Scottish leaders debate: Jim Murphy did well

Although televised leaders’ debates remain a relative novelty in a UK context, for more than a decade and a half they’ve been a regular phenomenon in Scotland (I remember attending one back in 1999, and in 1992, Kirsty Wark chaired a head to head on the issue of devolution called "a time to choose"). Another small indication, perhaps, of diverging political cultures?

Viewed a few days after last Thursday’s seven-way ITV debate between the three main parties and their challengers, meanwhile, the content of last night's battle provided an interesting contrast. In Salford, where the ITV debate took place, the economy and domestic issues loomed large; in Edinburgh the focus was more on post-election scenarios and the record of the devolved Scottish Government.

Last night was also the first time Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy had gone head to head with First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon on television, and much of the attention was, of course, on that dynamic. Murphy's party faces a near wipeout in the forthcoming election, thanks to the explosive growth of the SNP since the referendum, polls suggest. He was hit early on with a now standard line about Labour’s inadequacy in Scotland, while Sturgeon said her aim was to keep the party "honest" in government.

Sturgeon emphasised the prospect of an "anti-Tory majority in the House of Commons," and was more ostentatious than usual about "offering to help make Ed Miliband Prime Minister." Murphy instead spoke about the last time a party with fewer seats than its main competitor had formed a government. "It was so long ago," he taunted, referring to the first Labour government in 1924, "it wasn’t even a Queen’s Speech, it was [a] King’s Speech." Perhaps surprisingly, he chose not to mention the recent #nikileaks row, in which the First Minister was accused of telling a French diplomat her preferred choice for Prime Minister was David Cameron—a claim based on a leaked memo which Sturgeon strenuously denies.

Ruth Davidson, meanwhile, turned in an engaging performance, echoing the Prime Minister (who she’d seen in Edinburgh earlier that day) in arguing that a vote for the Conservatives would "honour that referendum result" and thus keep the Union together. She was also up front in admitting that another Tory government would mean more spending cuts, at least initially; Willie Rennie apologised about his party’s broken pledge on tuition fees but did his best to defend support (in government) for benefit cuts.

In a short solo speech (one was granted to each leader as part of the debate), Nicola Sturgeon was keen to emphasise that she "respected" the result of last year’s independence referendum and that this general election would not amount to a "re-run." Interestingly, she squirmed slightly when asked whether another referendum would feature in next year’s Scottish Parliament elections. "We’ll write that manifesto when we get there," she replied to obvious audience dissatisfaction. I expect her opponents will raise this prospect regularly over the next few weeks, and her refusal to rule out the idea has already made headlines today.

The SNP leader was, unsurprisingly, stronger on the issue of whether Britain should keep its Trident nuclear deterrent ("how can you possibly argue multilateral disarmament is consistent with spending £100bn on renewing Trident?"), while Jim Murphy was equally robust in defending his multilateral stance; nuclear weapons on Scottish soil troubled him, he admitted, but "it would also trouble me if they were in the north of England."

On the economy, Sturgeon said she’d take a different approach on tax and spend, taking longer to pay down the deficit, but that it was a "price worth paying" to combat austerity. Murphy said he ultimately wanted to end austerity too, while Willie Rennie suggested more of a balance between spending cuts and tax increases. Ruth Davidson couldn’t understand how £30bn of cuts were, according to the First Minister, "savage," but her proposed £180bn of spending increases were merely "modest."

Overall, the Scottish Labour leader performed well, pushing his (in some cases newly-acquired) left-wing credentials and displaying some much-needed spirit. In another context he’d be a good—even very good—leader of his party, but his trouble is that no one is listening. You could sense it in the TV audience last night and the polls suggest it’s true beyond studio sets. Murphy appeared cheered when one member of the audience said he’d convinced her to back Labour. "Only another half a million to go," he (half) joked in response.

Murphy was also much more aggressive with the First Minister than Ed Miliband had been the week before, although Sturgeon scored a hit when she challenged him to answer the "really simple question" as to whether his party would help the SNP "lock" the Tories out of government. He diligently avoided saying "yes" or "no."

The SNP leader, however, appeared much less comfortable when the three Unionist party leaders engaged in a sustained attack on her government’s record in the last 30 minutes of the debate. Murphy reminded Sturgeon that she’d promised to scrap student debt in 2007 ("you did a Nick Clegg on us!"), Rennie highlighted unpopular police reforms and Davidson said a highly-paid politician such as the First Minister shouldn’t get "free aspirin when she goes to the GP."

Suddenly, the poise and confidence of Ms Sturgeon’s performance last Thursday was gone. Some said she’d had an easy ride in Salford and this STV debate supported that analysis. All she could muster in response was something about having to "make difficult decisions" in office, but then of course all governments have to make difficult decisions. As Nigel Lawson once put it: "to govern is to choose." The forthcoming election will decide who’ll be making those choices for the next five years.