Who has the most to loose from the Leaders Debates?

Tonight will see the first of the three Leaders Debates that have been floating around for the past six months or so. So unless you have been hiding under a rock you are unlikely to have missed them no matter how much you wished you had. Admittedly the format of the debates isn’t exactly that thrilling with the audience barred from clapping, booing and it seems: from the seventy-six different rules showing any independent thought at all. Add to that the strictly controlled audience selection process we may be looking at the most boring couple of hours in recent political history.

Tonight’s debate will air at 8:30pm on ITV hosted by Alistair Stewart who won’t be pinning down the three leaders but merely fielding the questions from the audience. Which could mean the whole exercise is a whole waste of time if no-one is going to challenge any of the leaders and hold them down until they give a straight answer.


But who has the chance of “winning” the debate and who needs to appear to win? Cameron is in desperate need of a boost, a turn around from just a couple of months ago where he enjoyed a comfortable lead against Gordon Brown who at the time saw the debates as the last throw of the dice against a younger challenger. Fast forward to now and the roles are now reversed as Brown now has Cameron fighting for his political life.

Cameron desperately needs to come off looking well in these debates, even with a high lead in the polls things were not as easy as they seemed with the Conservatives needing the biggest swing in eighty years to secure even a narrow victory of just a one seat majority against Labour. However Cameron is looking shaky these days after his previous highs and long leads in the polls again Gordon Brown. With shadow cabinet faux-pas’ and a slightly too highly polished an image he has a lot of work to do.


Labour as well has its problems with the economy being the big one however things have been improving in that sector with the OECD now predicting that Britain will now after a shaky start, be the fastest growing country in the G7.

It gives Gordon Brown the ace he needed to face off both of his younger more photogenic competitors. Labour certainly aren’t dead yet and they have the fear of the Tories being in power to capitalise on in many parts of the country.

The party that probably has the most to loose tonight is Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats after the trouble with their tax proposals which were found to be not that radical at all. Not with giving the same rise in the tax threshold to £10,000 to the super rich as they would to the lowest earners. It didn't help either than VInce Cable was quietly taken apart in the same week by Jon Sopel over VAT rises. As well as the Fabian Society stating the Liberal Democrats were being dishonest. Ouch.

The Lib Dems as a result of having less coverage as the two other parties now run the risk of being flattened under the full media glare with a dose of sunshine on all their policies. Being sheltered from this may have been a shield from the criticism that may soon come their way.

Something that may have actually benefitted them in the past when it came to policymaking. Both the Conservatives and Labour have played it very cool in this election with neither making big promises that could return to haunt them come May the 7th.

With all this in mind DIF predicts that Gordon Brown will emerge the winner of tonights debate. Join the twitter feed to have up to date commentary of the debate @debateisfree.

Debate is Free's manifesto pledge

DIF is a sucker for punishment so the show will be taking it upon itself to trawl through the parties manifesto's now steadily coming out for the election and sort through all the flowery gumpf for you. These politicians they love to talk even if no-one is listening.

The key points from each of the parties manifestos will be categorised as such.



The Good

The Bad

The Ugly

Haven't we seen this before?


If you see anything interesting, dodgy or outright impossible in any of the parties manifesto's then drop us a line.

Update: Stephen Purcell

An update to our earlier post yesterday regarding the suspension of former Glasgow City Council leader, Stephen Purcell. After Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy stated that he had been suspended from the Labour Party on The Politics Show on Sunday.

A Labour spokesman when questioned by Debate is Free insisted that Jim Murphy had made a mistake during the interview and that Murphy had thought that he was being questioned on shamed Labour PPC Stuart McLennan who was suspended from the party after a number of inapproriate comments on Twitter. It was this confusion that caused Jim Murphy to wrongly state that Stephen Purcell had been suspended from Labour.

When questioned regarding the possiblity of Purcell being suspended after the prospect of two seperate police investigations into the former council leader and activities at Glasgow City Council the Labour spokesman said that the Labour Party's stance on Purcell was quite clear and there was no need to comment further.

Rumour-mill: Stephen Purcell suspended from the Labour party.

Sources have said that Stephen Purcell has now been suspended from the Labour party after a month of revelations about the ex-council leaders private life.

