A great victory has been won in Scottish and British politics. According to
these articles the Green Party, the SNP and Plaid Cymru are to join the rest of the main UK parties in two out of three of the TV debates coming up for the general election. The BBC debate and the ITV debate will have 7 parties present, kind of like a Scandinavian debate; including Labour, Conservative, UKIP, SNP, Green, Plaid Cymru and Liberal Democrat Parties. The final debate on Channel 4/Sky will be hosted by Jeremy Paxman and Kay Burleigh and will be Ed Miliband vs David Cameron.
I am, needless to say, very happy with this settlement. Previously it seemed as though UKIP were the only party besides Labour and the Tories that were going to get on the debates. After a particularly ferocious outcry from the Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru it seems like the broadcasters have changed their mind. Quite tellingly the excuse they gave originally was that there should only be "national parties" present - evidently Scotland is not a nation, nor is Wales. Rather, the only national parties are English ones - because Labour and the Tories don't stand in Northern Ireland. No party is truly "national". If only more people understood that Scotland and Wales are not viewed as equal nations within a union of equals or whatever the hell it's supposed to be, maybe we'd make more breakthroughs in future referendums.
Interestingly Northern Irish parties are nowhere to be seen, but it seems like Northern Ireland isn't really a part of the UK in the eyes of the broadcasters so it's not included. Certainly its politics are so far removed it would be difficult to include them, but I still think it's a failing on the part of the BBC/ITV.