Sky, BBC, ITV and Channel 4 are proposing that the televised election debates should include UKIP but not the Green Party, Respect or other parties.

Obviously there’s a question of fairness here, and puzzlement about the criteria used to reach that judgement. But that’s not the real issue.

The debates are presumably meant to help people decide which of the alternatives they’re going to vote for, and therefore they will inevitably concentrate on the narrow range of issues on which they differ. There are some slight differences on Europe and on immigration, so the debate will be dominated by those.

The trouble is that the world has about three years left in which to adopt policies that might prevent our great grandchildren being the last humans on the planet.

Today’s letters

The government elected next May will be in power during those three years.

The crucial debate about what policies are needed to prevent that happening will not even get a mention.

If the media gets its way what will go unchallenged are the neo-liberal assumptions of the ‘mainstream’ parties plus UKIP: ‘private good, public bad’, non-intervention in a ‘free’ market dominated by Big Money, economic growth measured purely in terms of money movements (whether for good or ill). This is precisely the consensus that is driving the human race over the cliff.

The whole debate will simply be a way of avoiding talking about the ‘elephant in the room’ – climate change. The public deserves better.

Cllr Revd Dick Wolff

City Councillor for St Marys Ward

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