Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.

[EX Q]: Chances of a TV election debate? Choose between zilch and nada. At the time of the last election, David Cameron pronounced that TV debates were "here to stay" . It was his confident declaration that:"We will have them in every election in the future and that is a really good thing for democracy." Many others thought so too . More than 20 million people watched some or all of them . They engaged voters in ways that we hadn't seen before in Britain . To many, it was unthinkable that they wouldn't become a permanent feature of the fabric of our elections . It gives me no pleasure to say that I have always had great doubts that this was really the case . For it to be true, you had to trust the Tory leader not to change his mind . TV debates happened in 2010 only because of an unusual set of circumstances . Mr Cameron had demanded them because that is what opposition leaders nearly always do . Nick Clegg wanted to gain exposure that no previous third party leader had enjoyed . In the wake of the expenses scandal, all the parties were anxious to be seen trying to connect with alienated voters . The key was Gordon Brown . Unusually for a prime minister, he agreed to debates . His people thought he had little to lose and, in a typically Gordon Brownish way, he reckoned he would come over as the man of substance while his Tory and Lib Dem rivals would be exposed as lightweights . It didn't work out as Mr Brown expected . But what is most relevant to what is happening now is that it didn't work out as Mr Cameron anticipated either . The Lib Dem leader, an unknown to many voters before the debates, shone in the first one , presenting himself as the true candidate of change to the disadvantage of David Cameron and unleashing the "Cleggmania" that now seems so long ago . On election night, I was aboard the boat in the Thames hired by the BBC . Among those also present to comment on the results was Michael Ashcroft, the Tory donor and pollster . As it became clear that his party had failed to secure a majority , he placed the blame on the TV debates . That view has since become orthodoxy in the Conservative party . Whether it is entirely true or not, it has been engraved into the Tory soul . Two people were very badly burnt: Mr Cameron himself and George Osborne , who ran the last Tory election campaign and was widely castigated by his colleagues for agreeing to the debates . The chancellor long ago told friends that he is not going to make the same mistake twice . Lynton Crosby, the prime minister's Australian strategist, is also dead-set against TV debates . Craig Oliver, the Number 10 communications chief who has been leading the Tory side in the debate negotiations, is another key figure who believes it is all downside for them . The first reason that David Cameron and his advisers are against debates is the traditional one . He doesn't want to concede equality of status to his opponents . The experience of the Clegg-Farage debates during the Euro elections hardened the belief in Number 10 that debates are bad for incumbents and a gift to challengers . The view around Mr Cameron is expressed by one close ally:"If you are the incumbent, debates are heavily weighted in favour of the insurgents. It is a rigged game." It is not, as is often assumed, fear of Nigel Farage coming at him from the right that most worries the prime minister . His biggest concern is giving a boost to Ed Miliband . TV debates are the Labour leader's best remaining opportunity to secure mass exposure to voters sceptical that he is up to being prime minister and get them to reconsider their view . So poor are his personal ratings, Mr Miliband might only have to turn up and string together a few half-decent sentences and more people would think better of him . The hope that their man could benefit by exceeding low expectations is why Labour is desperate for debates to happen . Which makes the Tories equally desperate for them not to happen . The Conservatives, as we saw last week with their "dodgy dossier" about Labour's spending plans, want to revert to an old-fashioned model of election in which the campaign is dominated by staged leaders' tours in which the prime minister wafts around the country looking presidential and morning news conferences designed, with a bit of help from their friends in the press, to shape the campaign to a Tory agenda . So, from the off, the Conservatives have done everything in their power to prevent TV debates from happening at this election . The broadcasters and the other parties wanted to begin negotiations about the format last spring . The Tories stalled , saying they wouldn't start talking until October . When the negotiations finally got under way, I am told, and by a variety of different sources, that the Conservatives were determined to block any progress toward agreement . "At every stage, they sought to put obstacles in the way," says one source . Another confirms:"The Tories kept throwing spanners in the works." According to a third:"All the parties, including Ukip, took part in good faith except the Conservatives." Last time around, "a heads of agreement" about the debates had been written by December . This time around, we have got to mid-January and aren't even close to that . The last meeting was just before Christmas . "We didn't get anywhere because of the Tories," says one source, an account that is again corroborated by others . I have learned that a meeting between the parties and the broadcasters was scheduled for the Thursday just gone . It was cancelled at the last minute by the Conservatives . No new date has been set . The prime minister's latest excuse for nobbling debates is that he won't do it unless the Greens are included . I happen to agree that the Greens ought to be represented in one debate . There is not much logic to Ofcom's recent preliminary recommendation that Ukip and the Lib Dems should be treated as "major" parties for the purposes of allocating airtime during the campaign, but not the Greens . They have been nip and tuck with the Lib Dems in the opinion polls and quite often done better . They have had representation in the House of Commons for longer than Ukip . So I agree that it would be fair to include the Greens - and hoot with laughter to hear that argument coming out of the mouth of David Cameron . When did he become obsessed with championing the rights of minority parties? Who knew he had such a passion to debate with Natalie Bennett? In the history of political excuses, this must go down as one of the most terrible . By running away from debates, the Tories are taking some risk with their leader's reputation and sense of himself . Says