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Poll: Who do you think won the UK election debate?

Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg made history tonight with the first live election debate on British TV.

Who won the debate?

• David Cameron
• Nick Clegg
• Gordon Brown
• No clear winner

View Results

from The Great Debate UK:

Tariq Ali on how unions fare under Labour rule

Amid a stand-off between British Airways and the Unite union, the Labour Party's main financial supporter, Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a planned strike by BA cabin crew workers "unjustified and deplorable" last week and said both sides should return to talks.

Rail signal workers in the RMT union are also threatening to strike, but haven't announced a date.

The Conservatives have tried to make political capital out of industrial unrest ahead of a general election expected to be called for May 6, accusing the Labour Party of being in the pocket of the unions.

But how much political leverage do trade unions in Britain really have?

Unions are still burdened by the steps former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took to crush the labour movement in the 1980s, says political commentator Tariq Ali, who has written more than 30 books, including "Rough Music: Blair, Bombs, Baghdad, London, Terror" in 2006 and most recently a novel titled “Night of the Golden Butterfly".

The Labour Party, founded in the early 20th century by trade unions to represent workers in parliament, has done nothing to reverse the consequences of a protracted coal miner's strike under Thatcher which, combined with de-industrialisation and privatisation, weakened the power of trade unions in Britain, Ali told Reuters in a recent video interview at Verso Books headquarters in London's Soho.

"When New Labour was elected in 1997, Tony Blair, the New Labour leader, made it very clear that he wasn't going to change anything that Thatcher had done," Ali said. "They used to boast in those early days -- that not only will we not change, we will go beyond Thatcher."

UKIP plots poll breakthrough at conference

After last year’s unprecedented success in European elections, which saw Labour beaten into third place, it isn’t really a surprise that the United Independence Party faithful were in a buoyant mood at their spring conference.

Certainly the location was unlikely to be the cause — the Jury’s Inn hotel in Milton Keynes is probably unlikely to excite many people – but among the 500-odd prospective candidates and activists there was a palpable belief their party could be about to make a breakthrough in parliamentary elections and win their first seat in Westminster.

Nigel Farage, the outspoken, colourful MEP and former leader, remains the party’s darling and cheerleader.

Like a well-known celebrity performing at a pantomime, he had his captivated audience booing the name of John Bercow (the parliamentary speaker whose Buckingham seat he is hoping to take in the election) and laughing heartily as he appealed for people “preferably with clean criminal records and of sound mind” to put themselves forward as party candidates.

The jokes aside, there was no escaping the party’s “straight talking” slogan, be it emblazoned on the cover of party’s election manifesto to the oft-repeated mantra from the conference lectern.

Talking straight on issues that they say the main parties ignore – mainly EU membership and immigration – will be at the forefront of UKIP’s strategy for success.

Plymouth, Staffordshire, and Bootle in Merseyside along with Farage’s assault on Buckingham, are among the top targets and the party, while realistic that winning a seat will be extremely hard, remains hopeful.

Prospective MPs go dating to woo voters

As a group of smartly dressed men and women take their seats, in pairs, at small round tables in the dining room of a converted textile factory in Nottingham city centre, some look nervous, some confident, and others just eager to get started.

But before they can, the rules of “speed dating” must be explained: every 5 minutes one person from each pair will rotate to the next table, until everyone has had a chance to speak to everyone else. A whistle is blown. “Let the first date begin,” cries the host and a hum of conversation quickly fills the basement room.

While there certainly seem to be some attempts at wooing going on, these “daters” have little intention of romance. In fact as I watch, some even appear to try and rile their dates, for half the attendees are prospective parliamentary candidates, hoping to win the Nottingham South seat at a general election expected on May 6, and the other half are voters, seeking to quiz the candidates on their education policies.

This is “political speed dating”, and I wouldn’t be surprised if such events become a more regular occurrence as the campaigning gets under way and politicians seek modern, innovative ways to connect with voters. In an election that is likely to be very tightly fought, such one-on-one interaction, particularly in possible swing or marginal seats, is the kind of opportunity most candidates can’t afford to ignore.

“The speed dating idea was a way of maximising the exposure of candidates to interested panellists in the minimum amount of time,” said Alastair Hunter, President of the University and College Union, who have organised a series of political speed dating events in marginal seats around the country. “The hope is doing it in these kind of constituencies would have a spin off effect.”

With the added pressure of having us prying journalists standing over their tables, listening in to their conversations and shoving our tape recorders and television cameras under their noses as they try to answer questions, I fear the pressure was probably more intense than the nerves induced by a real first date.

