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I'm the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what you need to know.

BT has confirmed it will launch a cut-price subscription to Sky Sports next season, after BSkyB reached an interim deal with Ofcom, pending an appeal over its pay-TV ruling and the .

between the three main political party leaders, if anyone?

The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and David Dimbleby won.

The that News International has withdrawn from the audit of UK newspaper website traffic, pending the launch of its pay walls in June. Mail Online remained the most visited site in March, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic.

BSkyB gained 428,000 HD subscribers in the last quarter, the . According to their latest financial results that is a 76% increase.

how Private Eye is covering the election.

The that the final prime ministerial debate between the three main political party leaders dominates Friday's papers.

Links in full

• Read Thursday's Media Brief

• Read

Commentators review the third and final prime-ministerial TV debate.

things weren't as bad as they might have been for Gordon Brown:

"One thing went right for Gordon Brown: yesterday really did seem to be yesterday. His brief self-deprecating reference to 'Bigotgate' at the beginning of the debate defused the situation, and neither of his opponents were daft enough to try to make political capital out of it. Clearly shaken by his day in Rochdale, Brown seemed nervous at first, but then found his feet."

David Cameron performed the best:

"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. What we got then was what Cameron does best: the sunshine, the positivity, the sincere concern about our nation's schooling."

how Nick Clegg's performance compared to the previous debates:

"It's worth recalling that, in the first debate two weeks ago, Mr. Clegg was the novelty, the outsider who surprised with his fresh-faced appeal. Over the space of two weeks, voters have gotten used to that and, in this final debate, his mannerisms, style and promises seemed much more familiar. Where he seemed weakest was on immigration."

that David Cameron "pulled all the stops out":

"Maybe he changed his cereal. Maybe he had a pre-match sharpener. Or a nap with Samantha. Whatever it was, it worked. He was assured, fluent, convincing, and he took the opportunities presented to him. When Mr Brown talked of his anger at the top banker who said his bank was fine (would that be the same anger he showed about Mrs Duffy I wonder?), Dave asked if that was Sir Fred 'The Shred' Goodwin, knighted by Labour and allowed to keep his pension despite crashing RBS. Neat."

that as he saw it, the debate rarely strayed from right-wing talking points:

"Presumably because of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s obsession with not being seen as left-wing, there was the usual right-wing orgy on immigration after a question from the right by a token black person. There was a question on housing and house prices from a wealthy accountant. And there was a question from the right on welfare. Foreign affairs did not get a look in."

More from See Also

• Commentators' verdicts on the second prime-ministerial debate

• Commentators' thoughts about the first prime-ministerial debate

• Tabled: Choice descriptions of the first prime-ministerial debate

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More like this

In today's Tech Monitor, the anatomy of a tweet; Sony face legal action from gamers and why the new boy scout badge will not be of much use in the woods.

• The big news in tech circles was Hewlett Packard's . Last week, John Paczkowski at All Things Digital. Today he .

"HP wants its own operating system. And by acquiring Palm that's exactly what it's getting. In Palm's webOS, HP has an elegant OS that it controls, something the company - a longtime Windows shop - has never had before."

• Many people, including quoted HP's Brian Humphries, saying the firm's intent was "to double down on webOS".

"That's important. While it has been known for a while that Palm was looking for a buyer, the future of webOS wasn't certain depending on who the eventual purchaser was."

• The story was quickly overshadowed by Apple's boss Steve Job's and explaining why many of the company's products do not use the technology, depsite its widespread use on websites.

  The issue has been an ongoing topic of discussion amongst the digerati. But long time analyst Michael Gartenrberg says ; it's all about the customer.

"If enough of Apple customers are frustrated to the point of not buying Apple devices, perhaps Apple will reconsider their position. Fact is, the lack of Flash does not appear to have slowed down Apple sales in the slightest. In fact, the opposite seems to be true."

• There have been a couple of stories what makes a "tweet", the short messages used on Twitter. Recently, ReadWriteWeb showed a .

"Think a tweet is just 140 characters of text? Think again."

• This week, MIT Technology review outlines a new approach to :

"The researchers' idea was to provide a way for users to deal with a large number of Twitter messages quickly. They found that many users wanted to be able to quickly catch up on what's been going on, without having to go through every single tweet in their timeline."

• In late March, on its PlayStation 3 that allowed players to install other operating systems. Now, according to game's site ,a Californian man is suing the company over the change.

"The suit claims that the "Install Other OS" function was "extremely valuable." According to the suit, the plaintiff he has not yet installed the latest firmware update so that he can continue to use the Other OS feature."

• Engadget were one of the first to pick up on the for the Scouts in the US:

"The Boy Scouts of America have finally recognized that most important of modern children's pastimes with the creation of a "Video Games" belt loop and pin. However, our initial excitement on this momentous day is drastically lessened after reading how one goes about earning them."

• And finally the Gizmodo Phone scandal has . This week, Jon Stewart on the Daily Show . The video isn't available in many countries, so if you still want some entertainment try Fast Company's .

If you want to suggest links or stories for tech monitor, you can send them to @bbctechmonitor on Twitter, tag them bbctechmonitor on Delicious or email them to bbctechmonitor@bbc.co.uk

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I'm the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what you need to know.

that the SNP failed in its court attempt to stop tonight's prime-ministerial debate being shown in Scotland. The party claimed that the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ had breached its impartiality rules by excluding the Scottish nationalists.

, in tonight's debate, Gordon Brown will again apologise to Gillian Duffy, after privately calling her "bigoted". The comment was picked up yesterday by a Sky News microphone.

Melvyn Bragg has criticised TV's "soundbite" coverage of politics, saying that the TV debates show that people want to hear politicians in depth, .

that Alan Yentob has said he couldn't do his job properly if he didn't fly business class.

, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Trust editorial standards committee has apologised for a joke on Radio 4 by comedian Frankie Boyle.

Gordon Brown's TV gaffe occupies many pages in the newspapers .

• Read

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Commentators discuss Gordon Brown's description of a voter as a "bigoted woman".

that the truth is out about Gordon Brown:

"Still, we continue to clamour for truth on all fronts, even if the politicians refuse to oblige us. They are wise to the dangers. 'I know the truth,' Peter Mandelson said yesterday of his leader, as he tried once again to defend and explain the failings of his protege. But just like Mr Brown, and Mr Cameron, he knows it is sometimes best left unsaid."

why Gordon Brown made the blunder:

"Elections are based on an illusion that political leaders like and respect every single voter they meet. Voters are allowed to harangue leaders, but never the other way around. In private, no doubt leaders across the world despair of voters that they meet, but they never do so in public. In being recorded unaware by a microphone Brown has smashed the illusion into pieces. The spell is broken. When he meets voters in the future they will wonder what he is really thinking."

the moment to be extremely significant:

"Their encounter, and what followed, should be remembered as a kind of watershed in the relationship between those who govern us and the governed... "However he may abase himself, however much he may declare he has been forgiven, he has unwittingly revealed his true self, and there can be no recovery for him after this. If Mrs Duffy is a bigot, I am happy - no, honoured - to be a bigot too, and so all of us should be."

Mr Brown may be lucky that today is the final debate day because the media will have to move on:

"Tomorrow will all be about this closing session which will frame the coverage for the final few days. Just reflecting on what happened the shocking thing that Mrs. Duffy highlighted is that virtually all of Brown's contacts during the campaign have been with hand-picked safe people. "What does it say about a Prime Minister and Labour Party leader who cannot be allowed to get near 'ordinary' members of the public?"

how Gordon Brown could survive:

"His best hope is tonight's debate. A bravura performance by him will change the story; a killer line will replace the Duffy footage and be replayed on a loop. But a lacklustre showing will add to the fear that Labour is heading for a calamity - and that Brown himself bears much of the blame."

to an American audience why he thinks the event is important:

"Gillian Duffy is a life-long Labour voter. She doesn't like being called a racist because she worries about immigrants; she's fed up with the welfare state rewarding, as she sees it, the unworthy; she's working class; she's not alone. This is Brown's base. He has essentially attacked his own base in the most condescending two-faced manner possible, on a live microphone, on every broadcast. Imagine if Obama's gaffe about 'clinging to guns and religion' had been uttered by John McCain, about his own base. With a week to go."

looks for similar moments in the most recent US presidential debate including the "Joe the Plumber" story.

how this will play out with Tony Blair:

"[N]othing he, his wife, Sarah, or senior Labor Party officials said in the aftermath of the incident could undo the damage of what he said. That's because the comment seemed to summon up every negative characteristic attributed to Brown during his long career in the Labor Party. "He has been described as a bully, as someone given to raging moods of anger, who blames others for his own mistakes, who despite great intellect and enormous power has acted as an insensitive and insecure, a man who brooded constantly at the slights and perceived slights at the hand of his rival, former prime minister Tony Blair."

on how the incident played out in the US:

"With little more than a week remaining in The Race to Run Knifecrime Island, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose Labour party is running a disappointing third in the polls, has somehow managed to make things worse after being caught on a live microphone referring to an elderly voter who had asked him a question about immigration as a 'bigoted woman'... Making matters even more fatal for Brown, an interview in which he 'apologized profusely' for the remarks offered perhaps the worst optics of the campaign thus far... Check out his body language as he listens to the playback; this is pretty clearly a beaten man. There's something almost tragic about it. But also funny."

I'm the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what you need to know.

Virgin Media has gained 38,000 new cable customers, its best performance since it was formed from the merger of Telewest and NTL four years ago .

that she's giving up her Daily Mail column because she's suffering from depression.

The that the Sunday Times is luring people to its new paywall website with the chance to set Sky TV recordings remotely.

What happened to the "internet" election? Blogger it's not happened.

that the parties are still trying to use new media.

The that the British economy's part in the election is covered in most newspapers.

Links in full

• Read Tuesday's Media Brief

• Read

Commentators discuss politicians' policies on cutting spending.

that the deteriorating situation in debt-laden Greece makes policies on Europe an election issue:

"And what of Britain, which decided to stay out [of the eurozone]? Conceivably it might be in a stronger position, relative to the resulting chaos on mainland Europe. If, and again it's a big if, it tackles its deficit and debt and promotes pro-growth policies starting right away.

"Before polling day, someone should ask the three U.K. party leaders what they make of all this. It would be most interesting to hear Nick Clegg's view; he favors Britain entering the euro. Which might be like arriving late at an undergraduate party just as the guests are leaving and the police have been called."

The that Thursday's debate on the economy will lack real honest answers on spending cuts:

"Tomorrow evening, the three party leaders will debate the economy in their final televised encounter. Some candour would be welcome. So would some contrition. So would rigorous scrutiny of Labour's preposterous claims that it had nothing to do with the crash and that it can continue to "invest" in front-line public services, the deficit notwithstanding. We fear, however, that once again the voters are going to be disappointed."

that it was the Institute for Fiscal Studies that outlined on Tuesday the extent of our financial problems and not politicians:

"It seems an appalling indictment of the democratic process that after three weeks of intensive campaigning, not one of the politicians soliciting our votes has attempted to tell the truth about what they must do if they form a government. Their manifestos boast of what they will give the British people. They scarcely begin to admit what they will have to take away."

as to why politicians aren't being candid:

"Any government that tried to squeeze public spending that sharply would not merely be making itself unpopular - it would be risking Greek-style mass protests. Even then, it might not be possible: cabinet ministers would struggle to axe sufficient public services fast enough. The very notion of trying to pull off one of the biggest spending cuts in British history within one parliament - which is the goal that all three parties subscribe to - is just implausible. Whatever they say publicly, all serious politicians must know that deep down."

that whoever gets into power will have to work quickly on fiscal policy:

"It is pure guesswork but my instinct is that the new government will have to produce a fiscal plan by about the middle of July. The reason for that is twofold. First, the Tories have promised an emergency Budget within 50 days of taking office - i.e. before the end of June. That sets a deadline, not just for them but in practice also for any alternative government, for example a Labour-Lib Dem coalition, although it could be stretched a little.

