Britain's First TV Election Debate

[Sheilbh]

More polls for the Sunday papers:
'Three Sunday polls released today show a further surge in support for the Liberal Democrats, at the expense of both the Conservatives and Labour. A BPIX/Mail on Sunday poll placed the Lib Dems on 32 per cent in front of the Conservatives (31%) and Labour (28%). A ComRes poll for the Independent on Sunday/Sunday Mirror puts the Lib Dems on 29%, two points ahead of Labour and two behind the Tories on 31%. While an ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph shows a 7 point jump for the Lib Dems to 27%, just behind Labour on 29% (-2) and the Conservatives on 31% (-4). A YouGov/Sunday Times poll shows a drop of 1 point for the Lib Dems since yesterday, on 29 per cent. '

I really don't know what to make of this election.  I think, if nothing else, it could force significant electoral reform - especially if the Lib Dems do well or Labour come second or (extraordinarily) third and still have the most seats.  But I don't know how many of these polls matter.  It seems like this could be a national election with, above all, many hundreds of very local races.  For example if any candidate has any dodgy expenses they will be getting slaughtered for it by their opponents.  So I don't know if we'll get so neat an election, we could I think just as much have a lot of anti-incumbent votes all over the place with no cohesive reason or story behind them.

[alfred russel]

More polls for the Sunday papers:
'Three Sunday polls released today show a further surge in support for the Liberal Democrats, at the expense of both the Conservatives and Labour. A BPIX/Mail on Sunday poll placed the Lib Dems on 32 per cent in front of the Conservatives (31%) and Labour (28%). A ComRes poll for the Independent on Sunday/Sunday Mirror puts the Lib Dems on 29%, two points ahead of Labour and two behind the Tories on 31%. While an ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph shows a 7 point jump for the Lib Dems to 27%, just behind Labour on 29% (-2) and the Conservatives on 31% (-4). A YouGov/Sunday Times poll shows a drop of 1 point for the Lib Dems since yesterday, on 29 per cent. '

I really don't know what to make of this election.  I think, if nothing else, it could force significant electoral reform - especially if the Lib Dems do well or Labour come second or (extraordinarily) third and still have the most seats.  But I don't know how many of these polls matter.  It seems like this could be a national election with, above all, many hundreds of very local races.  For example if any candidate has any dodgy expenses they will be getting slaughtered for it by their opponents.  So I don't know if we'll get so neat an election, we could I think just as much have a lot of anti-incumbent votes all over the place with no cohesive reason or story behind them.

Intrade has the percent chance of a conservative victory at 80%. Labor is at 20%. I like Brown, but I don't think Cameron would be a big change and might lighten the political atmosphere in the UK (just because how negative things have gotten for Labor).

[Sheilbh]

Intrade has the percent chance of a conservative victory at 80%. Labor is at 20%. I like Brown, but I don't think Cameron would be a big change and might lighten the political atmosphere in the UK (just because how negative things have gotten for Labor).

I can't see that they have a hung parliament option

That's what would happen if the Lib Dems did well, and what's been getting a lot of talk for some time.  I think it's the favourite in the bookies right now and a lot people are telling the pollsters that they actually want a hung parliament.

No one expects the Lib Dems to win, even if they won 32% of the vote to the Tories' 31%.

[alfred russel]

Intrade has the percent chance of a conservative victory at 80%. Labor is at 20%. I like Brown, but I don't think Cameron would be a big change and might lighten the political atmosphere in the UK (just because how negative things have gotten for Labor).

I can't see that they have a hung parliament option

That's what would happen if the Lib Dems did well, and what's been getting a lot of talk for some time.  I think it's the favourite in the bookies right now and a lot people are telling the pollsters that they actually want a hung parliament.

No one expects the Lib Dems to win, even if they won 32% of the vote to the Tories' 31%.

In the event of a coalition government, intrade declares the winner the party with the most seats.

[Sheilbh]

In the event of a coalition government, intrade declares the winner the party with the most seats.

I doubt we'd have a coalition government to be honest, though I've no idea.  My guess would be that if there was a hung parliament we'd just have minority government.

Given that I think they're probably right though, chances are the Tories'll win most seats.

