Mike, the Times is a murdoch paper, they would no more support the Labour party than the greens since Ed took a stand against Rupert a couple of years ago. The Times did come out in support of labour in 2001 & 2005. He apparently came over to the UK to put some ‘backbone’ into News Corp’s coverage a couple of months ago.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/election-2015-murdoch-tells-sun-future-company-depends-stopping-miliband-becoming-pm-1497507

Sorry if I have gone on about this. I’ll shut up now as well.

I am sorry Charlie, whilst I understand what you mean and you have expressed yourself clearly, I do agree to disagree as above.
It is not merely playing with terms, it is an important legal distinction we are discussing. No one party represents the whole of the UK, as no party has 100% of the parliamentary seats in any of the constituent parts that make up UK&NI and certainly not nationwide as a whole. We recently had a coalition government but they did not represent me as I disagree with their approach. My local MP represents me in parliament, even though I didn’t vote for him and certainly don’t like him on a personal basis. You may say this is just semantics, but in my mind there is a clear difference between the government as a whole, a party whether nationwide or not and ones’ own MP.

Many people vote on party lines as you are suggesting, perhaps the majority, but others vote for the person of their MP. This is why the LibDems are likely to have a greater number of seats than their national poling data would suggest, as many sitting LibDem Mp’s are seen to do a good job as constituency MP’s.

I think the confusion is that Portagee and I are, I believe, trying to explain that in constitutional/legal terms whatever you wish to call it, any person who is elected an MP is a representative of their constituency. They may have stood as a parliamentary candidate for a party, whether a nationwide one or what you refer to as a regional one but legally they are all the same, a constituency MP. They then may take a ‘Nationwide’ party whip, but not all in any party will do so on every vote. Those Tories who defied the whip recently on the Speaker’s debate and earlier on the labour MP’s who voted against the Iraq war for example. MP’s can and do get the party whip removed if they have been naughty boys and girls, or decide to remove themselves from the whip if they fundamentally disagree with the way that the party they stood for is moving. They are still then MP’s but independents until they take another whip.

If a party is within the UK then they are a party of the UK&NI, but not necessarily a nationwide party as you have so clearly expressed. Perhaps if this term was used rather than a national party representing the UK&NI there may be some agreement?

I am not missing the point, I am agreeing with you that they are not contesting seats nationally. I disagree with you about the rest.
They are parties within the nation, if with a regional emphasis as are the Scottish Conservatives, the Scottish Labour party etc. and are as legitimate in their representation as any other party in any UK parliament and so are as able as any to influence the make up of any Government on a constitutional basis.

Some elements of the press are trying to delegitimise the role of SNP Scottish and Plaid Cymru (note spelling) Welsh MP’s and their voters but not the right leaning NI parties such as the DUP which shows their wilful disregard for them, and the paucity of their argument.

We are voting for a government of the United Kingdom. Neither Plaid Cymru nor the SNP offer representation either of or for the United Kingdom. Quite the opposite on the case of the SNP.

Portagee has it correct.

Scotland and Wales and NI ARE part of the UK therefore any Plaid, DUP, SNP etc. MP’s when voted in to the Westminster parliament do offer representation to those people who voted for them in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland just as much as the Tory who is going to win in my constituency. As many MP’s will have been voted for by fewer than 50% of the actual vote vote, and by way fewer than 50% of those eligible to vote, this means that the greatest part of the population will not have voted for whoever does form a government, as happened in 2010.

But it is our system. Love it or loath it.

As they have been voted for in a democratic process, they are have as much right as any other to be involved in sorting out a government for the UK as a whole. I am one of many who are uncomfortable about this, but there it is.

If you are arguing that As Plaid and SNP have as a root of their policies the desire to leave the UK are therefore not fit to be national parties, many people in the UK do support them knowing this. It doesn’t make them less valid at the current election as they are fighting in a national election on these policies.

These parties are are relevant to all of us, whether we like it or not.

I think we are getting wires crossed?
I don’t dispute that SNP and Plaid Cymru are not currently fielding candidates outside their countries, although technically they would be able to do so, but the point I am trying to make is that what happens in Wales and Scotland affects the whole country therefore they are being represented in the media nationally, because they are part of the nation. The BBC charter requires representation across the board. Just because most people in UK&NI live in England doesn’t mean that only English parties should be represented. Whether the proportion of coverage is appropriate I couldn’t say.

Technically , the NI Conservatives are at least in part seperate from the rest of the UK tories as they don’t necessarily follow the whip on devolved matters.

Well that of course would make complete sense if all the candidates were “national” candidates.

But no candidate anyone can vote for is a “national candidate” , just your local candidate. Hence my vote on an individual basis, as I am not supporting the person who is going to win, can equally be seen as of no import to the makeup of the government. If you follow your argument through, then on my TV there should only be news about my candidates. You could argue in my constituency the Labour Party is an irreleveance as they get so few votes, yet on national and local TV they are quite prominent because of their revlevance to the national parliament.

It is important to divorce the devolved assemblies from the national parties. Hence whilst Nicola Sturgeon is an MSP and First Minister in the Scottish parliament and is not standing for a Westminster seat, she is still the leader of a party that is likely to have a fairly large number of Westminster MP’s. indeed if the polls are correct she will be leading a party that has the third highest number of MP’s at Westminster.
It is unusual for the leader of a party not to be a Westminster MP but constitutionally perfectly legitimate.whether is is a good thing is another matter entirely.
The SNP is very important in Scotland where it will be possible to vote for them, but again, it is important to recognise how they will influence the national debate for those elsewhere who can’t vote for them.
To follow your national argument, the tories should have virtually no media cover at all north of the border as they are an irrelevance in Scotland in terms of MP’s, but as a UK&NI party, they are given airtime as they do have a massive influence on the Scots from the Westminster parliament.
As we have nationwide broadcasters, they should have something of relevance to everyone, regardless which of the countries/province they come from. I agree the coverage for NI issues is shockingly thin.

My 2d’s worth
I would guess it is because as it is a national election that all should be involved, including the NI parties, but the lack of NI input probably comes down to numbers. There are 40 Welsh MP’s elected to parliament, 59 Scottish but only 18 NI.
It is also because how Scotland votes will materially effect the outcome of the election, and so scottish issues are getting a disproportionate amount of time allocated compared to the population, partially egged on by the media centres of the two largest parties as they try and make the SNP the bogeyman of the election, for very different reasons of course.