WORLD | Britain

Pre- election TV debate yields no clear winner

Salford ( England), April 3: The main TV debate of Britain’s national election campaign yielded no clear winner with four opinion polls producing four different winners, but David Cameron’s attempt to appear the most statesmanlike appeared to have paid off.

The event, on Thursday night, was staged less than six weeks before a close national election on May 7 as polls suggest Mr Cameron’s Conservatives and Ed Miliband’s Opposition Labour Party are neckand- neck with neither on track to win a majority.

The results of four snap opinion polls released immediately afterwards underscored why the election — that will decide who governs Britain’s $ 2.8 trillion economy — is being widely described as the closest and most unpredictable since the 1970s with voters naming no less than four winners.

One poll said Scottish nationalist leader Nicola Sturgeon had won, another said Labour’s Mr Miliband had narrowly triumphed, a third said Mr Cameron, Mr Miliband and UK Independence Party leader ( UKIP) Nigel Farage had come joint first, while a fourth said Mr Cameron and Mr Miliband had both won.

None of the leaders managed to deliver a “killer line” that would set them apart from the other participants. “There was clearly no knock- out blow,” said Peter Kellner of pollster You Gov. Jonny Tudor, 17, who asked one of the questions on the night, told Reuters afterwards: “Some performed well in answer to certain questions, other performed well on different subjects, but there was no definitive winner.”

But in a result that will calm Conservative nerves, a Comres/ ITV poll showed 40 per cent of voters asked afterwards judged Mr Cameron was the most capable of leading Britain,

London: compared to 28 per cent who named Mr Miliband.

In an unusual format for Britain, Mr Cameron faced off against six political rivals in what was the first and only full TV debate of a campaign that has yet to stir voters, many of whom say they feel jaded despite a rising economy.

In one of Mr Cameron’s more animated moments, he pointed to his rivals, one- by- one, and said: “What I’m hearing is more debt and more taxes, more debt and more taxes, a lot more debt and more taxes, some more debt and more taxes, and definitely more debt and more taxes.” A rare moment of drama came when a female audience member interrupted Mr Cameron to complain about the number of homeless people sleeping in the streets.

● Britain spied for several years on the Argentine government over fears of a fresh attempt to retake the Falkland Islands, documents released by American whistleblower Edward Snowden have claimed. Snowden said British agents were actively spying on Argentina between 2006 and 2011. Britain was concerned that Argentina could launch another attempt to reclaim the Falkland Islands, according to reports in the Argentine media. There has not been any formal response yet from either the British or Argentine government.