Harry Leslie Smith, activist
The leaders’ debate reminded me of the fruit and veg mongers of my youth who with bluster and bluff tried to convince weary shoppers that their spuds or apples were the best at market.
Ed Miliband seemed the most prime ministerial and confident when it came to defending affordable healthcare and creating proper jobs, not just zero-hours contracts.
David Cameron wasn’t on top form. He looked as tired as a used-car salesman, especially when he tried to dismiss the economic stress corporate tax avoidance has caused Britain.
Nigel Farage did a second rate panto of a modern day Enoch Powell when he suggested that that there were thousands of people infected with HIV flooding Britain for free NHS care. Clegg was just glib and irrelevant, acting as if he’d been in opposition for the last five years rather than in government. Natalie Bennett tried to present herself as the most caring leader but was drowned out by both Leanne Wood and Nicola Sturgeon’s message of compassion during times of austerity.
Val McDermid, author
More heat than light as the result of a format that forced superficiality on the – I want to say contestants – participants. But two hours is a long time to fake it and there were snapshot moments of exposure that let a chink of light in. Not enough to change my views, though.
Nicola Sturgeon was no surprise to us Scots. We know she’s a passionate fighter, but she showed the rest of the UK that she can go head to head with the big dogs. Amazing that the leader of a party most people can’t vote for should do so well nationally.
Farage revealed his hypocrisy – he is one of the rich public schoolboys he castigated – and his nastiness. Cameron had his prepackaged soundbites but showed he was fast on his feet, taking on the heckler. And Miliband kept saying “If I’m prime minister,” as if trying to convince himself as much as us.
Poor old Nick Clegg knows it’s all over but he hopes a mixture of sackcloth and ashes and disowning his past will save him. Wrong.
And Natalie Bennett? Nice woman, but she can afford to be. We’ll never find out how she’d pay for her pipe dreams.
Salma Yaqoob, mental health trust manager
I expected chaos with so many participants but it was refreshing to hear other voices – many of which advocated progressive opinions rarely reflected in mainstream politics.
For me the winner was Nicola Sturgeon. Cool, calm and collected, she was unequivocal in opposing austerity, privatisation in the NHS, the scapegoating of immigrants, nuclear weapons and tuition fees, and all with the creditability of SNP having delivered progressive policies in Scotland. For the growing numbers of voters disillusioned by Westminster politics, the prospect of an SNP bloc in parliament providing a pressure from the left on Labour is an attractive one.
You can see why Cameron didn’t want to do the debates. He was surprisingly wooden, and looked dazed when Miliband landed some good punches over his failures in Europe. Overall a poor night for him and a solid if not inspiring one from Miliband, who was strong on bankers’ bonuses, mansion tax, tuition fees, fairer taxation and came across as honest when he said Labour governments got it wrong on banker regulation.
The other highlight was the dismal performance of Nigel Farage. The dressing down he got from Leanne Wood for seeking to scapegoat immigrants suffering with HIV for soaking up the NHS budget generated one of the few spontaneous rounds of applause of the night. When Gary Lineker calls you a dick on Twitter, you know you’ve not had a good night.
Saleyha Ahsan, A&E doctor
I was taken aback by David Cameron’s answer to the NHS question when he spoke quite like many parents I meet who bring their sick children to hospital. At that moment I believed him. On the issue of private finance initiative hospitals brought in under New Labour, Ed Miliband said they were preferable to the old buildings they replaced. This scheme has financially ruined many hospitals, leaving them to draw on finances normally reserved for staff and supplies to repay steep mortgages.
Nigel Farage’s comments on immigration made me gasp out loud. I was thinking about my Italian, Spanish, Polish, Philippine, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Indian, Afghanistani, Chinese, Pakistani and Nigerian colleagues – without whom it is impossible to do a day’s shift. And denying HIV treatment to anyone who arrives in our hospitals? Just try and make doctors do that.
For me the “winner” was, Nicola Sturgeon as she posed the questions that I wanted answers to. There is something about the SNP, and in particular Sturgeon, that makes politics interesting again. As Sturgeon said, it is time to break up the old boys’ network at Westminster.
