Quick review of leaders debates

Another long haul of a leaders debate done and dusted - once again I feel exhausted by the whole thing. A few thoughts.

• We had the parties competing on how tough they can be on immigration *again*.
  
  
• We had the parties competing on who is going to cut the hardest *again*.
  
  
• We had less anecdotes this time, but the leaders were still at great pains to point out they had met people. Sigh.
  
  
• Most interesting moment of the night was a question about the Pope, and the Catholic Church's reactionary record. When they went off script it was far more bearable.
  
  
• Once again Cameron was weak.
  
  
• Clegg was quieter and less influential this time. He found it harder to compete against the other two parties once they were taking him seriously. The atmosphere was more aggressive and Clegg seemed to find that more difficult.
  
  
• Brown was, in my view, the winner this time. frankly I'm pleased because he doesn't look like a robot and actually did seem to know what he was talking about - even when I disagreed with him.
  

Over all the overwhelming impression was, once again, that if you don't agree with the consensus on immigration, the economy or want the troops withdrawn from Afghanistan none of these parties will do. None of them.

Politics does not have to be three white men in suits agreeing with each other on how badly to treat workers, immigrants, students - we have to have a different kind of politics because this just will not do.