My uninformed opinion on the chancellor's debate: Darling did reasonably well from the weakest position, but the fact he had a very difficult job to do doesn't change the fact that I don't think he did it. Osborne was worse, I think; I don't think he did much to differentiate his position from Darling's, and kept trying to interrupt in a way I found displeasing. On the other hand, he might have done well in frequently agreeing with Cable. There are far worse tactics than to imply Darling is wrong and Cable is right but his party unelectable (though the dominant opinion of my sample of four was that it was a mistake to make that point explicitly).
I'd say that Cable was the comfortable winner, actually. He stayed out of Darling and Osborne's squabbling, reminded everyone that his party had been far better at predicting the financial crisis than anyone else, and offered a nice little zinger regarding Osborne's plans for the "death tax" (I wasn't convinced by his delivery of it, but both my fellow viewers and the audience significantly disagree). His "experience" argument seemed pretty compelling.
But hey, I appear to have ranked the three competitors in the exact order I want them to get/retain the job! What a coincidence! Anyone out there got a different take?
5 comments:
I think Cable edged it but the other two didn't disgrace themselves. Osborne did better than I expected considering his economic policy gets less credible by the day:
1. "The deficit's our top priority. We'll all in this together, blah blah blah."
2. But we promised to raise the inheritance tax threshold to £1m ... hmm ... that looks bad, doesn't it?
3. I know, let's cut national insurance too!
4. But the deficit's our top priority, honest ...
Darling almost got him on the ropes for this but didn't land the killer blow unfortunately.
It was very very boring. They had an opportunity to appeal to a wider audience and none of them took it.
Cable of course sailed through and was always going to look good. Only pity was he didn't get asked any tough questions. Methinks the leaders debate will be a bit different, now Brown and Cameron have latched onto the notion that the third guy looks great as you concentrate on harassing each other.
If anything the leaders' debates will be even more boring as the rules of debate are much stricter. My money is still on the Lib Dems doing well out of them simply because they get presented equally with the other two parties.
But won't it be a headache for the media if Clegg comes out most popular with the Channel4 poll afterwards?! What will they say? Stammer about how the other two did and try and ignore a LD double whammy?!
I don't think it's necessarily going to happen - Cameron is after all a 'qualified' PR man with an even more qualified wife to boot, but it's an amusing idea.
"But won't it be a headache for the media if Clegg comes out most popular with the Channel4 poll afterwards?! What will they say?"
That there's never been a time in history when dreams weren't easier than reality? ;)
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