POLITICAL DEBATES

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 February 1939, Page 7

POLITICAL DEBATES

8.8. C. INNOVATION

[BRITISH OFFICIAL WIRELESS.]

RUGBY, February 19.

The British Broadcasting Corporation announces an innovation by which the microphone will be placed at the disposal of the. three main political parties once a month for free discussion on some matter of current political interest. The parties will select their own speakers and the subjects shortly before each broadcast.

Each debate will last for 45 minutes, and there will be in the studio on each occasion three speakers representing the different parties. The subject of the first debate will be old-age pensions.

The announcement lends interest to the facts disclosed in a Parliamentary answer on Friday regarding broadcasts by politicians. It has always been a recognised principle of British broadcasting that for speeches of a controversial character, access to the microphone should be fairly divided between the Government and the Opposition Parties, and the question was directed towards ascertaining if, in practice, the principle was being maintained. . , , The answer showed that in the last year there had been 42 broadcasts by Ministers of the Crown, 48 by members of Parliament supporting the Government, and 33 by Opposition members, but the great majority of such broadcasts were of a non-political character. In the case of the Ministers they were chiefly explanatory statements of legislative or administrative changes. Political addresses on partv lines were confined to a balanced series of four broadcasts on the occasion of the Budget.