Let’s have a real debate

Politics is far too important to leave it to the parties that have driven up to two-thirds of the electorate not to vote.

The major broadcasters propose three debates — the first a head-to-head between David Cameron and Ed Miliband, the second a three-hander with the addition of Nick Clegg and the third a foursome taking in Nigel Farage.

If Ukip with just one MP is included, why not the Greens and Respect, whose parliamentary representatives Caroline Lucas and George Galloway would certainly put the cat among the pigeons?

Not least because, unlike Farage, they differ from the three main parliamentary parties in presenting an alternative to pro-austerity and pro-war policies.

Participation in televised party political debates has been regulated by the number of MPs each party has, but this principle has clearly been dropped to make way for the Ukip posh-boy leader.

No doubt the justification is that his party is riding high in the polls, which begs the question why Clegg should take part since Liberal Democrat ratings are plummeting to junk status.

And what about Plaid Cymru and the SNP, both of which have more MPs than Ukip, the Greens and Respect and should not be denied a platform.

After all, the electorate in Wales and Scotland have a right to hear all points of view — not simply the dominant refrain from the main capitalist parties.

Electoral Reform Society chief executive Katie Ghose is right to point out that the heyday of the two-party system, when there were clear philosophical differences on offer, is over.

Voters “want to hear a variety of voices in politics” and should not be presented with a narrow gaggle of pro-austerity voices singing a variation on the same air.

A vote for Palestine

Opponents of Labour MP Grahame Morris’s proposal that Britain should recognise the Palestinian state alongside that of Israel plumbed the depths in trying to undermine it.

They insisted that it is merely symbolic and that the Prime Minister will ignore it.

Symbolism is important in politics, which is why the apologists for Israeli expansionism have opposed Morris’s initiative so vehemently.

Cameron may well do nothing, but the growing parliamentary support for Palestinian statehood reflects a mood change in wider society, which has been alienated in recent decades by the arrogance, violence and dishonesty of the zionist state.

Most Israeli leaders claim, as does Labour Friends of Israel director Jennifer Gerber, to be in favour of a two-state solution. They blame Palestinian negotiators for not accepting Tel Aviv’s “offers” that would have confirmed Palestinians’ second-class status in a subservient bantustan.

None of them say where a Palestinian state would be situated because they reject the idea of Israel ending its 1967 occupation of the whole West Bank, including east Jerusalem.

They support ongoing Jewish colonisation of Palestinian land, including Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent edict confiscating 1,000 acres as collective punishment for the murder of three Israelis in the occupied territories.

Israel is increasingly viewed as an apartheid state, yet pro-zionist Labour frontbenchers openly flouted Ed Miliband’s decision to back Morris’s motion.

Having friends of apartheid Israel in his team ought to be as unthinkable as earlier Labour leaders having friends of apartheid South Africa in their Cabinet three or four decades ago.

Supporting an independent Palestinian state, whatever the Israeli occupation regime says, symbolises an ongoing commitment to a dispossessed and oppressed people’s right to be free.