[alfred russel]

In the event of a coalition government, intrade declares the winner the party with the most seats.

I doubt we'd have a coalition government to be honest, though I've no idea.  My guess would be that if there was a hung parliament we'd just have minority government.

Given that I think they're probably right though, chances are the Tories'll win most seats.

And in that case it is whoever forms the government.

[Sheilbh]

Andrew Rawnsley's view:

The Lib Dems find you don't need to spin when you're winning

Nick Clegg's victory in the televised debate presents both his complacent rivals with some serious dilemmas

There's a useful aphorism from across the Atlantic. The winners grin; the losers spin. So it has been in the 48 hours since the first British televised leaders' debate gave an electric jolt to a hitherto low-wattage campaign. Peter Mandelson, Alastair Campbell and the rest of the Labour college of spin doctors and truth surgeons have tried to present the bout as a victory for their candidate on "substance". Translation: Gordon Brown made his characteristic, elemental error of thinking that the way to the nation's heart is the robotic recital of lists of statistics. The agreeable Alan Johnson suggested that it did not matter if the prime minister was a leaden performer because "this is not a popularity contest". Alan, allow me to let you into a little secret about a general election. Popularity contest is exactly what it is.

Over in Tory spin world, Team Cameron's propagandists have been shrugging about the viewing figures even though more than 9 million was a highly respectable audience for 90 minutes of politics without an ad break. Tory spin-meisters point out that many voters didn't tune in and the winners of US presidential debates don't always win the actual election. These are points worth bearing in mind by anyone in danger of getting too carried away with Cleggmania. But they are not points which would have interested the Conservatives if they were happy with the performance of their leader.

And the Lib Dems? They, of course, are the ones wearing the grins. And they are not just any old grins; these are ear-to-ear, cheek-aching grins with their leader's triumph. His pre-debate negotiators created a platform for victory by securing even airtime and status with his two rivals, the like of which has never been enjoyed by any previous leader of the third party.

Credit, though, where it is primarily due. Having got his chance, Nick Clegg did not blow it. He could have looked incidental and marginalised in the company of the other two. That is his weekly fate at prime minister's questions. His skill was to use the debate to make himself look the equal of Gordon Brown and David Cameron as well as a personable, reasonable and refreshing alternative to both of them. Many Tories are grinding their teeth and cursing their leader for gifting the Lib Dem this opportunity to shine.

Another reason for his success is a rather surprising one given the superior resources available to his opponents. He used his prep time much more effectively. He had the smarter grasp of how to use the artificiality of a TV format to project himself as authentic. It is Debating for Beginners to address questioners by their Christian names in order to establish a rapport. Yet only the Lib Dem did this from the beginning and his rivals looked like poor mimics when they started to copy him. Neither was his match at looking directly into the camera in order to make a connection with the audience at home. The Lib Dems spent a lot of time studying video of rehearsals to determine whether this would look creepy or attractive. I wonder also whether this was an example of the Lib Dems' lack of money actually working to their advantage. The team who prepped Mr Clegg for the debate was entirely home-grown. Danny Alexander, his chief of staff, simply could not afford to import American consultants in the way that Labour and the Tories have. Stylistically, the Lib Dem came over as more naturally British than either of his rivals.

Gordon Brown was the most egregious offender at trying to lever in jokes – "You can't airbrush your policies like you airbrush your posters" – which were much too obviously pre-cooked. David Cameron was the most painfully over-reliant on the American technique of using an anecdote to make a point. "I recently bumped into a Basildon mother of three with an ingrowing toenail and that is why I love the NHS." The worst was the Tory leader's "I once met a black man". That and a few other gaffes might suggest that the Tory leader was under-rehearsed, but I suspect his real problem was that he was over-coached. He was playing not to lose and straining too hard to seem prime ministerial, with the result that he looked anxious and sounded constipated.

