"I disagree with Nick"

Yes, I know, I missed this one too, but again being a glutton for punishment I recorded it. Mr Clegg will undoubtedly come in for a whole lot of stick, but let's see what happened. The news media in the past week has been full of Tories and even some Labourites criticising Lib Dem policies now they suddenly have to take notice of Clegg's party after last week's debate.

The debate was mainly about foreign affairs. There are a few things in this subject that may put off wavering voters who were previously considering voting Tory, but were swung by Clegg's performance last week.

Do not replace Trident! A no-brainer this one. I fail to see how anybody could possibly object to this, morally, politically, militarily, or economically. The Lib Dems even have the backing of some military top brass.
To use a footballing analogy, if your team gets gates of 20000 in a stadium that holds 40000 and one of the stands needs replacing, would you build an exact replica capacity wise, but with all mod cons at a vast cost or do you build a smaller one comensurate with your current standing, saving millions in both building and future running costs in the process? If you choose the former route it may make you might feel better but you'll bankrupt yourself in the process. If the barely believable happens and you suddenly need 40000 capacity again, you can always ask the huge American owned club up the road to groundshare, after all you've rushed to their assistance enough times in the past.
This is linked in with Clegg stating that we should no longer be America's lapdog every time they feel like invading somewhere hot and dusty, but at the same time he emphasised that the special relationship is important and should continue. Although I agree with him on the lapdog issue, I fail to see how the special relationship could continue if we refused to back an invasion of, say, Iran. Like all politicians Clegg is trying to be all things to all people. I don't want to sound too critical as his basic idea of standing up to the Yanks gets my vote!
Cameron's justification for spending the ludicrous amount of money we don't have renewing our nuclear capacity was that we might need it at some unspecified point in the future. In the current climate where the USA and Russia have very recently signed an agreement to further reduce their stockpiles (it hardly got a mention such is the diminishing importance of the need to have nuclear weapons in the post Cold War age) this argument is spurious to say the least.
Brown said little I can remember on the subject, although Labour too want to renew Trident.
On Afghanistan Brown's argument is that we have to be there as this god forsaken country is the cradle of all things terrorist, and we need to force out the Taliban to stop the threat posed to us. Firstly all kinds of foreign governments, us included back in Empire days, have tried to tame this wild outpost in the last 100 or so years, and no-one has succeeded. Why should it be any different now? Secondly, and it may be over simplistic, but the truth often is, we (the UK & the USA) are only targets of terrorism precisely because we make ourselves so. The tube bombs in London would probably never have happened if we were not so closely associated with the Americans.

Little mention was made of the fact that why is it whenever there is some international trouble spot to sort out, of all the EU major players it's always the UK who send the most troops and resources? If it has to be this way, and I don't see why it should (see above), it's high time the French & the Germans did their bit, or least recompensed us for doing it on their behalf.
Which brings us neatly to the European Union. The Lib Dems are perceived as being the most pro Europe of the three, and this is undoubtedly a sticking point with Tory inclined floaters (no laughing at the back!). To counter this they have put forward the idea of a referendum on EU membership no less, something Euro skeptics have called for for years. This is a risky strategy, but they obviously hope to win over the skeptics, or enough of them at least, to swing the vote in the Yes direction.
Cameron of course wants us in Europe to take advantage of free trade, but not ruled by it. This sounds sensible but in practice means a withdrawal of cooperation on our part that can only be detrimental to our economy in the long run. Brown made this point, and as we do 75% of our business with the EU putting any of that in danger is very dangerous. Clegg at least acknowledges that some stupid rules have come out of Brussels and the whole thing needs running on a more sensible footing.
The EU is a highly emotive issue to some, but we have to remember that we could not survive as a leading world economy on our own. As Clegg and Brown both said we need to be part of a larger organisation in order to have more influence on world affairs, economically and diplomatically.

This debate obviously did not have the "new" factor of last week's and did not hold one's interest in anything like the same fashion. Indeed I nodded off towards the end, due to two earlier pints of Golden Pippin - there goes my chance of being a political reporter! Although Clegg came in for an expected hammering he held up quite well in my view. Brown improved on last week, and is going for the gravitas effect, and Cameron too improved, though probably not enough for his party to re-take the intiaitve, as is shown by todays polls.

Part 3 next week, when I will fall asleep after 15 minutes, and make it all up.

Vote for The Rubbish Party - they still like beer.