April 22nd TV Debate

[squirrel42]

I'm going along to be in the audience this Thursday for the Sky News TV Debate - it's being filmed in the South West, although it seems we're not supposed to say exactly where for security reasons.

Would people like an official MN behind-the-scenes report afterwards?

Should I break the rules and heckle/cheer loudly at a strategic moment, and if so then when?

If I'm allowed to ask a question should I go "off-script" and ask about biscuits?

Is there anything else I should think about?

really enjoyed your account squirrel

dc's to camera thing was unnerving. it felt like i was watching something with noel edmonds. creepy

I felt that we were sitting in on a Relate meeting

Excellent account secretsquirrel I think you are the lady who asked about voter apathy who was then chatted up by NC

i think the candidates were pretty equal - though Nick Clegg is gorgeous. Nice phlegmatic style. Like the fact he has such a strong wife (she insisted on them having Spanish Christian names for their kids because they had Clegg as a surname). You would expect him to have a trophy wife and he doesn't.

I couldn't possibly comment on whether I'm that person, someone who didn't ask a question or even if I'm actually Adam Boulton. Got to keep my secret squirrel-ness secret!

On the bias against the Lib Dems, I didn't pick up on that too much in the studio except where Adam Boulton suddenly came up with that comment about Nick Clegg being on the front of the Telegraph - bit weird, and NC was clearly a bit confused as well before brushing it off and carrying on answering the question!

It was very odd to get home and suddenly find out that the Sky news coverage had been pretty slanted against them, since a lot of audience members spoke very favourably about NC just after the debate ended.

can I ask if any interacted with the audience prior and after the debate or were they just swarmed by their teams?

Craig Murray is a radical left political activist who was removed from his pos as ambassador to one of the former soviet states (can't remember which one just now) in 2004. He is not exactly a credible source of unbiased information.

Shame on you, sophable, for posting that link like indisputed fact.

Good grief.

The point is, Strix, the YouGov spokesman admitted to the bias in that poll.

sfxmum - the leaders were brought on five minutes before we went live, so they were directed straight to their lecturns. They said a few hellos and Adam Boulton went over the rules, but then it was a minute or two of coughing, shuffling notes etc and they got started.

At the end after they all shook hands with each other and Adam Boulton, DC and NC came over to shake hands and chat with people in the lower section of the audience where I was, while GB disappeared up the stairs to talk to audience members in the balcony. That seemed to make some of the suited security people look a bit nervous! They probably stayed for 4-5 minutes before they were whisked off to go home/to the pub.

thanks Squirrel

strix do you mean because he complained about the human rights abuses in Uzbekistan ? he should be ashamed of himself really

Was on the edge of my seat 8-9.30pm last night; another strong performance AND a decent rebuttal of the other crazies' Nuke Power policies. It seems to me there's a bridgehead into the opposing camps to be inserted as follows: Eurofighter - Trident Nuke Doomsday Weapon - Nuke Power. A three-pronged attack on fiendishly costly programmes that we can all save a King's ransome on.

Nuclear deterrent here

thank you sfxmum!! Maybe I will send this to Brown and Cameron. Just glad Clegg doesnt want to push the £100billion button!

sfxmum - that is superb - I'm passing it on to everyone in my addy book

gb did very well but dc has won me over with retirement q

I too have never before uttered these words, but I agree with Gordon on nuclear power. There is currently no other financially viable alternative to fossil fuels (oil gas, coal). So, if you don't want nuclear power, you are continuing with fossil fuels. And,, even if you are a global warming skeptic (and I understand these numbers are growing), you should still be conserned about the supply and how our diminished North Sea reserves puts us at risk to bullies like Russia.

So, Nick wants to downsize our defences, put us at higher risk, and keep burning oil... it just doesn't add up.

I though Cameron's point about how we should have a high speed rail hub was interesting. Would like to know more about that.

I think GB did really well - DC seemed really flustered or perhaps it was the makeup

GB was right about the environment stuff - we are putting pressure on most of the EU and America to commit to certain things and we are on top in this area of certain things like our commitment to reduce carbon emissions. How DC is going to find £6000 to give every household to make it more green is beyond me.... There are already lots of incentives and stuff out there you just have to be interested.

I liked what he said about terrorism about threats landing on his desk everyday from various places like Iraq, and we need to be able to defend ourselves. Unforuntately this is the world we live in now and there are threats to our safety every single day, and there are hundreds of investigations going on about threats all the time. DC and NC haven't a clue about what decisions GB faces each day in this area, and until they are PM they won't know!

I think I'd like to see where GB would take us over the next couple of years as I don't think he's really had much chance yet.

There's an Eddy Izzard thing on youtube about labour which apparently is quite good - haven't seen it yet.

Missed it for a pointless school meeting. Well not pointless, it's the latest thing isn't it, getting involved in running your school. Would rather have been watching telly.

Everyone at school this morning thought Clegg had the edge but Brown and Cameron had improved dramatically.