Beneath these differences, there were deeper reasons for Nick Clegg's victory which tell a wider story about this election. Gordon Brown came into the studio clunking behind him the same ball and chain which he is forced to drag the entire length of the campaign trail. He is the unpopular leader of a government that has been in power for 13 years. David Cameron also sagged under the weight of his baggage – in his case, it is the number of changing and sometimes conflicting positions he has adopted over the past four years. Nick Clegg possessed the great advantage of having a simple, clear message that fitted with his wider campaign. That message is that Britain has been let down for decades by the other two, the duopoly which he derides as the "Labservatives". His most resonant line of the night was when he said: "The more they attack each other, the more they exactly sound the same." That jibe was clearly pre-prepared, but he inserted it at point where it seemed a natural and spontaneous response to his bickering rivals.

A "plague on both your houses" is hardly a novel line. This has been the traditional tune of third-party leaders since the Beatles were an unknown Liverpudlian boy band. It is working so well for Mr Clegg because the voters are now particularly receptive to that song. The parliamentary expenses scandal has intensified public alienation from establishment politics to the advantage of the leader who can present himself as an insurgent outsider. Labour and the Tories were both complicit in the inflation of the bubble that exploded in the financial crisis. As I suggested some weeks ago: if not now for the Lib Dems, when?

Very senior Tories are now ruing their failure to develop a strategy for dealing with the Lib Dems before the campaign started. The Conservatives were complacent in assuming that they could simply squeeze the third party into irrelevance and cruise to victory on the slogan of change. They now have to deal with Nick Clegg out-Daveing Cameron and presenting himself as the fresher and more sincere face of renewal.

Entering the middle stretch of the campaign, they are all presented with some unexpected dilemmas. The Lib Dems are keen to capitalise on this boost, but don't seem entirely sure how, and are wary of the hype for fear that it will set up Nick Clegg to flop at the next debate which he goes into with greatly raised expectations.

Some Labour strategists have sounded happy to join the praise for his performance in the first bout. One of Gordon Brown's senior aides cheerfully remarked to me on Friday afternoon: "It has blown the election wide open." They talked up Nick Clegg's win because it diminished David Cameron and disrupted the general media assumption that the Conservatives were heading for power. A lift for the Lib Dems helps to secure those of their seats in southern England which previously looked lost to the Tories. That makes it harder for the Conservatives to achieve a parliamentary majority. This seemed welcome to Labour because their hopes of remaining in office repose in a hung parliament. That was before the YouGov poll yesterday morning which had the Lib Dems sucking support from both the other two, leapfrogging Labour and breathing down the necks of the Tories.

It is rash to read too much into a single volatile tracker poll in the immediate wake of one debate. But more polls published today and telling the same story suggest this could be more than just a spasm. If that dynamic shift in allegiances is sustained, if the Lib Dems become the party with all the momentum, who knows what might happen? If there are confirmatory polls placing Labour in third place, then everyone in Gordon Brown's bunker will need a change of trousers.

As they also will at Tory HQ where their ambitions to win a majority now greatly depend on finding a way of putting the lid on the Lib Dems. David Cameron's strategists are already arguing among themselves about how aggressively they should "take the fight" to Nick Clegg. For most of David Cameron's leadership, his approach has been to try to hug the Lib Dems to death. The Lib Dem leader disdained the Tory's attempts to love bomb him during the first debate. Influential voices around David Cameron are telling him to forget any more loving and concentrate on bombing. Their visceral instinct is to go for the Lib Dems as wet on crime, reckless on defence, soft on immigration and in love with Europe.

The risk for the Tories is that this lures David Cameron back on to Michael Howard territory and will look like a lurch to the right which is repulsive to the liberal, centrist voters that he needs. Michael Gove has already experimented with one line of attack by patronising the Lib Dems as "outside the mainstream and a little bit eccentric". The trouble for both the Tories and Labour is that being "outside the mainstream" does not look the least bit "eccentric" to the many voters distrustful of and disillusioned with the old duopoly. It looks jolly attractive.

• More election comment from Cif at the polls

Edit:  I also can't help but think the Sunday Mail may regret this headline:

HIS WIFE IS SPANISH, HIS MOTHER DUTCH, HIS FATHER HALF-RUSSIAN AND HIS SPIN DOCTOR GERMAN. IS THERE ANYTHING BRITISH ABOUT THE LIBDEM LEADER?

