No one made any news worthy gaffes (although David Cameron did very vaguely suggest China's rise was a reason to support Trident and made a great deal of his, perhaps unique, experience of meeting an actual, real life black man) and all had prepared well. But Nick Clegg, a man previously considered as unconvincing and weak, managed to show he was actually a rather good speaker who could get his points across very well. And the country went "Oooo....".
Of course it's being downplayed. That's partly realistic and partly incomprehension on behalf of both the media and the political class. I got the feeling from the ITV News follow up that they just hadn't planned for this eventuality and trying to fit the idea Nick Clegg was considered to have done the best into their prearranged format was near impossible for them.
I'm a Lib Dem. I come with built in "success scepticism". I'm under no illusions. Over the next week there will be attacks from both sides, especially from the Tories, who will seek to discredit, by any means possible, Nick Clegg, the party and it's policies. But the attacks so far have been very strange. Gove came in with claiming the Lib Dems would take the country into the Euro, blithely forgetting to mention the fact we would never do that without support from a referendum. Very odd. Very weak so far. Which is concerning in so much as the Tories are still likely to be the biggest party in Parliament in less than a month. Where's their usual killer instinct?? Hmm.. I suspect we'll see it soon enough.
But Nick does seem to have livened up the election, and reignited some of the embers of the rebellious feelings that had been created during the expenses scandals.
The next three weeks could be business as usual. Or they could just make electoral history. Pictures taken from http://www.libdem2010.com which is a Facebook group to keep an eye on!!
If you feel benevolent and particularly generous, this writer always appreciates things bought for him from his wishlist
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