The first UK election debate

So last night was a historic moment for UK politics - the first election debate. I watched 2/3rds of it, and while I wanted to be interested in what they were saying it was all a big yawnfest. Debates are debates are debates, and they didn't say much more than they've been yapping about on the news up to now. But what WAS interesting was the commentary afterwards. Confession here: I'm a nerd and I like listening to the talking heads dissect speeches and campaign events. In the US, those talking heads tend to be really brash, arrogrant and out to make a name for themselves more than anything else. Here, they just get other politicians who support the candidates to do the post-mortem. So I stayed up to watch Question Time with my new fave, David Dimbleby (who I like to call David Dingleberry tee hee), and a raft of politicians from various parties discuss the campaign issues and the debate in depth. Outcome? Well it's agreed that Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems won the debate simply because he a) was the most likeable and normal politician up there, and b) because no one thought they were a legitimate party until he appeared likeable and normal compared to the Tories and Labour. Other than that, nothing much came from it besides my realization that we have 3 more weeks of this nonsense to live through. It may be shorter than a US presidential campaign, but it's a good deal more concentrated.

Here's a video of the candidates discussing education reform if you're at all interested.