a panacea and a guarantee of security.
But are you suggesting that even where parties are standing candidates in every constituency known to man, there are no ‘paper candidates’, that UKIP, the Greens, and Respect are not targeting (in some cases fairly ruthlessly)?
Jane, this is where I confess to not having a telly either.
I entirely agree with the notion set out in the title of this article: “election debates must be based on clear criteria”.
I think that the problem is trying to define those criteria objectively at this stage of the electoral cycle. We know the polling figures, we know the number of MPs, we know which criteria will include or exclude which party, and any suggestion will be interpreted as being motivated to benefit one party over another or to mask an attempt to avoid the debates.
The criteria must be open and seen to be fair, and should be applicable to the debates 5 years (or 6 months) later.
JohnTilley 15th Jan ’15 – 4:10pm
“The party is at the moment 200 candidates short of a full slate.”
Do you have a source for that? It sounds correct, if my area is anything to go by.
I live within the boundaries of the econd largest local council in Wales. Within those boundaries are three full parliamentary constituencies and four wards from another. To date just one of those constituencies has a candidate.
Peter Watson: ‘The criteria must be open and seen to be fair, and should be applicable to the debates 5 years (or 6 months) later.’
I completely agree. But I don’t htink such a clear set of criteria can be obtained a long way away from a general election, as the urgency to create them is not there – unless there were to be some kind of ‘apocalyptic debate crisis’ (possibly involving multiple debates being organised by multiple broadcasters and political parties who were in legal dispute with one another) that would precipitate a clear demand and need for a compromise and planning.
To put it simply: no-one plans ahead until they’re pushed to.
@matt (Bristol) “To put it simply: no-one plans ahead until they’re pushed to.”
Indeed. And the risk for Lib Dems is that in 2020 (or November 2015) a lack of clear inclusive criteria might mean that they sit out the debates alongside the Greens.