some reflections on the @Channel4News climate debate, from my vantage point behind the melting ice sculpture representing Boris Johnson... https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1200149956188880896

first, props to @Channel4News for taking the initiative - a world first; to @_wearepossible, the school strikers and protesters for relentless campaigning - it works.

2. The mood (among the parties who bothered to turn up) was consensus about the problem, and competition about solutions.

Let's just mark this. It's real progress. Not enough, of course, but unthinkable even a couple of years ago.

3. @BorisJohnson not turning up, & @michaelgove stunt (arrived, with cameras; was turned away) was pretty low. A cheap political stunt designed to distract from the urgent debate that's needed on climate.

They could have kept a dignified silence.

4. The leaders there *knew* that they couldn't get away with platitudes. They had policies. They were earnest. They felt it.

I caught a slightly bewildered look from @sianberry a couple of times, with all those newbies stampeding over her territory.

5. And yet... they all had their weak points.

@NicolaSturgeon on North Sea oil & gas. @Adamprice on farming. @jeremycorbyn's lack of clarity on a carbon target, with many in the labour movement finding it difficult to contemplate the scale of the industrial transition.

6/6 And we didn't really get on to the real debate - about how the climate crisis changes the very nature of politics and leadership.

It was more a debate about policies than purpose.

Really, every leaders' debate should be a climate debate.