The first leaders' debate takes place tonight. The party leaders should be asked tough questions on education, health, crime and immigration.
All eyes are on tonight’s ITV leaders’ debate on domestic policy. From 8pm, Left Foot Forward is jointly hosting a liveblog with Liberal Conspiracy, Labour List, and the New Statesman which will feature Polly Toynbee, Sunder Katwala, and Matthew McGregor of Blue State Digital among others so sign up for a reminder and join us later.
You can also get involved on twitter (the preferred hashtag appears to be #itvdebate) and facebook are offering a ‘dial test‘ to their 23 million users, which will enable them rate the debates in real time and provide instant feedback on the performance of the three party leaders.
In the meantime, we set out some of the key questions on education, health, crime and immigration that we want to hear asked tonight.
To Gordon Brown
• Despite years of investment why is educational attainment still driven primarily by economic background?
• Communities across the country are opposed to closure of acute services such as A&E and maternity units, why are you doing it?
• With a rising prison population, stubborn reoffending rates, and rising inequality, have you been tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime?
• Has your immigration policy only benefited bosses and the foreign workers themselves?
To David Cameron
• The Lib Dems have costed their pupil premium at £2.5 billion, how much will your pupil premium cost (distinct from the free schools policy)?
• Given your commitment to “get rid of top down NHS process targets”, which current NHS standards do you think are dispensible?
• Chris Grayling was rebuked for his misuse of crime statistics, do you accept that crime has fallen since the mid-1990s?
• How will your immigration cap meet Britain’s economic needs?
To Nick Clegg
• What’s the difference between your pupil premium, the Tories plan, and Labour’s deprivation funding?
• Why won’t you protect health spending?
• How do you propose dealing with anti-social behaviour?
• How will you enforce your regional points-based immigration system?
To all leaders
• Have academies provided value for money?
• Why is life expectancy at birth 71 in Glasgow and 84 in Kensington and Chelsea, and what can we do about it?
• With the Child Poverty Act now law, what will they do in the first parliament to ensure that Britain is on track to end child poverty by 2020?
• Britain is legally committed to cutting carbon emissions by 34 per cent by 2020 and sourcing 15 per cent of our energy from renewables by the same date. What will your party do to raise the funds required at a time when you’ve all said you want to make cuts?
To reach hundreds of thousands of new readers and to make the biggest impact we can in the next general election, we need to grow our donor base substantially.
That's why in 2024, we are seeking to generate 150 additional regular donors to support Left Foot Forward's work.
We still need another 124 people to donate to hit the target. You can help. Donate today.
16 Responses to “Questions for the leaders”
Sam
Unfortunately, even though it’s what we need, any questions put forward by the audience need to be “relevant to all three party leaders” (Pt. 25 of the Debates agreement: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/02/how-leaders-election-debates-will-work). This is a real shame because debates in the form of Question Time would be a much better way for us to question each of these three in a manner which would actually challenge them and their beliefs.
Liz McShane
To David Cameron – why bother standing for Parliament/potential party of Government at all, if all you are advocating is ‘opt-out’/ DIY politics……?
Questions for the leaders « The best Labour blogs
[…] More… […]
Anon E Mouse
Liz – Why would anyone want bigger government? Why would anyone want to give more of their money to any incompetent government that can’t even send CD’s with peoples data on by recorded delivery?
I don’t care who wins I just want to give less of my hard earned money to useless idiot politicians to waste on duck houses and moat cleaning…
Will Straw – You came across very well on R4 earlier. Nice one. You should perhaps insist on a little more of the balanced consensual style you displayed by other contributors to this blog…
Will Straw
Billy – We’ll be coming back to economic issues in a fortnight. Next week it’s foreign affairs.
Sam – Quite right. Perhaps they’ll change the format for the next debate.
Anon – Thanks! Flattery will get you everywhere! I think part of being consensual and pluralistic means allowing people to find their own voice on this blog but point taken.