The final debate

My wife gets straight to the point in summing up the closing statements by the three party leaders in tonight's TV debate. "So it's 'fear', 'fuck off Gordon' or 'why the fuck not?'," she said. Maybe they should get those slogans printed on a T-shirt.

I thought David Cameron stormed it tonight, while Gordon Brown just looked tired and Nick Clegg is beginning to get boring. There is too much of the geography teacher or trendy vicar about him. And stop going on about "let's stop political points-scoring": it is precisely that heartfelt argument that we need. Tonight was a proper debate with candidates attacking each other and it was great because of it.

That "I'm just a guy standing in front of a girl asking her to vote for me" routine of Clegg may sound good in a Richard Curtis movie but I don't want a normal Joe running the country. Or a geography teacher.

And what was he on about saying that he wants to get the Chancellor together with the Vice Chancellors to sort out the economy? Don't they have universities to run? OK, we know what he meant but still...

Brown, to his credit, showed the gravitas that he also demonstrated in the first two debates, but he is an empty vessel now, waiting for the final act. Cameron laid out his case for becoming PM cogently and with passion. If people don't agree with him, that is fine but at least we know what he stands for.

I would have just liked a little more anger at the end from Cameron. Maybe he should have quoted Leo Amery's attack in the Norway Debates in 1940 that brought down Nevile Chamberlain:

"You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

Now that was a classy "fuck off".