Don Quixote and Kanye want shot down by Dewey on live TV

The final UK leaders debate is two days away (and I just might be able to catch the durn thing live on C-SPAN!), but the BBC is on the defensive again as to their decision to limit the debate to the Westminster Three.

Tomorrow morning a judge in Edinburgh will hear a legal challenge from the Scottish National Party, who allege that BBC's exclusion (plus that of Sky News & ITV) is "utterly unfair". The SNP, who already participated in two Scotland-specific debates with the Conservatives, Labour, and the Liberal Democrats, raised £50,000 ($75,000) to mount the legal challenge, seeking to either force the BBC to include the SNP in their lineup for Thursday. Not to be outdone, UKIP leader Lord Pearson (who is a member of the House of Lords and thus doesn't have to worry too much about his job security come 6 May) is threatening a similar challenge.

At the moment, these two parties combine for one-third of the seats in the Scottish Parliament, 14 seats in the European Parliament, seven in the House of Commons, and two in the House of Lords. In this election, SNP are running in all 59 of Scotland's constituencies but none south of the border, while UKIP are contesting 563 races in Britain. And following the bounce the LibDems have received across the UK following Nick Clegg's dominating performances in the first two debates (at the expense of SNP as well as Labour in Scotland), both parties are wanting a similar bounce from such an appearance.

As I've said in the past, SNP and Plaid Cymru are welcome to debate before all the UK if they're more interested in running all the UK than seceding from it. And frankly, if the ruling does go SNP's way, expect the bloviating lame-duck Man of La Mancha himself to essentially waste the time of everyone not north of Hadrian's Wall, and a door swung open where every piddly-diddly party could petition their way onto the debate, making the entire event a practical farce and logistical nightmare.

With regards to UKIP, they are contesting more than half the seats in the UK, and should have been pursuing already, claiming their representation in the House of Lords, European Parliament, and several local councils. If UKIP were able to do that (and they should have done it last week, as that debate was focused on foreign affairs; this week's will be principally the economy), that would give the Greens and BNP a podium as well. A successful petition by UKIP would likely give their former leader Nigel Farage a boost in his bid to unseat the Commons Speaker John Bercow in his Buckingham constituency.