Immigration fires up leaders’ contest

IT was “immigration, immigration, immigration” as the ghost of Gordon Brown’s campaign gaffe haunted last night’s TV debate between the prime ministerial hopefuls.

While neither the questioner nor the three party leaders spoke specifically of Brown’s branding of pensioner Gillian Duffy as “a bigoted woman” after quizzing him on Eastern Europeans flocking to Britain, it was only when the issue she raised on Wednesday in Rochdale bubbled up again in the Birmingham studio that the broadcast came alive.

Brown tried to draw a line under the row with a plea to voters to judge him on his economic competence not his personality.

“There is a lot to this job and, as you saw yesterday, I don’t get all of it right,” he said. “But I do know how to run the economy, in good times and in bad.”

Brown spoke speedily and rattled through the Government’s policies and his own concerns. Tory leader David Cameron sounded predictably at ease with the issue. It was left to Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg first to seem to deny his party’s policy of an amnesty for illegal immigrants, then struggle to explain it.

Two instant polls following the debate gave victory to Cameron.

YouGov’s survey of 1,151 viewers found that 41% thought Cameron had won the debate, against 32% for Clegg and 25% for Brown.

A ComRes poll said Cameron won with 35%, against 33% for Clegg and 26% for Brown.

All three leaders were put through their paces, first on the economy then on issues from benefit scroungers to the affordability of housing to the future of education.

And in his perhaps final 90 minutes to undo the damage he did yesterday, Brown fulfilled Labour election strategist Peter Mandelson’s ambition that he should be seen as a workhorse rather than a “show pony”.

Cameron gave his most assured performance yet, looking far more relaxed and comfortably addressing viewers straight down the camera lens, addressing Brown frequently as Prime Minister – rather than Gordon or Gordon Brown, as he had done previously.

It was a tactic presumably designed to highlight the fact that Brown’s party has been in power for the last 13 years, and pay due deference to his office, eschewing the rather showy, “if I was your prime minister”, formula the Conservative leader deployed last week.

Clegg looked less at ease than during any of the previous contests, not just over immigration, but on a range of issues where he tried to cut across the other two leaders and seemed sometimes at pains to agree with every questioner.

But if his performance tonight was somewhat lacklustre, he has undoubtedly been the big winner of the first series of televised showdowns which look set to become a fixture of British election campaigns.