Green room: Pre-election TV debates should include five party leaders

Despite the spurious precision of their rules of engagement, the British non-tradition of prime ministerial election debates is a pragmatic business. Right now, as the broadcasters and the politicians posture their way to what will probably prove stalemate, it is clear that five national parties deserve to participate. The Greens and Ukip, hitherto excluded from the fun, should take part because they both have clear support in the polls; they have an elected MP each; and representation at the local and European levels.

The broadcasters’ ingenious formula of programmes featuring two, then three, and then four party leaders can easily be adapted to a run of shows with a three-four-five leader format, with the Greens joining in last. But that leaves the question of how to give fair treatment to Plaid Cymru, the SNP, the various Northern Ireland parties, and perhaps others.

Five is probably the largest number of leaders that can take part in a “debate”, although some American channels have experimented with even larger numbers. But devolution itself, especially in its maximal form, makes such debates difficult to make sense of. For example, the SNP leader would only be able to talk about education policy in Scotland, just as the “British” party leaders would only be qualified to discuss schools in England. So the “debates” would be fairly meaningless, post-devolution. Debates in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland mirror reality rather better.

Soluble as the problems of staging the debates may be, each of the three main leaders has his own reason to avoid them: Ed Miliband because he is Ed Miliband; David Cameron because he underperformed last time round; and Nick Clegg because he would stir up sour memories of Cleggmania. The current debate about the debates is thus something of a charade: the Greens, Ukip and the viewing public may well find themselves locked out next year.