The debate

I did my real time commentary last night on Twitter - first time I've really used it much but it seems to suit instant comment.

Clegg was a worthy winner of the post-debate polling in the sense that his personal style best suited the calm format of a TV debate - the exact opposite of the PMQs bearpit. However, it appears that people being polled about the debate were judging the "winner" based on technique rather than content, as though this was a university debating competition. They can't have been listening to the content because Clegg's bizarre mix of liberalism on crime and immigration, Thatcherism on the economy and cutting public services, and CND on nuclear weapons is according to most polls the opposite of what the average voter wants.

I thought Gordon held his own in a format that didn't play to his strengths and that he succeeded in getting our attack message on the risk of the Tories across well. What he needs to do in the next two is give people a bit more of the "vision thing" - what our aspirations are for a fourth term - he needs to verbalise the sunlit uplands on the cover of our manifesto.

Cameron must have deeply disappointed his team. After all the hype, he was, to steal a phrase from Lloyd Bentsen, "no JFK".

We won't know the impact until tonight's polls, which will tell us who the LDs have taken vote share off. My hunch is Labour will be stable and there will be a 4% shift from Con to LD which will mean the main parties are almost level-pegging.