one senior government figure:"Cameron doesn't like being called chicken." If the Cameron brand is supposed to be the strong and confident leader , why is he frit of debating Ed Miliband, a man the Tories keep telling us is hopelessly weak? Won't it simply look bad to deny TV debates to the voters? Yes, it will , but the Tories are calculating that any fuss will be short- lived, soon forgotten and, in the end, not that many voters will punish them for it, especially if their spinners can successfully sow confusion about who is responsible . The Tories also bargain that the press won't make that big a deal of it . About that, they may be right . There was resentment among newspapers during the last campaign that their capacity to shape the agenda was reduced by the TV debates . There are journalists and editors who will be secretly happy if they don't happen again . As things stand , I think the chances of TV election debates happening are somewhere between zilch and nada . Could anything change that? Some suggest that the broadcasters should call David Cameron's bluff and threaten to stage debates without him - "empty chair" him in the jargon . Labour and the Lib Dems hope this will happen . Number 10 is assuming that the BBC wouldn't have the nerve , the other broadcasters will follow its lead , and holding a debate without Mr Cameron might anyway be a breach of the laws about election coverage . A debate between everyone but the prime minister could even suit the Tories when they want to project him as the statesman floating above the fray . A more realistic way to flush him out would be to strip him of the Green figleaf he is using as his pretext for not debating . The broadcasters could redraft their proposal to include Natalie Bennett in one of the debates . Labour, the Lib Dems and Ukip could say that they'd be content for her to participate . I think they would . Labour and the Lib Dems aren't keen on including the Greens , who have been taking votes off both of them , but when it comes to the crunch, they'd rather have a debate with the Greens than no debates at all . Even then, the Tories are so determined to avoid TV debates that they'd most likely concoct another pretext for sabotaging them . But at least everyone would then be crystal clear who is to blame .
[EX A]: At the time of the last election, David Cameron pronounced that TV debates were "here to stay" It was his confident declaration that:"We will have them in every election in the future and that is a really good thing for democracy."

[EX Q]: Student arrested after teacher takes smartphone: Do our devices own us? Last Tuesday, a ninth-grader at John F  Kennedy High School in Paterson, N.J , was caught on video throwing his 62-year-old teacher to the ground and wrestling with him in order to retrieve his cellphone , which the teacher had confiscated . Teachers at the school allow cellphones to be used for educational purposes in the classroom , but they may take them and hold them until the end of class if a student appears to be using his phone for any other purpose . Granted , the boy may have demonstrated problems controlling his impulses in other settings, too , but the video of his attack has resulted in national attention . And that's because it isn't the first dramatic example of how attached to our phones we have become . Last year, a Houston woman was shot by a mugger when she refused to hand over her cellphone . She survived , and she later asserted that she had done the right thing . In 2013, a 22-year-old man was killed by a train when he tried to retrieve the cellphone he had dropped on the tracks . Without giving a great deal of thought to the psychological implications, our species has deployed mobile technology very quickly, in a very widespread manner . One reason is that the marketplace embraced smartphones in an astounding way  -- as if our phones and their apps are a lock-and-key fit with our psyches . According to one source, there are 7 billion mobile devices on earth, one for almost each person . What is "in" our cellphones that would lead people to attack others or risk death to keep them? I would argue that the phones absorb and record our thoughts and intentions so dramatically that we become unconsciously convinced they are "parts of us." Why else would so many people hesitate even to leave a room without taking their cellphones with them? Why would they interrupt meetings and family time to check them? Why would young people be opting to spend their money on newer, faster ones, instead of on clothing? Why would there be so much interest in personalizing the sounds they make, the apps they hold and the cases that hold them? I contend we have already crossed the Rubicon, almost irrevocably incorporating technology into our psyches in a way that makes us part flesh and blood, part hardware . The fact that the hardware is outside our bodies(for now) does not mean the integration has not occurred . We are psychologically magnetized to our devices . That's why some people will fight for them, and even die for them . The selfie has become so ubiquitous that it no longer seems bizarre to see someone smiling into a cellphone or sticking out her tongue or making a sad face -- acting-- and then snapping a photo . And these images are then sent not only to her supposed "friends," who may number in the hundreds, but also to her unconscious mind -- reinforcing the idea that she is what her cellphone records her to be . Take away the cellphone and, in some measure, she believes she disappears . She feels she dies a little bit, or more than a little bit, psychologically . The business of selling "selfie sticks"-- telescoping rods that hold a cellphone far enough away to facilitate a really good shot-- is robust enough to make many retailers place large kiosks of them near the checkout register . Cellphones, you might say, are growing arms . Ours apparently aren't long enough . This is just the beginning . Cellphones will soon be able to determine whether you are looking at the content on their screens, rather than looking away . They will demand attention . The extent to which we own them versus them owning us will be increasingly in doubt . Make no mistake : While technology can be good when harnessed for the good (raising money for charity occurs to me) , there will be hell to pay for giving so little thought to the downside . That downside likely includes an epidemic of narcissism in young people, increased rates of anxiety and dramatically decreased feelings of autonomy . Because to the extent that one's self-image is outsourced to a mobile device, it is no more deeply rooted than that . Bill Hemmer and Martha MacCallum bring you the news that matters to you!
