Election coverage: manifestos and debate

I absolutely love this. Each party releases an election manifesto, which specifically outlines the party's views on each issue and details what the party intends to do with their power if they win. So no voter has to rely on the media's skewed coverage of what candidates and parties believe--they can go directly to this source.

• Labour's manifesto (released Monday) is called "A future fair for all."
• The Tories' manifesto (released Tuesday) is called "Invitation to join the government of Britain."
• The Liberal Democrats have "4 steps to a fairer Britain," released Wednesday.

Thursday night was the first debate, and it involved Gordon Brown (incumbent PM), David Cameron (opposition leader) and Nick Clegg. They're calling these Thursday debates "American-style" because it's not something they've traditionally done. There was a lot of love between Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg, both going against Cameron and putting him on the defensive. He is, after all, leading in the polls, so both of his opponents want to take him down a bit.

Here's a video of David Cameron defending what some say is fuzzy math on his part--he claims he can lower the deficit and lower taxes at the same time.



It's widely agreed that Clegg doesn't have a prayer of winning, but he was the clear winner in the debate. He had clear, progressive opinions, which he articulated well. Here's his response to a question about a scandal rocked Parliament this past year (MPs abusing their expense allowances).


And finally, here's the Prime Minister talking about why British troops are in Afghanistan. (You can totally see the jaw-dropping thing I referred to in this post.)