In a live television debate on climate change, TV Channel 4, replaced British Prime Minister – Boris Johnson with a melting ice sculpture, after he failed to join the debate.
Channel 4 had organised a debate comprising of all the political party leaders in the UK. The ruling Conservative Party sent Cabinet minister Michael Gove, a former environment secretary, to replace the prime minister, but the TV channel did not allow him to participate and instead placed Johnson with a melting ice sculpture of planet Earth with his party’s logo on it.
The Conservative Party complained to the broadcasting regulator after its chosen representative was shut out of a general election television debate on climate change on Thursday (November 28).
The Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage who also declined to attend was also replaced in a similar fashion. The presenter of the show said that the offer to Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage to come here and discuss the climate emergency will remain open.
The Conservative party expressed its dissent against the channel. Party leader, Lee Cain, in a letter to Ofcom, the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting in UK said, “Denying the Conservative Party any opportunity to contribute to this cross-party event is unfair and breaches the requirements to ‘preserve’ impartiality,” Cain called the ice statue a “provocative partisan stunt”.
The party is now threatening to review Channel 4’s broadcasting remit if they win the general election. Opposition leaders from Labour Party, the Greens, Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats took part in the debate. Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, claimed that this the upcoming election will be the last chance to save the planet.
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, described tackling the situation as a moral obligation. “It is morally wrong to leave our seat at the table and give up our influence to create the change we need right across the world,” she added.
The Brexit Party said it did not take part because it had “no faith that the broadcaster will conduct this debate in a fair and objective way”.
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