For those planning to watch the leadership debate...

sammyjammy

samhuzz wrote: »

I'm in more or less the same place as the Pope on their chart, get me!

Thats nothing to proud of

Wookster

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Something weird going on with that ITV internet poll as Brown made an immense comeback in 10 mins!!

That would be Rochdale with his finger on the vote button clicking madly

Malcolm.

It was good to see the leadership debate was better behaved than PMQ's in the house of commonos.

I enjoyed being able to hear a rationale debate without the words being drowned out by MP's heckling.

tomstickland

As posted on the other thread:

I found the whole thing strangely unmoving. By the end I didn't feel any different than from the start.

Brown lying as normal and promising good things tomorrow.
Cameron playing it safe, not really saying much, trying to avoid making a big mistake.
Clegg with less to lose was able to make bolder claims about what he would like to.

All avoiding the issue of paying for anything.


Daily Fail and Comres said
Clegg, Cameron, Brown.
Another poll had the same order, but Brown and Cameron really close at 20% and 22%.

carolt

ITV's poll put Clegg massively in the lead. I thought he was surprisingly good - I expected Gordon to be awful, and he was, though not quite car-crash awful. Dave was slick but vacuous but then that's what I expected too.

Clegg actually bothered answering the questions put, rather than rambling off on about something different, that suited a point he wanted to make or avoided a tricky question as the other two did. Maybe he's not been a politician long enough?

The extent of Clegg's lead makes it v frustrating that we don't have PR in this country - everyone says 'Oh, I won't vote for the Lib Dems because they are not going to be the party of govt, and so it's a wasted vote'. When in fact, if all the Lib Dem votes were put together, instead of being scattered around the place and so second everywhere, but not first in enough places, we'd HAVE a Lib Dem govt!

Clegg does have one of the most boring, instantly forgettable faces I've ever seen, though.

LilacPixie

i was quite impressed with Nick Clegg. Cameron I cannot stand, I feel he is false and untrustworthy and this debate did not change this opinion. Brown much the same as Cameron. I do feel Brown did better than I thought he would.

I think this may sound silly and possibly misguided but I think the person a party chooses as their leader is as important,to me, as their policies. I just could not vote conservitive because I do not trust David Cameron, Iwould not vote SNP because of Alex Salmond who i feel is too full of his own self importance and I did not vote Labour in previous elections because of the sleekitness of Blair.

chewmylegoff

carolt wrote: »

The extent of Clegg's lead makes it v frustrating that we don't have PR in this country - everyone says 'Oh, I won't vote for the Lib Dems because they are not going to be the party of govt, and so it's a wasted vote'. When in fact, if all the Lib Dem votes were put together, instead of being scattered around the place and so second everywhere, but not first in enough places, we'd HAVE a Lib Dem govt!

how would we have a lib dem govt under PR when they consistently come third in every general election and every real poll? they don't suddenly wipe the floor in elections which have PR e.g. london mayoral, euros, which suggests there aren't really that many people who would vote LD if there was PR.

this poll doesn't mean people will be voting lib dem it just means they thought clegg wasn't as much of a knob as the other two.

tomstickland

But this is all relative to expectations. Most people had lowish expectations of Brown and he did quite well relatively. Cameron is slick but has little to say, and delivered as expected. Clegg was an unknown to most people, so he had a chance to appear more interesting.

Really, all of them made a load of promises for the future, but with no discussion of how they'd pay for it. I suspect the truth is that whoever gets in is going to have to spend their time working out what to cut.

I think the Clegg effect will tail off as time goes by.

vivatifosi

sammyjammy wrote: »

I just undertook a Political compass test online which told me I'm a Liberal Lefty (alongside the Ghandi, the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela) whereas our esteemed leader (hey where has the sarcasm smiley gone?) is the exact opposite alongside Hitler.

I just did the same poll and got the same result which is bizarre, because they tend to tell me that I should vote Conservative with LibDem second.

carolt

chewmylegoff wrote: »

how would we have a lib dem govt under PR when they consistently come third in every general election and every real poll? they don't suddenly wipe the floor in elections which have PR e.g. london mayoral, euros, which suggests there aren't really that many people who would vote LD if there was PR.

this poll doesn't mean people will be voting lib dem it just means they thought clegg wasn't as much of a knob as the other two.

As it's the first time we've ever had a live leadership debate, it's a bit early to say what effect this will have on actual votes cast on election day. Certainly, in the US, where they've been doing this thing for rather longer, performance in these debates can make or break a candidate's chances.

So I think it could be highly significant.

Cameron's team must be gutted. :rotfl: