Britain's Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband speaks to an invited audience made up of Labour supporters and undecided voters, during an election trail, at Bury Town Hall, in Bury, Thursday April 2, 2015. (Source: AP) Britain’s economy may be growing, but the main televised leaders’ debate of its election was held in the shadow of the Great Recession.
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The economy, and the economic effects of immigration, dominated a showdown between Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron and six rivals: Labour Party leader Ed Miliband and chiefs of the centrist Liberal Democrats, right-wing U.K. Independence Party, Welsh and Scottish nationalists and Greens.
Britain’s political landscape is at its most fragmented in decades, and polls suggest no party will get a parliamentary majority on May 7. So the two-hour debate saw all the leaders battling for an edge.
Amid the clamor, some themes emerged:
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE ECONOMY
Whether the topic was health care, education, or immigration, the debate circled back to money.
Britain’s economy suffered for years after the 2008 global financial crisis, and Cameron urged voters to keep to the budget-cutting course set by his government since 2010.
“Five years ago this country was on the brink,” Cameron said, arguing that his government’s billions in spending cuts had reduced the deficit, stimulated the private sector and turned the economy around. “Let’s stick to the plan that’s working.”
Miliband countered that “Britain succeeds when working people succeed, but that’s not the way it’s been for the last five years.” He said left-leaning Labour would raise the minimum wage and cut tuition fees, but still reduce the deficit by taxing expensive homes and clamping down on tax avoidance.
Nick Clegg painted his Liberal Democrats, who have governed in coalition with Cameron’s Tories, as the ideal middle way, a Goldilocks party: “We’ll cut less than the Conservatives and we’ll borrow less than Labour.”
DIVISIVE IMMIGRATION
Immigration is one of the most divisive issues in the campaign, driven to the top of the political agenda by UKIP, which wants to leave the European Union and end free movement of EU workers into Britain.
“Let’s take back control of our borders,” said UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who brought up the issue repeatedly.
He made his case forcefully, but was challenged by the others for what they characterized as a simplistic obsession with immigration.
“There isn’t anything that Nigel Farage won’t blame on foreigners,” said the Scottish National Party’s Nicola Sturgeon.
Leanne Wood of Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru got applause when she challenged Farage after he said that HIV-positive foreigners were costing the health service a packet.
“This kind of scaremongering rhetoric is dangerous,” she said. “I think you should be ashamed of yourself.”
NO FLUBS, NO FIREWORKS
No one made a disastrous gaffe, and all the leaders can claim to