General Election Debate

Never mind Al-Megrahi, Brown and Milibands position et al. The news that has lit up the blogosphere to day has been this :-



You can sign the petition in support of it HERE.

Sky have formally invited the leaders of our three main political parties to a debate in the run up to the general election.

David Cameron, who realistically would have the most to lose in a debate agreed to take part immediately, but anyone who's seen footage of a CameronDirect event on the net knows why, his ability to answer questions and debate whilst engaging with his audience is currently without equal.

Nick Clegg will almost certainly agree too, he needs the exposure that such a debate would bring as it legitimises him as a choice come election time.

All that leaves is Gordon Brown, that man of courage and deep conscience. He really should agree, his party is in a desperate position, Mandleson already tried to commit him to it in July. But, then again, he does like to shy away from such things. Only this time Sky have said that any of the leaders who refuse to participate will be empty-chaired (I doubt they would take the HIGNFY 'Roy Hattersley/Tub o'lard' line even though it would be amusing). With that, it is almost certainly forcing Brown's hand.

If Macavity does bottle it again, perhaps they could put a picture of him in his place. Something like this would do :-



UPDATE

Cleggy's on board. Just waiting on Macavity now.

UPDATE II

Saw an excellent suggestion on Politicalbetting.com from Andrew G about also having some smaller debates on specific policy debates with Ministers and their prospective replacements.

Imagine debates like:-

Economy Osborne vs. Darling vs. Cable
Foreign Policy Hague vs. Miliband vs. Ed Davey
Education Gove vs. Balls vs. Laws
Health Lansley vs. Burnham vs. Lamb
Defence Fox vs. Ainsworth vs. Harvey

Sky might not want to give up so much time for these but there's nothing to stop the BBC running a series of Newsnight or QuestionTime specials, is there? It would be good for the public and at least people would know what people would stand for. People may moan this would exclude other parties but since these are the only three with any hope of forming a government it's just tough tits to everyone else.