"The second reason is that the world's financial markets will want to know the plans ahead of the summer holidays. Traditionally, financial crises used to happen in July, as dealers straightened out their books before heading off to the sun. But even if that phenomenon is not quite so evident recently it is hard to see markets waiting until the comprehensive spending review in, say, October, before needing some more specific guidance on the government's intention."

Links in full

Today, in Tech Monitor: Dilbert on the iPhone scandal, how Europe took to the air after the ash cloud cleared and what hypnotizing chickens has to do with the US military and PowerPoint.

• In Germany, officials were "horrified" to discover that Google's Street View cars map the location of wi-fi hotspots, as well as collecting information and pictures of roads and streets. that the UK's Information Commissioner's Office is now also interested in finding out what Google does with the data:

A spokeswoman told The Register the ICO had been unaware the Street View fleet has been recording the MAC addresses and locations of Wi-Fi networks as they photograph national road networks - until its German counterpart launched an attack last week."

• Google has also decided to try to fend off any more criticism by on what it does and doesn't collect.

"We collect the following information--photos, local WiFi network data and 3-D building imagery. This information enables us to build new services, and improve existing ones."

• The firm and its maps are also in the news because of a new feature. Google has added its 3D map application Google Earth to its web-based maps. is pleased:

So rarely do I install an actual application on my computer these days, when I run across a download dialog I have to consider whether or not I'll actually open the program or if it will just clutter up my desktop and start menu. Such is the reason, silly as it may be, I have yet to install Google Earth onto my netbook. As of yesterday, my Google Earth-less days are over, as Google has released its all-encompassing 3D view of the earth as a browser plugin, making sure I never have to stray far from my workaday path to peruse Peru or browse Belize."

• The New York Times has a , Microsoft's presentation tool. The piece kicks off with a slide that was shown off by the leader of American and Nato forces in Afghanistan "that was meant to portray the complexity of American military strategy, but looked more like a bowl of spaghetti".

The slide has since bounced around the internet as an example of a military tool that has spun out of control."

The story also introduces readers to the intriguing, if bizarre, phrase "hypnotizing chickens". Supposedly, this describes a US military news conference that "lasts 25 minutes, with five minutes left at the end for questions from anyone still awake."

• Currently, Apple stocks are at an all-time high. Software engineer Kyle Conroy has calculated how much money people would have today if they had purchased stock instead of an Apple product. is the Apple PowerBook G3 250. If you had used your $5,700 to buy stocks back in 1997 instead of a computer, you would have $330,563 today. If you're an Apple-owner, check your cupboards now... and perhaps be prepared to weep.

• Europe is still finding its feet after the eruption and subsequent ash cloud from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland. ITO has created a of the northern European airspace as it returned to use.

• And finally, the story occupying much of the tech press at the moment is the police seizure of computers belonging to Jason Chen, the editor of Gizmodo, which recently bought an iPhone prototype that a Apple employee had left in a California bar. Amid the analysis and speculation, Scott Adams, the man behind the Dilbert cartoon strip, .

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I'm the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what you need to know.

that the company which licenses children's TV character Peppa Pig has withdrawn her from a Labour party election event. Peppa was due to visit a children's centre as part of Labour's launch of their manifesto for families. But E1 Entertainment said it had agreed the character should not attend the event "to avoid any controversy or misunderstanding"

and , the Scottish National Party is to lodge court papers today over its exclusion from Thursday's prime ministerial debate on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One. The party, which raised £50,000 to pay for the process, said it was not trying to stop the broadcast but it wanted an SNP politician included "for balance".

that Heather Mills has won free tickets for a Whitney Houston concert in a radio phone-in.

that the possibility of a hung Parliament again dominates newspapers' election coverage.

Links in full

• Read

Newspaper commentators discuss the problems with politics.

with Fleet Street:

"The most pernicious lie in politics is that the press is a democratising force. Journalists congratulate themselves for promoting democracy even as they seek to shut it down. Witness the frantic campaigns in the Mail, Telegraph, Sun and Express to crush Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. He's no firebrand, but the rightwing press knows the Lib Dems would introduce proportional representation and a fairer party funding system. The press barons would no longer be able to push an unrepresentative party into office or easily manipulate it once it's there."

Professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, how voting reform is in a Catch-22 situation:

"[U]under Labour's proposed alternative, not only would the party that was third in votes still come first in seats, but in addition the party that came first in votes would be a poor third in seats. One wonders whether voters will regard this as an improvement."

that image and class preconceptions continue to affect politics:

"Oh dear, the curse of the Bullingdon Club strikes again. Photographs taken at the wedding last weekend of David Cameron's younger sister show the aspirant prime minister wearing 'a business suit', surrounded by a number of other guests more properly attired. No prizes for working out that it wasn't absent-mindedness behind the Conservative leader's sartorial solecism: he just couldn't afford to be seen looking as he did in those now censored photographs of Oxford's Bullingdon Club, circa 1986. Actually, that's not quite right. It would have done David Cameron no harm at all to be pictured in full morning suit - but he obviously didn't feel comfortable if even a subliminal echo of his youthful 'upper-class' posturing filtered through to the electorate."

[subscription required] that the TV debate illustrates that British leaders need to rise above banality before they can interact on the world stage:

"For those acquainted with the situation across the Atlantic, it is clear that the UK does not today boast a political leadership that can compete effectively with Washington or negotiate with an administration that is no longer as Anglophilic as in the past. One does not need to be a fan of President Barack Obama to realise that his charisma is of a different order from what is on offer in the UK. For years after the second world war, Britain's political leadership compared favourably with America's. It no longer does. The UK would do well to consider what this portends."

that politicians of different parties seldom agree but thinks he knows why:

"The answer may be simple: when it comes to morality, Conservatives are from Mars and lefties are from Venus. They struggle to agree - on the importance of marriage, say, or the wrongness of homosexuality - because they do not share the same basic sense of right and wrong."

I'm the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what you need to know.

Adam Crozier starts work as ITV's chief executive today. Newspapers, including the , and the , look at the challenges ahead for him.

John Cresswell, who has been running ITV since Michael Grade left, has been tipped to replace Caroline McCall as chief executive of Guardian Media Group .

after thousands of Doctor Who fans complained that an emotional cliffhanger was ruined by a cartoon trailer featuring Graham Norton.

More than 40 actors, performers and programme-makers have written to the Observer calling on voters to protect the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ against threats to its independence .

The newspapers look at possible deals between the parties in the event of a hung parliament .

Links in full

• Read my previous Media Brief

• Read

Commentators discuss Nick Clegg's announcement and that he wouldn't go into coalition with a party which didn't win the popular vote.

that Nick Clegg was dodging the question:

"Marr asked what he, Clegg, would do if Labour changed the leader after the election? He didn't say: 'I repeat, if the party lost the popular vote, I wouldn't keep it in office.' He said instead: 'Here we get into the 'what-if' territory that I find very difficult'. And he went back to earlier ideas of collaborating with the party that would deliver Liberal Democrat manifesto commitments. But he couldn't do that with Labour polling fewer votes than the Tories because he ruled it out. He'll find a way round it. And we'll have a new name for saying one thing and doing another: Clegg dancing."

a Lib-Con deal is a real possibility:

"It is too easily forgotten that Cameron spent much of his first two years as leader wooing Lib Dems, calling for what he described in a speech in March 2007 as a 'new Liberal-Conservative consensus'. True, there is no great warmth between Clegg and Cameron, but nor is there a froideur that would make collaboration impossible. They are, to an almost comic extent, cut from the same cloth. They are young Englishmen raised for leadership, smooth collaboration and the challenges of modernity."

to Mr Clegg's description of the Conservatives "nutter" allies in the European parliament with a claim that the Lib Dems' allies are also "nutters":

"Just take a look at some of Clegg's cohorts in the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. Its leader, the Belgian MEP Guy Verhofstadt, wants to abolish the nation state. He wants a 'United States of Europe' - taking over responsibility for justice and security policy, taxation, oh, and creating a European army. Then there are those nice homespun folk in the Feminist Initiative from Sweden, who had an MEP until last year. One of the party's policies is to abolish marriage and create 'genderneutral' names - whatever those may be."

that a Lib-Con coalition would not be sustainable:

"The most Eurosceptic of the main parties yoked together with the most Euro-enthusiastic? The great defenders of Trident in alliance with their opposites? Anti-immigration rhetoric striding arm in arm with pro-migrant policies? Cut-now, help-the-rich economics in alliance with Lib Dem redistributionists? "Admittedly, there are some areas of common ground. If Cameron's Big Society means anything, it is not so far from the Lib Dems' traditional localism. Both parties have greened their economic thinking; both are critical of Labour over civil liberties; both think the past 13 years have been too statist and centralist. But overall, the yawning gaps between Cameron and Clegg would make this a truly bizarre marriage."

that Nick Clegg meant he would go into coalition with the Conservatives:

"I spoke to a Lib Dem MP close to the leadership last week who said, admittedly when the Lib Dems were riding a bit higher in the polls, that Nick Clegg would have a better claim to the top job of PM if he entered into a deal with Labour in third place in the share of the vote and him in second. Look at the quote and you might think that is exactly what Nick Clegg is himself thinking."

Links in full

the first press conference for independent candidates, with a report that is gracious to Martin Bell and less so to another TV-personality-turned-PPC:

"Looking at most independents you're put in mind of the Good, the Mad and the Ugly. To be fair, however, this lot had all signed up to the 'Bell principles'. This is meant to weed out loonies, racists, people with two heads, Esther Rantzen, etc."

Gordon Brown is pleased to be able to announce plans to bring Britons home:

"'And we are sending HMS Albion via Spain,' he declared. Does that sound magnificent? I think it was the most prime ministerial thing that he has ever said."

Ms Treneman goes on to sympathise with David Cameron at his corresponding press conference:

"Dave was reduced to rushing off to Brighton in order to have a seascape backdrop. We saw him, on a hill over Brighton, gulls swooping, looking fresh-faced. 'The idea of using the Royal Navy was actually something the Conservative Party very constructively suggested,' he claimed, sounding like a rather desperate Mr Me-Too."

Later in the week, the increased interest in Nick Clegg:

"The Lib Dems had reserved an entire train carriage for the media pack. A week ago, the Lib Dem press corps could fit into a phone box. The New York Times was there. Time magazine too. Someone speaking Italian... Was this, everyone wondered, Nick Clegg's Obama moment? Well, if it was, he was sharing it with a tractor. Well, actually two tractors (1949 Fergusons, since you ask)."