Glad they picked Cleggy up on nuclear deterrent. Cameron seemed to be forced into a manifesto commitment to the elderly on the hoof, GB should have been much less apologetic when you look at records on support for the elderly. I've always thought it was pointless myself Labour throwing so much money at em, they're so ungrateful old people. They'll take their winter fuel allowance thank you very much and as a thank you vote Conservative at the next election. Problem is so many of em vote, you almost have to bribe them.

Am booking my slot on the sofa now for next week, but parties are aware that lots of postal voters will have voted by then, so last night was actually pretty important.

Auntie Maggie here's Eddie Izzard, I love him. Very funny when he says "vote labour" behind his hand. Someone on MN was very rude to me a week or so again when I was banging on about our wonderful Britain, maybe he says it better than I did. He's so positive, love it.

www2.labour.org.uk/eddie-izzard

Strix, what did Cameron say about high speed rail? Hope he's not taking any flippin credit.

Labour have already published plans for a high speed rail link to Scotland, including the Midlands and Manchester. Hurrah!

Tories objected to these plans because the route went through so many of their shire constituencies, and flummoxed on about wanting a link to Heathrow - just to keep everyone guessing about the exact route prior to the general election so they wouldn't have to answer to their consituents.

If the NW and Scotland are to share in any of the South East's prosperity we need decent transport links and currently we don't have em. The Tories promised a fast link from Manchester to Eurotunnel and then it was quietly shelved, maybe they thought we just wouldn't notice. So, Londoners and Southerners get a nice fast link to Europe paid for with our taxes, but the rest of us can go hang.

Plus on transport have never forgiven the Tories for deregulating the bus system in Manchester (and elsewhere). What a joke. They never dared do it in London, because it's such a ridiculous idea. Imagine a scenario where you're supposed to let a bus go past and wait for a later one because the fare is 5p cheaper on a different company's bus? Market values applied to public transport, madness.

Sorry I have to disagree with you, Strix: it's amazingly straightforward looking at it like this - if Nuke Power had never been invented no rational being would ever want to conceive it.
Why ? (1)Vulnerability of supplies (if you think natural gas - in which the world is awash - is dodgy, then check out Uranium countries (Niger, Russia, Oz i.e. Rupertmurdochland - so we'll be held to ransome by SKY for power for our TVs - and diminishing amount in Canada). The pro-nuke Beeb had a hilarious piece on Y&Y describing Uranium from coal-dust - they should hang their heads in shame...

2. Expense - The very last thing Nuke is is "financially viable"; no Nuke Power station anywhere in the world has been built without massive Government funding by subsidies, underwriting and direct investment. This is what our "green taxes" are being squirelled away for. Did you know that ??

The money we will be wasting on this dead end could regenerate our whole economy with an indigenous renewable energy sector, not simply line the pockets of French Nuclear technocrats and EDF (Electricite de France)
Did I forget to mention the fantastically hazardous waste, highly radioactive for tens of thousands of years ?
Catastrophic failure ?
Need for heavy security and erosion of civil liberties to protect against terrorism ?

Contrary to perception France is the ONLY significant Nuke Powered country in the world
but the French are aiming to get the Chinese hooked ...

Sorry I have to disagree with you, Strix: it's amazingly straightforward looking at it like this - if Nuke Power had never been invented no rational being would ever want to conceive it.
Why ? (1)Vulnerability of supplies (if you think natural gas - in which the world is awash - is dodgy, then check out Uranium countries (Niger, Russia, Oz i.e. Rupertmurdochland - so we'll be held to ransome by SKY for power for our TVs - and diminishing amount in Canada). The pro-nuke Beeb had a hilarious piece on Y&Y describing Uranium from coal-dust - they should hang their heads in shame...

2. Expense - The very last thing Nuke is is "financially viable"; no Nuke Power station anywhere in the world has been built without massive Government funding by subsidies, underwriting and direct investment. This is what our "green taxes" are being squirelled away for. Did you know that ??

The money we will be wasting on this dead end could regenerate our whole economy with an indigenous renewable energy sector, not simply line the pockets of French Nuclear technocrats and EDF (Electricite de France)
Did I forget to mention the fantastically hazardous waste, highly radioactive for tens of thousands of years ?
Catastrophic failure ?
Need for heavy security and erosion of civil liberties to protect against terrorism ?

Contrary to perception France is the ONLY significant Nuke Powered country in the world
but the French are aiming to get the Chinese hooked ...

Sorry I didn't mean to post that twice !

Strix, by the way - who stands to gain from the perception that gas supplies from Russia are 'insecure' ?

The Russians, funnily enough, 'cos they've still got the gas AND they help foster a Nuke-leaning environment where the French and the Americans sell Nuke to the developed world and they sell their even more dodgy and shoddy Nuke tech to the Third world !!!

Is this GB (and Obama's) vision of a "Nuclear free world" ??!!??

Gordon Browns brotherworks for EDF as Head of Corporate Commuications.

"When he took the job, Andrew admitted that ?the energy industry is not something I knew much about before?. Nevertheless, he has been at the forefront of EDF?s expansion in Britain after it bought London Electricity, Sweb and Seeboard."