Election debate: Guardian columnists' verdict on how the challengers fared
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Version 0 of 1. Gaby Hinsliff on Natalie Bennett Oh, to have been a fly on the Green MP Caroline Lucas’s wall on Thursday night. Received wisdom had it that Ed Miliband would be horribly squeezed in this third debate, a lone establishment stooge overrun by insurgents. But if anyone was drowned out, it was the Greens’ Natalie Bennett. With three party leaders – Nicola Sturgeon, Leanne Wood and Bennett herself – selling a similar anti-establishment, anti-austerity message, there was only really room for one to capture the imagination, and the blunt truth is that it wasn’t Bennett. When she paid generous tribute to her predecessor, Lucas, who went on to be the party’s sole MP, you wondered what would have happened had it been Lucas on the podium. It wasn’t all bad. When the inevitable immigration question arose, Australian-born Bennett had powerful things to say in defence of free movement – even if they felt a little rehearsed compared with Sturgeon’s off-the-cuff savaging of Nigel Farage. She had a deft bedside manner with audience members, and since English viewers hankering for a leftwing alternative can’t vote SNP, perhaps it doesn’t matter that their leader outshone her. Committed Greens will be happy enough. But let’s just say an outbreak of Bennett-mania feels unlikely. Hugh Muir on Nigel Farage Nigel Farage began with the swagger of a man who had just seen his party’s coffers replenished with a million pounds from Express publisher Richard Desmond. Only Ukip will talk straight. We’ll stand up to corporate giants, he promised. He didn’t say whether Richard Desmond would be one of them. Farage arrived once more as the insurgent. He huffed, he scoffed, framing himself as an adult among children. But these days opponents see him coming. Name one cut you would make, he demanded of Miliband. Miliband named three. You’re lying, he spat at Miliband when the Labour man accused him of seeking a privately-funded NHS. Miliband read his original quote back to him. Thus, within half an hour, the swagger had dissipated. His citation of immigration as the root difficulty in housing and health failed to rouse the audience. He reacted by complaining that the event had been politically rigged, and was slapped down by David Dimbleby. My opponents are abusing me, he said, moments after he himself had abused the audience, and soon his contradictions seemed obvious to everyone in the vicinity. On a poor night, perhaps they were obvious to him. Still, he carried on regardless. “The real audience is sitting at home,” he said. Which was true enough. But Richard Desmond will want more for his bucks than this. Polly Toynbee on Ed Miliband What a risk he took. They warned that Ed Miliband was making a grave error in joining a lineup of the second division. Instead he stood there as the only prime minister in the room – and the one great loser was the man who wasn’t there. Attack after attack rained down on the Tories, but their leader had run from the field. Killer punchline, addressed to Cameron: “If you think this election is about leadership, come and debate me. Let the people decide.” Calm, relaxed, even laughing sometimes, he hit all the buttons. He attacked failed markets, rogue employers and landlords, defusing attacks by frankly admitting that Labour didn’t build enough housing and shouldn’t have followed the US into Iraq, reminding viewers it was he who prevented Cameron’s Syrian adventure. He stood by his deficit plans against the attractive anti-austerians. Best under attack, he walloped a comeback against Farage’s dig at Labour’s immigration record: “You want to exploit people’s fears instead of addressing them.” His deadly opponent was Nicola Sturgeon. He could have been easy meat for her deft jibes, but with a powerful defence of the union, he more than survived; he might even have retrieved some Scottish votes. Miliband’s team will be rightly delighted. At every outing he grows in strength and confidence. Once he thought presentation didn’t matter – now he knows better. Deborah Orr on Nicola Sturgeon Nicola Sturgeon certainly played a blinder. Her game is a tricky one – to make Labour look like the only alternative to the Conservatives in England, while reminding Scotland that it, of course, doesn’t have to put up with the brand of Labour that Westminster serves up to the rest of the country. She’d do anything to “kick the Tories out” – anything except sacrifice her own party in an election it can never win. That she managed such a feat is testament to her brilliance as a politician. She got in big digs against the Tories. She thought it a “disgrace” that David Cameron wasn’t taking part in the debate. She thought the Conservative right-to-buy social housing notion was “one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard”. But she also made Miliband look like the lucky guy who could bask in her charisma if only he’d stop being such a boring ol’ PM in waiting. Sturgeon, above all, reminds voters in England that if you’re still thinking of a leftwing protest vote, then you’re out of luck. She’s got that business all sewn up. Stray from Labour in England and you really will let the Tories in, because Scotland isn’t going to be there to make up the Labour safe-seat numbers. For sure. Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett on Leanne Wood “An opposition that promises more of the same is no opposition at all,” said Leanne Wood, underlining her conviction that she will not prop up a Labour government “hell-bent on implementing Tory cuts”. Her final speech ended with the words “Diolch yn fawr” (“Thank you” in Welsh), reflecting her insistence on speaking directly to Wales – a strategy that was apparent from the start, despite having led to criticism after the ITV debates. “Plaid Cymru will not apologise for speaking up for Wales at every opportunity,” she said. And rightly so. As a minority party committed to civic nationalism, Plaid has never claimed to be in a position to pursue the interests of English voters. To viewers Welsh and English alike, however, Wood attempted to prove that there exists an alternative to the “grey, stale politics as usual”, and I think she achieved that. Calm, though occasionally slightly hesitant, Wood spoke with great feeling, underlining Plaid’s commitment to a post-austerity Wales, her passionate belief in the importance of the welfare state, and her obvious disdain for the divisive anti-immigration politics of Farage, or “her friend on the far right”, as she scathingly put it (I cheered). “You abuse immigrants and those with HIV and then complain Ukip is being abused,” she told him, with fire in her voice. Like Sturgeon, she pointedly failed to shake his hand before walking off stage. Obviously popular, Wood’s statements were met with frequent applause, though her attempts to challenge Miliband fell rather flat, not least because he didn’t care to answer any of her questions. |