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My third Prime Ministerial debate experience was a somewhat different one last night.

I watched it alongside some Newcastle University students in one of the Union bars.

It made a change from watching it at home with a TV dinner and a grumpy cat (she only likes cartoons).

It did occur to me that instead of watching three politicians, these students should surely have been carousing and canoodling somewhere. (I gather that's what a lot of young people do these days).

But then they were Politics undergraduates, so pretty hardcore.

And they were incredibly attentive and silent at the start, with only Gordon Brown's acknowledgement that he doesn't get everything right producing a ripple of laughter.

There was the odd groan as Nick Clegg rolled out some of his greatest hits from the previous two encounters - my favourite was his attempt to score political points by accusing Cameron and Brown of political point scoring.

But as time went on, their attention started to drift as they concentrated more on coversing with their neighbours than the cut and thrust of debate about corporation tax and regional development agencies.

I must confess I also began to slip into debate fatigue towards the end as well, but we all stuck it out to the end.

Opinion on the winner was divided, but few seemed to think it had changed their minds.

And so with less than a week to go where are we in the contest on our region?

The Lib Dem poll surge and Labour slide have given us more potential contests than I anticipated three weeks ago.

and were the top two Lib Dem targets, but to that you can now add , , , and even , where the party is now really pushing hard.

The problem though is resources. The surge has even taken the Lib Dems by surprise.

For that reason, it's a bit late to divert huge effort into a seat like , even though a poll this week suggested it could be winnable.

But the bonus is that seats that looked very vulnerable in , and now look more secure.

For the Conservatives, the main targets remain largely unchanged. , , and are still must wins.

They are pushing hard in and too, hoping to take advantage of Labour's problems.

And given yesterday's A1 announcement, they are yet to have raised the white flag in .

As for Labour, they are now fighting on more fronts than they would have originally anticipated, and at a time when resources are tight.

Defence is often harder than attack and their candidates probably face the toughest last week.

But it really is difficult to read exactly what's happening on the ground.

The Prime Ministerial debates have undoubtedly had a big influence.

But the impact of local factors - the Corus closure, rows over schools, the student vote - are harder to read.

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