2015 Election and the Leaders Debates

As do the NI parties.

Carrying a debate which doesn't involve those parties gives the uk-wide parties who are standing an advantage in NI.

If you exclude the NI parties on the grounds that they will achieve so few seats not to make a difference, you have to extend that logic to the Greens. Equally if you include the SNP and Plaid Cymru, there seems to be little justification for excluding the NI parties.

The Listening Post on All Jazeera English just had a nice little report on Ofcom. I only caught the end of it, but it touched on all three of the main parties' plans for the regulator in their manifestos.

I didn't say anything about excluding NI parties because they'd win so few seats to make a difference - quite the opposite in fact when I said the debate is important to the entire UK because of the role NI parties could play in coalitions.

As for whether NI parties should've been included in the main debate - that would've just become an unmanageable mess. With Scotland and Wales you just have the one "extra" party to the national parties, whereas if you included the NI parties that would've taken the total participants up to at least 12, and that's only if you limited the NI participants to those already with a seat.

And there's no benefit to the UK-wide parties, because they don't get elected in NI.

Don't get elected is not the same as don't stand for election.

Well, if they don't get elected then they aren't getting much benefit from the debates are they?

Anyway, if this was a real concern, then one of the NI parties would've made a complaint about these parties that won't get elected are getting an unfair boost. They haven't, which goes to suggest it really is a non-issue.

Posts from Northern Ireland leaders debate have been merged into this topic.

Looking at election night coverage in the nations:

S4C is on air from 10pm-7am, while BBC1 Wales has it's own show from 10pm-6am before joining network. BBC2 Wales has the network coverage from 10.30pm, while BBC Parliament repeats the BBC Wales coverage from 11am on Friday (though loses an hour). ITV Wales simulcast the ITV coverage.

BBC Scotlands coverage is simulcast on BBC Parliament and airs through to 9am, while BBC NI's coverage airs through to 6am is repeated on BBC Parliament from 6.30pm on Friday.

UTV simulcasts ITV overnight and has their own programme on Friday from 9.25am to 2.30pm. STV has their own programme overnight then simulcasts ITV through to 1.30pm before a half hour STV Election special, before returning to ITV at 2pm.

I wondered what UTV were going to do, in the past they opted out of CITV on the Friday.

Wales getting a rough deal on ITV then, suppose this is the advantage of still having independent franchise holders in Scotland and NI.

To be honest, perhaps with the exception of NI, I've never really understood the need for nations versions of general election coverage. The usual pundits and interviewees will be shared between the network BBC/ITN/Sky programmes and I don't understand what some Z-list politicians sitting in Cardiff could contribute which is more useful - especially so this year, when both the Welsh and Scottish nationalists will be getting ample coverage on the network programmes.

The coverage coming out of BBC Wales in Cardiff is a shameful waste of money for some absurdly small audiences - not only do they do the BBC1 Wales and S4C programmes, but IIRC last time round they did Radio Wales and Radio Cymru programmes through the night too. So it's quite the right decision from ITV Wales in my view.

I have to agree, its a bit pointless for STV to do a whole live show, it will have to take alot of ITV stuff. It might have been better to have opted out and in over the night.

Looks like I'll be watching the results on ITV London then...

It is called public service broadcasting.