General Election 2010: Liberal Democrats surge after Nick Clegg's TV debate performance
The Liberal Democrats have enjoyed a 14 per cent surge in support among viewers who watched last night’s general election debate.
A new poll of the voting intentions of a group of 4,000 people who watched the programme dramatically propelled the Liberal Democrats into second place in the election campaign.
The poll by ITV/ComRes put Liberal Democrat support at 35 per cent, up 14 per cent.
The Conservatives were at 36 per cent, down 3 per cent compared to before the head-to-head studio debate.
Labour was at 24 per cent, down 3 per cent, and others were at 5 per cent, down 8 per cent.
An average of 9.4 million viewers watched last night's debate between Mr Clegg, Gordon Brown and David Cameron.
However because of the demographics of the television audience, when the poll results were weighted to include the entire electorate, the Liberal Democrats' share of the vote slipped back to 24 per cent.
These weighted results put the Conservatives on 35 per cent and Labour on 28 per cent, a seven-point lead.
If the results of the poll of those who saw the programme were replicated through the population as a whole at the May 6 general election campaign, the Liberal Democrats would win 159 seats.
The LibDems party would still be the third biggest party in Parliament, just behind Labour (165 seats) and Conservative (294 seats), according to website Electoralcalculus.
This discrepancy is because of the first past the post system and constituency boundaries which allow Labour to win more core seats with a relatively low share of the vote.
Meanwhile bookmaker William Hill slashed the odds on the LibDems to win with an overall majority from 300-1 to 25-1. They are also now 14-1 to be the largest single party, down from 100-1.
Lord Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrats leader, hailed their leader's performance as a potential "game-changer".
However, Mr Clegg sought to play down how much of an impact the debate would have on May 6.
"The leaders' debate is the first step. There's still quite a long way to go until people make up their minds, there are more leaders' debates.
"Hopefully it will have given people the sense that there are some real choices to be made.
Another survey in the wake of the leaders’ debate found that 61 per cent of viewers thought he came out on top over Gordon Brown and David Cameron.
The Tory leader acknowledged that Mr Clegg had had a "good debate" while his party went on the offensive against "eccentric" Liberal Democrat policies.
Shadow children's secretary Michael Gove warned that Mr Clegg's policies would now come under intense scrutiny.
He highlighted Lib Dem plans to join the euro, scrap the Trident nuclear deterrent and offer an amnesty to illegal immigrants, which, he said, lay well outside the political mainstream.
"The greater degree of scrutiny these policies have, the more that people will realise that while Nick Clegg is a very attractive individual in many ways, the policies of his party are outside the mainstream and a little bit eccentric – not necessarily what you would want at a time of crisis and difficulty," he told Sky News.
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