Children's Party Ends At Bedtime

John Ryley, the Head of Sky News - Sky News - argued in yesterday's Times - Times - that a party with no seats could not be included in the 2015 General Election debates.

Even the BBC is becoming sensitive to the pointing out of the fact that it has wildly over-publicised a certain fringe organisation.

The loser of the Eastleigh by-election was on Question Time twice in the month thereafter. Nigel Farage was on it from Edinburgh, as the Leader of a party without so much as one Councillor in Scotland. But those days are gone.

If Sky - Sky - is anything to go by, then UKIP is no longer being attacked, as it likes to think that it is. It is just being ignored.

By the European Elections, never mind the General Election another year after that, will it ever still be on the telly at all?

Outside the Question Time audience, apparently not. If it is still kept in the final edit even of that. Plenty of other people routinely are not.

Sky has an opportunity here, especially since Sky News is already on Freeview. As are Al Jazeera and RT.

A programme which over 12-week series, of which there might be two per year with gaps of another three months between them, visited each of the 12 regions in turn and discussed over an hour the two topics most requested in the preceding 24 hours on the programme's Facebook account and via its Twitter handle and hashtag.

While also allowing for continuing interaction through social media during the live broadcast, that would accommodate eight voices on each topic.

One figure from within the given region who had been nominated by each of the eight parties in the House of Commons other than the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and Labour.

None of those parties exists in all of the regions; six, in fact, exist in only one each, and the other two in only two. But they all have links in each, mostly to parties, de jure or de facto, although in the DUP's case probably more to churches. Voices that exist but which are very rarely heard.

For example, the SNP and Plaid Cymru are affiliated to the European Free Alliance. As is Mebyon Kernow. Cornish nationalists. That would be one spot on the West Country edition filled.

And by what possible authority might such a person be given airtime? By the authority of nine elected members of the House of Commons, six SNP and three Plaid Cymru.

Nine more than UKIP has. Or than the BNP has. Or than the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) has. Or than the Official Monster Raving Loony Party has. To name but a few. None of those would be there. For exactly the same reason in every case.

It is a pity that People's Voice lost its one seat last time. Someone of its mind from each region, included in a weekly discussion over an hour per week for half the year, might have made a very significant difference.

But here we are. People's Voice, if it still exists, would not be there. Any more than either the BNP or the CPGB(M-L). And any more than either the Monster Raving Loonies or UKIP.