I watched the debate over foreign policy last night: Gordon Brown, (Labour; Prime Minister), David Cameron (Conservative) and Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat). At the end of the debate, I thought there was no clear winner; I thought Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg were about even with Cameron slightly behind.

The first edition of Murdock's Times said no clear winner, illustrated with a quick poll and pie graph. The second edition, which came out within about an hour, had a different headline, claiming a win for Cameron. The pie graph was the same. The Sky newsroom was dominated in the hour after the debate by the different parties' spinners - all saying their fellow had won.

This morning's Guardian gave snap poll results giving the winner: Clegg, 33%, Brown and Cameron both tied at 29%, No Winner 7%.

My interpretation of the results: there was no clear superiority in style among the three; perhaps the results reflected, in part, different reactions to the actual content of the answers.

Clegg and Cameron were smoother, Brown was more specific and factual. Different styles, all acceptable in British political debate. All three were confident and answered the questions. Cameron and Brown wandered away from the point slightly, but after dealing with what was asked. Cameron and Clegg both had potential losers in their policy toward Europe. Large swathes of the Conservative Party want to leave the European Union and there's a fringe party promising that offering a cozy hole for those Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats are the most pro EU of the three and that could scare the horses and discourage large numbers of potential voters.

Cameron dealt with it by saying of course they'd remain in the EU but he would defend British interests and offer a referendum to the people who could decide if more fiats came from Brussels. Clegg said he'd worked for the EU and knew it needed change but you changed it from within. What would the referendum be about anyway? Brown gave figures for the number of jobs resulting from EU membership and said what was important was improving the economy, jobs, security and climate change. These were better dealt with by working with our partners, both in the EU and the US.

Cameron fudged the most, but the answers did show relatively clear difference between the three parties. Brown appealed to pragmatism - and the commitment of the UK to the EU has always been pragmatic rather than ideological. (The Brits really do like being an island and they do remember the Empire fondly.) Brown finished by saying that Cameron was anti-EU, Clegg was anti-US and we had to work with both to solve any number of problems that paid no attention to borders. I thought that was slightly unfair to Clegg, but justifiable. You can make an argument that the LibDems are anti-US.

Which brings me back to something I suggested three or four paragraphs ago: maybe voters are considering policies rather than the personalities of the leaders of the three parties. That could lead to a very exciting election.

The day led off with the Conservative supporting newspapers headlining assorted attacks on Clegg. These were personal. They'd been given the worst possible spin and the LibDems responded to them but it was not a very good way to begin a day ending in a televised debate. Newspapers here expect to dominate the election and are cheerleaders and influence the news rather than simply reporting. (Think Fox News with customers that can read.)

Wednesday, James Murdock, Rupert's son and chief executive of News International, and Rachel Brooks, former Sun editor, invaded another newspaper's newsroom, The Independent. The Independent had printed an ad with the headline "Rupert Murdock won't decide this election. You will." The ad pointed out that 40% of news in the UK is controlled by Murdock and these news sources support the Conservative Party. Read The Independent for unbiased election coverage.

So James and Rachel came to The Independent's newsrooms looking for the man in charge.

"What the fuck are you playing at?" James Murdock asked.

The two were taken into the editor's office and considerable yelling, interspersed with obscenities, came through the walls. It does make you long for a British Jon Stewart.

After watching the debates, I watched the taped Jon Stewart show from the night before. The announcer on Channel Four's Four More satellite station said, very cheerfully, and now it's time to join Jon Stewart for a bit of Brit Bashing. And he did. His sum up of the British elections: The British are now voting on which of three candidates will be selected to do as they're told.

Joy! Joy! The cuckoo is heard in the land, a dawning of a new spring, perhaps a dawning of a new political configuration! Sheer pleasure for a political junkie like me. My best possible outcome: (note the possible there) a hung (nay, let us say 'balanced') Parliament with Labour having the most MP's, LibDem's having a very large number of seats. A referendum on changing the first past the post system, with the electorate approving proportional representation.

Then my vote really would count.