Brown misses chance for redemption in last TV debate; Cameron emerges as initial winner

Brown loses gamble in final TV debate

BIRMINGHAM, England — Britain’s final TV election debate Thursday saw Prime Minister Gordon Brown scrap for his political future in the most combative showdown of the campaign, trading sharp exchanges with his two chief rivals a day after an embarrassing campaign gaffe.

Brown, who has been freefalling in the opinion polls for weeks, wasted no time ahead of the May 6 election. He threw a joke in his opening remarks in hopes of neutralizing Wednesday’s blunder, in which he was caught calling a retired Labour voter a “bigoted woman” after she badgered him on immigration and he forgot to remove his microphone.

But his delivery fell flat. Analysts said Brown’s performance failed to wow voters.

“There is a lot to this job, and as you saw yesterday I don’t get all of it right,” Brown said. “But I do know how to run the economy — in good times and in bad.”

The first US-styled debates have spurred an unexpected transformation in Britain’s politics and shaped the election, one of the closest in decades. Months ago, the Conservatives’ David Cameron was favored as the clear winner but he was eclipsed after the first domestic debate when Nick Clegg, leader of the perennially third-placed Liberal Democrats, stole the show. Clegg remained a contender in a potential coalition government if no party wins a clear majority, while analysts all but started writing Brown’s political obituary.

Britain faces mammoth economic troubles with the one of the largest deficits in Europe — a 152.8 billion pound ($235.9 billion) sum racked up during the global financial crisis. Whoever wins the vote, it seems inevitable the country will feel the harshest cuts to public services since World War II. Taxes, meanwhile, are sure to rise and recovery measures could be stalled with a hung Parliament.

Cameron, the 43-year-old who studied economics and won an endorsement from The Economist, appeared to come out on top in Thursday’s debates but analysts said polls in the coming days would be a better judge after voters digested coverage of the debates.

“I think Cameron came across as very strong,” said Helen Coombs, deputy head of political research at the polling company Ipsos MORI.

“He was more convincing than past debates but I don’t think his attacks on Clegg won’t be well-received. I thought Clegg’s message was strong but I’m not sure he beat Cameron. I don’t think Brown managed to turn himself around. He kept harping on about his achievements but this doesn’t resonate with voters.”

All three main parties have been reluctant to say what they plan to cut — answers that could lose votes. The final debate did little to explain details of economic recovery plans, but the showdown showed Brown and Cameron repeatedly trading blows over other’s policies on tax, and potential cuts to welfare.

Each candidate tore into each other over immigration — the one issue that has come in all three debates.

Some angry Britons blame an influx of 6 million foreigners since Brown’s Labour took office in 1997 for worsening their plight. Immigrants — many from poor countries — have been accused of snatching jobs, pushing down wages and overwhelming welfare services.

Cameron wants a cap on immigration; Brown has championed controls through a point system; Clegg has suggested giving amnesty to illegal immigrants who come out of the shadows.

But it was the economy that dominated much of the debate.

“What you are hearing is desperate stuff from someone who’s in a desperate state,” Cameron said of Brown. In response, Brown accused his rival of plans that were “simply unfair and immoral.”

Seizing another chance to ridicule both his rivals, Clegg pounced.

“Here they go again,” quipped Clegg, recalling President Ronald Reagan’s 1980 putdown of Jimmy Carter, when he famously said of his rival: “There you go again.”

Victoria Honeyman, a political analyst at the University of Leeds, also handed a victory to Cameron.

“Cameron did really well, Clegg was reasonable — not impressive, but reasonable,” said Honeyman. “And Gordon Brown, in what was supposed to be his debate — in his backyard of the economy — didn’t do well at all.”

After a bruising 24 hours, Brown hoped to shine by showcasing his economic prowess — he has the most economic experience of the three, was treasury chief for a decade, and presided over much of Britain’s recent growth.

Brown used opening skirmishes in the debate to remind voters of his handling of the economic storm, which included nationalizing some banks, and discussed fears that Greece’s debt crisis could spread through Europe. Currencies and stock markets tumbled Wednesday on fears over Athens’ plight.

“Economies in Europe are in peril, and there is a risk of dragging us into recession,” Brown said. “So I’m determined that nothing will happen in Britain that will put us back in that position. Shrink the economy now as the Conservatives want to do and they risk your jobs, your living standards and your tax credits.”

Brown, who was robbed of pre-debate preparation by the uproar over Wednesday’s run-in with the voter, looked tired. Pundits said he came out worst of the three while audience member Kate Novak told Sky Television that Brown looked like a “broken man.”

“It’s the ultimate Shakespearean tragedy for Gordon Brown,” said Frank Luntz, an American political consultant who has advised the Republicans.

In two weeks since the first debate, Clegg emerged as a credible new contender to lead Britain — shaking up the dominance of Labour and the Conservatives, the two major parties who have traded power since the 1930s, and spawning headlines that have read: “Cleggmania.”

Support for the Liberal Democrats has jumped dramatically — to about 30 percent of potential votes in opinion polls — from 18 percent. The latest polls show Cameron’s party leads with about 33 percent and Brown’s Labour sits third with 28 percent.

Clegg, a polyglot politician, has been interviewed on television in Dutch and French on the campaign trail. He has also chatted with reporters from Germany in their native tongue and has spoken to Spanish journalists. His wife is Spanish and his father, Sir Nicholas Clegg, is chairman of the United Trust Bank, which specializes in property finance.

The anthropology major and school actor has the least financial experience of the three candidates.

Although he has been cagey about a preferred partner in a coalition government, he says his main demand is changing Britain’s electoral system. Because parties win by the number of districts not proportional votes, the system has historically put smaller parties at a disadvantage.