Has David Cameron Shot Himself In Both Feet Over Greens Inclusion In TV Debates?

David Cameron Running Chicken Scared From TV Debates

The general election is drawing ever closer and the prime minister David Cameron still has not agreed to a format for the live TV debates that proved so popular in 2010. For almost 2 years Mr Cameron has been prevaricating over these debates and has used every trick in the book to avoid appearing. First he tried to say that the TV debates were too much of a tie, then he said they should be moved to months before the election (what would be the point of that?) He has also tried ignoring the issue entirely hoping they would die a natural death. Now under pressure from the broadcasters and Ed Miliband to finalise a format the prime minister suddenly came over all 'concerned' for the Green party! Mr Cameron said if the Greens were not included, then he was not going to take part. Undeterred, the TV companies got together and announced they would oblige the PM and include the Greens, however, at the same time they preempted Mr Cameron's next objection and also announced that the SNP and Plaid Cymru would also be invited to take part and also added a caveat that if any leader of any party failed to sign up then they would simply erect an empty lectern in their place. All the leaders of the other parties have a agreed, but Cameron is still prevaricating, his latest excuse on learning that the Greens and Plaid Cymru would be included, is that he now wants the Democratic Unionist Party to take part too. He knows its patently ridiculous if broadcasters were to ask the DUP they would have to ask all the other Northern Ireland parties too,  if this happened the introductions would take up most of the programme. Cameron also knows that NI voters have completely different  choices. It's just the latest in Cameron's prevarication to avoid the debates altogether. Next thing we will learn is that David Cameron will want to invite one of Nadhim Zahawi's horses, it's absurd.

It must be obvious to all by now, (even die hard Tory voters) that David Cameron is running scared of appearing in these debates and that's fine, he doesn't have to, but the broadcasters should now say enough is enough and issue him with a final timetable informing him that he either agrees to the format or an empty lectern is erected in his place before Cameron does with the TV debates what he has done with weekly Prime Minister's Questions, and turn them into a complete farce.

Everyone knows that David Cameron did not really want Green leader Natalie Bennett to take part, what he hoped to do was to raise the profile of the Greens to take votes from Labour and at the same time hope the broadcasters would drop the idea of the debates in the process. In short he tried to manipulate the situation to his own political advantage. However, it has all backfired and he has made himself look absurd and a like snivelling coward.

Another unintentional consequence of what Cameron has done is shoot himself in both feet with Green leader, Natalie Bennett now taking part. Cameron had wanted her and the Greens to damage the Labour vote, but after her car crash interview with Andrew Neil on the Sunday Politics show Green policies will never stand up to scrutiny and are likely to lose the Greens more votes than they gain.

The Greens main policy is something called the 'Citizens Income', which conservative estimates will cost the Treasury £280 billion per year, when Ms Bennett was asked where the funding was going to come from she could not say, she rattled off a few 'savings' which did not even amount to a billion, on the BBC Marr show the week previous she said that scrapping Trident would pay for the policy. However, if Trident was scrapped (an not factoring in civilian and armed forces job losses) it would only save us £100 billion and that is over thirty years! (And that is a generous estimate). So she had a week to come up with a detailed reply to her funding policy, but failed, which means of course that huge policy commitment cannot be funded and a whole plethora of other cuts would have to take place to pay for it, which would leave people worse off, not better off and that is being generous and not factoring in the tax receipts losses that such a policy would cause. All Ms Bennett did under scrutiny was to say they were working on the funding and would invite people to view Green party website. Ms Bennett also said that belonging to a terrorist group like IS and Al Qaeda should not be illegal in this country!


It's hard to see that when placed under the same scrutiny as the other party leaders in these TV debates that with policies like that, that they could attract much support from Labour. Up until now Ms Bennett and the Greens had escaped national scrutiny, but now of course with Cameron raising their profile for them and their appearance in the TV debates, they will be unable to escape scrutiny and will be questioned as hard as any of the other parties and they are going to spectacularly fail, not at all what Cameron wanted, in fact it could actually result in Labour winning back lost support.

It looks like David Cameron and his election strategist Lynton Crosby could have made a big mistake about Greens stealing Labour support.  Lynton Crosby is also the director of nine companies including Crosby Textor and its subsidiaries, as well as having connections to Tory polling company YouGov! Crosby is an Australian the same as Natalie Bennett and really should have known her debating skills were dubious to say the least, and that Green policies could be described as flaky at best. So even if Cameron appears or doesn't appear, Labour look set to benefit from Bennett appearing - the opposite of what Cameron and Crosby thought would happen. The best thing that Cameron could have done would have been to put his own fear and ego to one side and appear without all the delaying tactics, but yet again he has failed to do so and in the TV debates without the Tory press and biased TV presenters to shield him Cameron will be as exposed as Natalie Bennett. The nation will be interested to learn where his £7 billion in tax cuts will be coming from as yet unfunded and unexplained, will they be funded by yet  more cuts to the benefits of disabled people?  Especially when it has just been revealed that George Osborne's welfare cuts are to be twice as bad as he has revealed! ......

