The First Election Debate - The Jury Is Out...

Last night, television history was made, when at the Granada Studios in Manchester, the first ever General Election live debate between the three main leaders of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties took place.  Sharp exchanges on hot topics such as immigration, crime and MP expenses were the main headlines, as Nick Clegg, Gordon Brown and David Cameron went toe-to-toe on the home affairs and policies that dominated their manifestos earlier this week.

At the beginning of the debate, all three leaders looked petrified, as if they had just seen a hideous ghost.  Their opening intros seemed more akin to the 90’s show, Blind Date, not an electoral debate.  However, as the debate went on, the sparring began. 

Having recorded the debate and watched it this morning, the clear winner was the Liberal Democrats leader, Nick Clegg.  Clegg was excellent throughout.  His intro was based on ‘there is an alternative,’ for us, whereas his rivals focused on a certain policy.  He was always talking to the camera and he looked very relaxed and totally professional at work.  He definitely seemed to gain the most out of this first debate, as proven by the instant reaction from ITV News after the debate. 

A sample from over 4,000 people, a TV first showed that Clegg got 43% of the vote for Which party leader do you think won the debate?  That was an overwhelming margin, compared to David Cameron, who was second with 26%.  For Cameron, last night was not his best night.  A people’s person, he seemed a bit lacklustre and though his points on immigration and getting discipline back into our education system were very worthy, he seemed to be holding something back.  The outcome of these polled results certainly suggests this.

This was never going to be Gordon Brown’s strongest area, but he will need to do a lot better if he is going to win another five years at No. 10 Downing Street.  Brown urged us to stick by him, saying ‘We’ve got to get this economy moving forward again.’  However, his defence of the immigration issue, the reliance he seemed to be holding towards Clegg was noticeable and whereas David Cameron’s body language did look strong at times, Brown looked in comparison, very weak.  His determination to stick by the National Insurance tax proposal, plus the need to spend ourselves out of recession drew a lot of criticism from his main opponent.  Cameron responded by saying: ‘Gordon is effectively saying, I want to waste more money, and then put up your taxes later.’  Finally, his jokey attitude towards some posters that the Tories have put up of him, with a smile on his face did not work at all.  Wise words Gordon, humour will not win you this election.

Chairing this debate was the former London Tonight anchorman, Alistair Stewart.  At best, his performance was very mediocre, pretty poor to be honest.  Stewart struggled to show the authority needed to chair a hotly-contested debate like this and at times, looked like he was going to lose control of the situation.  I’d expect Adam Boulton and David Dimbelby to put in better performances when chairing Sky and BBC’s debates in the next fortnight.

An average of 9.4million watched ITV’s coverage of the 90-minute show between 8.30pm and 10pm, peaking at 10million in places, with no commercial breaks for advertisements, a speciality for ITV it must be said.  Clegg may have been the bookies favourite, but in a way, the pressure is now on him to deliver next time on Sky News, to prove that his excellent performance was not a fluke.  The latest poll from The Times suggests that David Cameron has increased his lead to six points, 37% to Brown’s 31% and Clegg’s 21%.  However, that’s still no way near enough to win a majority at an election looming, just three weeks later.

At times, this debate felt a bit sterile, lacking some of the drama I had been expecting.  Everything remains in the balance and the jury is still out, especially on the undecided voters.  However, round one certainly belonged to Nick Clegg and it has blown the race to Downing Street wide open now…