As a sop to nationalist sentiment the broadcasters are offering Scotland and Wales their own national debates with their own local Leaders.

The problem for the broadcasters at the moment is that they haven't managed to separate out Britain and England as usual.

Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg is on the presidential style debate as the third man because he has to be there as under the OFCOM guidelines the Lib-Dems are classed as a major party along with Labour and the Conservatives.

However broadcast time for parties in Scotland during an election is worked out in a Scottish context not a UK one and OFCOM classify the SNP as a major party in Scotland.

For any political programme broadcast in Scotland the SNP have to be treated as equal to the Lib-Dems, Labour and the Conservatives. Since the high profile debates are going to be broadcast in Scotland and will be a three way affair which cuts the SNP out of the loop then the SNP will probably be successful in blocking them from being broadcast in Scotland unless they get on the platform with the other three.

What a lot of posters and commenters in other blogs fail to understand is that the SNP is demanding equal airtime not in a UK context but in a Scottish one and that any court will also decide on the impartiality of the debate in a Scottish context. Who debates who on TV in the rest of the UK doesn't concern them but who debates who in Scotland will concern any court asked to make a decision on the impartiality of the broadcast under the current guidelines and legislation which apply to Scotland.

I don't actually think these debates are going to happen because the SNP look on the Scottish debate as a sop too.

If there are separate debates in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, they should deal with reserved matters only, which are the only policy areas on which MPs elected in those countries can represent their constituents. In other words, if the Scotland-, Wales- and N. Ireland-specific debates actually discussed matters specific to those countries (i.e. devolved matters), then that would be tantamount to the parties there soliciting votes on the basis of policies that cannot be enacted by any of their eventually elected MPs. As a consequence, UK-parliamentary legislation concerning England only will be decided on by MPs not only from outside England but elected on the basis of explicitly non-English policy platforms. Bonkers!

The only country for which there is a need for separate debates is England, because England (and sometimes Wales) is the only country for which UK MPs have any say over policies in devolved areas such as education, health and policing. So we should have an England-only debate featuring the three leaders and a UK-wide debate (on reserved matters only) also including the leaders of the SNP and Plaid. However, if it's decided not to inflict Alex Salmond and Ieuan Wyn Jones on English voters, they can have their separate debates - but limited to devolved matters.

Really, they just don't want the said Salmond and Jones turning up to a UK debate and saying they have no comment on devolved matters, which relate to England only!

Britology:

The problem as always is that the broadcasters make no distinction between Britain and England. As a Scot I see it from the other side of the fence but you're quite right, any General Election debate held in Scotland which discusses reserved matters is a non-starter and any General Election debate held across the UK which does not specify which parts of the UK it refers to is deliberately misleading.

I think that is an additional factor in the desire to keep the SNP off the platform of the main debate for any broadcasts in Scotland far less across the UK. If Alex Salmond was on that platform for a Scottish debate between Cameron, Brown, Clegg and Salmond then most of the, "meat and drink", issues such as education, the NHS and law and order would be quite rightly off-limits for debate. If the debate was broadcast UK wide there would have to be continual references to how these parts of the debate only applied to England because of Salmond's presence. If Salmond is not there then they won't bother to tell people which are UK and which are England only policies.

Brown, Cameron and Clegg want to debate as if they are running a unitary UK and for Scots a large part of the debate is not only going to be irrelevant but also misleading. English people will not be informed that much of the debate only applies to England not the UK and that Brown's constituents will come under different policies for many of the issues discussed on the debate platform.

I've commented on a couple of Scottish blogs to say why I think the SNP have a good case to either be on any debates broadcast in Scotland or to stop any debates broadcast in Scotland which exclude them. In essence any judge will not look on the right of the SNP to be on a UK wide debate but on their right to be on any debate broadcast in Scotland.

I won't copy them here but they are on J. Arthur MacNumpty's blog and on the Scot goes Pop blog.

Whilst I agree with John Redwoods comment, and indeed concur with much of what others have had to say on the subject of a Televised debate, sadly I do not really believe such a debate will make any difference to our lives in the United Kingdom as long as we are intergrated into the European Union as we are. The EU would not allow any changes that might dis-unify or challenge their authority.
As has been said, the EU has no alternative but to be a dictatorship in order to control 27 very differing nations.
The leaders of the three main political parties are fully committed members of the European Union, so how can they alter anything- will in fact there be a Westminster Parliament after the next general election? Or rather will its powers remain as now, I doubt it. It is a very gloomy outlook and we should all be very concerned to our futures and to those of our Children and Grandchildren- Our Freedom which has taken 1000 years to evolve in now under attack, and in our every day lives.