Andrew Vine: There were two winners, and Cameron wasn't one of them

IT TOOK about half an hour to come to life, for the nerves to be overcome and the animosity to show through.

At just before 9pm, Gordon Brown landed the first real punch, with a jibe about Lord Ashcroft funding the Tory poster campaign. The delivery was laboured, to be sure, but the great clunking fist had found its mark and the Prime Minister knew it. There was a tightness about Mr Cameron's jaw as he answered and Mr Brown smiled knowingly.

Until then, everybody had been cautious and stuck to their script. They name-checked the towns and cities where they had been to talk to people, and Mr Brown even trotted out the hoary old stuff about his upbringing. They called each other by their first names, even though doing so plainly stuck in all their throats.

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This was a strange occasion. Above all else, nobody wanted to do a Richard Nixon. None of them wanted to revive memories of the 1960 presidential debate with John F Kennedy in which front-runner status was conceded with a sweaty top lip and an air of shiftiness. Nobody wanted to become the future's footnote as the party leader who faltered under the scrutiny of a turning point in British electoral history. In that, they succeeded.

For historic it was. This was a moment when the political landscape changed forever. History is not necessarily exciting in the happening; it can be dull, it can be stage-managed to the point of stiltedness, and it can feature personalities never likely to achieve the status of truly great statesmen, and this assuredly had all those faults in some measure.

Yet it was still gripping. This was the moment when a lacklustre election campaign that has failed to engage voters came alive under the impetus of a kick up the backside from something that was both new, and in its way a throwback to a time before politicians were able to cocoon themselves from the public. It was a return to a more honest sort of campaigning, stripped in part of the spin and control freakery of leaders addressing audiences of their own party stooges, and if it was not quite the challenge faced by politicians of the past who braved halls packed with hecklers as well as supporters, it was the nearest we would get in the television age.

Risk avoidance was everything. If the audience was compelled to sit muted and restrained, with none of the applause or groans of Question Time, its presence still placed all three of them under pressure, even though they had plainly been rehearsed and rehearsed again.

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The stage set, perhaps deliberately, recalled The Weakest Link, with the three contestants standing behind lecterns with the inquisitor - an increasingly shrill Alistair Stewart, who shouted down the leaders as he strove to keep their answers relatively brief - between them and the audience. Lots had been drawn for where each man would stand, and it left Nick Clegg on the left, David Cameron in the centre and Gordon Brown on the right. All were soberly dressed in dark suits, the only dash of colour their ties, gold for the Lib Dems, blue for the Tories and pink for Labour.

The scrutiny of the cameras was merciless. Even when each was not speaking directly to the audience, they caught their reactions and they were careful not to give anything away. Mr Brown contented himself with the occasional wry smile, looking more relaxed than he customarily does, while Mr Cameron frowned and pursed his lips. Mr Clegg decided to play to the wider audience – he looked squarely into the camera and spoke to the folks watching at home whenever he got the chance, his occasional hesitations in delivery working to his advantage, making him appear somehow more human than the other two.

The Lib Dem leader's tactic throughout was to present himself as the new man, constantly referring to his rivals as "these two" advocating the same old things. Mr Cameron went for what he hoped was an incisive tone that was dismissive of Mr Clegg and highly critical of Mr Brown, but he appeared stiff - perhaps over-rehearsed – and even aloof, too often looking down at his notes or straight ahead, instead of looking his rivals in the eye. An air of lofty detachment was the wrong tone for last night, and when he softened it and spoke about the NHS, he was much better. And Mr Brown? He's a canny old operator, and went for appearing experienced, calm and wise, and had the good fortune to get a couple of tricky questions out of the way early on. The first two, on immigration and crime, had him on the back foot as his rivals ganged up on him over his record. But then he recovered his composure, and even given his natural tendency to produce blizzards of statistics, came across convincingly.

There were two winners in round one last night - Mr Brown and Mr Clegg, who acquitted themselves well. There is work to do in Mr Cameron's camp before the re-match next week. It was a significant evening, and politics will never quite be the same again.