Simon Carr: Audience succeeds in holding the men of finance to account

Insofar as they came out of it best, it was the audience wot won it. In a representative democracy I'd say these people were largely unrepresented.

Serious, reserved, unbiddable – but far from inert. They would have terrified me. They asked very clear, pertinent questions and listened carefully to the answers (that was the most aggressive thing they could do, to listen to the answers).

Their questions were pointed, clear and curt. They were their leaders to tell us the truth.

"What and how much are you going to cut?"

"Can you guarantee the A and E services in my hospital won't be damaged?"

"Can you guarantee you won't put up VAT?"

"Public sector pensions are unaffordable. Which of you will cut them?"

"Is it your job to make Britain a more equal society?"

As they listened to the answers, the audience reacted to displays of decency, modesty, mild humour, a neat turning of the tables, a fair joke, a good manly punch. They punished innuendo, partisan jibes, evasions with the worst mass response of all: silence.

The disaffection with the principals was evident. And the paucity of memorable lines was pretty unforgivable.

George has tough decisions ahead but the toughest one currently is what to do with his face. The sneer is always there just out of sight. It is a subcutaneous sneer. He also seemed to start hunching as the hour went on. You don't want to look as though you could do with a spinal brace.

Alistair Darling told us he could see we were "understandably concerned". He was then at his most alive.

And Vince Cable ... Vince came the closest to what they wanted. He got several rounds of applause, and some bulked up with affectionate laughter.

And he was indeed the most personally impressive of the three. He inhabits his points. He has certainty. He says things the others don't. His role in the middle is the most enviable in politics – Labour has made the mess we're in and the Tories want to get their "snouts back in the trough" (scandalised applause). Only the Lib Dems, untainted by office, are not beholden to "the unions or the super-rich".

George had an early win which stopped the others ganging up on him. Darling had sorrowfully accused him of breaking a consensus on social care but forced Darling to admit the 10 per cent death tax was no longer an option. "I've been accused of not agreeing with an option he's just ruled out!" George declared and got a round of reasonably warm laughter.

So, George outperformed expectations, and it was counted an outright win merely to survive.

Indeed, he had his moments. He said,:"We borrow money from China to buy the goods they make for us." If he had a dozen more such lines about tax, public sector employment, and the rest of manifesto, he would have started to do the trick.

But he still displays the Tory's central disability – pace the 10 per cent death tax retort – he can't win arguments. "I thought your top tax priority was taking millionaires out of inheritance tax," he was told (to applause and unsympathetic laughter). He still hasn't got a defence, let alone a winning strategy on his biggest idea in five years.

When he complained – or boasted – that Darling had nicked one of his policies, the Chancellor said: "Cross-party agreement is a wonderful thing, George." The audience, unwilling to take sides in a private quarrel, laughed.

The lack of clarity is still astonishing. Last week, Darling promised cuts "deeper than Thatcher's" and is now chastising Osborne for reckless and unfunded tax cuts. That is, neatly, what Osborne is accusing Darling of not doing. Not enough spending cuts and ... Hang on I've got lost again. They're both proposing virtually the same thing and attacking the other for not doing more of it.

Yes, it's easy to see why Vince comes out of this so well. He was prepared to say that spending cuts meant job cuts. He said NHS spending wouldn't be ring-fenced. He said that the banks should be broken up.

Osborne said: "But there's not going to be a Lib-Dem government, Vince, there's going to be a Conservative government or a Labour government."

Yes, but if Vince's leader does as well in the leader's debate, it's just conceivable there will be a Lib-Dem chancellor.