The former BBC chairman Lord Grade of Yarmouth has launched a blistering attack on “bullying” broadcasters for “playing politics” in threatening to hold television election debates without David Cameron.
The prime minister is refusing to accept an invitation extended by all the main broadcasters to take part in three debates, including a head-to-head with Ed Miliband, during the five weeks before polling day on May 7.
Mr Cameron says that he will agree to one debate with six other party leaders as long as it is held in the week before the formal start of the election campaign on March 30.
With the Labour leader expected to step up pressure at prime minister’s questions today, Mr Cameron has received strong backing from one of the most respected figures in British broadcasting.
Lord Grade, who was chairman of the BBC and ITV, has accused the channel bosses of breaking their legal duty of impartiality in threatening to stage the debates without Mr Cameron.
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Writing in The Times, the Tory peer berates the consortium of broadcasters, which includes executives from BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky, for self- importance and incompetence during “shambolic” negotiations and tells them to “get back in their box”.
“Who do the broadcasters think they are?” demands Lord Grade, who led the BBC from 2004-06 before becoming the executive chairman of ITV. “Their behaviour over the election debates leads me to believe they suddenly have grossly inflated and misguided ideas of their own importance.”
He says that “for the first time in history” the broadcasters are “unequivocally playing politics” in seeking to force the hand of elected party leaders to agree to their terms.
With Downing Street and the broadcast bosses locked in a stand-off, Lord Grade warns the television executives involved that they are not “guardians of democracy”. He says that Mr Cameron is entitled to refuse and that “people are free to comment on the choice he makes”. Broadcasters “sending for political leaders” and bestowing airtime on them, and then threatening them with an “empty chair” if they do not come running, is not democracy, he says. “It is bullying, a case of the broadcast media getting way ahead of itself.”
Mr Miliband has accused the Tory leader of cowardice and Labour strategists say that Mr Cameron’s refusal to agree to a head-to-head debate fatally undermines claims that the prime minister is the stronger leader.
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Calculations by Tory strategists that voters will not punish Mr Cameron for refusing to take part in debates that are not in his interest have been boosted by polls suggesting that he has suffered little damage.
Mr Cameron said again yesterday that he wanted the debates to take place. He told LBC: “I’m saying let’s get on, have this seven-cornered debate that the broadcasters have come up with, but let’s get on and do this before the election because I think what we found at the last election was they took all the life out the campaign, because people can talk about nothing else than the run-up, the debate, the analysis.”