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When you make the debate available on-demand, please make sure people outside the UK can download it as well. There are plenty of Brits abroad who still want to keep up with the election campaign!

Election 2010 could possibly be the last time we have "first past the post" voting. I look forward to a voting system that offers the electorate several decades of hung parliaments and provide proportional representation using the "single tranferable vote".

Outsourced to twitter and facebook then. With the hacks telling us what we all thought of it.

Very worried about David Dimbleby having a podium on the stage. Last week I thought Adam Boulton was an impecable moderator, minimal interventions, out of site, letting the three participants get on with it.

As a regular watcher of Questiontime I know the David appears to be unable to resist joining in the debate. With a podium on stage rather than a seat in front of the three men I think he will find it very difficult to act only as moderator and not as a television performer. I very much hope I am wrong.

Both David Cameron and Nick Clegg were less effective when they occupied the central position. A totally fair process would see Gordon Brown in that position tonight, but I understand that he will occupy one of the side positions. This maybe minor, but given that we appear to be witnessing the first X-Factor election, its important.

@Phil. I agree. Ö÷²¥´óÐã please make sure people outside the UK can download the debate!

The People are counting
The people are the most important thing before, during and after the election, it seems all those politicians don't have a clue about real life, real people and what exactly is it that they all keep serving up to the people in return for all the taxes and charges they take and keep taking. And who exactly do we owe money to? Could they possibly be the same group of bankers that give themselves massive bonuses, mismanage world monies and cause a credit crunch? All these politicians talking, but we know none of them are really listening to the people, too busy within their own little world/s which are growing increasingly smaller as people wake up. Who wants to vote for a bunch of fraudsters?
What the people need is a new constitution, made by the people, for the people.

Does any one know whether Ö÷²¥´óÐã America is carrying this evening's debate? Will it be live?

For those in the US who have access to it -- Thursday's debate will be carried live by C SPAN-3 (3.30 EST). I still do not know whether Ö÷²¥´óÐã-A (Ö÷²¥´óÐã America, a far more widely available cable channel) will be carrying it as well. Steve Herrmann, can you enlighten us?

I have watched the last 2 debates but as usual the Ö÷²¥´óÐã chooses to totally ignore ex-pats outside the UK, they even choose to ignore my complaints or send me a 'cut and paste' reply (after 4 weeks)

When will it be available on iplayer? As soon as it has finished?

This final debate will seal the election. The three leaders will have to keep their composure. Do not write off Gordon Brown. A confident performance from him may just do the trick. After all as Chancellor of the Exchequer for ten years under Tony Blair, he distinguished himself as a safe pair of hands! The other two leaders do not have that experience!

Its not make or break as a lot of press are saying more getting there for a lot of voters.
If a lot more voters go out to vote then the debates have worked. After all we as a country moan so much about the right to vote then we don't? The British outlook on the world.........

After all as my dad always told me, the cemeteries all around Europe and further are full of men who died for the right I have!

I hope Ö÷²¥´óÐã with not be too biased towards labour !

Birmingham has 3 universities; (University of Aston, Birmingham City University and the Unviersity of Birmingham). News 24 has being telling everyone that the debate is coming from Birmingham University - please get the basic facts right.

Mr Herrmann - I'm afraid that the Ö÷²¥´óÐã iPlayer interface is basically unusable for people outside the UK with slow-ish internet connections - it has to stop to refresh every couple of seconds. If you could please upload the debates onto YouTube or Vimeo afterwards, that would be much better: with those services, it's possible to pause playback while the whole video streams into the computer's memory. It would be great to be able to watch the whole debate! For the first two debates, I was only able to watch 10 minutes or so of edited highlights on YouTube.

15 yawn

i forgot the Ö÷²¥´óÐã is either left wing - if you are tory, or right wing if you are labour.

get a grip.

Big debate, unique only one opportunity to listen 3 candidates,given and going down the best ethic principles , moral, and basemente of economic increasing.IT WILL improve the world ? . England, UK'LEADERSHIP .WITH big responsibility to give the best of his ideas to the world .Prosperity, less war,mORE love HOW WILL WE ATTAIN?HOW WILL BE A BETTER WORLD? YOU ARE THE LEADERS , BLESS, from Norma Fenoy

I really don't see what all th efuss is about Mr Brown's comments.only God knows what Cameron and Clegg think of the voters,everyone is entitled to their own opinion and Mr Brown was only unlucky to have his comments braodcats to the whole world.
The Grandma in question should take a chill pill, and the press shoul find something more costructive to do than tear into Gordon

I am very disapointed with David Dimbleby, he is directing many more questions to David Cameron and Gordon Brown than to Nick Clegg. He also seems to be struggling to keep up with the debate.