Both Purcell and the Labour party in Glasgow came under heavy criticism after it was revealed that Purcell, who have been council leader for nearly five years had taken to drinking heavily and also took cocaine which he later admitted in an interview with the Scottish Sun.

It was these revelations that landed Purcell in deeper water with the Sunday Herald revealing that Strathclyde Police were considering the possibility of speaking to Mr Purcell about drug offences as well as alleged impropriety regarding taxpayer funds. With friends, political allies and others being given thousands of pounds to run Glasgow City Councils various arms-length companies.


We shall keep you updated as the story develops.

This week's show: The Afghan conflict

After the major conference hosted by the University of Glasgow this week regarding the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan. Dr Alex Marshall, current convenor of the War Studies Centre based at the University of Glasgow will be joining us in the studio this Sunday to discuss the issues that currently face Afghanisation now and in the future.

The conference itself discussed how much progress was being made by US President Obama's troop surge, problems facing the coalition in Afghanistan and the growing drug manufacture problem in Afghanistan.


Listen from 0945 to 1030 and send in your questions and comments to debate@subcity.org.


You can watch some the discussions that took place during the conference here. Please note this is very bandwith intensive.

You may also be interested in an interview Professor Marc Genest, who was one of the key note speakers at the conference gave on Newsnight Scotland on Monday night.

Debate is Free: Election 2010

On Thursday night Debate is Free: Election 2010 took place at the Kelvin building at the University of Glasgow. All very exciting but now we fancy a bit of feedback on what you though of all the panellists and what was said on the night. To hear the podcast head here Once you are done post up your comments on what was said here or by email to debate@subcity.org

The questions were chosen by the audience, with the debate focusing on issues such as public faith in politics, immigration, higher education financing, and lowering the voter age.

Highlights include:

"The current government seems happy with a UK Border Agency which is endemically racist" - Patrick Harvie

"Surely the fact that at 16 years of age you are liable for taxation is the single most important point? You should not be taxed if you are not allowed to vote" - Tommy Sheridan

"One of the great scandals this year was that 141,118 people had the grades to go to university, and applied, and the places weren't there" - Ruth Davidson


You can see a selection of photos below thanks to Sean Anderson.

Debate is Free: General Election 2010

After weeks of work Debate is Free is glad to unveil its final panel for its General Election special on the 11th of March at the UNiversity of Glasgow.

Here is the final panel:

Patrick Harvie- Glasgow MSP and Co-Convener of the Scottish Greens

Ann McKechin- Glasgow MP and Minister for the Scotland Office

Alistair Carmichael- MP for Shetland and Orkney and Lib Dem Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland and
Northern Ireland.

Tommy Sheridan- Co-convener of Solidarity

John Mason- Glasgow MP and SNP Spokesman of Work and Pensions

Richard Cook- Conservative PPC for East Renfrewshire.

You might have seen that Question Time is also holding a first time voters edition and ours is of a similar idea. However the political outlook in Scotland due to devolution is a very different one from the rest of the UK and we think it would be more useful for voters in Scotland to have a programme that caters for them and the issues that dominate Scottish politics.

We have done our best to ensure we have a vibrant and interesting panel and we hope as many of you send in your questions as possible or apply to be part of the audience, but please hurry as space is very limited for the audience.

Get your questions or topics for debate into debate@subcity.org or to be part of the audience use the application form here: http://tiny.cc/DIFGE

The Jobcentre: the 21st century workhouse

According to a BBC producer unemployment is "no longer an issue", I beg to differ. There is nothing more soul destroying than being unemployed. Nothing worse than the sharp feeling of dread in your stomach that gnaws your gut while being led down a corridor after your boss furtively asks for a quiet word or receiving that unexpected letter from your employer telling you that you are now surplus to requirements. With the economic downturn it’s a familiar story in many households, including mine. So unemployment will be an issue at the General Election, how can you possibly brush off the economic woes of 2.5 million people? The answer is simple you can’t. Being made redundant and being unemployed is one of the most deeply wounding events that can ever befall someone, and it makes you angry. Anger makes General Elections volatile situations.