At Thursday's prime-ministerial debate, the apparent physical discomfort of the participants:

"Gordon Brown, his fringe stiff with hairspray, kept smiling like Jeff Tracey from Thunderbirds. Nick Clegg developed a case of the sweaty Bettys. Mop wallah! Quick! Swab down that man.
"David Cameron again frowned rather a lot, though he did remember to point his poached-egg eyes directly at the camera lens."

by Nick Clegg's camera technique:

"Like a schoolboy actor who has enjoyed a triumph in a minor role - the Gravedigger, say - he thinks he is now ready to play Hamlet."

the prime minister's attempt at a cheery demeanour:

"[N]one of the advisers have got rid of Gordon's smile. He wagged and dipped his head while putting on that ghastly grin, as if the nodding dog in a car was channelling the Joker."

that you can tell a lot from the protagonists' hair:

"Nick's was the youngest, tousled as from afternoon sex. Young people will like that, and it helps project his policy on Europe. Cameron's hair hadn't set properly, there was a bold sweep at the front but then it went flat the further into it you went. I wonder if that means anything. And Gordon's! The poor fellow, his hair is only going in one direction. Soon he'll have fulfilled Blair's promise of being 'whiter than white'."

Commentators say who they think won the second prime-ministerial TV debate.

The Nick Clegg as the winner:

"If either Labour or the Conservatives were hoping that the second party leaders' debate in Bristol last night would see the Liberal Democrat genie forced back into the bottle, it was soon obvious they were destined to be disappointed... Some have suggested that these debates amount to little more than 'X Factor politics'. That seems unfair. The indications are that these events are cutting through to the public. They seem to be engaging people who might not otherwise take an interest. That is something to cherish, not scorn. As for Mr Clegg, his remarkable adventure continues."

Mr Clegg performed as well as in the previous debate:

"Last night probably won't have changed much, interesting though some of it was. (But why a second question on immigration? Ratings?) Clegg used the grown-up word 'theological' but was sunnily plausible; Gordon showed formidable command of details, and formidable lack of command of his features; David Cameron alternated between splendid anger and a sense of repetition fatigue. But not much changed... Perhaps the honest talking comes later. Right now, the exact policy on public service cuts, or the colour of the tie, or the dialling of the Sage and Hero element in each leader's psyche, is less important than whether they represent a possible breakout from what the electorate sees as stale and shabby politics. At the moment enough seem to think that Clegg does represent such a possibility."

that David Cameron won, that Gordon Brown did much better and Mr Clegg was outclassed:

"Whatever the polls say, Nick Clegg has only succeeded in one thing: he galvanised both David Cameron and Gordon Brown into giving better performances than you might have thought possible at this time last week. Cameron made a genuinely convincing case by managing to present abstract arguments about values and political philosophy in sufficiently concrete terms to make sense to the ordinary voter... Brown too did much better than he had last week. He got bogged down in Budget-speak details occasionally and he was completely unable to counter Cameron's accusations about Labour lies. But the real surprise was the extent to which he utterly repudiated his courtship of the LibDems. I have to say that I respect him for this: he has clearly decided to go down with integrity rather than to cling ignomiously to the desperate possibility of a coalition."

Political blogger that Mr Brown did well:

"The Brown camp will be pleased with their man's performance though his denial on what is in party leaflets on pensioner bus passes might be something that he'll regret - for it does not take much for opponents to show that his statement was untrue."

Mr Clegg won the debate again and asks why Mr Cameron is appearing to fail to shine:

"Because the sincerity deficit shows, with slogans, mantras and an advertising man's repetitions. Up against the earnest Nick and sobersides Gordon, Cameron sounds oddly fake. Television is mercilessly revealing, and lack of conviction tells. He needed to retake command, but couldn't quite. A coalition with Clegg? It looked unlikely."

Pro-Labour a note of caution about the validity of the various post-debate polls:

"In a population of 9 million, a sample of 1000 will have a standard + or - 3% margin of error for each leader. So if you report a support level of 30%, then margin of error in your poll to achieve a 95% Confidence is between 33-27. On a three way split therefore a single poll can be read as Candidate A 30-36; Candidate B 28-34 Candidate C 27-33. So Candidate C could be 3 points ahead of Candidate A (or 9 points behind).
What's more, given the speed and scale of the polling, I wouldn't be surprised if we were looking at an eight point spread for each leader for some of these polls, which in a three way race makes the results effectively meaningless."

Commentators discuss what they think the Conservatives would have to do to get ahead in the election.

that the Tories "have a fortnight to save themselves from disaster":

"Yesterday, Kenneth Clarke gave a masterclass in why hung parliaments are bad for the country and why the economic crisis is of such severity that uncertainty would be a national calamity. This should be the exclusive Tory message from here till polling day. "For the moment, however, the only certainty is that the country wants change. Tonight, it will watch Mr Clegg knowing that he is not it. And it will wait for Mr Cameron to show why he might make a better fist of things than Mr Brown. This time, he will look straight into the camera, and hope the public finds what they are looking for. After May 6, there will be plenty of time to contemplate the whys and hows of the outcome. Now, though, the situation is perilous, changeable, and recoverable - but only just."

that the key for Mr Cameron to win against Mr Clegg is to make clear how his change it different to Lib Dem change:

"After 13 years of Labour rule, time for change was his exclusive preserve - until Mr Clegg looked into the camera during the first leaders' debate and turned his relative obscurity into a claim to be new, different, the change. Mr Clegg's is a different brand of 'change', a post-expenses, no-more-business-as-usual kind of change, that threatens to supersede the freshness of Mr Cameron. And it has changed the terms of debate for the run-in to polling day. 'We need to win a whole series of arguments about the problems of a hung Parliament,' Mr Cameron conceded."

that the Conservative campaign is cracking up:

"The cracks were beginning to show yesterday as shell-shocked David Cameron's election hopes took another battering. Tory MPs turned on their hapless leader after latest figures showed the party was flatlining in the polls. They admitted they were already fighting a lost cause - and accepted they will not win a majority."

David Cameron's way of dealing with a man dressed up in a chicken suit employed by the Mirror to follow him around:

"If the chicken provided Mr Cameron with one of his better moments, when on Tuesday he joshed with it in as endearing a fashion as tightly gritted teeth allowed, that's not how the Mirror chose to report it on yesterday's front page. But it is excused the confusion on a news day so frantic that only one tiny paragraph could be spared to gloss over Labour's abysmal showing in every poll published the previous evening. The key thing when facing brutal humiliation, the Mirror reminds us, is retaining professional self-respect. This enables a newspaper to bounce back quickly, live long and prosper."

the Tories have grappled with the question of how they will improve voters' lives for 30 years and suggests that David Cameron would be successful if he attacks Gordon Brown:

"What can be done in the debate tonight at least is to establish more clearly why GB shouldn't go on being prime minister. Because if David Cameron can do that, if he can atleast establish a gap between Labour and the Conservatives even at much lower levels of support for each than we imagined then he opens up the possibility of doing very well again."

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Commentators discuss whether the possibility of an end of the two-horse race in British politics and consider the prospect of a hung Parliament.

that Nick Clegg and the possibility of a hung Parliament offer the same hope voters had in 1997 before Labour's landslide victory:

"Clegg appears on the TV debate, looking rather more, to the 10 million who watch, like a living person than a politician. If Cameron and Brown look like puppets dangled by spin masters, Clegg seems a decent fellow who thinks on his feet. A tremor of hope runs through the audience. A third of the electorate claim they want a hung parliament - presumably on the grounds that the less a government actually does the better - and polls suggest they're likely to have their way. More of us will turn up to vote on May 6 than seemed likely a month ago. Clegg, well, hope springs eternal."

that the public are looking for a rebel to back:

"The usually uninterested public, in this rare moment of engagement, did what it often does at such times, and became impressed by the last charlatan to come along. The post of novelty charlatan was previously held by Mr Cameron. He established his claim to it when he sought the leadership of his party in 2005, with a performance of equivalent meretriciousness and vacuousness to that executed by Mr Clegg. He now knows how David Davis felt: elbowed aside by somebody more glamorous, more novel, more manipulative, less contaminated by the past. We must doubt that the Liberal Democrats will win the general election, or that Mr Clegg will be prime minister, but the change effected by the unprecedented television debate will have elements of permanence."

why we could be seeing the end of the two-horse race this election:

"Whatever national polls may claim, the fact also remains that many seats have become unpredictable, especially where their MPs are standing again and vulnerable on the charge of corruption.
There is also a plethora of small parties able to siphon off critical votes. The pollsters' faith in their figures is touching but unrealistic."

about the Liberal Democrats being the power-brokers from when they were in Scottish Parliament in 1999:

"Anyone expecting our leaders to pull together for the good of the nation will be disappointed: prepare yourselves instead for endless wheeling and dealing in what are now smoke-free rooms, and any amount of secret backstairs bargaining. Prepare yourselves, too, for an administration with a distinctly yellow hue. For having already tried a coalition with Labour, and believing themselves to have been "stiffed" over the number of ministerial jobs - and the limousines that go with them - they received, the Liberal Democrats are determined not to make the same mistake again."

where the SNP could gain real influence:

"It is unlikely, for instance, that the UK would have gone to war in Iraq if the SNP and Plaid had had a decisive say in the past. We could avoid the wasteful expense of renewing Trident, or introducing ID cards, if they have a decisive say in the future. A minority Labour government dependent on SNP and Plaid support could turn out to be more radical than a majority Labour government ever dared to be."

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US bank Goldman Sachs has announced its profit for the first quarter of 2010 has nearly doubled. The news of what has been called "spectacular figures" followed claims by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday that the bank had defrauded investors during the sub-prime housing crisis. Here is how a selection of US media has reacted to both announcements.

the "Goldman schadenfreude that began erupting with news of the SEC's fraud suit Friday has become as large a force, in its own way, as the volcanic ash over Europe" and that he himself is not immune to it:

"I can't wait to open the papers or troll online to see what fresh shoe has dropped. Gordon Brown says Goldman seems 'morally bankrupt'? More fraud charges on Wall Street look imminent? Some days it's just good to be alive!"

the public anger the profit could incite. She told Good Morning America that Goldman Sachs' reputation was at stake.

"What makes people mad in the first place is Goldman makes so much money. Could it get more outrageous?"

also comments on the growing momentum to "do something real to take on the big banks on Wall Street". He says that people are taking to the streets.

"We have to keep the pressure on these bank behemoths in many different ways. The SEC action against Goldman Sachs is very encouraging, but we have to keep pushing both the SEC and the Department of Justice to be very aggressive in taking on what prosecutors call control fraud: fraud that emanates from the top executives who control these companies."

. Listening in to Goldman Sach's quarterly earnings call, Mr Fernholz noticed an analyst complaining that Goldman wasn't making enough money.

"It's just a little taste of the kind of pressure Wall Street firms are under to turn high profits and the pernicious incentives such a system creates."

that the bank is under such pressure it has reached into the ranks of the Obama White House alumni "for some political protection".

"Former White House counsel Greg Craig has been hired to advise the Wall Street giant after it was charged by the government last Friday with fraud and misleading its own investors."

She says that while federal ethics rules prohibit lobbying, Mr Craig may be in the clear as long he does not contact the White House.

what they call the unlikely ally Goldman Sachs has hired to launch "an aggressive response to its political and legal challenges".

"Whatever the reason for his hiring, Craig will presumably be a key player in the intricate counterattack Goldman Sachs officials in Washington and Manhattan improvised during the weekend - a plan that took clearer shape Monday as Britain and Germany announced that they might conduct their own investigations of the firm."

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Commentators grapple with the significance of the Liberal Democrat poll ratings.