“The time is a pressure,” one candidate admits to me afterwards. “You worry you haven’t got across what you wanted to say in the right way in the time given.” The voters certainly seemed quick to cotton on to the fact that, at times, in order to get their next question in, they would have to interrupt the candidates, clearly already adept at the politician’s skill of giving long winded responses without really answering the question.

from The Great Debate UK:

Rory Cellan-Jones on virtual democracy

Direct, real-time communication among politicians and the public through social media platforms is reshaping democracy and the news media, but questions remain about how the fabric of society might change as a result, argued a panel at an event hosted by the BBC on Tuesday evening at Westminster.

The Web provides a de-centralised opportunity for users to communicate from various points on the political-economic spectrum, but gatekeepers are emerging who try and curtail the dissemination of information they find objectionable, suggested panellist Aleks Krotoski, who recently completed work on the BBC series "Virtual Revolution".

"Innovative social-media platforms start off being interactive, but then they can become broadcast tools," cautioned Rory Cellan-Jones, the BBC's new digital election correspondent.

The panel was chaired by Peter Horrocks, director of BBC global news, and included Pooneh Ghoddoosi, a presenter with BBC's Persian service and Peter Barron, director of communications for Google in north and central Europe. BBC is producing a series about the Internet titled "Superpower".

Cellan-Jones spoke to Reuters after the panel discussion about social media and the upcoming UK general election. You can watch the video clip below or if you can't see it, please click on the headline of this post to see it.

Cameron survives Lewisham lion’s den

On the face of it, the booing suffered by David Cameron at the hands of a boisterous group of students and job-seekers at a London college is not a good news story for the Tories.

Facing loud accusations of being a Thatcherite clone and jeers of “No Tory cuts” is presumably not what the Tory spin doctors hoped for when they organised this merry jaunt to Lewisham College.

Indeed, the sight of a frantic Tory press officer bobbing between students, mouthing “Take another question, take another question” to Cameron while he was being heckled would suggest it wasn’t in the script.

But one couldn’t help feeling admiration for Dave (as Sam Cam told ITV she refers to hubbie) as he handled the jibes with apparent ease, telling an audience increasingly emboldened by their 15-minutes in the election spotlight, that he wasn’t scared of “telling the truth”.

By the end the prime ministerial hopeful received a polite round of applause from the 100 or so students, even though most of them will probably not put an X next to a Conservative candidate’s name when, or indeed if, they decide to enter the ballot box.

It may be a naïve hope, but could it be that Cameron’s willingness to stand up in a large room full of unfriendly voters heralds a new beginning for British electioneering? Maybe the era of the pre-scripted news events perfected by New Labour, to the increasing dismay of voters and media commentators, is over, for this year at least.

As a former PR person himself, Cameron knows that despite his partial success in ‘detoxifying’ the Tory party, politicians of all colours are more unpopular than ever. The expenses scandal has left Parliament’s reputation in tatters and Cameron understands that serious work is required to engage disenchanted voters in the forthcoming campaign.

Lib Dems bag a Tory – Edward McMillan-Scott

David Cameron’s troublesome Euro MP Edward McMillan-Scott is a Conservative no more and has joined the Liberal Democrats. There is no love lost between the independent-minded Macmillan-Scott and the Tories after they expelled him for defying the party over their (anti-)European policy.

He came to the Liberal Democrat’s Spring Conference in Birmingham on Saturday (March 13) and was more than happy to be pictured alongside his new leader, Nick Clegg.

In this video clip he tells Reuters why he decided to make the move.

“The question is where are the Tories going on Europe,” he says. “There are some nice people in the Conservative party, but, frankly, (Conservative) Central Office is a different thing altogether. There are some quite nasty people there doing nasty things.”

[The photo above shows McMillan-Scott meeting Clegg in Birmingham at the Liberal Democrat conference on March 13, 2010. Picture by Tim Castle]

Jeremy Hunt unveils Tory technology platform

As the three main UK political parties vie for positioning ahead of a general election to be held by June, the Conservatives unveiled their “Technology Manifesto” on Thursday in London outlining the key issues they would address if they form the next government.

Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude presented ideas on everything from improving broadband speeds to making government data accessible online.

Boosting broadband speeds would play a crucial role in stimulating growth by providing new areas of financial competitiveness, they said.

“This is central to the growth of the UK economy and will create hundreds of thousands of jobs,” Hunt said.

The Conservatives say they would break up the dominance BT has over the Internet and find a way to open up access to other firms.

“Our plans will stimulate a massive increase of investment in our digital structure by allowing anyone to invest in BT’s ducts and pipes,” Hunt told Reuters.

Hunt spoke with Reuters about Conservative plans in the video clip below.