http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21066558

Do you think Nige should have a say?

Only if the other party leaders have the wit to knock down the feeble arguments he'll no doubt present.

He was on good form on Question Time the other night. Lots of spurious figures and made up shock "facts" to keep the soon from Bolton happy.

He would be easily demolished in a debate by someone with an ounce of common sense. Which pretty much rules out the current bunch of idiots.

We're doomed, aren't we. Just horribly doomed.

Er... sorry? You mean Boston don't you?

Yes - Boston. I don't know what happened there. I will blame autocorrect just to be safe.

It does seem like Cameron is running scared of a debate with Farage. While he may spout odd facts the fact is that most of the Conservative supporters could easily defect if he put up a good debate like Clegg did during the last election. Last time it was Labour who had most to lose. This time it is the Conservatives who are risk of having what support they have left being split between UKIP and other parties.

If it happened the implication of what was said would be 'I agree with Nigel' I suspect

Some of what he says makes sense like the bureaucracy in the EU, but if you compared it to national governments it is positively svelte. There are only about 12000 EU employees for the whole of Europe. The laws that the EU make protect us better than what our government does for us.

UKIP haven't got a single elected MP, I don't see why they should be represented ahead of parties which do - the Green Party, Respect etc.

Now that is a much better argument for not including him. The fact that they are doing well in the polls might make only last for a few months.

'You only get publicity if you have seats' is a recipe for stagnation - it perpetuates the status quo as only those who already have a following get to build a following. By that rule we'd only ever have the main two parties. Forever. Opportunity to present your case - as valid or not as it may be - has to be available to all and any who wish to stand, or our democracy is a sham. That means we have to tolerate people like the BNP and UKIP and god knows who else we may personally not agree with. As long as they stay within the rules i.e. they aren't a proscribed organisation, they get to be heard. If you don't want to listen or aren't interested in their opinion, turn off or turn over.

'Only the parties I think are worthy should get to be heard' is as crass a corruption of the democratic principle as any dishonest politician.

By that reasoning I could form a party and demand to be on TV with Cameron. You could do the same. Every doofus in the UK could do it in fact.

So there has to be some kind of cut-off, or else there won't be anyone to operate the cameras or watch the bloody thing on tv. I see no particular reason why Farage should make the cut.

Depends what 'the cut' is rather doesn't it? Is it number of seats (very bad under the FPTP system), percentage of votes cast at the last election (better, but still not perfect), number of candidates fielded at that election (which means you need to be rich to get a say, re: Goldsmith etc)? There's no perfect system but 'those who are already MPs' is an absolutely crap way to decide.

Your example is of course fatuous, because everybody doesn't want to be a politician. Quite a lot of people would rather have their fingernails pulled out one at a time. Whatever the mandate for representation is, it has to be accessible. Just because it is, doesn't mean everyone's going to want to do it. Ben Nevis is accessible but millions of people don't want to climb it.

In any case, whatever the cut is it should definitely, absolutely, categorically not be 'we don't like what you say'. That's about as far from democracy as you can get while still maintaining a pretence. I'm kind of OK with 'we won't let you speak if what you're going to do is tell people to kill each other' but beyond that? Well, who gave you (or me) the right to decide who gets to stand for election or not? We all get to decide who wins, but that's not the same thing.

There's no need to bother with that sort of prejudice just for the purpose of excluding Farage. UKIP has no credible chance of being a component in a coalition, let alone gaining a parliamentary majority. So they don't get on tv.

They have no claim to be there that isn't shared by other parties that do have MPs, Sinn Fein definitely has a better claim, as does the SNP.

But the truth is, nobody needs to be told what the UKIP policy on anything is. They're a party of simplistic nostalgianauts who think that decades of social & political change have removed us from a rose tinted homogeneous Eden. To that end they imagine that a single policy reversal will restore this phantasmal natural order of things. So they can either form into a proper party with viable policies on education, health, taxes and so on - preferably derived from some consistent theory of good governance - in which case their Europe policy would be one small part of their platform, rather than the defining point of even having the party. Or they can be a noxious little protest vote outfit, and as such rightly marginalized.

If there were to be a debate on Europe, they should be invited to that. If there is one on the environment, the greens should be. Single issue voters would, after all, only watch the relevant debate.

They do have MEPs. How they do their job is up to them and their constituents, but they do have representation in a form of government we are part of.