ANALYSIS:The Liberal leader must be wishing that voting began at 10.01pm on Thursday, following the leaders' debate
TO THE victor, the spoils. Or perhaps not.
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg yesterday basked in the glow of the verdict that he had comfortably won Thursday's first leaders' debate.
A poll taken shortly after the 90-minute programme showed an extraordinary 14-point jump in support for his party.
In the press "spin room" after the programme, Labour's Peter Mandelson exuded generosity towards the Liberal camp, acknowledging freely that its leader had won on style, at least.
Mandelson, however, is not generous to political enemies, nor is he a fool. Given prime minister Gordon Brown's lack of dexterity on TV, it would have been hardly credible for him to have argued that his man was the star of the show, even if he did not do badly.
So a good Liberal performance was the next best thing for Labour, as it will slow the momentum of the Conservative Party campaign and take a little of the gloss from its leader, David Cameron.
The viewing audience for the debate, which numbered around nine million, is likely to have been drawn from better-off households.
Therefore, those minded to vote Liberal are more likely to live in Conservative/Liberal battlegrounds than in places where Labour and the Liberals are fighting it out.
The Conservatives must win 116 extra seats to have a majority of one after the election and 23 of those being targeted by the party are currently held by Liberal Democrats.
While the third-largest party oozes motherhood and apple pie, it also has a reputation for dogged constituency work in areas where it has MPs and a willingness to fight dirty when it has to. The issue now for Clegg is whether the boost he has received from the Manchester debate can be sustained during the rest of the campaign, or whether it brings added scrutiny that could create pitfalls.
The focus on immigration during the debates has shown that it is a major issue with voters - even if it has not figured much in the public exchanges between the parties so far.
Here, the Liberals are open to attack. Besides demanding tougher border controls and requiring immigrants who are let in to go to where the UK needs workers, it also wants an amnesty for illegals already in the UK.
Immigrants given an amnesty would have to speak English, and must not have committed crimes, but it would not take much for the Conservatives to paint the Liberals' ideas more negatively on the doorstep.
Analysing the political impact of TV leaders' debates is fraught with danger - usually politicians and the media focus on obscure details of little interest to the wider public, who depend instead on general impressions.
Clegg enjoyed an advantage going into the debate simply because he was there, which raises an issue over Cameron's decision to accept the calls led by Sky Television for the encounters to take place. The Tory leader had been advised against it by Australian election expert Lynton Crosby, who directed John Howard's successful campaigns. Crosby believed Cameron had the most to lose.
The Conservative leader must now work in the coming days to ensure that this one blip is not repeated in next week's second debate, and the third a week later.
Some polls suggest that British voters are far less scared of the prospect of a hung parliament than they have been before, though their view might change if it looks more likely as election day approaches. If panic invades the Conservative camp in the final 72 hours, senior figures will be warning of the dire consequences of instability. In Manchester yesterday, in the early hours, the thought was already in the minds of some.