Political parties and broadcasters were last night engaged in a bitter round of recriminations after the line-up of televised election clashes was announced.
David Cameron was accused of “cowardice” by Labour after agreeing to appear in a single seven-way debate on April 2, but shunning a head-to-head against Ed Miliband.
The Prime Minister and Mr Miliband will be interviewed and answer questions from a studio audience on a Sky News/Channel 4 programme this Thursday but will not have any direct exchanges.
Mr Cameron, Mr Miliband and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg will also feature separately in a BBC Question Time special on April 30, just a week before the nation goes to the polls.
The only other true debate of the campaign will take place on ITV on April 16, and pit Mr Miliband against UKIP’s Nigel Farage, Natalie Bennett of the Green Party, Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP, and Leanne Wood from Plaid Cymru.
The final line-up follows years of wrangling between parties and broadcasters over whether and how to repeat the debates from the 2010 election campaign which saw Gordon Brown, Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg square up three times.
Mr Cameron rejected previous proposals on the basis they did not include the Greens and insisted the sessions should not take place during the short election campaign that starts on March 30.
However, last week he appeared to surprise other parties and the broadcasters by declaring that he had accepted plans for the seven-way debate on April 2 and agreed to participate in a variety of other programmes.
A Tory source insisted they had secured an even better deal than they were hoping for.
“If anything, this is an improvement on the deal we were offered last week,” they said.
“The PM has always believed too many debates would suck the life out of the campaign.”
A Labour Party spokesman accused Channel 4 and Sky News of backing down on a pledge to “empty-hair” Mr Cameron.
They also complained that the Prime Minister had been allowed to “veto” Mr Clegg’s participation in the debate on April 16.
The SNP leader Sturgeon said she was pleased the debate about the debates was finally over.
But she added: “Our preference would have been for broadcasters to stick to their original proposals and not be pushed around by the Westminster parties.”
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