Relatively speaking, Miliband got torn a new one tonight. I had expected Cameron to get the hardest time but he was pretty impressive. By far the best performer of the three, his answers were concise and as good as any politician has given in this campaign. Lots of straight answers avoided despite the best efforts of the audience - as is par for the course for any politician - but he did better than the others.

Miliband simply couldn't defend Labour's track record or their plans to borrow, and to deny they overspent up to 2010 was simply astounding. The audience was surprisingly hostile, he struggled to cope and it was only in his last 10 minutes he recovered a little ground. The phrase 'all mouth and no trousers' sprang to mind several times - a far cry from earlier debates when he largely basked in the knowledge the minor parties around him will need to come begging.

Clegg was his usual affable but slightly desperate self. I'm starting to wonder if he knows something we don't - that a Tory or Labour majority would see him back in a coalition, with all sides apparently ruling out an SNP deal. Could we even end up with another Tory-Lib Dem coalition?

The EU referendum is too big a stumbling block

At last a post by AJW that proves what most already thought about his economic understanding, and probably everything else.

As I am still waiting answers to reasonable questions it appears that the quote above is the answer.

Clueless.

I rest my case.

Kettle and pot comes to mind here!!

I agree, you and AJW are identical.

Not this old fanny again?

In 1997 Labour inherited debt that was far higher than we had pre-2008 financial crisis.

Similarly, this government has borrowed more in 5 years than Labour did in 13. In fact this coalition government has borrowed more than ANY previous government. And just like the previous tory administration, the money was borrowed to fund welfare and tax breaks for the rich. A price worth paying?

In 1997 Labour inherited an NHS on the brink of collapse, with patients warehoused in corridors. This bunch have gone one better, patients don't even make the corridor, they're being warehoused in ambulances in the car parks. Give them another five years and we'll all be dying at home.

It was a similar situation in education. Overcrowded classes being taught in "temporary" classrooms or decrepit buildings. A situation that the tories are taking us back to in only five years.

Looks like you've really swallowed the tory rhetoric

Please can you let us all have a definitive time frame on this so I know when to join Bupa. Only you said the NHS was dead in 2013 and it's still around so I am starting to think you might, just might, be scaremongering again.



Swallowed the facts you mean.

The Tories don't deal in facts, only propaganda.

You can't afford it, not just you but any individual who wishes to insure themselves and ALL of their family against unlimited health claims with no cost limits, for life.

Indeed there is no such plan available.

Private health care is for employers to purchase in bulk as a "perk" and offer as part of an employee contract like it is in the USA, either that or for certain public employees who's work involves risk of physical injury (police used to have it) - its not for individuals to purchase themselves, if you don't believe me then go online and get some quotes, be prepared to feel bottom raped by them though.

Ah, here we go, the usual tripe.

Pre 2008? You and the usual apologists trying to erase the depression that Balls, Brown and Wallace presided over, tell that to the million who lost their jobs.

Tax breaks for the rich? I'm not rich and I've never been better off.

I'd rather die at home than at Midstaffs. Still, you want to privatise the NHS, you keep forgetting about this little fact, as you whine on and on and on. Just why did you vote to sell off the NHS to Tory "chums"? Try answering without, "i'm spineless".

And yet schools are being built all over, and were in the terrible 80's, I know, I went to one of them. You should have tried it.

Not quite as simple as you are setting things out:
Firstly the increases in population has put added pressure on both education and the health service. This would have been the case regardless of who would have been in power. Just think how high the borrowing would have been if Labour had continued to fund both to the levels you would deem satisfactory? What do you expect to happen at A&E when you have huge increases in population and life expectancy?

I would still like to understand how come Aids is treated with such high priority within the NHS whilst cancer appears to be very hit miss. Perhaps if the NHS was re-prioitised the service would improve?

The tax cuts to the rich is a straw man and you know it - the increases in personal allowances has reduced taxation to ordinary people far more than the cut to the mega-rich.

I am no defender of the two toffs Cameron or Osborne but I would prefer them to the two Ed's - Balls was a hopeless chancellor, he could even get the baby P decision correct he is man of very poor judgement. Personally I would prefer Theresa May at least she looks up for the job unlike Cameron.

Taxation is not a bottomless pit - I agree extracting more tax from companies who earn their profits here should be a priority. You could dump the whole GDP into the NHS and education and it still wouldn't be sufficient to satisfy your idea of what these services should deliver.

Ah that old tripe. Again.

Even Gideon's own permanent secretary described what happened as a "banking crisis, pure and simple" so what part of this did Brown etc actually cause?

Perhaps if he had heeded the warnings about issues within the banking sector rather than compounding them by relaxing regulations that might have helped reduce the impact?

Running a deficit in 'boom' years left us ill prepared when the downturn came.

What is this stone tablet all about?!