It seems madness to have a personal attack like that while running a poll that shows the Lib Dems in the lead and Clegg with absurd popularity levels.  Newspapers surely shouldn't be too distant from their readership

Edit: This is the first time since 1906 the Liberals have been ahead.  Though I'd rather Henry Campbell-Bannerman than Clegg.

[Alatriste]

Edit:  I also can't help but think the Sunday Mail may regret this headline:

HIS WIFE IS SPANISH, HIS MOTHER DUTCH, HIS FATHER HALF-RUSSIAN AND HIS SPIN DOCTOR GERMAN. IS THERE ANYTHING BRITISH ABOUT THE LIBDEM LEADER?

He's as British as Queen Victoria! 

On a more serious note, I watched the debate (was aired live on Spanish TV) and wasn't impressed by the performances. Cameron was IMHO the worst by far, even slightly comical, like he just escaped from a 'Yes, Minister' episode. After having heard so much about how wooden and grim Gordon Brown was, I expected some kind of darkly brooding Richard of Gloucester; well, he certainly didn't sweep the audience off their feet, but he wasn't that bad either. Clegg had the easiest task, sure, but on top of that he just was better at delivering his message. 

Oh, and those ties... please, did they really have to wear ties in their party colours?

[Brazen]

Clegg's the best-looking too

I've supported the Lib Dems the past couple of elections - they seem to have non-hysterical policies completely backed up with penny-by-penny spending, taxing and saving plans. Maybe this will be the year no-one tell me I wasted my vote again

[Gups]

Intrade has the percent chance of a conservative victory at 80%. Labor is at 20%. I like Brown, but I don't think Cameron would be a big change and might lighten the political atmosphere in the UK (just because how negative things have gotten for Labor).

I can't see that they have a hung parliament option

That's what would happen if the Lib Dems did well, and what's been getting a lot of talk for some time.  I think it's the favourite in the bookies right now and a lot people are telling the pollsters that they actually want a hung parliament.

No one expects the Lib Dems to win, even if they won 32% of the vote to the Tories' 31%.

If that happens, (or if any of the polls since the debate were translated into a uniform national swing) then Labour would be the biggest party. For example, the latest yougov poll (whcih is the worst for Labour of any of them) has the Tories on 32, the Libs on 33 and Labout on 26. This translates into 247 Labour seats, 239 Tories and 132 Libs and, I would have tought, a Government lasting only so long as it takes to put a new voting system in place.

The intrade figures are very kind to the Tories, I'd say.

[Brazen]

Gups!!! 

[Gups]

Hey Brazen I've been posting every now and again

[HisMajestyBOB]

Hey Shelf, did the moderator ask "tough" questions?

Actually by the target he set himself the moderator was tough:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7591256/General-Election-2010-TV-debate-moderator-Alastair-Stewart-to-be-tough.html

Alastair Stewart 'to be tough'
Alastair Stewart, the moderator of the first televised party leaders' debate, will cut leaders short if he thinks the debate is getting boring.

The debate will be structured around questions from the studio audience, to which each party leader will get to give a set-piece answer.

After that, Stewart and his producers at ITV can allow up to four minutes of additional "free debate" on the topic. But according to the pre-agreed rules, that debate proceeds only "on merit".

"What 'on merit' means is, is it interesting? Is there sufficient tension between them?" said Stewart. "So if they surprise us and are very conciliatory and agree absolutely, then we'll move on."

Stewart said that it is part of his job to be an "emotional barometer" of the studio audience's response to the interplay between the leaders.

"You can sometimes feel and sense a hunger for more on a particular subject," said Stewart.

"Or you hear the delicate tones of buttocks shuffling, and you think, let's move on."

Stewart said that he was obliged to keep things interesting because the debate will be "a live television event, for a very, very big audience".

Both Stewart's own performance as moderator, and ITV's coverage of the debate as a whole, will be minutely scrutinised. Tonight's event is the first ever debate between party leaders to be televised during a British general election campaign.

ITV has spent £500,000 on producing the programme - an unusually large amount for this kind of broadcast - and will follow it with an almost instant opinion poll reaction on News at Ten.