It’s the feeling of uselessness that redundancy brings that is now felt by millions as the dole queue has increased yet again as new figures have shown. The jump was hardest felt in Scotland where 10,000 joined the ranks of the unemployed in figures released last week. However despite the fact that many of these people have done nothing to bring on their misfortune many treat the unemployed as second class citizens or they brushed aside as unimportant as is made evident by a producer thinking it’s no longer an issue.


The stigma of unemployment still remains, that tarred brush of having to say you don’t have a job to go, people expect that you must be sat there in front of Jeremy Kyle with a can of Special Brew doing nothing but generally nothing could be further from the truth. I have met those out of work from all classes and backgrounds roll their sleeves up and do something they might have never expected they would do. Some volunteer, some retrain and one thing many of these people will do is head to the Jobcentre (or Jobcentre Plus as they prefer to be called), expecting help, assurance and a friendly face. Such naivety is soon extinguished after crossing the threshold.


You go to sign on for Jobseekers allowance, but wait you can’t do it there you need to call up the helpline or apply online. Which if you have just a mobile you can expect to say goodbye to a small fortune. One phone call cost me over £5 due to the person at the other end of the line not being able to understand a Scottish accent and taking well over the stated 30 minutes it takes to apply.


What you have to remember is that the Jobcentre is the epitome of ineptitude; it becomes a symbol of misery and disdain as you go in every two weeks or every week once you hit 13 weeks on the dole and you are sneered at by the staff. No t all but enough to make you feel uncomfortable. You take your card and sit waiting in a queue filled with people all with the same deadened look. Each person sat on the same uncomfortable sofas with the same thoughts, no matter what colour, creed or class. “How am I going to pay the rent/mortgage? How am I going to feed us all? What bill can be put off until I can borrow some money from someone? You are desperate for the paltry sum you are entitled to under Jobseekers Allowance if you are young such as myself you get just over £50 a week up to the age of 25 then it goes up to £64. A small fortune I hear you say? Hardly. That could be a quarter of the leccy bill paid.


Then finally when your name is called you head to a civil servant who looks just as suicidal as some of those claiming benefits all without even looking at you as they tap away on a computer. “Now had any luck finding anything?” Now being a naturally sarky person it takes a lot of strength to hold back the reply, “If I had I wouldn’t bloody be here now would I?”Its these kind of asinine comments that make you want to rip the keyboard out and lay waste to every piece of IKEA furniture in the building in a fit of incandescent rage. The experience of the Jobcentre drives people into tears, depression and utter fury. I can't admit to being surprised at hearing stories such as this where a man attacked Jobcentre staff as I have often felt the temptation to wrap the computer mouse cable around the benefits officers neck after being repeatedly denied training courses or being told there was not any money left to send me to any course other than an ECDL despite the fact the IT qualifications I already had surpassed it. I signed up for a course that should hopefully get me into University and was told by Jobcentre staff that if a job came through that clashed with the course I would need to give up the course. Despite it being obvious I was trying to improve my future prospects by getting better qualifications and making myself more “recession proof”. All you get is a shrug when you ask them what the point is.


The Jobcentre today it seems is designed to humiliate as much as the workhouses in the 18th and 19th centuries were. The poor were responsible for their plight not the economic cycle and the same outdated method of thinking persists even today. Poor relief has been replaced by Jobseekers allowance. Those who are unable to find work are sneered at despite the state of the economy being common knowledge that many are going to have to stick on the dole until things improve whether they want it or not. Being unemployed seems to be treated not with sympathy and help as it should but by derision by those who should know better You are thwarted most often by the ones who we are told are there to help. People still hate the thought of supporting those out of work. They still think you must just not want to work.


I have spoken of these problems both in Debate is Free and in my own time for the benefit of councils and community councils and time and time again there seems to be a state of denial on the utter uselessness of services that should be helping the unemployed particularly the young. As one councillor said during a meeting after I lambasted services that seem to be there to simply tick boxes rather than help, “Now you have said every service is rubbish, don’t you have anything positive to say?” It seems now that if you point out the inadequacies of a system that should be helping not hindering it must be because you are at fault


But that’s the problem; most of our politicians don’t understand what being unemployed feels like. Of course they give the lip service, visit the odd council estate and listen to the woes of a single mother with two kids but that’s it. They don’t live it, they don’t experience it and they certainly don’t lie in bed at night terrified of what may come next or what could appear in tomorrow's post.


