Labour's Gordon Brown, Conservative leader David Cameron and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg have agreed to go head-to-head in a series of three debates.
The first will be on ITV, the second on Sky and the third on the BBC.
There will also be separate debates involving the main parties in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
If I read that correctly then the Conservatives, Labour and the Lib-Dems will get a high profile three way election debate broadcast across the UK followed by a four way election debate with the Conservatives, Labour, the Lib-Dems and the SNP broadcast in Scotland.
In other words the Conservatives, Labour and the Lib-Dems get twice the election coverage of the SNP in Scotland with the SNP relegated to a second string debate which won't involve the other party leaders.
I can see that passing the political impartiality test.
Scottish secretary Jim Murphy today called for a Scottish version of the debates in addition to the UK versions, and has asked his SNP, Lib Dem and Tory counterparts to take part.
Apparently Jim Murphy doesn't want Alex Salmond on TV unless he considers himself as Alex's counterpart in Scotland.
The OFCOM guidelines define the SNP as major party in Scotland along with the Conservatives, Labour and the Lib-Dems. For any political program broadcast in Scotland unless they are all treated on an equal footing then it will be illegal under the guidelines.
In the BBC guidelines, point 3, they acknowledge that they must take into account the different governmental and political situation in Scotland in their editorial decisions: To achieve this we must ensure that: 3. they are aware of the different political structures in the four nations of the United Kingdom and that they are reflected in the election coverage of each nation. Programmes shown across the UK should also take this into account. (My bold)
The SNP want do not want to be part of a UK broadcast or to stop the the Conservatives, Labour and the Lib-Dems from debating in England. What the SNP want is to be part of any party leaders debate broadcast in Scotland.
The party leaders of the four major parties in Scotland are Brown, Cameron, Clegg and Salmond. Unless they all get on a TV debate together that debate will be illegal if broadcast in Scotland under the current guidelines.
The 10p in the pound variation in the Calman Commission proposals can also be up or down. Income tax can be reduced by 10p less than the rest of the UK if the Scottish Government sets a zero Scottish tax rate but it can also go up if it sets a tax rate more than 10p though it's not actually clear in the Calman Commission report if the upper limit is 10p above the UK tax rate.
In para. 34, page 8 of the Exectutive Summary of the Calman Commission Report it states, "But the Scottish Parliament could also decide to set a higher or lower “Scottish rate” than 10 pence, and its budget would be affected accordingly."
It's trumpeted as a new power but it's just a variation on an old and never used one.
It shows the financial deficits of most of the countries in the West for 2009.
It obviously has a mistake because there's a small country in the far north of europe which has a population of under 5 Million, is mostly composed of mountains and moorland, is warmed by the Gulf Stream, controls its own resources and is independent but on the graph it has a financial surplus not a financial deficit.
Labour keep telling us that the arc of prosperity is insolvent so somebody should phone up the OECD and tell them they've made a mistake.