Heated debate over TV format leaves many cold

AM I the only reader fed up with the row over the imminent televised election debates (your report, 5 March)? Those obsessed with politics live in a world divorced from the rest of us. It does not seem to have occurred to any of them that the pompously titled "Prime Ministerial Debates" will more than likely clash with the climax of ITV's Britain's Got Talent, which pulls in audiences of 12-16 million viewers and includes one Gordon Brown in its huge army of devotees.

Furthermore, the debates are to be the subject of no less than 76 "rules", which include a ban on clapping, cheering or booing, all of which hardly suggests an exciting experience.

I know what I will be watching and it won't be three middle-aged men trotting out banal soundbites to a compliant audience. Perhaps the Nats should stop complaining: by being excluded, they might be the real winners after all.

KAREN BURCHILL

Warrender Park Road

Edinburgh

I see no point in fussing about whether the leaders of any other than the three main parties take part in the planned grand TV "debate". The whole affair will be a stage-managed charade with the questions agreed in advance and the audience pre-selected.

What such a programme needs to address is the matters on which the public wants answers, not what the BBC and our political leaders choose to discuss.

A randomly-selected audience with a free choice of subjects – and someone like Will Self as chairman – would be much more productive.

ROBERT DOW

Ormiston Road

Tranent, East Lothian

Since we in Scotland know what he looks and sounds like, what his one policy is, his irrelevance in a UK election, what is the point of the SNP's Alex Salmond appearing in debates with party leaders who are relevant and can lead us out of the financial mess caused by Scottish banks?

COLIN WILSON

Maggie Woods Loan

Falkirk

If the BBC accedes to the request by the SNP to have their leader join those of Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in the forthcoming debate on TV, then in fairness the leaders of Plaid Cymru and the DUP should be included. This would, of course, encourage the Green Party, the BNP, UKIP and others to ask to participate as they have candidates standing in constituencies throughout the UK. The BBC made the correct decision.

WILLIAM W SCOTT

St Baldred's Road

North Berwick, East Lothian

Should the exclusion of the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Northern Irish parties from the debates not lead to an uncomfortable conclusion for our Unionists – namely, that if even our broadcasters can't adequately reflect the plurality of British public opinion over three debates, then Westminster can never be made to succeed either?

RICHARD THOMSON

Western Avenue

Ellon, Aberdeenshire