Britain’s election race tightened yesterday as a second television debate between party leaders failed to produce a runaway winner, increasing the chances of a hung parliament.
All eyes were on Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg in Thursday night’s debate after his victory in last week’s clash propelled his party out of its traditional third position.
He managed to fend off verbal attacks from Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Conservative leader David Cameron after the leaders traded blows on issues including Europe and nuclear weapons.
The results from early polls yesterday were close and suggested that the May 6 general election would be a closely fought three-way battle.
They increase the likelihood that the vote would produce Britain’s first hung parliament — where no party has an overall majority — since 1974.
After the nervous start to last week’s debate, the gloves came off quickly in the second clash on Sky News television, which focused on foreign affairs.
Clegg faced a two-pronged attack from Brown and Cameron over his party’s opposition to renewing Britain’s Trident nuclear submarine program, which he said was a relic of the Cold War.
“I say to you Nick ‘get real, get real,’ because Iran, you are saying, might be able to have a nuclear weapon and you wouldn’t take action against them,” Brown said.
To laughs from the audience, Cameron added: “I have never uttered these words but ‘I agree with Gordon.’ You cannot take a risk with this.”
The leaders also clashed over Europe, Brown and Clegg rounding on Cameron for his decision to withdraw his party’s European lawmakers from the center-right European People’s Party.
Brown said he was aligning himself with “right-wing extremists,” while Clegg said the Tory leader was working with “nutters, anti-Semites.”
Cameron, however, said both his opponents had let Brussels take too many powers away from London.
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