The the change in the political landscape:

"People who think of themselves as anti-politics are now expressing a keen interest in what are very much political issues. Britain is experiencing both the thrill and unease that comes from near-total uncertainty about how the country will be governed - not only this year but also perhaps, if the Liberal Democrats were to achieve their objective of changing the voting system, for many years to come."

[subscription required] that Mr Clegg has snatched Mr Cameron's winning card:

"A surge in support for Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats has challenged the fundamental assumption of Mr Cameron's election strategy: that the Tory offer of change would trump Gordon Brown's prescription of more of the same. 'Change' still looks a winning card. But Mr Clegg may wrest it from Mr Cameron's grasp."

that possible reasons for Nick Clegg's popularity:

"After Thursday night's TV debate, polls show that the Liberal Democrats' leader is almost as popular as Churchill; others describe him as the British Obama. Not bad for an hour and a half's work. Ever since, politicians and commentators have struggled to account for Clegg's transformation. It was the way he looked directly into the camera, we are told. The informality with which he used audience members' forenames. Or a straightforward revulsion with the old politics and its shopsoiled politicians.
"Well, maybe. But there is another explanation for Cleggmania. This one doesn't try to turn a run-of-the-mill politician into Cicero in a yellow tie. And it comes not from Westminster but from economics."

The that the "surge" is good for democracy:

"Success often breeds success in politics. The once potent accusation that a vote for the Liberal Democrats was a waste looks ever more ridiculous as successive polls show them making progress. And the more coverage the party gets in the national media, the more people take them seriously...

"The essence of democracy is uncertainty about who the people will choose to govern. Certainty is the friend of the well-connected and the vested interest. We certainly have a great deal of uncertainty now. Thanks to the Liberal Democrats and Mr Clegg, this election has come truly alive."

As the Liberal Democrats attract more attention, they are also attracting more criticism, including from Nick Clegg is undeservedly taking the moral high ground on MPs expenses:

"Clegg omitted to mention the Lib-Dems' own rogues' gallery of MPs: Richard Younger-Ross, John Barrett, Sandra Gidley and Paul Holmes. The modern day Gang of Four were ordered to apologise and repay £16,500 in the expenses saga... Perhaps the next time he tries to paint himself as whiter than white, Clegg should be more transparent about his own side's shortcomings."

in his blog Political Betting that the Lib Dems "surge" in the polls may not be soley to do with the TV debates:

"It is almost becoming a short-hand to describe this election. The two party fight became a three-sided contest at 10pm on Thursday April 15th when the first polling reaction to the first leaders' debate had Nick Clegg winning by a mile.
No doubt this is how the dramatic Election of 2010 will go down in political history - but is it actually true? Didn't the move to the yellow team start much earlier?
For a week before the debate, on Thursday April 8, ICM finalised the fieldwork of a poll of key Labour-Conservative marginals for the News of the World. The result was quite startling and was reported on the Saturday evening here under the headline 'LDs blunt Tory progress in the LAB-CON marginals'."

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Commentators react to the Liberal Democrats' increased popularity in the polls.

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the leap in the polls the most important political moment since the early days of New Labour:

"The Lib Dem surge owes much to Nick Clegg's performance on Thursday. That's clear. But it would not have happened if the British electorate was not already prepared, maybe only half consciously, for a larger change than the two main parties offer. The desire for change may not be all that coherent, and we need to be careful not to exaggerate the size of the part of the electorate that is up for it. But this is a mood looking for someone to speak for it. For the moment, it has found that in Clegg and the Lib Dems."

if Nick Clegg has become more popular because he is taller:

"There's an old adage about US presidential elections which has been magnified since TV debates started in 1960 - the tallest contender generally ends up winning the election.
"I wonder whether the effect could be happening here. Did Clegg's stature give him an edge last Thursday night and might that be a good pointer to May 6th?"

what can be learned:

"Labour and the Conservatives will be trying to borrow some of Nick Clegg's best debate lines from him (the PM on Marr this morning was talking about being "shocked at the moral bankruptcy" of Goldman Sachs ... whilst adding "I'm the man" to sort it out) whilst rubbishing his policies.
"This election could turn out to be as convulsive and fluid as 1924 or 1929, when all three main political tectonic plates were moving at the same time."

at the Conservative party for allowing the Liberal Democrats to have equal billing at the TV debate:

"It's a political miscalculation so monumental that it's even being compared to Neil Kinnock bellowing 'we're all right', days before he lost the 1992 general election.
So who on earth was to blame for allowing David Cameron to share a TV platform alongside Nick Clegg, thereby allowing the LibDem leader to portray himself as a serious contender for Downing Street, rather than a risible also-ran?
"Among the Tory ranks, the inquest has already identified two guilty figures."

at how David Cameron's Tories might try to "stem the Lib Dem tide":

"[T]hey need to establish Cameron as the insurgent, anti-establishment candidate. It might seem odd to urge the leader of the Conservative party to be the anti-establishment candidate, but the establishment in this country is now essentially soft-left. Just look at how senior police chiefs are threatening to resign over Cameron's plans for elected police commissioners who would be accountable to the public and set the priorities of the local force (another transformative Tory policy that Cameron didn't mention during the debate). Cameron needs to run against these people. He should be the tribune of the people pledging to return power to them from the unaccountable and the unelectable."

that the Liberal Democrats "seem to be able to get away with anything":

"During Thursday's debate, Nick Clegg announced that in the Ministry of Defence, there were 8,000 bureaucrats working on communications. As I listened, I thought: 'Eh? That can't be right. We know this Government is disappearing up its own spin, but this is ridiculous.' It was. The true figure is 178: still too high, but not lunatic. Mr Clegg was guilty of a 40-fold exaggeration, but that was not his worst offence. The 8,000 figure was utterly implausible. Anyone who could give it credence must have a wholly deficient sense of reality."

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for the image of sunshine over a wheatfield on the big screen behind Gordon Brown at a press conference:

"If I'm kind, I would say that it looked like a shampoo commercial; others might judge that it seemed more like an advert for Dignitas."

that Mr Brown is a man of many smiles:

"Brown sat next to his wife. He smiled at her. It was a quite normal smile. Clearly he has one for family, and another for best - the one that resembles a vampire who has just seen dawn breaking."

At the Tories' manifesto launch, by the hairstyles:

"There was a lot of public-school hair on display - young men who needed a trip to the barber - and toothpastey optimism. Pretty youths mingled alongside Shadow Cabinet members. Sir George Young, Bart., looked a bit baffled, his few strands of hair untidy like a pineapple's top-knot."

that David Cameron's manifesto "invitation" to the electorate is evidence that times have changed:

"In the old days, an invitation might consist of a stiff card bearing the words 'At Home', but nowadays it is the done thing to send out a hardback book of 118 pages."

But that the occasion itself lived up to much:

"[T]here is something about the Tories. They just don't do excitement. The audience - media on one side, party members on the other - were up for inspiration. What they got was the shadow cabinet."

by the Lib Dems' choice of venue for their manifesto launch:

"If I were to be kind, I would say this event was at the cutting edge of austerity chic and that it had a sort of Quaker-like simplicity. But actually it was just flat. No razzmatazz, no music, no sense of excitement, just a few MPs sitting at the front of the aquarium, looking doleful, with bubbles coming out of their mouths."

there is a danger of Vince Cable's role being confused:

"He is playing the role of wife to Nick Clegg, since he is his constant companion, and like Sam and Sarah more popular than the chap they're with."

As Messrs Brown, Cameron and Clegg took to the floor for the first prime ministerial TV debate, by the whole experience:

"Each man had been stuffed full of telling lines and was bursting to deliver as many as possible of them in the allotted time. Just to watch them straining every sinew to do each other down was getting a bit fatiguing. There is a reason why Prime Minister's Questions lasts only half an hour, and boxing matches do not go on for ever."

the actual event, if not those taking part:

"Maybe Gordon Brown was a bit of a copy-cat, repeatedly grunting 'absolutely'. Maybe David Cameron's face was a bit too John West salmon a colour. Maybe that Clegg man gassed on too much, wiggling his head as though he was a breakdancer.
"But the whole thing was zestier than US presidential debates. Better TV."

how, towards the end of the debate, spin doctors were let loose on the journalists who were present in Manchester:

"There was a slight sense of sulphur in the air in the Manchester media room; surely the Iceland volcano couldn't have got here so quickly? No, it was Peter Mandelson gliding into the hall."

Choice descriptions from newspapers' reviews of Thursday's prime-ministerial debate.

I'm the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what you need to know.

The all three main parties claim their man "won" the first TV election prime-ministerial debate.

Amid acres of coverage and analysis, there's wide agreement that Nick Clegg improved his position including from the and the .

The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s Rory Cellan-Jones tracked Twitter and other electronic monitors. 36,483 people tweeted.

The that Ofcom has announced some deregulation of commercial radio, allowing stations to co-locate and cut local programming. But the radio industry say it doesn't go far enough.

The science writer the cost of winning his lengthy libel battle.

Most papers think Nick Clegg won the election debate and devote pages to the grounding of all planes by volcano ash .

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Rory Cellan-Jones | ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ | Debate Part 1: How it unfolded online

• Read Thursday's Media Brief

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Commentators make their judgements about the .

people will say that Nick Clegg performed best:

"It's over. I think people will be inclined to say that Nick Clegg won this. He has raised his game. He has, in the past, looked like a man who has lost interest in his own answers.
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"Not tonight. The Tories wanted to use this debate to frame the argument between them and Labour... but Nick Clegg has not been sidelined, has not allowed himself to be love-smothered by Mr Brown and has done himself only good in this debate."

that the biggest effect could be that voters seemed to be engaged:

"Voters were watching peak-time politics, a novelty in itself. But they witnessed no great game-changer from the leaders. Instead their fleeting engagement with politics will go down in history as something of a game-changer in itself."

the significance of the debates:

"As had been widely feared in advance, the 76 restrictions agreed between the parties, relating to answer-lengths and other procedural issues, largely removed the possibility of spontaneity or conflict, especially when added to the already-labyrinthine regulations imposed on television during elections.
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"When moderator Alastair Stewart was not shouting the name of the desired next speaker over the last part of the answer from the previous one ('Mr Cameron, Mr Cameron, Mr Cameron, please Mr Clegg!'), he was emphasising that the next section didn't really apply in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, who would get their own debates next week.
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"As a result of this structural fussiness, television history was made, but no political reputation was unmade. There were no gaffes, game-changes or flop-sweats."

The that no-one said where the money will come from:

"The most surreal moment came about 20 minutes in, when each of the protagonists took turns to accuse the others of failing to come clean about their spending plans. For once, all of them were right.
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"None of the political parties - including the Lib Dems, an under-appreciated fact - have published full details of their tax and spending plans. Between them there are still between £30bn and £50bn of unexplained tax rises or spending cuts that, at minimum, are necessary over the next three years."

that the debates were historic because they signify a shift in power:

"The staging of the debates tells us something that runs completely contrary to conventional wisdom. It tells us that power has moved by one large new increment from the rulers to the ruled, a process that has been going on this country - and other democracies - for decades. The debates are a further triumph of the people over the politicians; something that the politicians sort of know but that the people refuse to see."

Conservative political blogger that he was bored:

"Well, it wasn't that exciting. In fact at times it was damned tedious. There was no huge gaffe, no devastating oneliners. No real funnies. Brown kept trying to agree with Nick Clegg to forge an alliance against David Cameron. By the end it was laughable."

