Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg is to go head to head with Ukip's Nigel Farage in two broadcast debates on the European Union in the run-up to the May 22 elections to the European Parliament.
Following negotiations between the parties and broadcasters, a radio debate will take place on LBC on March 26, hosted by Nick Ferrari, and a televised debate on BBC2 on April 2, hosted by David Dimbleby.
The fiercely pro-European Deputy Prime Minister challenged Mr Farage to a debate a fortnight ago, and the announcement of the date came as Mr Clegg used a speech in London to ramp up his attack on the eurosceptic party's leader.
In a speech to the Centre for European Reform think-tank, Mr Clegg accused Ukip of having "let down" British interests within the EU.
"You would have thought that if your world view was based on the idea that it has been bad for Britain for us to be part of the EU, a party such as the UK Independence Party would have used its berth in the European Parliament to find every possible opportunity to promote reforms that create British jobs, enhance British security and that enhance the British way of life in the European Union," he said.
"Yet the record shows Ukip leaders don't turn up to vote most of the time."
Mr Farage said: "Nick Clegg has some cheek raising attendance and voting records... between 2010 and 2014 he has voted in Westminster only 22.6% of the time."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article