ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, when David Cameron was opposition leader before the last election he put pressure on Gordon Brown, the then Prime Minister of course, to take part in live election debates on a regular basis but now the pressure has been back on him and he’s not quite so keen.  He says he wants the Green Party to take part, the other party leaders say he is simply scared.  Well I am joined in the studio by Damian McBride, who is a former advisor to Gordon Brown and by Stewart Purvis who is a former editor in chief of ITN and was also of course in charge of content and standards at the broadcasting regulator Ofcom.  Joining me from her constituency in Brighton is the Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas and Caroline, seeing as we’re down in Brighton we’ll start with you.  Is this the first time in history that you are in total agreement with David Cameron, that the Greens should take part in these debates?

CAROLINE LUCAS: I think it probably is the first time, yes and I’m very pleased to hear him say it.  Now I am quite aware that he has his own political reasons for saying so but nonetheless he does helpfully point to the fact I think that however you cut the cake, the Greens should be included.  If you use the measure of whether or not we are already in Parliament, where we have had an MP for longer than UKIP, if you use the measurement of how we are doing in recent polls, we are ahead of the Liberal Democrats, the European elections put us well ahead of the Lib Dems, we gained an MEP and they went down to just one.   So whichever way you look at it, I think the Greens should be included and I think crucially the public want us to be included as well.  

DM: Well you have got the support of the Liberal Democrats as well, I just want to play you while you sort out your ear piece there Caroline, sort that out and I’ll just play you a little bit of what the former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown said to me about what he agrees with you and what the Greens should do if you continue to be excluded.  Let’s just have a listen to Paddy Ashdown.  

PADDY ASHDOWN: It’s a decision which ought to be decided by an independent body subject to law.  That’s the principle we’re attached to, it’s not about the Greens coming in, it’s about making sure that politicians don’t make this decision and you guys, you guys at Sky, you almost invented these things, together with the BBC have subject to law come up with a certain set of propositions.  It’s not our job to intervene.  By the way, they are not very good for us, I mean we have things that we don’t like about them but we will accept them in the interests of debate.  If it’s the case that the Greens want in there, it is perfectly clear what they should do, not hide behind the Prime Minister but go to court and there is legislation, they can challenge it, let them do that.

DM: Go to court.  Well Caroline, what do you think of that?  If you aren’t allowed in, take legal action.   

CAROLINE LUCAS: Well we are exploring and have been exploring precisely that so the idea that we are somehow cowering behind David Cameron is one that I would refute.  Of course we’re taking legal advice and will continue to do so but I also hope that Ofcom and the broadcasters will look at what the public are saying.  We’ve got about 300,000 members of the public now signed up to a petition saying that they think the Greens should be included, not because they necessarily support our policies but because they think there is an issue here of fairness and justice and frankly they want to hear, I think, a voice that is somewhat different from the four other parties, the four other men in their grey suits, who will be talking about things like bringing rail back into public ownership, scrapping Trident, putting the environment at the heart of our agenda – all policies you are not getting from any of the other parties.  I think there is a public duty, a public broadcasters duty if you like, to let the public know that there is another party on offer at the next election who can put forward those policies which are very popular.

DM: Okay, well let me bring in Damian McBride and Stewart Purvis.  Damian, do you feel that the Prime Minister, this is tactical, he is using the Greens as a smokescreen because he just doesn’t want to do these debates because  he’s Prime Minister and he doesn’t want to give particularly Ed Miliband the air time?

DAMIAN McBRIDE: Yes, it’s clearly tactical and also this is the first stage in it because if the Greens do succeed in getting into the debates then suddenly all hell breaks loose because the SNP want to take part and Paid Cymru and the Ulster Nationalists so you end up in a position where one way or another he sort of turns this into a sort of chaos that can never happen or just kills it at the first hurdle.  

