Everyone claims victory after TV debate and tries to adapt to shifting landscape

After Thursday's leaders' TV debate ended, Ed Miliband took on the leader of the UK Independence Party (Ukip), Nigel Farage, about his claims that HIV-positive foreigners are each costing Britain up to £25,000 (€33,900) a year for retroviral drugs.

Miliband could have done this live on air in Salford in the ITV-hosted debate, just as Plaid Cymru's Leanne Woods did or, even more crisply, the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Nicola Sturgeon.

However, Miliband chose not to. Instead, he did it through a tweet: “I want to say, Nigel Farage’s comments about the NHS and HIV was disgusting. He should be ashamed. The fact he isn’t says so much.”

The Labour leader could not risk a head-to-head with Farage, as so many of Labour’s candidates, particularly those in the north of England, are looking nervously over their shoulders, wondering if Ukip will perform.

The Conservative leader, David Cameron, chose not to engage with Farage at all on the point, illustrating how far the insurgent party has managed to dictate the agenda of both of the major parties in the past few years.

Gamble

Farage, however, has gambled heavily. In the past few months, Ukip has tried hard to show that it is not just a party obsessed with immigrants and the European Union, and has sought to flesh out its thoughts on other subjects.

In Salford, however, Farage decided one of two things: either that Ukip’s campaign is struggling and, therefore, he must revert to its hardcore support to get the best result it can in the May 7th election; or that a message about immigration can be phrased in an incendiary way that will boost, rather than weaken, his party’s chances, even allowing for a cacophony of outraged opinion, in the coming weeks.

Time will tell. However, the key message the audience will take away from the leaders' TV debate is how much British politics has changed, even in the past few years. In 2010, there were three debates, involving three party leaders: David Cameron from the Conservatives, Labour's Gordon Brown, and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats .

The sight of seven leaders on the Salford stage reflected the new British political landscape, where the prospects of a Commons majority for any one party are, for now, a mirage.

Television debates have never been won just in the studio. Instead, parties believe that the crucial “golden hour” after debates end allows time for victories to be burnished or disaster to be plucked from the jaws of defeat.

George Osborne beamed at the cameras. Paddy Ashdown sought to maintain a Zen-like calm. Labour's Douglas Alexander and Caroline Flint, meanwhile, tried to put their footprint on the early outlines of history.

Futile exercises

Verdicts on TV debates, barring those where one side clearly ends up on the floor, are dangerous, often futile, exercises, but a few things do sometimes emerge that may be of significance.

David Cameron did not want to be in Salford at all, believing that, as the occupant of No 10 Downing Street, he would be diminished if put into a line-up of seven where he was called “David”, not “Prime Minister”.

And he was, somewhat. Nevertheless, the Conservative-leaning press hailed him as the hero of the hour, believing he had driven home the message that chaos lurks at the door if the Conservatives are ejected from power.

Everyone else claimed victory too, but in a multipolar political landscape nearly everyone can do so with some degree of plausible legitimacy, since they are talking to different audiences.

By this yardstick, Nicola Sturgeon played a blinder. Despite the focus on constitutional matters over the past couple of years, she will have been an unknown to many of the seven million people who sat down to watch the debates.

Clearly, she had some advantages, since she was arguing for an end to austerity, moderate increases in public spending and the building of “a society, not just an economy”.

Nevertheless, Sturgeon played her hand well. Interestingly, unlike Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Woods, who saw everything through the prism of Wales, Sturgeon spoke to the wider population. But she spoke to home, too. Scottish Labour can lose badly but stave off a complete bloodbath if it can persuade non-Labour supporters in some of the 41 constituencies it held in 2010 to vote for it tactically this time.

The prospect, real or imagined, of Westminster instability, or the fear that Conservative rule is inevitable if the SNP rout Labour, could make some shy away from an SNP vote at the last minute.

Sturgeon is intending, clearly, to prevent that happening. She is also telling the UK-wide audience that the SNP will be a force for good, not upheaval, if it is elected in numbers to Westminster.

By first reckonings, she scored well on this point, which, in turn, makes it harder for Conservative supporters to argue, as they have done in often offensive ways, that disaster lies ahead because “the Picts are coming”.

Clegg’s battles

Meanwhile, Nick Clegg sought simply to get an audience, by emphasising the battles he has had in the Cabinet with Cameron. For his own reasons, Cameron played along.

However, the hills to be climbed by all of the parties in the coming weeks were graphically illustrated by numbers from Google, which showed what people searched for as they watched the debates. The details are illuminating. The first question was “what is austerity?”, the second was “what does austerity mean?”. The sixth was “what is a bureaucrat?”. And number 10? “What is the deficit?”