Since the advent of civilization, humans have been evolving themselves through technology: foot into wheel, skin into clothing, teeth into weapons, and finally, our nervous system into electric information. It is this electric nervous system that now makes us so nervous about modern life.
Start Chinas Firewall

Here's a joke
You've got three workman within the trade.
They all work for themselves though they all know each other.
The customer (You) checks the credentials of all three workman, and pick the one that most appeals.
This doesn't matter as thet all know each other and at the end of the day will all be working as different tradesmen at the same address

The housing situation was ascerbated through the fact that the Conservatives allowed the right to buy and then stopped councils from building council houses.

What a crock! How dare Mr Brown talk about getting people to get an education so that they can be middle class! I am furious... what is wrong with having an education and being working class? Class should not dictate as to what educational standard you meet. My wife and I as well as my eldest daughter have had university education but still consider ourselves to be very much working class. How dare politicians lie to us about moving up in class just because of better education grades!

In the Borough of Lewisham which is a Labour council, they have closed at least three schools which I am aware of and built private housing estates. Now they are crying out for more schools and propose to close leisure facilities ti build new schools. Neither labour or the Tories care about education!

I find it disturbing that a political leader should be using the same policy that his party used 13 years ago when they created New Deal, they apparently spent £50 billion on this and it did not work because they are too softly softly. Now he is talking as though this never happened before.
The Conservative way of dealing with people who did not want to work was much more successful and those who wanted to work had all the help they needed. Labour forgets that people over 25 also need support and help to cope with the changing work needs and culture. But all he talks about is young people and although they are very important, the 25+ need this help desperately also.

For the information of Floating voter2010 the Ö÷²¥´óÐã (unlike floating voter 2010)has got their facts right. The University in Egbaston is, and always has been known, as Birmingham University. The other lesser universities are, as he included in his comment,University of Aston and Birmingham City University.Like it or not!

Ifeel Nick Clegg is misinformed if he thinks he will be entitled to child tax credits, payment is based on the family income and not his alone. I wasn't convinced by David and his policies he seemed to avoid answering the difficult questions by attacking the government.The recession was a world wide thing and not brought about by this goovernment alone. I liked Nick Cleggs ideas for banking bonuses.My husband although having performed well and brought business to his company because the company overall did not meet targets no-one got a rise or a bonus.I work in the health service and will put up with not having a pay rise if the MP's do the same. On education one way to stop children feeling the divide in family income schools should stop these expensive trips abroad. The volcanoe ash event showed the great divide between the have and have nots,so many children on school trips were stranded in far flung places such as China,Africa and the USA. There will be parents who will practically bankrupt themselves just so there child does not feel left out or deprived. There are lots of wonderful historically and culturally interesting places within the British Isles. Let the parents take them abroad.

We had a PM who was good on spin and public relations and he talked us into a war in Iraq. Gordon is poor on PR but I feel we are probably safer in his hands. I think Nick Clegg has some good ideas eg.banking, classroom sizes. So the government need to talk to the other parties before the next budget.

The Ö÷²¥´óÐã man with Rita Chakrabati on the post-debate Ö÷²¥´óÐã TV news claimed the audience controlling the 'worms', didn't like it when Cameron criticised Clegg's policy of an amnesty for illegal immigrants, because the blue worm took a dive when Cameron was talking about this.
It was very obvious to me, that what the audience was actually showing disapproval of at the time, was the consequences of such an amnesty - namely 1.2 million new immigrants able to claim welfare, housing, health and school benefits-as described by Cameron.
I'm amazed the Ö÷²¥´óÐã guy got that so wrong, bearing in mind recent evidence of strength of feeling on immigration. Please correct this as it's a seriously wrong impression. Ashdown was claiming approval for the amnesty on Newsnight on the basis of the 'blue worm' too, so you really should sort it out.

In response to Steve Herrmann(Ö÷²¥´óÐã), watching the live stream was not an option, since it started at 3.30am Australian time. The ITV and Sky both made their debates available for download outside the UK. Does the Ö÷²¥´óÐã? No, of course not - Aunty has to be difficult.

Immigration, at last, is mentioned in the debates as being of great concern regarding jobs and the pressures put on our schools,hospitals and housing. However, the severe strain on our road system hardly ever gets a mention,particularly with the pressure put on it at peak periods in the more densily populated areas of the country such as London and the South Eastern region.