However Stewart said that it is not his job to prevent two of the party leaders ganging up on the third. "In terms of ganging up, it's up to them, it really is," he said. "If two of them choose to gang up on the other, that's for the other one to fight the good fight. All I'm going to do is make sure that the 'other one' has just as much time to retaliate and respond."

ITV has put in place a complex computerised timing system, to help ensure that the leaders get equal opportunity to put their points across. But Stewart said that he would try to police the timing as much by arm movements and eye signals as by verbally interrupting. "The last thing people at home want to hear is the moderator constantly blowing the whistle like one of those American traffic cops," he said.

Of course his antipathy for traffic cops probably comes from his two drink driving convictions.

I loved him in Police Action Camera! I watched that show whenever it came on TV in the states, which wasn't often. It was far more interesting than most US shows, I think it's the British understatement.

[Sheilbh]

Lib Dems are now on 34%, Tories 31%, Labour 26%.  Now at that rate, assuming there's a standard swing, Labour are still the largest party.  But if the Lib Dems get to 36% then Labour are pushed into third at about 190 seats, the Tories win with about 220 and the Lib Dems get 200.  And at this point, why not?

I think this gets it sort of right from Iain Martin's WSJ blog:

Nick Clegg: The People's Liberal Democrat

By Iain Martin



I wondered how long it would take before the incredible rise of Nick Clegg was compared to the wave of grief fascism that swept across Britain after the death of Princess Diana. And it has happened. "Get a flag up on that palace for Princess Nick," writes one blogger. I think he is joking.

It does feel almost as though we are living through the political equivalent of that extraordinary period. If one had said five days ago that Britain would be covered in volcanic ash; that air transportation would have halted; that the Royal Navy and a flotilla of little boats would be heading Dunkirk-style to pick up Britons stranded abroad; and that Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats would be in the lead in the opinion polls, you might have been sectioned.

But here we all are, attempting to adjust to an altered reality. Like John Rentoul, at this stage I don't see this stopping. Or rather, I cannot see — barring a Clegg implosion of some kind — what could possibly halt the bandwagon in the next 17 days.

The Diana comparison is not made lightly. The British have these momentary uprisings in popular feeling against the established order. For a brief period, a figure comes to personify a mood and no amount of robust cross-examination can shift it. To put it politely, those Britons involved in such a mass rebellion are often prepared to overlook certain internal-contradictions in their position.

Diana in death became a proxy for an assault on an establishment that was seen, by millions, as too stiff, formal, uncaring and lacking in emotional intelligence. In order to "show us you care," the mob forced the Queen to concede that her grieving grandsons — two very young boys (William and Harry) — should be paraded in front of thousands of people who had never met their mother and could not be said by any reasonable definition to be grieving for her.

Diana, a Spencer who lived a life of extreme privilege, was an odd standard-bearer for an assault on the establishment, too. But that didn't seem to matter.

And Clegg? The Prince of People's Hearts? He's the outsider, the face of an antipolitics movement — or anti-old politics, at least. He's the man who will "do things differently" and is mining widespread discontent with two party politics and the Westminster village elite, particularly among younger voters. It does not seem to be about specific policies (yet). Instead, the driving force is anger with the stultifying old setup and a desire to sweep it away.

But similarly to Diana, hailing from the English aristocracy, Clegg is a creation of the political class he wants to shake up. Remember, Clegg is a professional politician who, after Westminster and Cambridge, was schooled by the Brussels elite. He then became an MEP and an MP. He is a rebel only in that he wants to smash the system and rebuild it so that it operates in his favor, but he has much in common with the opponents he attacks.

Like Diana in death, Clegg is now also beyond criticism — which entrenches his new popularity. The two leaders of the main parties are petrified of being seen as being unfair to "Nick." They fear looking mean and out of step with these dramatic shifts in public opinion. If they attack him directly, they vindicate his claim that the two big parties are scared of their duopoly being challenged and are getting desperate. If they treat him with more respect, he continues to grow in stature.

In a sense, however, it's not really about Nick Clegg — charming bloke though he is. He got himself, brilliantly, in the right place at the right time. But he's just the vehicle.

Fuck it I'm voting Lib Dem

[derspiess]

I'm going to make a bold prediction and go on record as stating that the pro-nanny state, pro-immigration party will win