Round Two, Part Two-Who's doing the Counting?

Last night was the second of the UK Election debates. New Kid on the block Nick Clegg was the undisputed winner of the first debate so it was always going to be interesting to see how he handled his new found popularity.

Well it truly depends on what newspaper, TV or radio you listen to, and in which country. Also, it would seem, it depends on what TV station is hosting the debate.

But first to the interpretations.

YouGov gave the debate to Cameron by a nose.
ComRes gave it to Clegg, 33% to Brown and Cameron's 30%.
BBC News said it was basically a 3 horse race now with all three candidates essentially a draw, although in any event the polls on the debate seemed to reflect the polls in general, with Cameron slightly ahead, followed by Clegg, with Brown a close third, all of which points to a Hung Parliament.
The Guardian/ICM poll gave Clegg a slight lead, but gave Brown the lead as the best potential prime minister.

The German TV News Programm ARD report this morning announced Clegg the clear winner!
The Austrian Salzburger News was only concerned with questions about EU membership.
The Financial Times Deutschland proclaimed that there were no clear winners.
The French News Agency AFP found that the average result of 5 polls had Cameron and Clegg even with Brown just behind, but all agreed that Brown was the best performer.

Time.Com, partnered with CNN gave the lead to Rupert Murdoch. This second debate was aired on Sky News which is owned by Mr Murdoch. Mr Murdoch's tabloids, The Sun and News of the World are aggressively backing Mr Cameron.

Mr Murdoch's newer acquisition, the Independent however, was not toeing the party line and was duly given a bollocking by Mr Murdoch's son James for running an ad campaign stating that Mr Murdoch won't decide the election, but rather the British public will! Those ads have disappeared.

Yesterday's debate chaired by Sky News went through the pre-arranged discussion of foreign policy then jumped to some less lofty issues such as Mr Clegg's allegedly putting election donations into his personal bank account, and then on to the pros and cons of a hung Parliament. Conspiracy advocates would maintain that foreign policy isn't Mr Cameron's strong suit so it would fit to run through that aspect of the debate as quickly as possible, and then get into the cut and thrust (or Punch and Judy) of domestic British politics where Mr Cameron is totally in his element-as is Mr Brown to be fair.