Grayson Perry, artist
Important as elections are, I cannot help seeing them as a combination of the World Cup and the Eurovision Song Contest for the media and political nerds. This debate is the group stage and like football or singing contests I can only bear to watch it quite drunk after coming home from a party. It didn’t help much. I felt I was being rinsed in reasonableness.
After the opening poems of spin, all the leaders seemed to take great pains holding their fear/anger/boredom in check ready for the cutaway shots of them looking thoughtful while someone else said something they would have to passionately disagree with in a minute.
The ideal way to watch any political broadcast is with the sound turned off. Miliband was the best at staring into the camera lens. Cameron did very good disdainful sort of “tut” motions as if his opponent was just not worth responding to. Nige pulled music hall faces. Clegg overdid the intensely-relaxed-with-nothing-to-lose look. Nicola Sturgeon was the jolliest and I look forward to her being deputy prime minister.
Musharaf Asghar, campaigner
I was most impressed by Ed Miliband. What he had to say on the NHS really resonated with me. Miliband seems to understand the importance of this issue, and this concern feels as if it genuinely goes beyond his ambition to be prime minister. I found it really effective the way he looked into the eyes of the viewers.
I am a British Pakistani and didn’t like the comment Nigel Farage made about how the NHS needs to be there for British families only. I found that rude and disrespectful, and much preferred Sturgeon when she said doesn’t care if a person is a British citizen or not.
My verdict is that all of the leaders had a few good points but it was Miliband who really performed well and made the most of his opportunities to speak. I felt that many of his points were really targeted towards young people and he understands that our votes matter.
Jack Monroe, food columnist
There was one clear winner and it was women: Bennett, Sturgeon and Wood all calmly holding their own in the face of Farage shouting over them with condescension at every turn.
Bennett illustrated well the impact of cuts to services with a parable of a children’s centre worker who once provided a service to the community, used to pay tax and had “a modest amount of income to spend”, but is now struggling on Job Seekers Allowance. With more than 600 Sure Start centres closing since the coalition government came to power, her words were not empty political rhetoric, but a hard reality for laid-off staff and the parents subsequently unable to find nursery provisions for their children.
Sturgeon reiterated that “austerity is pushing people into poverty” – a fact backed up by the steep rise in the number of people using food banks in the last five years, and repeated by Miliband, who reminded us that wages do not keep pace with rising living costs.
And as Leanne Wood said, Farage ought to be ashamed of himself.
Kirstie Allsopp, broadcaster
People say they are disengaged with politics because they don’t get a sense of authenticity from the party leaders. I think everybody came across as reasonably human last night.
Miliband had a problem with where he thought the camera was, causing a bit of wide-eyed staring into my sitting room. But apart from that he did well. If I had voted for Clegg last time, nothing I saw in the debate would have stopped me from voting for him again. As far as Cameron is concerned, he felt a bit like the best behaved one in a family who gets ignored.
Nigel Farage’s comments on needing to build a house every seven minutes sounded about right. I think one of the most unfortunate things about the current immigration debate is Farage. He stops the rest of the candidates and country from having an intelligent discussion about immigration. And it is something that impacts on housing. There are all sorts of thing we could do to help solve the housing crisis and I don’t understand why it hasn’t come up more so far in the campaign.
I’m not a supporter of Natalie Bennett and the Green party because so many of their ideas aren’t workable. But I found her impressive and passionate. Sturgeon and Wood were much more dogmatic and by the end I was worried about what the SNP would do in a coalition. Out of the three smaller parties, Bennett is the one I would vote for – if I were chucking away my vote.
Mike Read, broadcaster
The leaders’ debate awards 2015
Nick Clegg: Jazz Hands Award
Nigel Farage: No Party Whip Telling Me What to Say Award
Ed Miliband: When I’m PM Award
David Cameron: Unruffled by Heckler Award
Nick Clegg: Mentioning Johnny Seven Times Award
Natalie Bennett: Avoiding Mentioning Her Policy of Abolishing The Monarchy and putting The Queen in a Council House Award
Nicola Sturgeon: Avoiding Mentioning Her Policy of the Abolition of the House of Lords Award