Had someone told me that all it takes is 90 minutes of airtime to change the political landscape of this country, I would have certainly dismissed that as being too hypothetical. But that is actually what happened last Thursday in the first ever Leadership debate, where in the Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg came out stealing the show and made the forthcoming elections a real three way race. Having set the bar very high for himself, the second debate that happened in Bristol this week set the expectations soaring high.

While the focus of the first one was domestic affairs, the second debate focussed on foreign affairs. This time around, the pressure was more on David Cameron not only to improve his performance, but also to deliver the knock-out punch and seal the pact with the electorate. Did he do it? No, if you ask me. David was a little more aggressive than last week, little more passionate, but fell way short of winning the debate. Quite expectedly, he stole Nick Clegg’s idea of facing the camera than the audience.

Nick Clegg, in my opinion managed to maintain the momentum and that in itself should augur well for his party. He swapped places with David and occupied the centre podium with Gordon remaining at the same place as he was last week. Although Nick appeared to have an edge w.r.t his stand on European Union, thanks to his earlier stint as MEP, his stand on Trident is very much debatable and in my opinion, should not be an election issue. Rather, that is a decision best left to experts.

Gordon Brown on the other hand was better prepared than his two rivals. He appeared more confident, cracked few pre-prepared jokes and even smiled then and there, although the smile appeared very cosmetic and weird.

In a nutshell, this second debate didn’t create any waves as the first one did. All it did is to give Labour a fig leaf of hope. In my opinion, Clegg maintained his lead in the debate and the other two were the joint second. Newspapers might present a different picture, depending on which stable they owe their allegiance to. After all, what they publish is an opinion poll and they are very much entitled to their opinion.