Welcome to Lib Dem Voice’s coverage of the third televised debate between the three main party leaders, an event perhaps even more keenly anticpated than last week’s inaugural debate – though the viewing figures will almost certainly be fewer. As last week, we’re co-hosting live-chat, below, simultaneously with the Mark Reckons blog.
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14 Comments
As a floating voter who, like many others, has voted labour to keep the conservatives out. I remember the Poll Tax and the ridiculously high interest rates, all to help protect the £ because of the ERM. Well this floating voter is not impressed by the so called 2 real alternatives. The arrogance of the two (so called) main parties who tells us the LibDem’s can offer what ever they want because they have no chance of winning. Who’s the biggot now? My vote goes to the LibDems, the only realistic alternative to real change in government.
Oh, come on! One comment!
Clegg kept saying that the LibDems would open those single-person blocks of flats, half empty, to families. I doubt he meant offer them single bedrooms, but instead some sort of renovations.
But it’s not how it sounded.
What is it?
Nick shone despite the migraine-inducing BBC set. I truly feel politics in the UK will change dramatically after next week’s election. We are watching history unfold.
The Sun Yougov poll says Cameron won it with 41 per cent, Clegg second on 32, and Brown bombs on 25. Com Res have it in the same order, but Nick Robinson on BBC says its much closer but refrains from any figures.
Philip Young
The Sun yougov poll…..
What about a more objective source?
The most objective poll about who won the third and final TV Debate will be known on May 6th.
My prediction is that it will be Nick Clegg who wins on May 6th as he has already put on 10% to our national opinion polling in one 90 minute clear summary of Liberal Democrat policies on April 15th as a result of his brilliant performance when he taught Brown and Cameron a media lesson.
What is so wrong and unfair for the people of Britain in the 21st C is that even if Lib.Dems votes are 30% on Election Day but it may only yield 100 or so MP`s, compared to a 28% equivalent in Labour that gives them 315 Seats.
Our present Electoral System is totally out of kilter with democratic voting fairness in all parts of the UK and its reform must be seen as a `non-negotiable’ in the likely `Hung Parliament’.
Did anyone spot Nick Robinson (ex Tory activist) shamelessly talking up Cameron on the Ten O’Clock News? Time for Robinson to be sacked?
It’s the first one I have seen, and I have to say I was not impressed by any of the three. Clegg was the best, yes, but only because of the dire nature of the competition.
I saw no real passion or vision from any of them, just silly nit-picking. I didn’t have quite as many “No, no, oh no, that’s rubbish, no, no” moments with Clegg as I did with the other two, but I didn’t have no such moments with him.
The house price question was in particular answered with complete rot, by Cameron in particular, but the others not immune. Don’t these people have any idea of how economics works? Look – there is no some commission which sits down and works out what house prices are to be. The price is what people are prepared to pay. So if you put more tax on people buying a house, they can’t afford to pay as much, so the price goes down.
Brown kept saying “Liberal”. Now, I am proud to be a member of the party which is the legal successor to the Liberal Party, but we call ourselves “Liberal Democrats” or “Lib Dem” for short. We have been doing that for 20 years. So what is this not using the correct word? After 20 years Brown can’t learn the correct word? Is there anything else which changed its name 20 years ago but Brown still uses the old name? No, it was just a stupid “nah nah nah nah nah, I’m going to pretend you’re so insignificant that I can’t remember your party’s name”. How can anyone vote for a party led by someone with such a childish attitude? He might as well have stuck his hand on his nose and waggled his fingers, it would have been just as dignified and appropriate for what was meant to be a serious deabte, this man is a nightmare, he just has to go.
What I didn’t like in particular about the debate was the way all three were all “me, me, me”. This an election firstly for our Members of Parliament, we will be putting our marks against their names, not those of Messrs Brown, Cameron and Clegg. For all that these debate seem to have served our party well, I was always worried about how they would encourage the horrible presidential view of UK politics, in which Parliament is just an electoral college for the Prime Minister. Wouldn’t it be great if we had a Leader of our party who really was a leader in the true sense of the word, in that he or she would really give the impression of putting the case of all of us as one of us, rather than putting himself or herself forward as if it were a presidential election?
Hate to say it, but I think Clegg has blown it. He needed to offer something different, or at least appear to, but he didn’t manage to put any distance between himself and either of his opponents, either on style or substance, and on the two issues where there was some policy daylight – on the amnesty and on the Euro – he got his arse handed to him. The press are going to slaughter him for effectively disowning parts of his own manifesto.
Disagree. The BBC debate will have been watched by many different people to the previous ones. For these people, it will be the first time they have seen Clegg, and it’s the initial impression that impresses people. Clegg did well, and being attacked by the other two is not a failing on those policies.
I’m sorry to say that I hope Iain is accurate in his assessment as – for various reasons – I don’t think the Party currently has the political maturity, and should use any gains as a springboard to influence for the worthies.
All were dire in their response to the immigration question from the West Indian chap, in which they started taking strips out of each other rather that address the asserting that they were out of touch with the ordinary voter on the subject. Maybe Clegg is right that there’s a corpus of illegals in the hands of gang-masters, but he didn’t explain how an amnesty would pry them away… just that it would.
These are all party technocrats with minimal experience outwith their training in the party machines or institutions completely out of reach for ex care-workers in Rochdale – say what you like about the Conservatives, but they at least have produced a PM who didn’t go to university and was prolier than most. See also Norman Tebbitt who represented the aspirations of many a working-class Conservative voter (although John Prescott also qualifies).
And all were ridiculed for that.
4 out of the five polls have called it for Cameron and only populus differs with a draw between Cameron and Clegg
“Populus are calling it as a draw between Cameron and Clegg – figures are Cameron 38%, Clegg 38%, Brown 25%.”
Reasons like being a Tory?
Stop being howwid!