Election 2015: How long can this Green Party joke last?

The ‘other’ parties are what’s hot right now - and they won the lion’s share of the airtime on the Sunday morning political TV shows. But while Ukip’s Nigel Farage of Ukip and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon made the most of it, the Greens’ Natalie Bennett fared so poorly you have to wonder if her party can still be a threat (supposedly to Labour) come May.

As the Financial Times commentator Janan Ganesh wrote last week, the Greens’ “hippie gap year cannot last forever”.

Both Farage and Sturgeon, appearing on the Andrew Marr Show, showed why David Cameron is rightly nervous of taking part in the televised leaders’ debates: both of them can be so damned plausible in front the camera, whether you like their politics or not.

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It took Farage more time than he would have liked to bat aside the defection of MEP Amjad Bashir to the Tories – Bashir had been told to pack his bags anyway, Farage claimed, after the party had become “increasingly alarmed” about allegations of impropriety – but he was soon on his way to his headline-grabbing thought for the day…

Which was that Ukip are now prepared to consider an electoral pact with the Tories if they do well enough on 7 May to hold the balance of power.

Farage's conditions were clear: the EU in/out referendum must be pulled forward from 2017 to this year and – crucially – none of the 4 million EU citizens resident in Britain can be allowed a vote. It must be for Brits only, he insisted.

Nicola Sturgeon, too, was in coalition mood - but only with Labour and only if Ed Miliband will back the Nationalists' policy of scrapping the Trident renewal programme and using the proceeds to fund the NHS and childcare.

Sturgeon also had views on the EU referendum (the Scots want desperately to stay in Europe, hence their willingness to talk to Labour): she wants the rules of the referendum to say that each of England, Wales and Scotland must show an individual majority voting against EU membership before the Brussels plug can be pulled.

If Sturgeon and Farage showed Cameron what they can produce in a TV debate, Natalie Bennett, leader of the Greens, appearing on the Sunday Politics, showed us why Cameron was so keen for her to be included. It was nothing short of a ‘car crash’ interview.

Seeking to defend the Greens’ beliefs – growth isn’t good for the country, full-time should not be necessary, membership of al-Qaeda and other terror groups should be decriminalised, the Army should be dismantled and replaced with a Dad’s Army civil defence force, etc, etc – she kept telling an exasperated Andrew Neil: “I would urge your viewers to go our website and see how the figures are worked out.”

YouGov released new polling on Friday which showed that while up ten per cent of the electorate are telling pollsters they will vote Green on 7 May, only one in four of those people have any idea what the party stands for.

I would humbly suggest that once they work it out, the Green ‘threat’ will soon be gone: for a quick taste of their policies, go to The Week’s recent briefing.

As for the televised leaders’ debates, where do things stand now? Last Sunday, Andrew Neil’s panel of political commentators were adamant that Cameron would never agree to join in. By yesterday, there’d been a 100% swing to Yes.

Isabel Oakeshott, the former Sunday Times journalist now working on Cameron’s biography, said: “I think the debates will happen… Cameron has got what he wants, in that he will not have to face Nigel Farage in a small group.”

Nick Watts of The Guardian agreed but feared the size of the group – now up to seven party leaders (Tory, Labour, Lib Dem, Ukip, Green, SNP and Plaid Cymru) – will make it a “democratic bore-athon”.

“We will all fall asleep,” he said. “It’s perfect for the Tories.”

Especially given that Natalie Bennett confirmed under Andrew Neil’s questioning that in both of the Big Seven debates she, as the leader of the Greens, and not Caroline Lucas, the party’s only MP, will represent the Raving Loony Green Party.

Watch the Natalia Bennett interview here