Posted on 04/02/2015 3:47:10 AM PDT by UKrepublican
Nigel Farage is the bookmakers’ favourite to win Thursday night’s televised seven-way leaders debate — the only event in which David Cameron will go head-to-head with his rivals.
Mr Cameron’s allies are hoping that the two-hour ITV debate will become a political slanging match, illustrating his argument that the UK general election next month could produce a messy and unstable result.
The format, the result of protracted wrangling between the broadcasters and Number 10, will give an invaluable platform to the leaders of smaller parties, including the UK Independence party’s Mr Farage.
Ukip has been slipping in opinion polls in recent weeks but Mr Farage showed in televised Europe debates with Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, last year that his populist style can be highly effective.
William Hill makes Mr Farage the 13/8 favourite to be voted the “best” leader in the debate in snap polls to be published immediately after the event, which ends at 10pm on Thursday.
Natalie Bennett, Green party leader, Leanne Wood, leader of Plaid Cymru, Nicola Sturgeon for the SNP and Mr Clegg will also join Mr Cameron and Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, for the event in Salford.
Mr Cameron, who gave a lacklustre performance in last week’s televised interrogation by Jeremy Paxman, has been taking part in dress rehearsals with Tory colleagues playing the role of his rivals.
Mr Miliband has been played by Rupert Harrison, George Osborne’s chief adviser, Mr Clegg by Jeremy Hunt, health secretary, while Mr Cameron’s Scottish adviser Andrew Dunlop took the role of Ms Sturgeon.
Mr Cameron has been lucky in the drawing of lots before the debate; he will stand at the end of the leaders’ line-up, some distance from Mr Farage, and will have the final word in the closing statements.
Meanwhile, Mr Miliband, who put on a combative show in his grilling by Mr Paxman last week, may find the seven-way format more challenging.
The Labour leader will find himself in the unusual position of being attacked from the left: Ms Bennett, Ms Wood and Ms Sturgeon all claim to be ideological partners in a Green/Nationalist “progressive alliance”.
Ms Bennett will speak first in the debate and will be hoping to erase from the public mind some of her recent media performances, when she forgot key aspects of party policy.
Mr Clegg’s return to Manchester comes five years after he burst on to the political scene in the first of three televised elections before the 2010 campaign; the resulting “Cleggmania” is now a distant memory.
Mr Farage, speaking before the debate, said he wanted an Australian-style points system to halt what he called was “uncontrolled mass immigration” and to bring net migration down to a range of 30,000-50,000 a year.
The Ukip leader defended his claim that children did not feel comfortable playing football in the streets because of high levels of immigration, saying that there were totally segregated communities in towns such as Peterborough and Boston.
He also told the BBC that some of his party’s recent problems involving Ukip candidates making racist remarks or accused of financial irregularities were down to “a problem with some Conservative defectors”.
The debate will be hosted by ITV News’s Julie Etchingham and will be broadcast between 8pm and 10pm. The leaders will make short opening and closing statements and will address questions raised by the studio audience.
Immediately after the debate, ComRes and ITV will release the results of a specially commissioned snap poll revealing viewers’ first verdicts on the leaders’ performances.
The debate will be the last time Mr Cameron will appear in a televised debate with his opponents. Later in the campaign Mr Miliband will join the leaders of the smaller parties for a “challengers’ debate”, which will exclude Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg.
A week before polling day there will be a BBC Question Time special featuring separate appearances by Mr Cameron, Mr Miliband and Mr Clegg.
He won the EU Election debate overwhelmingly a year or so ago.
UKIP Ping list - please message me for on or off.
Wasn’t Nigel Farage born in Hawaii? Just dreaming.
Prayers for Nigel. Brits are having the same problems as Americans. They have taken God out of everything.
haha he is 100% British!
Nigel is an asset to the world, not only Britain.
He certainly is my FRiend.
I love Nigel...... he is smooth as silk and wields a conservative stiletto that slips easily in all the way to the bone
Go Nigel!!!
Yes! Thank you for this info!
Definitely, need him to knock it out of the park tonight. Can’t wait.
You’re very welcome.
This is baffling.
Who decides who the winner of a debate is? How do you keep score?
Being a political debate the scoring of points would have to be totally subjective.
The BBC tried to create some sort of negative spin publishing a story about Nigel Farage having a limited campaign at the start and asking something along with lines of “what’s the matter”.
The truth of the situation is that Farage is resting and preparing for tonight’s debate.
You are right, it is a very subjective thing and obviously no accurate answer can be determined, but this is in terms of predicting the polls of who won after the debate.
They have been in all out anti UKIP mode since the start of the election, writing and reporting some disgusting biased lies.
I want to see the UKIP to win. Good luck Nigel...
So the bookies are taking wagers on who will poll the best during the debate.
Its a snap poll, no different to what you get after US Presidential debates.
Debates are purely objective when conducted by major media, as the conduct of Candy Crowley in 2012 taught us.
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