Daily View: Prime-ministerial debate 1

Clare Spencer | 08:45 UK time, Friday, 16 April 2010

Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and David Cameron Commentators make their judgements about the first TV prime-ministerial debate on ITV.

Gary Gibbon at Channel 4 News thinks people will say that Nick Clegg performed best:

"It's over. I think people will be inclined to say that Nick Clegg won this. He has raised his game. He has, in the past, looked like a man who has lost interest in his own answers.

"Not tonight. The Tories wanted to use this debate to frame the argument between them and Labour... but Nick Clegg has not been sidelined, has not allowed himself to be love-smothered by Mr Brown and has done himself only good in this debate."

Steve Richards says in the Independent that the biggest effect could be that voters seemed to be engaged:

"Voters were watching peak-time politics, a novelty in itself. But they witnessed no great game-changer from the leaders. Instead their fleeting engagement with politics will go down in history as something of a game-changer in itself."

In the Guardian Mark Lawson questions the significance of the debates:

"As had been widely feared in advance, the 76 restrictions agreed between the parties, relating to answer-lengths and other procedural issues, largely removed the possibility of spontaneity or conflict, especially when added to the already-labyrinthine regulations imposed on television during elections.

"When moderator Alastair Stewart was not shouting the name of the desired next speaker over the last part of the answer from the previous one ('Mr Cameron, Mr Cameron, Mr Cameron, please Mr Clegg!'), he was emphasising that the next section didn't really apply in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, who would get their own debates next week.

"As a result of this structural fussiness, television history was made, but no political reputation was unmade. There were no gaffes, game-changes or flop-sweats."

The Telegraph's economics editor Edmund Conway complains that no-one said where the money will come from:

"The most surreal moment came about 20 minutes in, when each of the protagonists took turns to accuse the others of failing to come clean about their spending plans. For once, all of them were right.

"None of the political parties - including the Lib Dems, an under-appreciated fact - have published full details of their tax and spending plans. Between them there are still between £30bn and £50bn of unexplained tax rises or spending cuts that, at minimum, are necessary over the next three years."

David Aaronovitch argues in the Times that the debates were historic because they signify a shift in power:

"The staging of the debates tells us something that runs completely contrary to conventional wisdom. It tells us that power has moved by one large new increment from the rulers to the ruled, a process that has been going on this country - and other democracies - for decades. The debates are a further triumph of the people over the politicians; something that the politicians sort of know but that the people refuse to see."

Conservative political blogger Iain Dale admits in his blog that he was bored:

"Well, it wasn't that exciting. In fact at times it was damned tedious. There was no huge gaffe, no devastating oneliners. No real funnies. Brown kept trying to agree with Nick Clegg to forge an alliance against David Cameron. By the end it was laughable."

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