Friday, April 23, 2010

Debate Verdict

More substance, more fluid dynamics but no game-changer, is the overall verdict. Clegg and Cameron came out evens on the whole, with Brown once again proving that debating is clearly not his medium. It looks as if it was the all important first debate that effectively 'loaded' the election, and so long as none of the leaders make major slips (which, last night, they didn't) it will be the momentum from last week that is most likely to inform the election result.

It is interesting that despite the more 'substantial' nature of the debate, much media commentary remains focused on style, and one of the impacts of the debate has been to skew the election period away from policy issues. The daily 'policy debate', that used to be announced at the news conferences, has been rather swamped by a persistent going over of the television debate analysis.

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