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Bureau News - 3 Oct, 2009
Brown agrees to televised British election debate
LONDON — Prime Minister Gordon Brown has agreed to take part in Britain’s first televised election debate among party leaders.
Brown, who has been accused of dithering on a host of issues, had
been reluctant to participate in U.S.-style election debates even
though his two main rivals had agreed.
“It is right that there will be a strong focus on the leaders’
debates and it is right that in a Cabinet system of government that
ministers and opposition ministers also debate the issues in a series
of debates on television and radio too,” Brown said in a letter posted
to his Labour Party’s Web site on Saturday.
Britain has never held televised clashes between party leaders during an election campaign.
Brown had previously said that voters get to see party chiefs tussle
most weeks in Parliament during the rowdy — and televised — prime
minister’s questions session.
“I relish the opportunity of making our case directly to the people of this country,” Brown said.
Britain’s Sky News channel — owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. —
has been pressing Brown to take part in the debate, along with
Conservative Party leader David Cameron and Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg.
From Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair, British leaders have typically dodged the cameras in televised debates.
Thatcher famously told Labour Party rival Neil Kinnock that “such a
debate would generate more hot air than light” after he demanded a
prime-time TV duel in 1987.
A televised debate could influence voter turnout at a time when many
Britons have become disillusioned by mainstream politics. A scandal
this year over lawmakers’ lavish expense claims was blamed for the low
turnout in local and European elections in June.
A general election must be held in the U.K. by June 2010.
According to a series of recent polls, Brown’s Labour Party is
expected to lose the election after 12 years in power to the
Conservatives.
www.labour.org.uk/the-leaders-debate
Source : Breaking News 24/7
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