I'm afraid much of the damage has been done over Labours years of unlimited immigration. With the additional millions who have settled in England in particular. The population is due to explode over the next 10 years. In such a relatively small country the projected 70 million + by then will logically cause even more relentless pressure on our imfrastructure. It must have been known this would happen, but what have the Government done to mitigate the problems of excessive immigration? Encourage evermore to cross our boarders making the claim that we need young migrants due to our aging population and also to do work either not acceptable or skilled enough for our indiginous population. As though these migrants will not become part of that ever greater problem in future years.And because we have not trained so many without a job to become skilled. I predict social unrest because those in power do not generally live with the worst effects of overcrowding. Their lmited use of peak travelling has not exposed them to the appalling road conditions with their delays for so many who have to make these journeys to places of work daily at exobitant costs in petrol and public transport fares. All politicians should be made to suffer arduous peak time travellling with costs relevant to their incomes!As Alan Johnson once said (since hurredly changed)'he didn't loose any sleep over the fact that the population would reach 70 milion by 2018'That's a responsible attitude from the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Minister, of all people!

Were is my previous comment made much earlier? Lost in the ether? If you have no intention of displaying them after your bedtime you should say so! where is the notice to say there's a cut off time after which you are wasting your time???

Why? is it taken any notice of at ths time of night after mummy has sent you all to beddy bye byes!My previous ones were obviously well after your beddy times!Where does it say when it's too late to comment? I've asked you enough times!

I do not know about other constituencies, but round here we have complete and utter candidate apathy. If it was not for the Ö÷²¥´óÐã I wouldn't know there even was an election in less than a week's time.

Is it possible that the 'presidential' soundbite debates have deluded candidates into thinking that they don't need to make any effort, and that we'll choose who we want as our representative in parliament based on the mouthings of mediocre men on TV?

So far in this house, 2 copies of THE SAME banal leaflet from Labour and one leaflet from the Conservatives (slightly better, it at least talked about & had a message from, their candidate), all delivered by the postie, not even by party faithful.

Is whoever gets elected going to be as lazy once he reaches Parliament, I wonder?

I definitely think there is not too much coverage - am not hugely into politics in general but I certainly believe that this election is an important one for the UK.

A bit disappointed with what I feel is still a severe lack of coverage by the Ö÷²¥´óÐã on the smaller parties but I imagine its more of a trade-off between eyeballs and following a realistic outcome.

Still, I think much of the candidate apathy mentioned by the likes of Megan (#36) is a result of a disgruntled voter pool who consider the prime candidates largely inadequate for the top post. Understandably why would they bother to vote if that is how they feel?

Looking forward to the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's @HungParliament twitter feed!

Please, Steve, will we have the Ceefax/Red Button page 700 services this year? I know quite a lot of people with no access at home to bbc.co.uk. Thank you.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Will the Ö÷²¥´óÐã website be streaming live election night TV coverage on May 6, and more specifically, will it be available to viewers in the US?

I have watched 3 presentations. Not 3 debates, the content is sterile and boring too. It is entirely predictable and no statement is challenged or commented upon by the question poser. Mr Dimbleby tried, just once, and was obviously warned off..pity. The whole idea is to try to ape American style politics and is quite unfair too in that selecting 3 participants distorts the whole democratic process and I feel that I am being manipulated. The Lib Dems have been given a star billing which they do not deserve on their standing before the campaign started so why did it start and stop there? News reporting also seems to be forcing conclusions upon the voters. It is not fair or honourable.

Will you be providing on line live video coverage of election night that will be accessible to people outside of the UK? I really don't want to have to read a live stream for hours on end whilst the votes are counted.

Hold the breath, wait and see...

Voting floaters go Lava-Tory...

I see on the website an illustration of how the AV system would work as applied to last Thursdays election. Someone needs to explain to me how that can possibly happen as no one knows how anyone would have voted using their preference as no-one 'ranked' the candidates?? Similarly with all these projections on last week as only one preference was indicated by one person anywhere???!!!

All this has come about as a result of unashamed bribery of the electorate by this government with borrowed money. Tax credits, EMA, Job seekers allowance, disability benefit, unemployment benefit (should be termed unemployability benefit)and that is to name but a few. This naked bribery by Labour and its grooming of its 'client groups' has 'hard wired' this cabal of voters to endeavour to keep them in power. Reductions here will save gazillions in waste and get the country back to work.