page_title: 2010 United Kingdom general election debates
section_title: First Election Debate: domestic affairs
hierarchical_section_title: 2010 United Kingdom general election debates / Leaders' debates / First Election Debate: domestic affairs
caption_attribution_description: English: Graph of opinion poll results on the question of who voters considered to have won the first of the party leaders' televised debates, held on 15 April 2010, preceding the 2010 UK general election. The vertical axis indicates percentage and the horizontal gives the name of the polling organisations and the media outlets which commissioned the polls. Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg led the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties respectively. Data is from a page revision of the English Wikipedia article on the debates, which gives its sources in footnotes. The graph was created in OpenOffice.org Draw and exported in PNG format due to problems with the SVG output.
context_page_description: The United Kingdom general election debates of 2010 consisted of a series of three leaders' debates between the leaders of the three main parties contesting the 2010 United Kingdom general election: Gordon Brown, Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party; David Cameron, Leader of the Opposition and Conservative Party; and Nick Clegg, leader of the third largest political party in the UK, the Liberal Democrats. They were the first such debates to be broadcast live in the run-up to a UK election.
  The debates ran without a break for 90 minutes and were broadcast weekly by ITV, BSkyB and the BBC over three successive Thursday evenings starting on 15 April. They were moderated by Alastair Stewart, Adam Boulton and David Dimbleby respectively. The first half of each debate focused on a particular theme, before general issues were discussed. The questions were not disclosed to the leaders before the debate.
context_section_description: Instant polling after the first debate showed Nick Clegg as the winner, with most showing David Cameron came second and Gordon Brown last:
  ITV News/ComRes: 43% for Clegg, 26% for Cameron, 20% for Brown
  Sky News/Fizzback: 37% for Clegg, 32% for Brown, 31% for Cameron
  Times/Populus: 61% for Clegg, 22% for Cameron and 17% for Brown
  Sun/YouGov: 51% for Clegg, 29% for Cameron, 19% for Brown
  Angus Reid Public Opinion: 49% for Clegg, 20% for Cameron, 18% for Brown
  Average viewing figures for the debate were 9.4 million, with a peak of 10.3 million, equivalent to a share of the audience of 37%. The BARB produced audience figures indicated that the total television audience for the event on ITV was 9,679,000 viewers. The debates caused a large, immediate, and unexpected impact on opinion polls in favour of the Liberal Democrats, leading to many headlines regarding a 'Yellow Surge'.
  Commenting on the debates, the leaders of three minor parties who were not invited to participate were disparaging. SNP Leader Alex Salmond said, "You had three Westminster politicians who agree with each other on 99% of issues, and therefore the debate couldn't really come alive because of that convergence on the things that matter, and also, of course, because the audience weren't allowed to really participate." Former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage said there was not a "single memorable phrase" in the entire debate and Plaid Cymru leader Ieuan Wyn Jones said: "In what was a very sterile debate, not once did we hear the word Wales mentioned by any of the leaders. Indeed much of what they said was irrelevant to our communities."
  Both Gordon Brown and David Cameron agreed that Nick Clegg did well in the debate. Brown said Clegg had been "introducing himself in many ways to the public, in a mass way, for the first time. I think he'll be rightly pleased with his performance. I think at the end of the day... when all the dust settles, when people start sort of examining what are the policies, I don't think people know much about Liberal policies, and I think they do know more about our policies". He said he had "enjoyed" the debate, adding: "I think it's part of the debate we should have in Britain. I think it's energised the campaign."
  Cameron said, "I think he had a good debate but I must say I just enjoyed being able to talk to people at home, to address the questions that I think are the big questions at this election like immigration and the economy and crime." His colleague Michael Gove told Sky News that Clegg could "play the role of the sparky and feisty outsider."
  Clegg said it had been an "important moment in this campaign" while one of his predecessors, Lord Ashdown, said the debate was "potentially a game changer." BBC political editor Nick Robinson said the emergence of Clegg as a serious player would be the most significant development. He added that, amid predictions of a hung parliament in which Clegg's party could hold the balance of power, the Lib Dems would be "wooed, attacked and scrutinised with renewed vigour."
  The body language expert for Sky News Dr. Peter Collet revealed that Clegg had been the strongest as he looked down the lens, he also revealed that Cameron had been weaker than suspected as he stepped away from his podium.
caption: Results of opinion polls asking voters whom they considered to have won the first debate
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