Wednesday 14 January 2015

Include the Green Party in the TV Leaders' Debates ahead of the 2015 General Election. Change.org petition is winning network it



Ofcom

Robyn Meadwell
London, United Kingdom
13 Jan 2015 — You’re one of the more than 275,000 people who have signed my petition to include the Green Party in the TV leaders’ debates ahead of the 2015 General Election.

The petition is working: there have been a bunch of new developments since I was last in touch:

• An ICM opinion poll before Christmas found that a whopping 79% of the public want to see the Greens included in the ITV leaders’ debate (the one that includes Nigel Farage).

• Ofcom – the broadcasters’ regulator – issued a draft ruling last week arguing that the Green Party should NOT be classed as a ‘major party’ for the General Election but UKIP “may qualify for major party status in England and Wales”.

• David Cameron responded by saying that he would NOT participate in the leaders’ debates if the Green Party were excluded.

• Labour are split on the Green Party’s inclusion with anti-Green Tsar Sadiq Khan saying they should be in the debates while Ed Miliband has refused to back the Greens’ inclusion.

• A consortium of The Guardian, The Telegraph and YouTube has invited the Green Party and the four other main parties to take part in an online leaders’ debate. The Green Party have already accepted this invitation.

Ofcom’s ruling is important because only ‘major parties’ are given comparable election coverage, including the same number of Party Election Broadcasts.

But the good news is that Ofcom hasn’t made a final decision.

It’s asked the public for their views so let’s tell them what we think. Just click on 
https://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/consultations/major-parties-15/howtorespond/form 

Whether you’re a Green voter or not I hope you agree that all shades of political opinion should be on show at the leaders’ debates.

It just takes a couple of minutes to fill in the consultation:
https://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/consultations/major-parties-15/howtorespond/form 

Many thanks!

Robyn Meadwell
Young Green

P.S. Question 2 is the vital part of the consultation to respond to. We need to emphasise that Ofcom have ignored the numerous polls that put the Greens level with, or ahead of the Liberal Democrats. Equally the Greens’ performance in the European Elections and membership growth deserve greater weighting. Finally the public clearly want the Green Party in the leaders' debates, with four-fifths of the public being in favour: https://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/consultations/major-parties-15/howtorespond/form

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