James Forsyth James Forsyth

Three ways the Scottish leaders’ debate will affect the UK general election campaign ​

Tonight’s Scottish debate isn’t going to fundamentally alter the dynamics of this general election campaign in Scotland. But it will reverberate through the UK-wide general election campaign. Both Ed Miliband and David Cameron have been left with questions to answer by their Scottish leaders while Nicola Sturgeon has made clear the price she intends to try and extract for supporting a Labour government.

In heated exchanges with Sturgeon about the economy, Jim Murphy pointed out that the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that Labour would not need to cut further after 2016. Now, the Labour leadership in London has studiously avoided endorsing this idea. But Miliband and Ed Balls can now expect to be put on the spot about it after Murphy’s comments.

But it is not just the UK Labour leadership who have been left with a tricky question to answer by this debate.

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