DM: Well Stewart, you were at ITN, I was there as well and I know you went through many general elections trying to get debates off the ground, it finally happened last time round.  In your heart of hearts do you think that will be the only time that we see them, that they won’t happen this time?

STEWART PURVIS: It is possible.  Remember that after the famous Kennedy/Nixon debates in the States it was 16 years before there was another one so we shouldn’t take these things for granted and there is no assumption, there should be no assumption that they will.  I feel this focus on the Green issue is quite right but I think we’re missing a point here.  As I understand it the Conservative party position is not just about the Greens being in one debate, it’s about the fact that they would prefer just two debates, one with Ed Miliband and one with a number of other people including the Greens, but of course the people who gets squeezed by that are the Liberal Democrats because at the moment they have got a debate of the three of them, so if there is a two debate and there’s a four, five even six debate, the Liberal Democrats are going to scream about that.  Now is that again what you are saying Damian?  Is it actually that the Conservatives know that for every time you do one deal, another deal gets unpicked and therefore it is almost a sort of perpetual crisis.

DM: Do you think that would damage him though if we do get to the general election, Damian McBride, and the fix phrase, the phrase used by Margaret Thatcher and Denis Healey way back in 1983, would that damage someone in a general election or in the heat of everything else that’s being discussed, would the electorate really care whether there were debates or not?  

DAMIAN McBRIDE: Well I think it is one of these issues that will keep coming up with David Cameron and he has already shown his irritation about that in Washington, he was very irritated that when he has got his chance to strut his stuff on the world stage he is being asked about these debates but don’t forget he is also playing a rather clever tactical game here.  If the debates do happen somehow and he goes into them, then people will say David Cameron didn’t want these debates, he was the last person who wanted to be standing on this podium.  If he then does well, which he should, he is an experienced debater, suddenly he has gone in with low expectations and he can come out of them thinking, well I don't know what I was worried about, I quite enjoyed that.  So everything is about reducing expectations and then exceeding them.

DM: Well why don’t the broadcasters, Stewart Purvis, just call the bluff and say okay, we’ll bring the Greens in, they can make up those rules, it’s up to them?

STEWART PURVIS: Well the two bluff is they can either let the Greens in or not let the Greens in.  Let’s be absolutely clear, there has been a lot of muddle her about what the rules are.  The rules are actually it is down to the broadcasters they make the call and they have to be able to justify the call afterwards to the regulators like Ofcom and the BBC Trust, so in a sense all the idea that somehow maybe the regulators – Caroline just referred to Ofcom should do this or Ofcom do that, I mean I was in the equivalent position at Ofcom last time and I’ll be pretty honest, I didn’t do much while it was going on.  My judgement was about what happened after we’d seen the transmission, did that meet the rules?  So the broadcasters …

DM: That the rules are balanced and fair.  

STEWART PURVIS: Exactly and let’s be absolutely clear, there is also quite separately a consultation going on about the number of party election broadcasts that people should have and people are kind of conflating the two.  They are separate and being given a party election broadcast, there are a certain number, doesn’t give you a ticket to the debates.

DM: There is one thing that flows from that is the fact that Ofcom, and what do you think about that given what Caroline Lucas has said about the Greens credentials and support, that they declared, Ofcom declared that UKIP is a main party and that obviously has an influence on the number of party election broadcasts they get but the Greens are not.

STEWART PURVIS: No, well there is a consultation going on that and Caroline and the Green Party have an opportunity now to involve themselves in that consultation, put forward their case to Ofcom about why they should but again that only convers the minimum number of party election broadcasts you get.  Some sort of special status has been put on this major party status and I actually think it should be kept separate and people should say what kind of television programme do the broadcasters want to make, who are the right people to invite to the programme depending on what the programme is about.   

DM: Let me ask Damian about last time round where we just had the straight three-three-three three times round, what was Gordon Brown’s calculation about why he would do it?  It was because basically he was behind in the polls and he thought I’ve got nothing to lose wasn’t it?