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I'm the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what you need to know.

The three main party leaders are preparing for the UK's first prime ministerial TV debate this evening as the and the .

Science writer Simon Singh has won his libel battle with the British Chiropractic Association, which has dropped the case after losing a recent appeal. The it sparked an intense debate about the role of libel actions, particularly in areas of scientific controversy.

The US Library of Congress is to acquire the entire Twitter archive .

that the Catholic church's media strategy is failing.

The prime ministerial debates dominate the papers as .

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Commentators make their judgements about the .

The the Lib Dems are decent people keeping other parties honest but their policies are lacking:

"The Liberal Democrats are proposing to take everyone earning below £10,000 out of income tax altogether, which is a potentially excellent idea.
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But they claim to be able to fund it with a hopelessly optimistic plan to recoup £4.6billion on tax avoidance."

Channel 4 News' economics correspondent for their fiscal policy:

"If the election was a prize rewarded for fiscal candour, the Lib Dems might actually win. That much is evident from the four-page annexe at the back of their manifesto showing multi-year costings for all their manifesto commitments."

The there is no reason to fear the prospect of a hung parliament:

"It could be observed that a third party has the luxury of spelling out unpopular policies, confident that it will not be called upon to implement them. But this would be unfair for two reasons. The first is that the Liberal Democrats offer some realistic and imaginative solutions that might yet find their way into the plans of one or other major party. Policy-poaching has precedents, as the Conservatives' George Osborne knows to his cost. The other relates to the level playing-field created by the debates - if not, sadly, by the electoral system - and the profound disillusionment with mainstream politics that can be detected among the voters at large."

of Nick Clegg who he called smooth, good-looking and persuasive but warns that he, too, is a politician:

"The under-scrutinised Mr Clegg is tapping into our collective distaste for politics in all its forms by selling himself as the anti-candidate. Just as Jimmy Carter aligned himself against Washington to win election after Watergate, so Mr Clegg sides with us to pelt the two main parties. Listen to him at his manifesto launch yesterday, or any day for that matter, and his refrain of "a plague on both your houses" and references to 'the old parties' will chime with the discontent we all feel."

that he thinks the Lib Dems remain implausible "in their own sweet way":

"Their manifesto envisages major changes, including proportional representation and a written constitution, which, if implemented, would fundamentally reform our political system. But who believes they have the power to implement them?"

Conservative political blogger for being the only main party to mention the economy but goes on to pick holes in their policies:

"[W]hen you dig beneath the surface you find the normal idiotic LibDem policies, which put saner people off voting for them. For instance, they want to put VAT on new houses, adding £11,000 to the cost of an average house for a first time buyer. And later on you find that they rule out military action against Iran 'in all circumstances'. Totally irresponsible."

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I'm the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what you need to know.

The Conservatives' manifesto promises to allow the National Audit Office "full access" to the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s accounts the . It echoes Labour's pledge to reform the libel laws and also plans to curb the "commercialisation of children" through marketing and advertising.

Twitter is allowing branded messages - called "promoted tweets" - to appear for the first time according to the and the .

Who will succeed Mark Damazer as controller of Radio 4? The some runners and riders.

The what impact social media will have on the TV election leadership debates.

David Cameron's launch of the Conservative Party election manifesto fills many pages as reflected in the .

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Commentators make their judgements about the .

the manifesto a fallacy and accuses David Cameron of being careless:

"There is a carelessness about the past in Cameron that is curious for a Conservative. He did it again towards the end of the long morning's show. 'The politicians have been treating the public like mugs for about 40 years,' he said. At least it was a change from his usual 'taking the public for fools', but he inadvertently trampled on Mrs Thatcher's period."

the Conservative manifesto by its cover, which he thinks is "strikingly workmanlike" and leads to something "genuinely new and radical":

"It is entitled Invitation to Join the Government of Britain - and however daunting that might sound to a nation that has become used to nannyish molly-coddling it is an opportunity to halt and reverse the expansion of the state."

"The Tory Launch was all about a sense of new possibilities... Personally, I like the sound of a lot of things in Cameron's idea. I write this not as a sympathiser but as someone with an open mind about it. Yet looking at the day's events again on the news bulletins last night, what struck me most about the Tory launch was that it all looked a bit disconnected from real life. It was a bit too clever - and thus ultimately, and paradoxically, foolish - to hold the launch in a power station that doesn't generate anything, to call the manifesto an 'Invitation to Join the Government of Britain' and then to centre it on a 'big society' idea that is hard to work out in practice for many people."

the manifesto outlines an original vision for Britain but worries that it may be hiding post-election pessimism:

"[T]here are no new numbers in this manifesto and what we see is a Conservative party in an election fiscal holding pattern. And to be clear, the Labour manifesto too omitted the most important facts about how your life is to be affected by political decisions made by the people you will elect in three weeks time."

that the Tory plan for the third sector to replace the welfare state and marriage tax breaks are both bad for single mothers:

"When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major's Government, was there to break the fall...Child poverty remains a shameful problem in this country, but it will never be solved by throwing millions of pounds of tax breaks at couples who have no children at all. David Cameron tells us that the Conservatives have changed, that they are no longer the 'nasty party', that he wants the UK to be 'one of the most family-friendly nations in Europe', but I, for one, am not buying it. He has repackaged a policy that made desperate lives worse when his party was last in power, and is trying to sell it as something new. I've never voted Tory before ... and they keep on reminding me why."

Political blogger in his blog Skipper that the Tories' manifesto breaks new ground:

"The Conservartive manifesto is surprising and impressive in its ambition. The product of what we learn is years of gestation, this weighty 130 page document invites each voter to 'join in' the government of the country' and take back control from the state."

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The tabloid the National Enquirer missed out on their first ever Pulitzer Prize after controversially being nominated for their investigation into a presidential candidate's affair. Commentators react to the .

the Pulitzer body choosing local news instead of the National Enquirer:

"The madness is at an end. No longer will the American commentariat need to contemplate the possibility that the National Enquirer would win a Pulitzer Prize for revealing an extra-marital affair carried out by John Edwards. Edwards, a one-term senator who inertiaed his way into a vice presidential nomination in 2004 and then worked in 2007-08 as one of the numerous men standing on stage between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, was hardly a newsworthy character, yet the Enquirer saw fit to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars stalking him and his mistress. Of course, this is the same tabloid that ignored the Jonestown story when they had it, so it goes to show how good their news judgment ever was.
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So, lest we get lost on what the Pulitzer Committee didn't pick, it's important to look at what they did select: a whole lot of local news."

The Enquirer's executive editor, magazine the results show double standards:

"The heavy lifting that we did on the John Edwards story was more than anything the Times did on [Eliot] Spitzer and they won the prize. In the back of my mind, it's clear to me that if this reporting had been done by the New York Times, or the Washington Post or a big paper like the LA Times, it's almost certain they would have won the prize. The fact that they couldn't give the prize to the National Enquirer? That's their problem not ours."

the significance of the nonprofit ProPublica website being nominated for the investigative journalism award, the same award the National Enquirer was nominated for but ProPublica went on to win:

"Increasingly, the news business needs confirmation that important models of whatever is to become this century's "new journalism"-including models that involve online-based reporting and investigative collaborations-are legitimate, Pulitzer-quality approaches. The Pulitzer Prizes have offered guidance to the profession before. The media, and those who consume it, will be watching today for signals that the Pulitzers are ready to set the tone once again."

In reaction about other Pulitzer winners, the winner of the commentary award anti-feminist:

"Kathleen Parker, who thinks young women hooking up on college campuses are creating a 'mental health crisis' and that women in the military should expect to be raped (because 'men resent women because they've been forced to pretend that women are equals') has won a Pulitzer prize for commentary. I think I need a drink."

The the Pulitzer awards going to the Washington Post show they are back on track:

"For Washington to function properly, we need a functioning, competitive top-flight newspaper. The Washington Times is not that newspaper, and POLITICO plays an entirely different role - it sets metabolic speed and gives us the carbs. The Post ought to provide us with nourishment - the protein."

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I'm the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what you need to know.

The controller of Radio 4, Mark Damazer, is to leave the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ to become head of St Peter's College, Oxford. He will take up the post in October, after six years running Radio 4 the . During his time, the audience has risen to 10 million a week and in 2008 it was named UK Station of the Year in the Sony Radio Awards.

Gordon Brown has joined the calls to save 6Music. The that he told the Radio Times the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ "should not have succumbed to pressure" to axe some of its output. He said: "I don't think politicians should make that decision about what the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳
produces." The Conservative arts spokesman Ed Vaizey has already said the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ should save the station.

³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Worldwide has confirmed that it is to seek a partner for its magazine business, which includes Radio Times and Top Gear magazine . Talks with other publishers will begin shortly but ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Trust approval would be needed for any deal.

The that the Labour election manifesto promises to bring in libel law reforms to encourage freedom of speech.

The first regeneration of Doctor Who was modelled on a bad LSD trip, according to a 1966 memo from the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Archive, now published online. A audience research reports show an attempt to inject humour did not go down well with viewers.

The day's papers are dominated by reaction to the launch of Labour's election manifesto as .

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Commentators make their judgements of the .

that the document is meaningless:

"The manifesto is like one of those quadratic equations GCSE pupils are forced to learn at school, an empty space whose contents you must deduce from other factors. In this case, those two factors are Labour's claim to a pure moral purpose, multiplied by the party's strongly held belief that the Conservatives are inherently nasty. The result of these simplistic calculations is a they-are-bad-so-we-must-be good manifesto."

that the manifesto lacks any detail on spending cuts or increasing tax:

"It may be fashionable for politicians to talk tough about public spending and fiscal discipline, but unfortunately there is little chance of them moving beyond soundbites, and debating ahead of the election the hard choices that will have to be made once it's all over."

the idea of guaranteed jobs for young people:

"There is a sensible, left wing idea here, building on what has already worked well. This is the idea that at times when unemployment is rising, the government should make funding available to create new jobs. Offering every unemployed person the opportunity of a job, which helps to build their skills, do something useful, and increase their confidence, is a valuable investment which is better than just paying benefits and sending people on training courses."

The the manifesto "mired in the past":

"But most depressing of all is the manifesto's failure to offer any dynamic vision for the future, or explain how today's great social problems will be solved.
Just what is Labour going to do about the endless stream of immigration that, as the Mail graphically revealed on Saturday, is beginning to destroy cities such as Peterborough? What are they going to do about the growing imbalance between the state and private sectors, and the millions of Britons being subsidised to stay at home while foreigners fill the jobs they do not want?"

that the hospital setting sent a positive message:

"Brown today was relaxed, the jokes were natural and he accepted pointed questions were legitimate. Even the cartoons are good... The message was clear - public services will be safer under a Labour Government committed to renewal. Since the Tories are jumping up and down about Brown, I'll remind them of another politician who used the existing Queen Elizabeth Hospital for campaigning last week. The name of the political rotter? David Cameron."

launching the manifesto at a brand-new privately-financed hospital was appropriate, but maybe not in the way Gordon Brown intented:

"There will be thirty theatres, the largest critical care unit in Europe, and a helipad for the war-wounded. A monument to New Labour, possibly opened in a new Conservative era.But it's also the second largest PFI hospital.
That means a hospital that is worth £627m will cost a stream of payments starting at £47m this financial year, going up in cash terms every year for 35 years stretching all the way to the last payment of £108.8m in 2044/45."

that the Labour manifesto must have been written by Ed Miliband, and speculates about his future as the Labour leader:

"Will it, in the end, help propel Ed Miliband towards the Labour leadership? There are still doubts over whether or not he really wants it, and certainly he's unlikely ever to stand against his older brother David. But what Ed Miliband has shown today is that he is capable of telling a Labour story that all wings of the party can support. And it's that ability - to unite Labour's warring factions - that might, just might, bring Ed Miliband the ultimate prize."

