Paxman vs Howard

In the concluding part of this three part series, Jeremy Paxman attempted to go medieval on Howard's arse this time. Paxman has been feigning indignation and looking rather smarmy all week, but Howard, like Blair, did not take the bait. On reflection, it seems that only Kennedy got shook up by Paxman's predictable bouts of foot-stomping.

Howard pulled off a pretty measured performance. The policies are a disgrace, but that doesn't mean he didn't dress them up appropriately. Out came the brand new Immigration pledge - an old classic in the 2001 campaign that ended up just a little too garish for the public. So Immigration 2005 got its umpteenth relaunch, as Howard flounced and pirouetted to the delight of the cameras - this time in bold, authoritative black. Paxman entered the dance floor with the full intention of tripping up this delightful dancer Howard with a carefully placed foot round the ankles as Howard pranced into full flow.

It was not to be. Howard played the issue carefully, but once more took up a considerable part of the interview in doing so. He got into a little bit of trouble on the age old question of how many immigrants would be the limit, but he brushed it aside with the usual "We're not in government" response. He run through the same old lines that he's said on many other occasions on other programmes, so we have heard it all before. If Paxman did achieve anything in this interview, it was to tie up the Tory leader with immigration for another 10 minutes chunk of his election campaign, thus keeping it on the front pages, and continuing with the theme that they are obsessed about it.

Of course, it won't help that this morning the CBI director Digby Jones has attacked the Tories plans for an economic migrant limit. He is right. This is not how Milton Friedman style Conservatives would run the party. I know a few who are desperate to have their party of economic freedom back.

Other parts of the interview were less exciting. The opening assault on Howard's credibility was worthy of being asked, and the usual admissions of the failure of the ERM were turned into positive aspects by Howard telling everyone how much it proves the Euro is destined to failure. It's clever, but again one we've heard before. I'd rather the discussion was on their current policies - not just for me to laugh at, but so that the electorate had a chance of hearing at least some analysis of what the Tories have planned for Britain. Apart from a reasonably interesting section on tax, where Howard proclaimed his Love for subsidising the private sector out of government finances, and the discussion on immigration, Paxman didn't go any further to look at their other policies.

Howard made a big play of their £4bn tax cut; a pittance in comparison with total budget finances. If they want to claim they are the party of lower taxation, I can't help but feel that they are going about it in a very odd way. They can argue the economy is struggling, but the plans for the initial budget are hardly revolutionary. Other Conservative parties in the past have made simple pledges on the rates of income tax, and not a whole plethora of issues designed to make the money spread as widely as possible. Their miniscule tax cuts they propose are not really worthy of the attention they are receiving.

Overall, it's a representation of the fact that most people probably aren't going to make up their mind on issues. It's going to be yet another development in the history of the more personality driven campaign. It's all about leadership, style and authoritativeness. Who do you trust?

On that score, Michael Howard may have won a few votes last night. And by God will he need them.