I'll confess now I haven't watched the whole thing because a) its long and dull b) Youtube is verboten in China, and watching video through a VPN is a pain in the ass. But here's some semi-informed commentary anyway.
For the most part the debate wasn't that interesting, soundbites were exchanged and afterwards everyone agreed that [their side] was absolutely excellent, persuasive and prime ministerial and [the other side] were lame, out of touch and irrelevant [and Farage is an asshole].
The most interesting part was the general agreement that Nicola Sturgeon came out ahead, leading English tweeters to lament that they didn't have a chance to vote for her.
So let me share a few thoughts on why that might be the case and the consequences:
As Scotland has historically been more left wing/liberal intellectual than England it shouldn't actually be that surprising that a politician who is appealing to that electorate would resonate with urban liberals. [If you read politics blogs, tweeted about the debate, etc this probably includes you. Its a position that's probably over-represented online and in the press. So its easy to forget large amounts of the population are anti-immigration, pro-death penalty etc.]
Whereas the Westminster parties have to appeal to stereotypical little Englanders if they want any chance of success. Labour at least has never been totally comfortable with this (see Brown's attempt to sell "British jobs for British workers" with all the enthusiasm of a man self administering surgery). But that doesn't mean it is any less necessary to win, the electoral math leans that way whether we like it or not. This also means they can't do cathartic things like call Farage a racist asshole, since they need to court some of his voters who probably believe the same things.
This confirms the SNP's shift to the left.
Not too long ago the SNP could be fairly described as loose coalition of people with little in common other than Scottish nationalism, (including everyone from people who would be Tories were it not for the toxic legacy of Thatcher , old Labour union hacks to ideologically apathetic pro-business technocrats). Now the SNP under Sturgeon is unambiguously a party of the populist Left.
As a left leaning Scot who felt nothing but annoyance and bafflement at Scottish nationalism I'm vaguely in favour of this, but it will be interesting to see the effects on day to day government. One of the reasons of the success of the early SNP years was that, lacking a strong ideology about the shape of the state, they did a lot of sensible pragmatic things, listened to civil servants, followed public opinion and generally didn't fiddle too much. Contrast this to the several thousand reorganisations the NHS in England has gone through in recent years.
Was this an audition for coalition government?
The vast majority of people watching the debate can't vote for Sturgeon's party, so why should she bother appealing to them? In the (inevitable) event of a hung parliament the SNP will be obvious kingmakers. Knowing this the conservative press office and their friends in the press have been banging on about how in a potential Labour-SNP coalition Milliband would be in the SNPs pocket (complete with terrible photoshop) and that this would spell doom for English voters (presumably the nationalists will send all your hard earned tax money to my Brethren in the northern tribes, or force you all to deep fry your dinners).
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That's a much harder message to sell now when Sturgeon has been massively exposed to a national public and received a positive response, making the prospect of a coalition with them more palatable, and hell it perhaps even a selling point in Millibands otherwise dry package.
[I wonder if Cameron is regretting the single 7 person debate? Having multiple debates, only one of which would have included her, would have split voters interest. Though they probably figure the risk of a Milli-Bounce was worse.]
A slight note of criticism, its probably easier to sell your package when you don't have to answer some of the more awkward questions.
The SNP are under less pressure to talk about the national deficit, since its not ever going to be their problem or responsibility. As such they can say popular things about ending austerity, increasing welfare, etc. without the awkward questions on the costs the other parties have to contend with. (They still need some answers for those questions, but its not the make or break issue it is for Labour).
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