I have now moved from the realm of the unemployed to those of the underemployed. A shift I am sure many of the 2.5 million on the dole queue will be envious of, as each of them would relish the chance to escape from the regular humiliation of the Jobcentre.

National Bullying Helpline head shops Brown on bullying allegations. Kind of. Maybe...

In addition to the earlier discussion on Debate is Free this morning with the lovely Alison Thewliss there seems to be movement on the Brown bullying debacle tonight. Today Christine Pratt the Head for the National Bullying Helpline gave a statement saying that they had recieved calls from staff who worked in Downing street and although the charity was careful not to blame Brown directly. There were "problems in his department" and that inferring that the allegations was a nonsense was damaging to staff. Christine Pratt said: “Over recent months we have had several inquiries from staff within Gordon Brown's office. "Some have downloaded information; some have actually called our helpline directly and I have spoken to staff in his office."

Downing Street offered a very curt reply saying that the NBH had never contacted them about bullying and that the Civil Service had a zero tolerance approach to bullying. Not much change there then and the denials have echoes of when Brown was asked at PMQs by Tory MP Stephen Crabb about throwing printers around and bullying staff in May last year.

The National Bullying Helpline has come under some scrutiny after making the statement with it being accused of bias having a Tory patron and a number of other Tory figures in its ranks. It would seem the backlash has already begun for the NBH with a fellow charity Bullying UK calling the National Bullying Helpline's actions "disgusting".

The question is how long can this go on? With Gordon Brown being accused of having volcanic rages, screaming and swearing at staff and being borderline violent is that someone you want to throw into a hostile negotiation environment?


If the Prime Minister is doing half of what he is being accused of is the job now getting to him? And would it be kinder for him to step aside?

John McFall is leaving the building.

Another day and another MP announces that he won't be standing in the next General Election, which by now may only be mere weeks away. John McFall yesterday declared that he won't be standing again for re-election. However this leaves the Labour party in West Dunbartonshire with a problem. They don't have much time to select someone which means all the usual methods: picking a candidate, getting them vetted, prepping them on party policy, getting them ready to face the media on a frequent basis are going to be stretched to breaking point.

There is another option however and it is one that Labour are already doing in multiple constituencies all over Scotland: select an MSP to fight for the Westminster seat. Cathy Jamieson and Margaret Curran are now standing for Westminster and they may be joined by yet another MSP. As far as can be seen the Labour party have two choices for West Dumbartonshire and both are already MSP's. These are Des McNulty MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie or Jackie Baillie MSP for Dumbarton and shadow health minister.

Not much choice but with this little time Labour doesn't have the time it needed to be choosy.

Pushing the boundary

Its one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken by a programme on a student radio station, there are over 400 secondary schools, 21 universities , 46 colleges in Scotland and we are getting in contact with them all. Hundreds of thousands of young people across Scotland are going to be offered the chance to take part in a project thats the first of its kind in Scotland.


Debate is Free which airs only on Subcity radio at the University of Glasgow is working on a special edition of the show separate from its usual format. 2010 is a General Election year and thousands of young people will looking at the political parties on offer and wondering who to vote for. Some may never have voted either due to the fact they were too young or they have never felt the need to vote or politics leave just them cold.


Debate is Free aims to bring the debate in a way that young people will find accessible and can interact with in a way they want to.
The special edition of Debate is Free on March 11th, potentially just weeks before an election is called will bring a panel of six before a studio audience for 90 minutes to answer their questions and questions submitted by listeners. The debate will range from the topical, to party policy to anything the audience demand be answered. Nothing is barred anything can be put forward for the panel to answer. From the recession, to the war on terror, to youth issues and human rights, we will consider anything.


Anyone will be able to listen on our website www.subcity.org and comment on what they hear on the Debate is Free Facebook fan page or by using Twitter and the tag #debateisfree. We want this to be a test of social networking so please send invites to this event to all your facebook friends and tweet details and comments. You can apply to be part of the audience here or to email any potential questions or comments email debate@subcity.org.

You can follow debateisfree on Twitter and the Facebook fanpage for panellist updates.