This evening, the BBC hosts a “challengers” debate, one involving five of the seven from last time, so minus the “governing leaders”, namely Cameron and Clegg. The idea, I suppose, is to give voice to those party leaders who haven’t been governing recently or ever, but may be doing so in the future. Or something like that.
This debate is happening mostly by accident; the broadcasters had a set of debates they wanted to hold and their plans were bulldozed by the Tories. So they’ve come up with tonight as a weird alternative. I guess it’s better than nothing.
So what’s going to happen then? You can simplify the dynamic for this one in a way that you couldn’t for the seven man slam: it’s essentially Miliband v Sturgeon with some other random folk cutting in every once in a while. Wood will talk about Wales again, stuff that is completely irrelevant to 95% of the country; Bennett will try and hold her end up, valiantly, but the truth is the Green breakthrough looks like its time has come and gone; Farage is there to say something offensive every once in a while and appeal to the few UKIPers who may have bothered to tune in. No, tonight is about whether the Labour Party can convince the voters of Scotland to reject the SNP and plump for them again, pretty please, or if Sturgeon can put the final nail in the coffin of Scottish Labour. It’s all to play for between them.
I genuinely don’t know who will come out on top. Sturgeon showed last time out she can play in the Premier League. But I’m going to predict Ed winning on the night, mostly because I doubted him pretty much every step of the way in the lead up to this election campaign, thinking he’d be several major screw ups in by now, when actually he’s managed to look pretty good thus far. Watch – the moment I plump for Miliband to be victor he’ll decide to fall to pieces. But like I say, I don’t think so.
Farage will “win” the polls on the night simply because he’s the only right-wing voice. Miliband is in a decent position to exceed expectations though (conversely Sturgeon has a lot to live up to).
What will be interesting to see is how much Ed Milliband attacks the SNP record in Government or will he look to co-opt a lot of SNP rhetoric for the Labour Party
Do you really think this debate would really create any impact on the voters’ choice? Especially without the two current Office-holders out of the debate?
This is something which is not relevant to the debate – but Ed Milliband’s wish for the Sinhala and Tamil New Year really proved how desperate and pathetic he is. Yes, he has to score points to get his Tamil vote base cheered up, but has he thought a moment what would be the situation in Sri Lanka at the midst of the new government’s push for sustainable peace and reconciliation? If this is how he is going to form his foreign policy when he is the PM, I don;t mind him winning tonight’s debate – but never the election and the key to No. 10, Downing Street.