downing street was last night claiming victory in the battle over the election tv debates after ed miliband was forced to line up with the minnow parties on a ‘night of the non entities’ labour reacted with fury when the broadcasters announced – after weeks of wrangling – that neither david cameron nor nick clegg would be invited to the second debate on april 16 only the non governing parties will feature, meaning mr miliband will appear with the leaders of ukip, the snp, the greens and plaid cymru david cameron will only appear in one full debate, hosted by itv on thursday, april 2, with the six other party leaders  ed miliband will have to line up with the minnow parties on a ‘night of the non entities’ because neither david cameron nor nick clegg will be invited to the second debate on april 16  mr clegg’s absence means that mr miliband will not be able to accuse mr cameron of being ‘chicken’ by avoiding the exchange, or force the broadcasters to ‘empty chair’ the prime minister no10 has also successfully killed the idea of a direct head to head debate between mr cameron and mr miliband the two men will instead join mr clegg in making individual appearances in front of a studio audience for a bbc question time special it means that mr cameron will only appear in one full debate, hosted by itv on thursday, april 2, with the six other party leaders the announcement of the broadcasters’ final plans represents a triumph for downing street strategists, who did not want the election campaign to be dominated by the debates, as it was in 2010, on the grounds that mr miliband’s stock is already so low with the public he had the least to lose but the lib dems have described the final arrangements as a ‘farce’ and labour issued an angry statement accusing the broadcasters of reneging on a commitment to proceed with the head to head debate programme after ‘weeks of pressure from the conservative party’, insisting that the ‘cowardice’ of mr cameron had thwarted the head to head encounter labour also claimed that mr clegg had been excluded from the april 16 debate ‘at the conservative party’s insistence’ to provide cover for the pm’s absence labour has claimed that nick clegg (pictured) had been excluded from the april 16 debate ‘at the conservative party’s insistence’ to provide cover for the pm’s absence  ukip leader nigel farage areacted angrily, saying tv debates were now 'so far from the original proposals' a labour spokesman said: ‘the whole country will understand the reasons for this: the prime minister wants to minimise the scope of televised debates between himself and ed miliband ‘we hope that even at this late stage david cameron will rethink his decision not to take part on april 16 ‘the prime minister’s repeated attempts to dictate the abandonment of these tv programmes to independent broadcasters is deeply worrying’ the spokesman added that after the election labour would seek to put future debate programmes on a statutory footing ukip leader nigel farage also reacted angrily, saying: ‘tv debates are now so far from the original proposals broadcasters should be ashamed they’ve kow towed to manipulation from downing street’ in a joint statement, the bbc, itv, sky and channel 4 said: ‘we’re delighted there will be a debate with all the party leaders during the campaign the debate on april 2 will build on the success of the 2010 tv debates so valued by viewers’ a lib dem spokesman said: ‘if it was down to us, we would be in every tv debate but the politicians and broadcasters have ducked and dived on this long enough and need to get on with it frankly this is all a farce’ a no10 spokesman said: ‘we have agreed to the broadcasters’ proposal’
snp ukip ed miliband second david cameron greens and plaid cymru april
only non governing parties to feature in second televised debate in april  ed miliband will appear with leaders of ukip, snp, greens and plaid cymru  david cameron will appear in one full debate with six other party leaders 