So who made the right noises and ended up all right on the night?
“We’ve got to live within our means as a country. That’s why our plan will cut the deficit every year and balance the books, but we’ll do it in a different way to David Cameron. Our policy is to have fair taxes, to reverse David Cameron’s tax cut to millionaires which has given every millionaire in Britain £43,000 a year.”
How he did: Miliband was clearly told to talk to the camera (and the audience at home) rather than to the people in the hall when answering opening questions. But because none of the other leaders did this last night it looked odd and confected.
In the “open debate” he had the difficult job of defending Labour against a combined anti-austerity pincer movement of Sturgeon, Wood and Bennett. At times he was convincing – but at other points his opponents (and in particular Nicola Sturgeon) got the better of him.
This was most obvious at the end on the question about a hung parliament. Miliband failed to land a killer argument to persuade Labour voters to return to the fold in Scotland.
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