I actually share some of Labour supporters frustration as to why Labour seem reticent to go a little further left, but what I would urge them to think of is the bigger picture. Ed Miliband is centre left, he and Labour do have some really great policy proposals and Labour in government do have a really good track record of keeping their promises. What Labour supporters flirting with Green should bear in mind is that Miliband has to try and reassure all voters that he and Labour are able to govern, that means convincing people in Tory - Labour marginal seats to vote Labour, if they don't, then Labour will not win the election. It really is as simple as that. The irony is that Ed Miliband is known to favour scrapping the First Past The Post  (FPTP) voting system that ignores the votes and concerns of millions of people in British elections, and replacing it with some form of proportional representation (PR), which will help all votes of all voters voting for smaller parties like the Greens to count and voting Green in May will be a vote to deny yourself future representation in parliament and rightly or wrongly, the way things stand, voting for the Green Party on May 7th, is a vote for David Cameron and a vote for giving him another five years in power, to carry on doing things like this: Homeless 14 month old baby forced to sleep in a suitcase in a hostile and this:  "DWP to urgently review decision to axe benefits to family of a 7 year old leukemia sufferer, forced to rely on foodbanks" (don't read if you do not want to shake with anger and frustration at this hideous Tory government!)

I make no bones that I support the Labour party and Ed Miliband for government and prime minister, I honestly believe that a prime minister Miliband and a Miliband government will bring the radical changes and reform that our bank system, our capital system and our voting system actually needs. I also believe that the Conservatives, David Cameron, George Osborne and Nick Clegg and the Tory supporting right wing press know it too, which is why they at every given opportunity try to trash Miliband, they lie about him misrepresent him. The Sunday press of 01/02/2015 proves it. The Tory press have united to fight one person, Ed Miliband, with a stream of spurious reports, innuendo and complete fallacies.
They switch between trying to tell us that Mr Miliband is 'weird' (because he can't eat a bacon sarnie) to he is weak (because he can't eat a bacon sarnie) and he can't possibly lead the country because yes you guessed it, he can't eat a bacon sarnie.

Not a real word to expose the Tory corruption and the astonishing ill judgement of Tory PM David Cameron, or the lies and total incompetence. Nothing about how Cameron stood in front of NHS workers just weeks before the 2010 general election and blatantly lied to their faces when he said "there will be no more top down reorganisation of the NHS", when at this point he KNEW he was going to order the biggest reorganisation in the NHS entire history, he knew because he and the former health Secretary Andrew Lansley had been working on the reforms for SEVEN years at that point - liars the pair of them, blatant liars, the kind that gives politics a bad name and there are many such examples of appalling Tory lies and deliberate misleading, but the Tory press do and say absolutely nothing, because apparently Ed Miliband being caught on camera eating a bacon sarnie the wrong way trumps Tory corruption and incompetence!

In truth the absence in the Tory supporting press of real issues to attack the leader of the opposition with show their abject fear of having Ed Miliband, a real man, a decent and caring man and also a clever man lead this country absolutely terrifies them and it does for one simple reason, far from being 'weak', Miliband is strong and he has stood up to the likes of Dacre at the Daily Mail and stood up to the Sun and Sun owning Australian living in the US, dictating to us what UK government policy should be Rupert Murdoch and won. Miliband forced Cameron to hold the Leveson inquiry, which exposed the sheer sewer mentality that runs through Murdoch's veins and runs through the veins of every gutter journalist and every editor there has ever been  at the Sun from Kelvin MacKenzie (Hillsborough) to Murdoch's little friend and playmate Rebekah Brooks (hacking a murdered schoolgirl's phone). The Tory press know that Miliband will implement the recommendations of Judge Leveson and the Tory press will lose some of their ability to publish lies and get away with it, this is the truth, this is what the Tory press really fear. Far from being weak Miliband is strong and has showed the press he is not scared of them and that he's principled and he's honest and he cannot be bought by them and the Tories and their mates in the biased Tory press know this which is why they attack him constantly, and yet can find nothing better than a bacon sandwich to do it with!

Meanwhile the Tory Press allow Cameron to get away with running 'fowl' from the live TV debates, I wonder why?