Election debates: empty chair, empty words, empty suit

They still won’t happen, probably. I thought so a year ago and I still think so today. But what the Conservatives may have hoped would be a 24 hour story has rumbled into the new week with added momentum. The debate about the debates continues.

Thank Lord Tebbit. His calculated intervention (does he make any other kind?) has made Tory attempts to kill off the debates harder to pull off. Crucially, he used Mrs Thatcher’s word – “frit” – to describe David Cameron’s unwillingness to take part. This is serious. The Conservative party’s most convincing guardian of the Thatcher flame has used her own term of abuse to denounce her successor. That will hurt, and will not go unnoticed by Tory activists – those who are still active, anyway.

The other people who are noticing are the media. Of course, there is a self-serving interest, especially for broadcasters, in making as much fuss as possible about all this. And some print journalists have been honest enough to admit they felt a little undermined five years ago by the novelty and excitement of the TV election debates.

But there is another side to this. Candidate and then prime minister Cameron could not have been clearer about his (former) commitment to the debates. They were a vital and energising part of the election process, he said. They had to happen again, and he was keen for them to do so, he said. (In truth I think he went off the idea a long time ago, but he has kept up the pretence of enthusiasm until now.)

Now the Conservatives brief that they are “supremely confident” no broadcaster would dare to “empty chair” the prime minister for failing to agree to a format that three other party leaders have accepted (including the deputy prime minister, of course). But can they be so certain of that? And how wise is it, really, to laugh in the face of broadcasters in this way? Someone ought to hold the PM to account for shamelessly going back on his words, and it might as well be the media. No-one else can do it.

Still – as of today the debates probably will not go ahead. What can the other parties do to change that? In the first instance, they could encourage broadcasters to confirm dates and let Cameron know that there will be a chair and a podium waiting for him on those occasions. Confirming dates would keep the game of chicken running much longer. And supreme Tory confidence that broadcasters will lack the guts to go ahead without the PM may start to wobble. Chicken supreme!

But better still, why not follow Sadiq Khan’s suggestion and agree to allow the leader of the Greens, Natalie Bennett, to take part? If that is all that is stopping Cameron from showing up then why not remove the obstacle? Call his bluff. (The Scottish and Welsh nationalist party leaders could be accommodated in separate debates in which Labour, for example, could put up Jim Murphy and Carwyn Jones. Northern Ireland remains a separate case again.)

The key problem, according to Cameron, is the question of the Greens. He wants Ed Miliband to have them heckling him just as he would have to endure the vituperation of Nigel Farage. There has been some slightly exaggerated talk of the Green party “splitting the left” at the election. But no Labour leader could be better prepared to take on the Greens in this format than the former energy and climate change secretary. And if part of the challenge to Ed Miliband is that he needs to project a more “prime ministerial” image then confidently dealing with the Green attack would be a useful step to take.

OK, I admit it. Lord Rentoul of the Indy is probably right– the debates won’t happen.

But that doesn’t mean the Fourth Estate should take this lying down, nor stop asking the prime minister again and again why he has had such a complete and dramatic change of heart. If he thinks the Labour leader is “a waste of space” why is he too scared to debate with him? If he is so proud of his record why is he running away from the chance to defend it? If he has anything more to offer the country other than just muddling on and hoping for the best why not take the chance to tell us what it is?

Lord Tebbit is right. The prime minister is frit. The voters know it, too.