Page 1 of Leadership TV Debates

Anyone gonna watch it tonight or have we all given up the ghost? I watched them while i lived stateside and they were generally interesting, bit of a political nut too unfortunately so ill be tuned hoping there is at least one f*** up to make it interesting :)

I watched the Jimmy Smits Vs. Alan Alda one, that was good, but I doubt ours will be that interesting ;)

I`ll wait to see "highlights" on HIGNFY and Russel Howard :)

Very confident and impressive performance from Nick Clegg I thought.  Probably had the easiest job maybe in that he could sometimes stand back and watch the other two try to score points over each other.
Nice touch at the very end mentioning the `question askers` by name too...

Ste

Very impressed by Clegg too although im biased and expected it, same as the chancellor debates in that the libdems were ignored by the other two, I think the next debate will be very different if the opinion polls give them a lift, then we will see what he and they are made of

My major problem was that EVERYONE, including the news channels (BBC included) were waiting for them to make mistakes. I think they are missing the point. Who gives a s*** if they make a mistake. Thats not what its about. Give a guy a chance. If he screws up once why jump on him. Thats more news than the actual politics they are discussing. Thats why i hate modern politics - its more about show than anything else. It doesnt mean anything except who presents themselves the best.

1st Prize - Clegg
2nd Prize - Cameron
3rd Prize - Brown

Was interesting from a historical perspective, they do seem to have a very similar format to the US debates, but without strict timing on comebacks and replies. I quite like how that was much more freeform.

Good to see Clegg taking advantage of the air time though, my main criticism of him has been his anonymity. Kennedy was always on the TV news it seemed, popping up with an opinion on everything. Where as Clegg in comparison has seemed quite quiet in that respect until now.


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I`m not going to cut and paste but I`ve kicked my blog into action again with two posts, one before and one after the debate if anyone fancies clicking the link.

Snaps

Every Third Car

Pretty duff questions, I thought

How about `why should we vote for any w*nker caught out by the expenses debacle`? i.e. the Blears backlash >:(

That would surely let the Lib Dems in with a landslide

.....back to you in the studio

I suspect we`ll look back on this one and see that both Brown and Cameron were holding back and being cautious.  Cameron looked assured but held off on attacking outright in an attempt to look statesmanlike (you can argue whether or not he achieved this...) and found as with Osbourne that he was being attacked on both sides, the LibDems are left of Labour so no real chance that they would side with the Tories in the event of a hung parliament.  Brown was also a bit subdued but also seemed to want to draw Clegg onto his side by agreeing with him on several occasions and almost seeming to want a tag team effort on Cameron.

Clegg was clearly the most assured as he had nothing to lose, the danger for him though is two-fold.  He now has to keep that up whilst the other two parties and commentators will also start to take him a little more seriously and also scutinise his policies a lot more than in the past, where it didn`t really matter what the LibDems said, no one took them seriously.  The one thing that did impress me about Clegg last night was his refusal to heed Brown`s invite into agreeing with him.

The immediate aftermath is clearly that Clegg was deemed to have an impressive night but it`s hard to judge who was the main loser when you look at the Sky poll in terms of voting intentions:

Cameron - 35% (down 1%)
Brown - 27% (down 2%)
Clegg - 26% (up 7%)

Now you could argue that Brown loses out here in that the Lib Dems seem to have taken more votes from him (not to mention the likes of UKIP, Greens, etc) but he may still be pleased as if this holds until May 6, then he may yet achieve his aim of a hung parliament - which seemed to be clear from his whole manner of trying to get Nick Clegg to agree that he agreed with him.

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Reviewer



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I watched this at a mates, when his Mrs came back she was like ok i will turn this over if no one is watching, i told he i was and she watched last 40 minutes or so bless her, really having no interest, the interesting thing for me tho was her comments during it which were basically.

Why are they all answering every question with same answer, Lib Dem saying the other two need to come out and be honest about the figures and they have been f***ing up for years.

Tory, We will find savings and cut cut cut

Labour. The tories will take money out of the economy and send us back into recession dont trust them.....


When I think about it she was pretty much spot on.