{"id":44112,"date":"2015-03-06T00:42:30","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T16:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=44112"},"modified":"2015-03-06T00:44:12","modified_gmt":"2015-03-05T16:44:12","slug":"cameron-accused-of-running-scared-for-refusing-tv-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/03\/06\/cameron-accused-of-running-scared-for-refusing-tv-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Cameron accused of &#8216;running scared&#8217; for refusing TV debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\">\n<div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:71.717172% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/465266932?et=4Wut6ShaQcdKr6NMmG0cCQ&#038;sig=-8HV42mym7XMvdAYM4zf_mnrkMWlYQEy0oWNlnF7WGg=&#038;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"426\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin:0;\">\n<div style=\"padding:0;margin:0 0 0 10px;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/465266932\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\">View image<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\">gettyimages.com<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>LONDON \u2014 Britain is counting down to its general election in just over two months \u2014 and the name-calling has begun in earnest.<\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister David Cameron refused Thursday to take part in a head-to-head TV debate with opposition leader Ed Miliband, giving ammunition to rival parties who all jumped in to accuse Cameron of cowardice and &#8220;running scared.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He is cowering from the public,&#8221; said Miliband, who leads the Labour Party. &#8220;The British people deserve this debate. I&#8217;ll debate him any time, any place, anywhere.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>British voters go to the polls May 7 in what is widely expected to be the most unpredictable national election in decades.<\/p>\n<p>The parties have been squabbling over the televised showdown for some weeks. Cameron&#8217;s camp said Thursday it has given its &#8220;final offer&#8221; to debate organizers: Instead of a one-on-one debate with Miliband, the Conservative leader would only agree to a single, 90-minute contest involving at least seven party leaders.<\/p>\n<p>The proposed debate would take place before March 30, when the official election campaign kicks off.<\/p>\n<p>Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats and Cameron&#8217;s junior partner in the ruling coalition, hit out at what he called the &#8220;lofty pomposity of the Conservatives.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re behaving as if they&#8217;re ordering a drink in the drawing room of Downton Abbey. It&#8217;s not for the Conservatives to start telling people how these debates are going to happen,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Clegg added that if Cameron was &#8220;too important or too busy&#8221; to defend the coalition&#8217;s record, he would be happy to debate Miliband himself.<\/p>\n<p>Cameron blamed the debate broadcasters for the squabble, and argued that a group debate would matter the most because it &#8220;gives everyone a say.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Opinion polls suggest that voters are lukewarm about both the Conservatives and Labour, historically the two main parties that win a majority.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, support has moved to smaller upstart parties \u2014 notably the anti-European U.K. Independence Party, or UKIP, and the Scottish National Party, which saw a surge in national popularity after coming close to victory in last year&#8217;s Scottish independence referendum.<\/p>\n<p>Broadcasters have proposed a total of three debates, including two group sessions between several parties and a final one featuring just Cameron and Miliband.<\/p>\n<p>Cameron backed televised debates during the 2010 election, but he has since criticized the format for taking &#8220;all the life out of&#8221; the election campaign and drawing attention away from political issues.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If we hold the debates in the campaign, we won&#8217;t talk about anything else. We&#8217;ll only talk about the debates,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>View image | gettyimages.com LONDON \u2014 Britain is counting down to its general election in just over two months \u2014 &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":44151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[483,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics","category-news-w","mauthors-sylvia-hui","mauthors-the-associated-press1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}