Gillian Duffy hardly mentioned in last election debate

Rochdale’s most 'famous' grandmother, Gillian Duffy, did not feature in the final leaders’ debate anywhere near as much as many thought she would.

After Gordon Brown’s infamous utterance about Mrs Duffy, 65, people felt he had jeopardised his party’s campaign on the eve of the most important debate.

There was an expectation Mr Brown would endure a barrage of criticism from his rivals after Wednesday’s comments.

But he managed to nip it in the bud before Nick Clegg and David Cameron could pounce.

He said: There’s a lot to this job, and as you saw yesterday, I do not get all of it right.

“But I do know how to run the economy in the good times and in the bad.”

The final debate, screened on BBC1, focused on the economy, was expected to be fierce, and has left next Thursday’s result even more wide open.

The Conservatives enjoyed a resurgence, after arguably not impressing in the first two debates.

The YouGov poll for The Sun found 41% voting in favour of Mr Cameron, with 32% for Mr Clegg and 25% for Mr Brown.

The ComRes poll for ITV News saw a closer contest, putting Mr Cameron on 35%, Mr Clegg on 33% and Mr Brown on 26%.

Issues that dominated the debate included taxes, public spending and immigration.

Mr Cameron continued to criticise Labour’s ‘Jobs Tax’ and public sector spending inefficiency.

He said: “That’s why we say start now with efficiency savings to stop the jobs tax next year.”

But he took flack from both Mr Clegg and Mr Brown about Conservative plans to cut inheritance tax.

Mr Brown warned voters against Tory plans to cut £6bn, seeing them as a danger to the recovery.

He said: “That will shrink the economy at a time when we need to support the economy.”

But he was condemned by Mr Cameron about the state the Labour government has left the UK’s budget deficit.

Mr Clegg outlined his party’s plans for ‘fairness’ including increasing the tax threshold to £10,000, and giving £2.5bn to the most deprived schools to help nurture under-privileged children.

He said: If you don’t have fairness at the heart of everything we do, it’s going to be very, very difficult to see us through these difficult decisions for years to come.”

But he noticeably received criticism from Mr Brown regarding his party’s ‘immigration amnesty’, and Mr Cameron opposing Lib Dem plans to potentially join the Euro.

The only issue with consensus was that of bankers’ bonuses, with all parties agreeing over the need to regulate and reduce huge annual pay-outs.

Now the debates have ended, all leaders can now fully concentrate on campaigning and Mr Brown has said: “The time for decision has begun.” 

Rochdale Online watched the debate at the Liberal Democrat headquarters on Drake Street where the Lib Dems had organised a debate 'party'. The concensus was that Nick Clegg had once again aquitted himself well, as had David Cameron, but Gordon Brown was again considered poor.