article_snippet: Ed Miliband was ridiculed yesterday for Ed Miliband plan to pass a law guaranteeing that television debates will take place in the run-up to future elections.
article_snippet: But his plan to pass a law guaranteeing that television debates will take place in the run-up to future elections was criticised by all sides including former SNP leader Alex Salmond, with former SNP leader Alex Salmond asking whether David Cameron would be jailed at Wandsworth prison for failing to take part.
article_snippet: Ed Miliband was ridiculed yesterday for his plan to pass a law guaranteeing that television debates will take place in the run-up to future elections the run-up to future elections .
article_snippet: Ed Miliband told BBC Radio 4:
article_snippet: Could you actually pass a law which says that somebody has to turn up at a TV debate?
article_snippet: Labour’s launch of the proposed law was designed to keep up pressure on David Cameron over David Cameron refusal to comply with broadcasters’ plans for three TV debates during the election campaign.
article_snippet: Last week Downing Street said David Cameron would attend only one, before the start of the formal campaign at the end of March.
article_snippet: The plan was criticised by all sides, with former SNP leader Alex Salmond asking whether David Cameron would be jailed at Wandsworth prison for failing to take part .
article_snippet: Mr Miliband said: ‘In recent days the British public has been treated to the unedifying and tawdry spectacle of a prime minister seeking to duck out of the TV debates he once claimed to support with great enthusiasm.
article_snippet: On BBC Radio 4, Mr Salmond, right, asked:
article_snippet: ’ David Cameron told the Observer that the broadcasters had ‘made it clear the broadcasters would not be cowed by David Cameron tactics
article_snippet: but it is wrong for the broadcasters and the British public to have governing parties use this kind of pressure in campaign periods.
article_snippet: She added that this would avoid ‘the broadcasters working together on an ad-hoc basis and David Cameron just ducking and weaving’.
highlights_snippet: Labour leader claimed move would ensure 'debates belong to the people’
  Plan was criticised by all sides including former SNP leader Alex Salmond .
  
highlights_snippet: Idea was supposed to mount pressure on PM over refusal to comply with broadcasters’ plans for three TV debates .