The broadcasters have rejected David Cameron’s offer of one seven-way debate before the start of the short campaign. Instead, they are sticking to their plan for two seven-way debates and one head to head between Cameron and Miliband in the short campaign.
This means that the debates, certainly in terms of Cameron’s participation, are pretty much dead. Number 10 and CCHQ were insistent that their offer on Wednesday night was final.
The Tories’ reason for not wanting to debate is simple: Cameron polls ahead of Miliband on leadership by such a margin that he would have to win the debate by a knock out for it to be worth his while. We should remember that in the United States there were 16 years between the first televised presidential debate in 1960 and the second in 1976. The reason for the hiatus was that you only get a second debate when all the candidates feel that they have something to gain from it.
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