Who won the leaders debate?

The media consensus is that Nick Clegg won the debate last night. My feeling is that as long as he did not make a huge mess of it, Clegg was always going to be a winner. His goals are much narrower and more easily achieved through the oxygen of publicity. Clegg needs to get his party as close to its showing last time (23%), they are at roughly 20% now, to ensure that his party does not get squeezed later in the campaign and to hopefully win a few more seats. If Clegg's performance in the 3 debates helps them defend five seeats the Conservatoves might have won, and to gain 5 from Labour than this would have been a significant effect. For both Brown and Cameron such a result would be useful, but unlikely to transform their position in a way that they might for Clegg.

My thoughts on last night's performances are:
1) No leader landed a big punch.
2) No leader made a huge gaffe (though I can see both Clegg and Cameron being quized more about Trident).
3) Each leader can come away with positives. Brown is not out. Cameron can claim to be firming up his Prime Ministerial credentials' and Clegg is now in the game. In the short term Clegg has gained most, but the war is not yet over.
4) One leader (Clegg) spent a lot of time attacking his opponents.
5) Two leaders (Brown and Cameron) spent a lot of time attacking each other.
6) Two leaders (Brown and Cameron) did not attack the third.
7) Clegg seemed to be able to pull off the trick of using both the plague on both your houses approach, and at the same time saying let's stop bickering and work together. I suspect the second is a stronger message.
8) This is not, as we already knew, Brown's natural ground. He looked uncomfortable, but his performance was not disasterous and he can improve the most.
9) Clegg did better than I expected, his body language was very strong and I liked the way he stood at the pedestal.
10) Before it began I expected Cameron to be the best presentationally by far, and was surprised that he was not. It was not that he was poor, because he was not, it just that he did not come over as polished either. When we saw the background pictures Clegg and Brown seemed to be listening, Cameron either looked mystified or worried. He may well not have been, but his body language when the others were speaking was not confident.

In terms of the next debates the expectation is on Clegg, and it may be difficult for him to maintain that level - if he does the political axis may well tilt a bit. Brown needs to be more empaphetic, and Cameron needs to be himself more.

The next week will now be interesting, both main parties need to firm up what they will do with the Lib Dems. This is a tricky issue. The third party poll ratings always go down when it is ignored. If Labour and Conservatives turn on the Lib Dems (see Trident) then it could actually backfire, and just give them more exposure. If the big two try to knock out the Lib Dems then they'd better connect, or actually the result could be more point-scoring on the counter for the third force.