The new ALBA Party has set its sights on participation in the leadership debates and gaining fair broadcasting coverage in the election campaign.
Speaking at a campaign briefing, party leader Alex Salmond revealed that the Party would write to Ofcom and the broadcasters to ensure fairness and parity of coverage.
He said;
“It is less than a week since launch and already ALBA has a comparable number of members to the Liberal Democrats and the Greens and are contesting seats across Scotland. We also have double the Westminster parliamentary representation of the Labour Party in Scotland!
There is however a further important reason favouring ALBA inclusion in the leadership debates.
The dominating issue of the election is independence. If the TV companies stick to their present position, every debate will be imbalanced 3 to 2 against independence. With ALBA’s representation, at a stroke, the independence argument will be balanced three apiece.
Watching the debate on Tuesday night my name was mentioned a number of times with no recourse. In addition, the moderator, Sarah Smith, sought to elicit information from audience members about support for ALBA.
We have waited until the declaration of candidates before writing. Now given our strength the case for ALBA participation in debates and fair coverage is unanswerable. We expect a positive reply.”
Contacted BBC Scotland to say the same. Cannot possibly allow conversation/debate about the Elephant in the room without giving the Elephant (sorry Alex) right of reply.
Go for it. Debate Night was a bit the same. It is like someone talking about you in public and behind your back, and you have no right of reply. This is going nowhere unless we are willing to fight back.
Remember that UKIPs odious David Coburn was invited onto previous Scottish Election TV debates / hustings.
Alba being banned from these events is just another example of Establishment British Nationalist hypocrisy.