By contrast, the the manifesto Blairite:

"New Labour became hooked on higher taxes and higher spending, as all Labour governments do, and is finding the process of withdrawal impossible to cope with. There was no alternative philosophy of government produced yesterday - there was no vision. Instead, there was a programme whose sole, uninspiring motivation is to try to cling on to office. We suspect even die-hard party activists will struggle to find anything to put a spring in their steps."

the manifesto is not Blairite, instead calling it bold and persuasive:

"Voters may not follow the details, but they can smell a rat. Labour's manifesto is a good reminder of the real choice, that same old choice as ever - Tory tax cuts or protecting public spending. Labour is fired up with a new anger at what Cameron would do."

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I'm the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what you need to know.

, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ will save the digital radio station ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳6Music by rebranding it Radio 2 Extra, after protests from listeners and the music industry. The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ says it is "speculation".

The Alex Salmond believes Sky will give better coverage to the Scottish leaders' TV debates than the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳, by broadcasting them across the UK.

he can't wait to leave the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and the Sachsgate row was "quite fun".

Roger Alton has resigned as editor of the Independent so the new owner, Alexander Lebedev, can appoint his own editor. The Simon Kelner will be acting editor for the moment.

The British edition of Reader's Digest has been saved from closure by a management buyout the . The £13 million deal has been backed by a private equity firm, Better Capital.

The contents of Labour's election manifesto are scattered across most of Monday's front pages as .

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• Read Friday's Media Brief

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Commentators prepare themselves for a week of manifestos (starting off with Labour's).

that he is hoping the manifestos this week will promise less, to stop a "legislative sausage factory":

"Politicians and journalists have become unhealthily accustomed to
executive hyperactivity, mistaking a strategic grasp of the future for
a carrier bag crammed with dotty plans. We want novelty, but ignore
the consequences of imposing it on the public sector, business and
individual citizens. Tories like to blame Labour (and especially Tony
Blair) for the culture of the quick fix and crackdown, but governments
have been at it for years. Plans are announced, laws are passed and
few people ever go back to ask what they achieved. Large parts of many
bills are never actually implemented by the department that created
them (the home office is a particular offender in this). Yet
politicians keep promising more."

that he has sat in the House of Lords for the last 20 years and seen a lot of change. While all three main parties promise more reform, he says they don't go far enough:

"It will, however, require greater changes in the constitution of the United Kingdom than the parties have yet recognised, changes in the relationship between the two Houses of Parliament, between Westminster and the devolved parliaments and between England and the smaller nations of the UK. Yet I believe that a democratic reform of the House of Lords is no longer postponable, though the next prime minister will have other urgent matters on his agenda...The elected House of Lords might desire to avoid duplicating all the other UK systems of election. The reform of the House of Lords - which I support - is one of those issues in which, unless one can solve everything, one may not be able to solve anything. There is much work to be done."

The immigration to be on the main parties' agendas:

"But isn't it also a deeply worrying sign of voters' despair over finding a voice in the political mainstream for their legitimate concerns over mass, unrestricted immigration? Indeed, by seeking to close down debate on this highly sensitive issue, hasn't the political establishment played into the BNP's hands?"

voters that manifesto promises won't necessarily be followed through:

"The manifestos will offer us little guidance about how their authors would behave in power when it comes to the really big issues. None of them will be honest about exactly where they are going to cut public spending. All will persist with the ridiculous fiction that the deficit can be entirely dealt with by "efficiency savings" which will miraculously not impact on a single frontline service."

Political thriller writer and Former Tory advisor that he thinks manifestos are not significant in election campaigns:

"There will be very little that we will not be aware of.... You end up with fairly obscure debates about the meaning of words rather than getting a clear idea of what a party stands for."

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The last Prime Minister's Questions before the election and the launch of the campaign has given Fleet Street's sketch-writers plenty of opportunities for less-than-respectful descriptions of those involved. Here is a selection.

At one Labour press conference, Lord Mandelson's approach with Alistair Darling's:

"Peter was at his most cartoon baddie-ish, slicing the ears off Labour opponents while rotating his spectacles in the air."

"Alistair Darling gave the sort of smile we used to see from Sergeant Wilson in Dad's Army when hoping to show the men some tepid encouragement."

At the Tories' campaign launch, of David Cameron's image:

"And there he was with his fragrant wife and a Bryan Ferry flick of hair on his noble brow."

Mr Carr likewise doesn't hold back in his description of the Conservative Party's supporters who were with Mr Cameron on London's South Bank:

"Girls in pumps. Young men with gel in their hair (was it gel? They are Tories, remember). They came streaming out of County Hall and surrounded an empty platform. They arranged their faces. They limbered up. They were the doughnut waiting for their hole to be filled."

for the events organised by the Conservatives and by the Liberal Democrats:

"Dave launched early, as he couldn't wait for Gordo to get back from the Palace. The Queen will not be amused. Still, Nick Clegg had launched even earlier, talking to some shadowy people in what appeared to be his bedroom."

an awkward moment in Nick Clegg's launch speech:

"Mr Clegg spoke of 'the real choice' in this election, but then paused, leading some of us to worry that he had forgotten what the real choice is, or else fears that it lies between Mr Brown and Mr Cameron."

At the last PMQs of this Parliament, the questions posed by Labour MPs were more dutiful than usual:

"Almost every Labour MP who spoke had been prompted to ask a question that went something like this: 'Is it true, oh wonderful master, that you have created a land of milk and honey?'

"Mr Brown, preening, would turn around and admit that, yes, actually it was true."

the mood of the government backbenchers as less than cheerful:

"Labour MPs seemed downbeat, even morose. Like airline passengers whose firm is saving costs, they are terrified of having to turn right at the door instead of left - to the back of the plane or the dreaded opposition benches. The shame, the humiliation, after 13 years!"

He contrasts this with those on the other side of the chamber, whose enthusiasm he describes as repetitive:

"Tories shouted 'bye-bye'. They liked the sound of that, so they shouted it again. Then they yelled 'bye-bye' at any Labour member with a marginal seat. They ended up sounding like an umpire standing near a short-sighted wicketkeeper."

Despite this difference between the two main parties, Mr Hoggart says they do share some characteristics:

"Both parties resemble shipwrecked sailors, adrift in an open boat, arguing about which cabin boy to eat first."

Mr Hoggart says the brighter mood of Tory MPs was shared further along the opposition benches among the Liberal Democrats:

"Nick Clegg rose to an unfamiliar sound: loud cheers behind him."

of MPs' behaviour on all sides of the House:

"It sets the standard, doesn't it? It establishes the tone. Somewhat below Corinthian, somewhat above the noise that pot-bellied pigs make when trying to get other pot-bellied pigs into the rutting position."

At one Labour party event by Alistair Darling's appearance:

"Alistair Darling was there at his side, glowing weirdly. The man now has fibre optic hair. It is of a colour only dogs can see."

He also renames the Tories' national service proposals:

"He [Michael Caine] was helping the Tories - in a completely non-political way, it was made clear - to let a little sunshine in on their idea for a National Citizens Service, aka Canoeing in the Community."

I'm the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 3 is to broadcast a weekly chart of classical music for the first time. On Tuesday mornings, on its breakfast programme, it will be discussing which albums are up or down in the Official Specialist Classical Chart - the "100 % classical chart".

The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Trust is launching a value-for-money probe into EastEnders, Casualty and other continuing TV dramas .

The that there has been a stream of industry responses to the passing of the Digital Economy Bill as it awaits royal assent.

The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s Rory Cellan-Jones explains which clauses in the Bill survived the horse-trading.

Facebook has been signed up by the Electoral Commission to get unregistered voters to the polling booths .

The fate of the public sector dominates many of the front pages as reflected .

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³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 3


Rory Cellan-Jones | ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ | #debill v #ge2010

•R±ð²¹»å Thursday's Media Brief

• Read

Commentators consider the merits of David Cameron's plan for voluntary "national citizen service" for all 16-year-olds.

The the shift in policy from compulsory to voluntary is telling and suggests that this could exclude people on lower incomes but could also provide a much-needed celebration of coming-of-age:

"It will be difficult to sell the idea to all teenagers but there is much in Mr Cameron's proposals to like. British youth is, indeed, woefully short on unifying rites of passage, and one can only approve of the tradition that the Conservative Party hopes to create."

that war veterans will be shouting "call that national service?":

"Will Cameron's conscripts find that for two whole years they'll be cropped right out of society? Will they find themselves condemned to spend hour upon miserable hour cleaning and buffing and polishing, only for some lip-curling corporal to throw their work to the floor the following morning? Will they drill on a barrack square, red-faced and sweating, to the mocking sound of the dawn chorus? Will they plough down muddy tracks under a back-breaking pack and a volley of non-commissioned abuse? Apparently not. They won't even be conscripts. This national service, at least at the start, will be voluntary. For young men - young women were spared - our national service was voluntary only in the sense of the famous army sergeant command: I want three volunteers - you, you and you. Those who refused real national service could - unless they could show irrefutable proof of a deep religious affiliation - find themselves sent to jail."

a visionary idea in an otherwise dreary election:

"Can it work in practice? Yes. We've been involved in the pilots. We know just how much you can get out of young people if you present them with a challenge and what they can go on and achieve. Yes, it could be bigger and broader and detail needs to be worked out. But as a starter for ten and something that's been piloted and Cameron's put his money where his mouth is - yes, it's a great idea."

"It was heartening to see the Conservatives grasp the nettle of national service by championing the concept of a shared, structured experience for all 16-year-olds. "But I would urge them (and indeed all the parties) to be even bolder in their ambitions for young people. I wonder if they have underestimated the potential for them to create social change in communities. If we are really to create the 'culture of service' that David Cameron talked about today, what we need is a cultural shift. This means providing a critical mass of meaningful opportunities to serve that start at a young age and continue throughout someone's life."

the Conservatives could have chosen a younger celebrity than Michael Caine to help launch the campaign:

"Playing the celeb game has never been easy for the Conservatives. It just isn't cool to be a Tory, so they tended to get rather comfortable middle-class older figures, more sit-coms rather than rom-coms. Likewise the musical backers tended to be far more middle of the road, although the backing of cutting edge arts and musical types is a double-edged sword as Tony Blair swiftly found out."

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I'm the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

Two ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ radio stations facing closure, 6Music and the Asian Network, have received nine nominations in the . LBC's Nick Ferrari has five nominations, 5Live's Victoria Derbyshire three .

The Digital Economy Bill was rushed through the Commons last night, losing the "orphan works" clause - and the ITV local news proposals - on the way. Powers to block some internet sites have been watered down the and the .

Government plans to revise the "crown jewels" list of sports events for free-to-air television have been shelved till after the election .

The row about National Insurance is the main story for many of the papers as .

