Leaders face their toughest campaign challenge

THEY started with seven leaders and ended with three.
David Cameron taking part in tonight's BBC Question Time at Leeds Town HallDavid Cameron taking part in tonight's BBC Question Time at Leeds Town Hall
David Cameron taking part in tonight's BBC Question Time at Leeds Town Hall

The final in the series of Thursday-night live televised political events that have run through this election campaign saw the BBC’s Question Time audience given the opportunity to grill Messrs Cameron, Clegg and Miliband just a week before polling day.

Going into the night it felt very much like the last chance for the three men to achieve the seismic shift in the polls they have all been straining for since the turn of the year.

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Mr Cameron certainly approached his grilling as if his political life depended on it.

The Question Time audience was hungry for its task and from the opening moment they were firing questions and comments at the Prime Minister.

Unlike the seven-way leader debate, there was no thinking time while others on the stage answered.

But the faster the audience asked questions, the faster Mr Cameron responded. Hecklers were dealt with without catching breath and even David Dimbleby was given short shrift.

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Days of question and answer sessions in the campaign proved to be valuable preparation for this task.

There will not be many things Mr Miliband is grateful to the Prime Minister for but the audience had undoubtedly slowed after their quick-fire assault on Mr Cameron.

However, after a confident start, the Labour leader came face to face with the owner of a Leeds marketing business who lambasted him for his party’s management of the economy when in government.

In one of the most lively exchanges of what has been a carefully managed election campaign, the Labour leader had to defend Ed Balls after his questioner suggested if the Shadow Chancellor had been working in the corporate world “he would have been fired” to a whoop from the audience.

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For a moment, Mr Miliband looked in trouble and if that is the clip replayed in the days to come it could prove damaging. It underlined the fact that five years after leaving office, and with less than a week to go before polling day, Labour still has to convince many on its economic record.

But a question on the EU allowed Mr Miliband to demonstrate his willingness to go against popular opinion and his suggestion that his government would “under-promise and over deliver” earned a warm round of applause.

Mr Clegg will not have been surprised that his opening question was on tuition fees. He’s been answering it for five years. And when one of the audience questioned the Lib Dems’ decision to reveal welfare proposals on benefits dating back to 2012, he was quick to turn it into an opportunity to distance his party from their Coalition partners.

Mr Clegg also capitalised on coming on last, picking up on audience frustration at the failure of Messrs Miliband and Cameron to talk in detail about their approach to a hung parliament.

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Using his freedom as the leader of a smaller party without pretensions of holding power alone, he was able to talk openly and clearly about the approach the Lib Dems would take.

But he also faced difficulties when an audience member of voted Lib Dem in 2010 took him to task for entering coalition with the Conservatives.

Last night was undoubtedly the toughest test faced by the party leaders in this campaign.

In the early hours of next Friday morning, it will become clear whether it has produced that elusive shift in opinion.