One of the blogs I read regularly is written by a Cambridge resident who has a friend called Puffles, Puffles is a dragon and so the blog is called “A Dragons Best Friend”. It is a blog well worth reading, but yesterday Puffles Best friend wrote a piece that I want to highlight in particular. As he writes, the two recent debates between Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage on the issue of Europe were vital in providing democratic education for all of us. However they were debates between two men who will never be Prime Minister, nor even be leaders of the official opposition parties in the UK. In order to understand Europe we also need to hear from the men or women who could actually influence the actions of Europe. The opportunity which was denied to us last night by all UK broadcasters was the Presidential debate between the four candidates for the post of President of the European Commission. Although we don’t get a chance to elect the President, they are elected through a process that involves both the Prime Minister of each of the member states and the MEPs. In the same way we don’t directly elect the Prime Minister, nor elect either Nigel Farage or Nick Clegg. That is no reason for us to be denied the opportunity to hear from these people seeking high office in Europe.

It seems very unlikely that the Conservatives will win the next General Election, and even if that does happen, it is far too early to  predict the outcome of any referendum on Europe. Both those decisions depend on elections at least a year away. This means that the successor to Jose Manuel Barroso should matter to all of us. The only televised debate between the candidates took place last night and whilst the number of people interested in such a debate would not have destabilised the ratings, it seems incredible that there was no opportunity for us to watch the debate. Surely that is what public service broadcasting is for. Perhaps at the very least the BBC could let us watch this on the Parliament Channel? Indeed on the morning after the debate the evening before, I have yet to hear any reference to the debate on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. Hardly inspiring for the BBC’s flagship programme with Politics in its remit.