PM WILL take part in a TV grilling – but not full debate
THERESA May will take part in a Question Time-style TV programme ahead of the General Election – but not a full debate, it emerged last night.
In a partial climbdown, sources said the Prime Minister will still refuse a head-tohead debate with other political leaders similar to those in 2010 and 2015.
She appeared to bow to pressure from MPs who urged broadcasters to ‘empty chair’ her and accused her of ‘running scared’.
The BBC and ITV indicated yesterday that they would screen a leaders’ debate regardless of whether or not she took part. A separate debate for Scottish viewers is also set to go ahead before the election, with all four party leaders north of the Border keen to take part.
The row over Mrs May’s refusal began yesterday morning when she told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: ‘I believe in campaigns where politicians actually get out and about and meet with voters.
‘As Prime Minister, as a constituency MP, I still go out and knock on doors in my constituency.’
As the clear front runner, she may have the most to lose from a TV debate as they tend to benefit opposition candidates.
But she faced taunts of ‘frit’ from Labour backbenchers at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday. The criticism was levelled at David Cameron when he initially refused to take part in the 2015 debates.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: ‘If Theresa May is so proud of her record, why won’t she debate it?’
SNP deputy leader Angus Robertson accused Mrs May of ‘running scared of a televised debate with Nicola Sturgeon’.
First Minister Miss Sturgeon tweeted: ‘If PM doesn’t have the confidence to debate her plans on TV with other leaders, broadcasters should empty chair her.’
Jonathan Munro, head of news gathering at the BBC, said it was ‘working hard’ on plans for a debate because it was ‘overwhelmingly’ in the public interest.
ONLY two years ago, Alex Salmond said the SNP wanted to ‘form a progressive alliance to shake Westminster to its foundations’. Nicola Sturgeon even dropped the requirement that a minority Labour government would have to ditch its support for the Trident nuclear deterrent in order to win SNP backing.
Ed Miliband was almost seduced by these hollow promises and dithered before rejecting the offer – a pause that was widely blamed for contributing to Labour’s defeat at the 2015 General Election.
Now there is an overwhelming sense of déjà vu as Miss Sturgeon dusts off this cynical ruse for use again in the forthcoming campaign ahead of June’s snap poll.
Again she talks of a ‘progressive alliance’ to keep the Tories out of power – a prospect rapidly shut down by Jeremy Corbyn. Admittedly, his appalling poll ratings suggest he would struggle to form a coalition even with the help of two other parties.
Theresa May was right to describe this plan for a toxic Left-wing alliance as a ‘coalition of chaos’, but isn’t it also a pernicious insult to voters’ intelligence?
The SNP’s real objective is to weaken Labour to advance Miss Sturgeon’s eternal goal of breaking up Britain.
At the same time, she can attempt to claim the moral high ground by pledging to work with her deadly rivals to prevent ‘perpetual Tory rule’.
In fact, the First Minister knows that English voters will baulk at any prospect of a Corbyn coalition propped up by the SNP, bolstering the likelihood of a Tory majority.
The Nationalists can then portray Scottish independence as the only way of escaping the Tories, as they did in the 2014 referendum.
As one Labour source remarked yesterday: ‘If the SNP were genuinely wanting to get the Tories out, she [Miss Sturgeon] would not be talking up the prospects of a progressive alliance.’
This is precisely the sort of game-playing that Mrs May has denounced – and again demonstrates the SNP’s contempt for ordinary voters as it seeks to further its independence agenda.