[EX A]: We are psychologically magnetized to our devices That's why some people will fight for them, and even die for them

[EX Q]: Five reasons why European Central Bank's QE won't save continent's dying economies. The European Central Bank has just announced a EUR60 billion ($69 billion) monthly government bond buying program--Quantitative Easing -- but that won't do much for the moribund continental economy . Central banks can print money to purchase government bonds to push up prices and lower interest rates on those assets and competing debt, such as corporate bonds and bank loans . In the United States, the Federal Reserve also bought billions in federally-sponsored mortgage-backed securities, such as those issued by Fannie Mae . The aim is to encourage more borrowing by businesses and homebuyers-- stimulus spending financed by running the printing press . The Fed enjoyed some success boosting U.S  growth , but here are five reasons why QE won't work for the ECB . 1 \. Eurozone Is Not a Country . The European Union does not have a large budget and issues few euro-denominated bonds the ECB could purchase . Instead, the ECB will have to purchase individual country debt -- it is as if the Fed had to purchase a basket of bonds issued by California, Iowa and other states . Markets for European bonds--both sovereign and corporate--and bank lending are highly fragmented along country lines . Consequently ,  it is unlikely that QE will have much effect on banks' willingness to make new business loans in places buffeted by the financial crisis, like Spain and Greece . 2 \. EU Has No Fannie Mae . QE seems to work best when central banks inject capital directly into specific markets . The Fed purchased mortgage-backed securities that significantly lowered interest rates on mortgages across America . Housing prices recovered much of the value lost during the financial crisis , and new home construction rebounded . The EU has no analog to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , and the ECB cannot readily purchase mortgage-backed securities to boost the European housing sector . 3 \. Fiscal Policy Is Pulling in the Opposite Direction . Europe's largest economy, Germany, recently accomplished a balanced budget for the first time since 1969 , and austerity programs intended to restore solvency have forced massive government spending cuts and tax increases in Spain, Greece and other Mediterranean states . Those spending cuts-- though essential to sorely needed structural reforms-- will undercut the effects of any increased bank lending ECB bond purchase may induce . With unemployment hovering at about 25 percent in Spain and Greece, and 13 percent in Italy, banks will remain skeptical that lending to expand businesses will do much to create bigger markets for what they sell . 4 \. QE Does Little to Fix Euro-Imposed Dysfunctions . Although structural reforms could make Greece, Italy and other high unemployment economies more attractive places to build factories and establish businesses in the long run, governments in Athens, Rome and other capitals face voters who need jobs now . And the cost of labor--though perhaps gradually falling--in these countries will remain too high to attract investment for many years . If Mediterranean countries still had their own currencies , those could let their currencies fall in value relative to those of northern European states . That would re-price labor to attract investment and jobs . But the single currency, the euro, deprives them of that lever . 5 \. Absence of Pan European Institutions . Though the Europeans have a single currency, they lack common education standards and language that gives the United States a more or less single labor market . In the absence of currency devaluation to re-price Mediterranean labor, Greeks, Italians and Spaniards cannot migrate to Germany where unemployment is only 5 percent, with the same ease that Americans have migrated to South Dakota and Texas to participate in the oil boom . In the end, the EU and ECB lacks what the Fed enjoys--the punch of a national government that ran large deficits to augment its efforts to pull the U.S  economy out of recession and national credit, housing and labor markets that made monetary policies--like QE--reasonably effective .
[EX A]:
The European Central Bank has just announced a EUR60 billion ($69 billion) monthly government bond buying program--Quantitative Easing that won't do much for the moribund continental economy