Peter Hoskin

Sunshine wins the day for Cameron

So that’s the second time that immigration has had a major impact upon proceedings this week.  Until we came to the question on that topic, I thought Clegg was bossing the TV debate.  He was clear, personable and managed to hover elegantly above Brown and Cameron’s dusty brawl over spending cuts.  But as soon as it came to clarifying Lib Dem policy on an amnesty for illegal immigrants, the wings rapidly fell off the yellow bird of liberty.  All of a sudden, Clegg sounded rattled and unpersuasive.  From then on in, it was Cameron’s game.

It helped that Cameron had the clearest – and, I suspect, the most popular – line on immigration: “We would cut immigration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands.”  But, really, the Tory leader’s strongest answer came in a subsequent question on improving opportunities for younger generations. 

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