UK Politics III

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

Argive:

It is a goofy ritual, particularly since the media likes to pretend that they're not actually the ones setting expectations to begin with. But the other thing about American-style debates is that we haven't had a debate in thirty years (since the first Reagan/Carter, iirc) that actually affected the outcome of a presidential race. I don't know enough about elections in Britain, but I doubt that Britain is notably different in that regard.

NW:

That would be an easy choice, if only 30 Rock wasn't in a slump these days.

[Slick Mongoose]

I think the moderator is cutting them off too soon, I know you can't let them waffle but there's no need to cut them off mid sentence the whole time.

[mormont]

I think the moderator is cutting them off too soon, I know you can't let them waffle but there's no need to cut them off mid sentence the whole time.

I'd be more annoyed about that if any of them had said anything worth listening to yet.

[Slick Mongoose]

OK, so Clegg has just been on about cutting Trident. What's the counter argument? Neither of the others took it on - they seem more keen on agreeing with Clegg whenever possibe....

Edit: sorry, they're talking about it again. I think the stream is a bit behind the live TV.

Edit2: Hope! Cameron is such an Obama wannabe. :lol:

[mormont]

OK, so Clegg has just been on about cutting Trident. What's the counter argument? Neither of the others took it on - they seem more keen on agreeing with Clegg whenever possibe....

And yet he was so keen to try to pick fights with them. ;)

Pretty much a waste of time. Not a great performance from any of them. Brown was poor, Cameron looked nervous, Clegg did the best but unfortunately for him nobody cares.

[Slick Mongoose]

And yet he was so keen to try to pick fights with them. ;)

Pretty much a waste of time. Not a great performance from any of them. Brown was poor, Cameron looked nervous, Clegg did the best but unfortunately for him nobody cares.

Clegg's main aim had to be to get noticed, and I think he did well.

Cameron was both timid and lacking substance.

Brown was as tedious as I expected, don't think this will hurt or help him much.

[polishgenius]

I don't know enough about elections in Britain, but I doubt that Britain is notably different in that regard.

Difficult to say in a normal circumstance since... well, we don't have them. But this year is an extraordinary one because not only are they so close that a hung parliament is a distinct possibility, the two main candidates are so untrusted on a personal level (a significant proportion of people would actually prefer a hung pairlament to stop either getting full control) that a good performance in the debates could seriously swing things, whereas the Lib Dems have an unprecedented amount of serious attention.

I'd go pretty much with Slick Mongoose there. Brown did fine, but he's the one with the least to gain here because he's a known quantity and not one that fills people with confidence, so he'd have to be extraordinary or the others shocking to significantly improve his standing. Clegg let the others bicker, recieved a lot of sucking up from both, and showed a rare political habit of actually answering the question asked, whereas Cameron tried way too hard to pally up to the common voter and came off as fake and substanceless.

[Deedles]

Forgive the foreigner posting but I, well enjoyed is too strong, was mildly diverted by it. I thought Clegg did quite well, Cameron did less well than expected and Brown was predictable.

[Slick Mongoose]

Odd that the the Sky ongoing poll has Cameron as a clear winner, and the ITV poll has Cameron a clear 3rd.

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

Difficult to say in a normal circumstance since... well, we don't have them.

By them, do you mean normal circumstances, or debates?

[Slick Mongoose]

Did any Americans watch? How did the debate compare to your presidential debates?

[VarysTheSpider]

I expect to see a Lib Dem bounce. The love-bombing throughout was horrible.

Note: Gordon Brown's face should not be watched in HD. Fugly old troll.

[DJDonegal]

Odd that the the Sky ongoing poll has Cameron as a clear winner, and the ITV poll has Cameron a clear 3rd.

People pay for Sky, ergo they're more likely to have disposable income (the more you have, the more Tory you are is a good rule of thumb) and ergo Cameron is winning the Sky poll.

That, or all the Sky dishes north of Nottingham were knocked out by the volanic ash and nobody up there got to vote via Sky.

[Alcibiades]

Oh wow, ITV is saying Clegg won their snap poll with 43 percent. Just putting the three men on the stage together has the effect of leveling the playing field with the other two parties.

I only caught the last hour of it. I'm not happy you britons decided to import those silly focus group dials (these were a 2008 innovation), then made the line as large and annoying as possible.

As for how it compares to our debates: I liked the format. Some of ours are this open, but normally they are a little more staid with less moderator discretion and stricter time windows for speaking. It didn't seem any more confrontational than ours, which I was hoping for in light of the House of Commons tradition. It wasn't as much fun as PMQ.

Haha, someone on ITV is complainting about how they didn't mention wales. That's because it doesn't exist.

I doubt many people stateside watched. I had to use a VPN service to bounce my signal off your island to defeat region restrictions.

[Slick Mongoose]

Sun and ITV polls fairly similar.

Sun: 51% Clegg, 29% Cameron, 19% Brown.

ITV: 43% Clegg, 26% Cameron, 20% Brown.

Sky: 37% Clegg, 32% Brown, 31% Cameron.

Don't know who the polling companies they used are.

Edit: Added Sky. These are offical instant polls, as opposed to the ongoing internet polls on their websites.

[needle]

As an all-my-life Lib demmer ( apart from voting labour to get the tories out in 97 or whenever) I'm prety pleased with tonight.

Go Nick Clegg!

[Werthead]

Yup, the LibDems seem to have done pretty well in the campaign so far, and Clegg has been looking more and more credible recently as a leader (with Cable looking like the most convincing chancellor out of all of them, which could be interesting in a hung parliament and coalition government) after a long period when he seemed fairly middling.

If they want to engage the masses with the election though, they really needed a panel of judges down the front providing feedback, preferably headed by Simon Cowell. Then we'll see turnout rocket to record levels ;)

[Slick Mongoose]

Will there be any fallout from Cameron's China comment? I've heard a few mutterings, but nothing really in the mainstream press.

[mormont]

Yup, the LibDems seem to have done pretty well in the campaign so far, and Clegg has been looking more and more credible recently as a leader (with Cable looking like the most convincing chancellor out of all of them, which could be interesting in a hung parliament and coalition government) after a long period when he seemed fairly middling.

See, from my point of view this shows exactly the danger for the Lib Dems. They haven't done particularly well in the campaign so far: last night was the first time they've succeeded in getting any real positive publicity to speak of. And even last night, what actually happened was not that Clegg was really good: Clegg was judged to have won the debate only because the other two did quite poorly. He wasn't the best, he was the least bad. Which matters, because so far as I can see the main effect of these polls showing that he 'won' is to increase expectations on him for the next debate.

Of course, he might well 'win' those too, judging from the performances last night from Brown and Cameron. Neither of them is going to fix their problems in a week. Brown was, well, Brown, which means his attempts to come across as a human being looked awkward and artificial: Cameron's performance was weak, nervous and even aloof, at times.

The next debate's on international affairs, IIRC. That should be better ground for Cameron and Brown, a lot tougher for Clegg.

[Usotsuki]

Will there be any fallout from Cameron's China comment? I've heard a few mutterings, but nothing really in the mainstream press.

This was the idea we need to continue with the pretence that the UK has an independent nuclear deterrent because otherwise the Chinese might seize Scunthorpe?

It's only slightly more ludicrous than most of the arguments advancing the UK's exceptional need for a leased deterrent.