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• Read Wednesday's Media Brief

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While Labour want to keep a rise in National Insurance planned for April 2011, claiming it is necessary to help repair the hole in the public finances, the Conservatives propopse scrapping what they see as a "tax on jobs". Commentators consider the debate.

The chief executive of the retailer Next that he supports George Osborne's policy as he believes government savings are possible:

"Have we been brainwashed into believing that savings are possible? Of course not. Everyone knows there are huge opportunities to save money in the public sector. Not least because so much of the waste has been created by Whitehall requirements, rules and restrictions. The appalling public sector productivity figures say it all. In a period during which the private sector has increased productivity by 20 per cent, the public sector has moved backwards. There is something fundamentally wrong with the way that government does business: a one-size-fits-all set of rules is not going to solve the problem."

yesterday's divide between Labour and the Conservatives Gene Hunt Day:

"Clearly the Conservatives are revelling in the willingness of another 30 business leaders to condemn the putative 2011 NICs increase as a tax on jobs. This serves two purposes for the Tories: first by framing the contest as a Tory tax cutting versus Labour higher spending clash and, second, by casting Labour as unfriendly to business.
Ìý
"Labour is manifestly on the back foot over these attacks. They were destructive arguments for Labour chances in pre-financial crisis times. But they seem rather retro now. Gordon Brown doesn't appear unduly fussed; it's as if he thinks this rather old-fashioned 1980s divide between the two parties will eventually play Labour's way in these very different times."

Tory frontbencher Jeremy Hunt's claim that a rise in National Insurance will "cost hundreds of thousands of jobs":

"Firstly, an independent estimate from the Centre for Economics and Business Research. Last year they modelled the effect of a 1 per cent employers' national insurance rise on small and medium-sized businesses, which make up 58 per cent of the private sector workforce. This found that - by 2021 - there would be 57,000 fewer jobs...
Ìý
"The Labour party, meanwhile, points out that national insurance was increased in 2002 to pay for increased NHS spending - and employment continued to rise."

the Liberal Democrats are the only ones talking about specific ways of cutting spending:

"The Liberal Democrats deserve more credit. They can afford to talk about cutting big-ticket items like Trident and have a more immediate £15bn hitlist. Vince Cable says he doesn't need his free bus pass until he's 65 and others over 60 should wait too."

the Conservatives "seem so scared" of proposing fiscal reform:

"Is it the markets, which are watching their every move eagerly; could it be the public sector workers who will create a fuss the minute their jobs come under threat; or perhaps they fear that, when push comes to shove, Britons are simply not ready for change? No doubt Cameron and George Osborne are sincere in their promise that ultimately they will cut the Government down to size. Until now, though, their proposals have stopped short of their rhetoric."

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I'm the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

The Digital Economy Bill was rushed through its second reading in the House of Commons last night, ahead of the election - despite attempts to block controversial measures to curb illegal downloading, the . The Commons Leader Harriet Harman said these would face further scrutiny before becoming law.

The Conservatives said they would remove "flawed" elements of the Bill if they came to power .

Government plans for a 50p a month phone tax to pay for the spread of broadband have been dropped, in the "washup" negotiations ahead of the election. So have plans to reform lawyers' libel charges, after a revolt by Labour MPs and the .

MPs on the Public Accounts Committee say the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ is not "properly held to account" for the way it spends billions of pounds of public money. The and the that ministers say confidentiality agreements between the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and top stars are "putting public money beyond the scrutiny of... Parliament." The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Trust said it took its duty "to ensure value for money for licence fee-payers very seriously".

AOL is selling the Bebo social networking site just two years after buying it . It could be shut down. It's much less popular in the US than in the UK, where it is second only to Facebook.

The first day of election campaigning dominates the papers as .

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• Read Tuesday's Media Brief

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Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called the UK general election for 6 May. Commentators around the world ponder what the campaign holds in store and assess its main contenders.

that the election promises to be one of the most competitive and consequential in modern British history.

"For many in recent months, as the election issues have sharpened, there has been a 'back to the future' feel about the contest.
Ìý
"Among these issues is the shadow of social class and privilege, which Lady Thatcher and Tony Blair, architect of the New Labour project that many saw as a consolidation of the Thatcher-era reforms, prided themselves on having moved to the edges of Britain's political debate."

, says Gordon Brown looks a bit too dour and serious compared with his Conservative rival, David Cameron.

"It doesn't speak well of the frivolity of today's media-hyped politics that the guy with the dash may actually get voted in. But if Kenya and Africa were to join the voting, there would be no doubt whatsoever as to their preference."

the British voters are in an odd mood and David Cameron may have trouble persuading them to embrace change.

"This election takes place against the backdrop of an MPs expenses scandal last year that taxed the patience even of the inherently world-weary average British citizen. There was widespread cynicism about politics before so many members of the last parliament were found to be abusing expenses; afterward there was fury. The anger has subsided a little, but not much.
Ìý
"That presents a serious problem for any leader attempting to sell a message of change and hope. Many voters have given up hope real change is even possible. David Cameron and Conservatives can't rely on surfing a wave of voter enthusiasm, because it doesn't exist."

Meanwhile, Julia Raabe that Gordon Brown may stand more of a chance than some observers think:

"For months Labour has been bobbing along the bottom in the polls. But despite having many opponents in his party, and thanks to the financial crisis, Brown has managed to catch up...
Ìý
"But Labour's return as a contender can also be attributed to voters' suspicions about the Tories. David Cameron is more popular than his own party, but he has not yet persuaded the British people. Much of that is down to uncertainty about the economic crisis. In order to change that in the next four weeks and widen the Conservative lead he will have to be much more precise about his promise of change."

a rollercoaster ride for the pound as Gordon Brown and David Cameron attempt to woo voters.

"Both candidates will push towards the center, offering campaign sweeteners to the all important 'Middle England' vote, the equivalent of America's 'heartland voter'.
Ìý
"Thus the pound could get choppy as the polls tighten, as markets battle with concerns that UK politicians will have to err on the side of more (rather than less) government spending in order to keep as many people as possible happy with their camp."

that the economy will be a key factor in the parties' campaigning.

"If in the middle of an economic crisis he [Cameron] cannot beat an unpopular prime minister, and a party that has been in power for 13 years, he will sink to the bottom like his three predecessors.
Ìý
"Apparently the voters have no faith in the Tories' economic policy. In opinion polls 82% said they wanted clearer explanations from Cameron about how he would tackle the crisis. Even among Tory supporters 82% say they want to know that. That's why Labour has selected the Tories' shadow chancellor George Osborne as its main target."

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Commentators make their predictions for what they expect to see during the election campaign period.

this election will see more coded messages:

"When the politicians want to get something across but have not got the courage to say what they mean, they will resort to the coded message. Standing outside No 10 yesterday, Gordon Brown deployed several, including 'I am an ordinary man from an ordinary background' (meaning: David Cameron is a privileged toff), and 'I am not a team of one, I am one of a team' (meaning: I am too unpopular to do this on my own)."

few Labour activists believe they can win the general election, instead seeking to deny the Tories:

"As for hopes, they pray that the voters are at last seeing 6 May as a choice between competing options, not a referendum on Labour's past performance. Once it's a straight choice, they believe that even those who are hardly enamoured of the government will balk at the prospect of Prime Minister Cameron. They hope that the Tories will maintain the pattern of behaviour established since January: zig-zagging on policy, unravelling under pressure. They want the verdict on the TV debates to declare Cameron likable, but a lightweight - while they hope Brown performs the way he did before the Chilcot inquiry: immersed in detail and solid as granite."

the main parties may avoid the subject of immigration:

"[O]ne understands why neither of the main parties really wants to talk about immigration not least because the public doesn't want to hear much of this even if the Tories and Labour were minded to tell them the truth which, of course, they are not.
Ìý
"A balanced approach might require a combination of breeding, bumping off grannie and opening borders. Good luck selling that! Things are going to have to change and for the sake of our parents and ourselves we should probably, whether we like it or not, get used to living on a more crowded island."

The that the electorate will be "deceived and ignored" about spending cuts:

"For fear of frightening us, nobody dares spell out the truth - and still less does any party offer us a coherent political philosophy, Right or Left. Safer to fob us off with infantile election posters and heart-warming photographs of their families."

that judging from the audience of his shows he expects disillusionment, disenchantment and apathy among voters during this election:

"It's interesting the questions you get. The first question we got was 'if we're going to have a hung parliament, who should we start with?'"

to his to fellow political journalists about what to avoid in the campaign:

"Comment (of which this is a part) is replacing news. Brown goes to someone's home in the pretence of visiting a 'real' family. So the media expose the artifice.
Ìý
"Our excuse - a good one - is that there is nothing real to report. The parties have engineered their campaigns to look good on the media. In return the media is refusing to play ball.
Ìý
"All this risks developing into an absurd feedback loop: stunts all round. The white noise will drown out reality."

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I'm the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

The Office of Fair Trading should investigate the impact of local authority newspapers on their commercial rivals, say MPs on the Culture, Media & Sport committee. says more council papers are competing for local advertising and some fail to make clear they are "vehicles for political propaganda" .

The Digital Economy Bill is to be rushed through the Commons before the election. The that critics say there should be more debate.

The BNP is to be given an interview on the Today programme after the Prime Ministerial TV election debates. It's part of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s plans to ensure balance, but has come under fire from some senior ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ journalists and the .

The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ director general that the Corporation will show neither fear nor favour in the campaign.

SamCam has appeared on WebCameron in the first Conservative video of the campaign .

The Labour Party's plans for a poster campaign portraying David Cameron as Gene Hunt, the politically incorrect 1980s policeman from Ashes to Ashes, have been welcomed by the Tories, and hijacked for their own posters the .

As the election campaign begins, the it has more evidence about phone-hacking at the News of the World during the editorship of Andy Coulson, who is now David Cameron's media adviser.

The heated debate over women's place on the airwaves is fuelled by a new report from Selina Scott, attacking women TV bosses and Anne Robinson, but a Radio Times analysis suggests the TV gender age gap is shrinking according to the and the .

As Gordon Brown is due to confirm the general election will be held on 6 May, the papers are awash with party politics as .

The Conservatives' relationship with the Murdoch media empire has been highlighted by Ofcom's report on pay-TV, ordering BSkyB to cut the price of its sports channels. The Sun has switched allegiance to the Tories. about claims they have a deal with Rupert and James Murdoch.

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Gordon Brown is expected to call the election today. Commentators lay out what they think will be the defining characteristics of the campaign.

To mark the event, the the paper says politicians should be focusing on, and finds parties lacking:

"The next month can be a big moment in the country's history or a small one. The parties can spend their time arguing about who made which gaffe, accusing each other of having 'black holes' in their figures, holding press conferences to announce that 'the sums don't add up' and spoofing each other's posters."

The this will be a very important election:

"That old election chestnut that 'they're both the same' could hardly be more wrong. There is an elemental difference between Labour's Big Government and the Tories' Big Society and it makes this election the most important in a generation."

The politicians from all parties to start talking honestly about spending restraint:

"It would be as well to have the big issue out in the open before polling day, not least since that would pressure politicians to explain how they will force the rich to pay their fair share for the cleanup of their mess. The alternative - discussing hard truths only in the vaguest language - will ensure that an election which should be an exercise in democratic renewal will instead prove to be another episode of democratic disillusion."

why he is not getting excited about this election compared to previous ones:

"You could dislike Wilson or Thatcher, but still regard them as real leaders. The mood now is quite different. We're disgusted by Blair, more so than ever as we learn about his awe-inspiring avarice, and we're depressed by Brown, but we haven't taken to Cameron either. Quite apart from a series of misjudgments on his part, and a line of accidents waiting to happen - from Lord Ashcroft to Andy Coulson - Cameron and his gang have failed to convince the public. Perhaps that's because they aren't very convincing."

