pretty sure Clegg said he was at a hospital treating babies… whattaguy!

Tony Hawkes is in The Simpsons.

I thought Brown did pretty well – sounded measured and in charge – Cameron shrill and posh, Clegg a bit monotone and repetitive

Amusingly all the online leaderships polls seem to have been manipulated by an organised campaign from lib Dem HQ…

First poll says Clegg 44% Cameron 22% Brown 20%
http://www.angusreidelections.co.uk/2010/04/debate/

Wonder if there will be a big boost for Clegg after this.

Clegg won by a country mile!
Maybe helped by the presenters

(should point out that poll is ongoing and updated in real-time so subject to change)

Sorry to be a stick in the mud, but I can’t see that Clegg won the debate by anything like that margin – it was all a bit bitty and nervous all round – debates two and three will be the real test. Gordon and Nick agreed on so much – Cameron has to be put on the spot

Preferred The History Of Bread on BBC4 meself

Just seen a clip on the news; they looked like Kraftwerk’s mannequins with one missing.

David Cameron did very badly.

Not least because he looks like C3PO made out of ham.

Can anyone fact-check his lies about Bulgarian cancer?

However I thought on unerlying ideological grounds, it showed a consensus on the political right. Depressing:

http://badconscience.com/2010/04/15/madatory-leaders-debate-blog/

Yougov:

51% – Clegg
29% – Cameron
19% – Brown

ComRes:

43% – Clegg
26% – Cameron
20% – Brown

*(As called on Newsnight)

I’m not sure why people think Clegg won. He felt very ‘Blair’ (I think even Cable said that he’s ‘an ordinary guy’ (or something to that effect)) and sounds like David Cameron. It seems that The Great British Public are stupid enough to fall for this shit again; either Clegg or Cameron who tries to play a similar card and totally screwed up tonight – hilarious.

I am an SNP supporter, so I had no dog in the ring. Clegg won that by a country mile!

Clegg’s city is Sheffield, by the way. You could tell by the clogs and his accent. What really irritated me was that I missed most of Outnumbered on account of that bollocks. I was only watching in the hope that Brown would lose his rag or have a seizure. Never again.

If I were a wavering Labour voter, concerned at having to pinch my nose before X’ing 5 more years of Brown, I would hear all that “Nick agrees” stuff and think “Hmmm if Nick is that close to us, might vote for him.”

It is a line that cuts Labour support wherever they face LibDems.

Paul:

‘Can anyone fact-check his lies about Bulgarian cancer?’

For the record I’m a doctor and know a bit about these figures.

I think DC was referred to the Eurocare-4 study. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1164295/Cancer-survival-rates-Britain-wost-Europe.html)

Some interesting facts;
1. Bulgaria wasn’t included
2. It’s a collection of data of people diagnosed in 1999 – i.e. before the government introduced any of it’s changes to cancer care.
3. It’s a collection of data of people diagnosed in 1999 and hence is out of date.

I’ll have to look a bit harder to see if there is any comparative data including Bulgaria. But, and this is important, Britain has one of the very best systems for data collection of any nation in the world and this can have a distorting effect on such data. A lot of cancers in the world are not diagnosed and hence don’t appear in the figures.

I’ll do some looking

AFZ

Just to add. Looking at Lancet Oncology article to give some figures to my above statement;

In Britain over 40% of patients with cancer are in the data for Eurocare-4 whereas in France and Germany (the most directly comparable countries in terms of resources) the figures are 17% and 1% respectively. Hence they are not really comparable because a 1% sample is nowhere near big enough to know if it’s representative.

Secondly Eurocare did an interim report in ’07 of patients diagnosed in ’04 which is where the Bulgaria data is from (I think). This is incomplete data and liable to misinterpretation.

I have to admit that I haven’t read the whole paper so will do so and get back to you.

AFZ

Clegg won – Cameron was very poor, Gordon better than Labour would have feared.

A clear victory for Clegg, but he was the one with the least expectation and as so many have said, it was a win simply on those grounds. Cameron was poor, while Brown mainly repeated what he does at PMQs. The politics of it was however depressing; immigration the very first question and the squabbling over who was going to be tougher, the nonsense of getting more police on the beat as some kind of panacea, and the failure to answer any of the questions really straight, which Clegg was certainly the best at doing. On the plus side, I watched it with someone from the US who was impressed by the actual amount of substance when compared with the debates over there, which is at least something to take. 90 minutes was however too long, and they could of cut down the number of responses and counter-responses and increased the number of questions and produced a far tighter, even more watchable and dare I say it, enjoyable debate.

I didnt think that any of the leaders performed particularly badly. It has not really helped me to make my mind up…. hopefully the next two debates will!!!

Brown says Clegg agrees with him. Clegg says he doesnt. Part of me thinks its time for a change because Labour has had enough time to screw things up so lets give DC chance to do the same.

Although Labour has done some good things and pumped huge amounts of money into NHS for example in some hospitals it appears to be superficial in that the hospitals may now look the part, but still are not able to deliver the kind of care we are looking for and have come to expect.

I feel that tonights debate has not clarified where they stand in terms of social issues, although it was touched upon in the question about Law and Order. We as public are totally F**ked off with low-life criminals not being brought to justice for being menaces to society and when they are the punishments are a joke. Criminals have more human rights it seems than the rest of society. Most law abiding citizens feel that they are easy pickings and punished for minor crimes and motoring offences and given unfair punishments.

Lets see what happens in further debates. Hopefully I may be able to make my mind up regarding who to vote for. If it was on presentation and style then Clegg beat DC tonight.

Bring back Blair I say!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Bring back Blair I say!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Dear god no.

Paul Sagar@10:

“David Cameron did very badly.

Not least because he looks like C3PO made out of ham.”

Absolute bloody genius sir!