DAMIAN McBRIDE: He was well behind and also thought that this might be the chance to put some pressure on David Cameron.  What neither of them were expecting was that you’d have this surge of Cleggmania, that Nick Clegg would do so well and that came to be the dominant feature in the first debate.  Then it raised expectations for the second and then the third, if you remember, was totally overshadowed by the Mrs Duffy incident which happened just the day before.  

DM: But that scarred the Conservatives in particular didn’t it and probably David Cameron who thought that he might have won an outright majority had they not had that Clegg effect?  

DAMIAN McBRIDE: Yes and I think the problem with David Cameron is that he went into those debates as the favourite, nobody expected Gordon Brown to do well, nobody knew what to expect from Nick Clegg and again, that’s why I say it’s very good for David Cameron if these debates do happen.  He will go into them almost as a bit of an underdog because people will be saying he didn’t want to do these.

DM: Okay, let’s talk to Caroline Lucas about some of those suggestions or observations that Stewart Purvis was making and in particular about Ofcom.  You touched on it, Caroline Lucas, you can pursue this further with Ofcom, the fact that they decided that the Greens were not quote/unquote ‘a main party’.

CAROLINE LUCAS: Well we will be pursuing it further with Ofcom as we will directly with the broadcasters, that’s what we’re doing but I do think the problem with the approach that they’re taking is that they are looking at the past rather than what’s happening right now.  Right now there is a political revolution happening.  Our membership has doubled in the last two months alone, we now have more members than UKIP or the Liberal Democrats, more than 8000 people joined us in the last week alone so there is a real appetite out there for people to know what the Green party stands for and it seems to me to be a fairly basic premise that if that’s the case then that should be reflected in these debates.  Of course these debates are very different from your ordinary party election broadcast because last time around I think it’s been estimated that around 20 million people watched at least part of these big debates so they do have a massive impact on the outcome of the election, or at least they can do, they have an awful lot of influence and that means given our size, given that we’re growing, given the popularity, the broadcasters should be reflecting that.  

DM: Okay, so many issues here, so many legal issues, so many broadcasting issues but Damian McBride, the other thing we’re leaving out of this of course is the exposure for UKIP and Nigel Farage, obviously the Conservatives don’t want to boost that vote anymore.  Are they using the Greens as a counter hoping if they get exposure they’ll nibble a bit out of the Labour vote?

DAMIAN McBRIDE: Yes, undoubtedly and that’s the plan but I think it’s a dangerous thing to wish for though because what you could end up with in that situation which is ultimately why David Cameron doesn’t want to do this, is everyone ganging up on him where you have, you can imagine if you do have the Greens and Labour on one side, Liberals and UKIP on the other but all of them would find something to attack in David Cameron and I think that’s the great danger for him.  It might sort of provoke that sort of irritation that sometimes comes out too easily from David Cameron.  

DM: Do you feel, Stewart, that it did suck the life out of the campaign – this is another of the things we’re hearing from Number Ten, it sucked the life of the campaign in 2010, everyone just focused on those debates?  

STEWART PURVIS: Well it is a matter of record that the coverage whether it be in the newspapers or television or radio was obsessed with coverage before the debates, what’s going to happen in the debates and then what happened in a debate and the timing meant that there wasn’t much gap, if you like, for any other issues to get between so I can totally understand why the Conservative party argument, they want to create gaps if you like between the debates to create more space for something else.  

DM: And if he keeps on refusing, do you think in the parlance, the broadcasters would empty chair him, so have four podiums and an empty podium for David Cameron?  

STEWART PURVIS: I don't think that we should rule out that the broadcasters might split apart at some point and actually I can easily see one broadcaster being prepared to do an empty chair.  I’m not sure which one yet but we’ll wait and see.  

DM: Okay, well we’ll watch this space!  Thank you very much Stewart Purvis, Damian McBride and Caroline Lucas, thank you very much indeed down there in Brighton.