"good riddance to this rotten Parliament":

"There will be no weeping, wailing or gnashing of teeth when this Parliament finally croaks its last. Nor will there be any mourners around its death-bed. Rarely - if ever before - in this nation's history has a Parliament earned so much contempt and scorn from the people it is supposed to represent. I have been reporting at Westminster for just a few months short of half a century and never, during that time, has there been such a backlash of fury from the British voting public."

why he thinks this won't be the first internet election:

"We have four weeks now of what I imagine will be the dirtiest and most fierce election campaign for many years. There's been much talk about the influence the Internet will play this time, and whilst I don't think it will necessarily change the result overall we may see it impact on some candidates if they accidentally become YouTube hits with negative incidents.
Ìý
"The one thing all the parties need to be concerned about this time around though is turnout. The expenses scandal, shocking and outrageous as it is, could produce two impacts at the polls. Either lots of people vote for alternative fringe parties to send a message, or more likely just don't bother turning out at all."

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Commentators and critics have weighed in on Sarah Palin's first TV special which aired on Thursday on Fox News Channel.

The run-up to the broadcast was marred by uproar over canned interviews of two big name subjects, but , finds little controversy in the final product.

Real American Stories celebrates such unobjectionable qualities as generosity and perseverance.

In the debut episode... Palin interviewed an 11-year-old boy with cerebral palsy whose service dog inspired him to learn to walk and a young woman who saved an oil tanker driver from a fire.

The fact that the program debuted amid a cloud of controversy, despite its heartwarming material, underscores the alchemic effect of the former Alaska governor.

the former Alaska governor's telegenic polish.

On the show, Ms Palin was clearly reading from a teleprompter at times, but appeared relaxed and natural - almost more comfortable than she sometimes appeared on the campaign trail - when interviewing guests.

But there was some criticism of the show's format, which saw Ms Palin voicing over pre-recorded video stories, before interviewing guests in front of a live studio audience.

straight to the point.

Sarah Palin will have a career in TV, that's for sure, but "Real American Stories" isn't the show to make her a superstar. That's not her fault. It's the production.

it a show lacking heart.

The debut on the Fox News Channel of Sarah Palin's Real American Stories Thursday night turned out to be like one of those shows that's on when nothing's on and yet there is air to fill -- like infotainment you sometimes see on empty channels in hotel rooms, or the stuff that's playing on the little TV screen at the gas pump nearest the rental-car centre...

No hopey-changey. No missed cues. Palin's show, which Fox News will air "periodically," is innocuous, flat and political in only the most coded of ways. It's like a Barbara Walters special for that particular media consumer who always complains that they never report any good news.

Meanwhile, Ms Palin as more product than presenter.

The flap over Real American Stories further proves that Sarah Palin is no longer a politician but rather a product to be merchandised - in this case, merchandised in a cut-rate way.

Implicit in any personality-based marketing strategy is the need to maintain strict quality control over the product line. It appears that Sarah Palin is now willing to slap her name on just about anything, with all the discrimination of Krusty the Klown.

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Commentators and critics assess the London 2012 Olympic Games' monument - a spiralling sculpture designed by Turner Prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor.

the sculpture's biggest problem is its lack of meaning:

"The controversy it has attracted is not particularly surprising. Orbit is big, expensive and modern, all characteristics bound to unleash the most animated armchair histrionics.
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"But even worse, it's abstract art and regardless of what the cultural establishment would have us believe, many people find it difficult to relate to abstract art...
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"Is it beautiful? No. Is it ugly? Probably. But what this crude, subjective assessment doesn't assess is a far more important question: what does it say?
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"And this perhaps is Orbit's biggest flaw and the reason why it has attracted such negative publicity."

Architect that the structure will not enter the public consciousness because it's "too clever for its own good":

"It's got to have a simple easy-to-recognise cartoon-like image... This I have a bit of a problem with; to me, it looks like a bit of a jumble."

Mr Kapoor's move away from his usual "emotional" approach:

"But there is, for me, an entirely new, sci-fi feel about the Orbit, owing to the UFO-like viewing platform at its summit. The coils then begin to look like traces of movement - contrails as much as entrails. I've always found Kapoor's monumental works - many, like the Orbit, realised in collaboration with Cecil Balmond - impressive as engineering feats but less absorbing than his smaller sculptures."

that Anish Kapoor is not the only one involved in the project:

"The Orbit Tower reflects a meeting of two of the boldest minds in British art. Anish Kapoor's ability to create conceptually astonishing works is proven. Cecil Balmond's role is less well known, but he is the genie whose geometrical alchemy has influenced projects as diverse as Kapoor's 2002 Marsyas installation in Tate Modern, Daniel Libeskind's V&A Spiral, and Toyo Ito's Serpentine Gallery Pavilion."

the structure could be a rare good news story, leading a change in the way the London Olympics is portrayed:

"So the London Olympics is to sport a largely privately funded artwork that is in danger of being both interesting, aesthetically pleasing, and fun. The announcement of the Anish Kapoor tower and the revelation that it will be largely paid for by the Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal raises an alarming new question over the 2012 Olympics.
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"Is there a lurking danger that the Olympics are becoming - perish the thought - a good news story? The unveiling of Kapoor's intriguing tower coincides with the discovery that businesses across the UK - from a concrete company in Northern Ireland to a stationery company in the Northern England, and a Scottish company handling an aquatic sports contract - are all benefiting nation-wide from the £9bn expenditure of public moneys on the London games."

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Apple has hand-picked a select group of journalists to review the much-hyped and long-anticipated iPad, ahead of its launch on 3 April.

have looked through everyone's reviews and broken it down into a handy table to compare what people say about different features, or lack of them:

"At least eight people got iPads from Apple pre-launch, three usual suspects plus some new faces. Their approaches are different, but the take-home remains the same: It's good."

In a positive review, was impressed with the battery life and speculates that the touchscreen could see the end of the mouse. But, he says, people will have to try it out before making a judgement on the device:

"Because the iPad is a new type of computer, you have to feel it, to use it, to fully understand it and decide if it is for you, or whether, say, a netbook might do better."

agrees:

"The iPad is not so much about what you can do - browse, do e-mail, play games, read e-books and more - but how you can do it. That's where Apple is rewriting the rulebook for mainstream computing. There is no mouse or physical keyboard. Everything is based on touch."

However, he also points out some of the device's deficiencies:

"The iPad has its share of Version 1.0 inadequacies. It doesn't multitask, save playing iTunes music in the background. There's no webcam for those of us hoping to do video chats. The battery is sealed. It's too big for your pocket."

provides two reviews - one for the techies and one for "everyone else". In both he describes it as a "gigantic iPod Touch".

In his general review, he points out that the iPad is a new category of device, "not a laptop".

"It's not nearly as good for creating stuff. On the other hand, it's infinitely more convenient for consuming it -- books, music, video, photos, Web, e-mail and so on."

For the more technically minded he explores the device's lack of Flash:

"Apple has this thing against Flash, the Web's most popular video format; says it's buggy, it's not secure and depletes the battery. Well, fine, but meanwhile, thousands of Web sites show up with empty white squares on the iPad -- places where videos or animations are supposed to play."

says technical niggles are easily dealt with and proclaims: "The Techies Are Wrong about the iPad".

"The techie obsession with specs and obscure features completely misses how most consumers will actually use the iPad. A small percentage of power users will be disappointed that the iPad doesn't, say, have an HDMI video-out port or that it currently lacks the ability to run multiple applications simultaneously or that it fails to address some other esoteric concern."

has a series of high-resolution pictures and screenshots. In the review, she is impressed with the gadget's potential as a gaming device, comparing it to her first experience with the Nintendo Wii:

"There's something about tilting and steering and braking with a device you hold in your hands, just like a steering wheel, that's so much more viscerally pleasing than a big old shelf-bound console."

She also explores some of the content that will be available on the device, including an interactive "Harry Potter book" of the periodic table:

"The elements in this periodic table seem very much alive. The obvious way to examine static objects - say, a lump of gold (number 79) or an ingot of cast antimony (number 51) is to rotate them, to spin the specimen with your fingertips. And that's exactly what you do here."

It is an app that also caught the attention of self-confessed Apple fan of his device on Twitter:

"Best App of all Theodore Gray Wolfram Periodic table. Everything is animated and gorgeous. Alone worth iPad."

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I'm the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s media correspondent and this is my brief selection of what's going on.

Sports bodies have attacked to order Sky to cut its wholesale prices for its sports channels .

large cuts in the price of mobile phone calls, going further than had been predicted. .

The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s "reward director" has apologised after trying to hide the number of senior managers who earn over £100,000 a year . The Culture Committee chairman John Whittingdale said the attempt was "absolutely outrageous".

The date has inspired a .

....and the a new advertising campaign for Labour.

A that ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ News is the best-trusted source, and .

Gordon Brown's speech on immigration generates widespread comment from the newspapers - much of it critical, the .

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Commentators discuss the merits of the Conservative "Big Society" policy which would attempt to get everyone involved in a community group.

The the idea but suggests "big" is the wrong word:

"The Tories stress that they value public provision but wish to make it more intimate. That is the right question. Many of the problems in public service are about providing individually suitable goods. This is more easily done by a small, local organisation. But, like most big ideas, The Big Society may turn out to be smaller than it seems."

The David Cameron's ideas about charity:

"First, his enthusiasm for a strong society is not actually shared by his party's more ideologically Thatcherite members, large numbers of whom still see cutting the state as a virtue in itself and are not overly fussed about the social consequences. These free marketeers are likely to see the Big Society's community initiatives as a waste of time and money. Second, and much more important, it is hard to see how the Big Society approach cannot benefit the rich more than the poor."

the idea that everybody would be a member of a community group is good in principle but not practical:

"All this do-gooding community involvement is much like apple pie. Delicious in principle, but hard to find the time to actually make in the rush of everyday life. It's hard to see how it fits, for example, with another of Cameron's favourite themes of family life and work-life balance. Large proportions of parents are already anxious about how little time they have to spend with their children given work demands, so it's hard to see how they will cheerfully leave the toddlers behind to go out to that meeting on anti-social behaviour or litter on the streets or dog dirt."

David Cameron's speech superlative, saying it is the only hope we have to escape moral squalor:

"Cameron's vision amounts to nothing less than a total revolution in the way Britain is governed.
He acknowledged as much when he said that while the six decades since the end of the Second World War had been about building the Welfare State, the decades to come will be about building the Big Society."

the Big Society policies David Cameron's Eureka moment:

"Mr Cameron has a plan for revolutionising the relationship between the individual and the state. It is ambitious. It is detailed. It is in many ways a gamble, because its success is by no means assured. It demands some quite profound changes in the way we have got used to behaving. It will require different thinking on our part. Once exposed to the toxic daily demands of government, it may prove to be wildly over-optimistic. No matter: he has told us what he wants to do in quite exhaustive detail."

a tweak:

"Next time Cameron talks about how a Conservative government will encourage the Big Society, he should mention how a Conservative government would stop state run bodies abusing their position in this way."

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