How long is most people's attention span? I guess it varies. It depends on our mood, our environment and how interested we are in something.

Watching the big election showdown on TV last night it is something I kept thinking about. And the implicit belief by each leader's PR people in the public's minuscule ability to focus on anything for longer than half a minute is my prevailing impression of a deeply disappointing night's viewing.

In my rather sad way I had a warm glow of expectation about the debate. It was event television. And we don't get event telly very much in these days of fragmented audiences; those invisible millions who tune in to watch Takeshi's Castle or The Dog Whisperer. People who exist but who I have never met.

Most debates we have usually serve to compound our initial prejudices. Of course the parties and supporters were always set to say "it was our man that won it." Short of some expletive laden explosion, the kind of which one might find on occasion in the Irish parliament, (propriety prevents me from hyperlinking it but you could always go to You Tube and look for "Paul Gogarty swears against Labour party in Dail") it was never going to set the pulse racing.

Cameron was Blair 2.0. He had a shelf full of too neat anecdotes and over -egged his use of audience members' first names times in all his answers. Too plausible by half. He was automaton like. Which is odd as his face did call to mind Data from Star Trek. I can only presume the make-up lady in ITV got a little carried away on the foundation. His golden moment was talking about the NHS and what it had meant to him. It resonated because you got the feeling it was true, if the other anecdotes about the hard working folk he had met on the election trail had felt half as real he would have cleaned the decks.

I fully expected to want to hide behind a cushion each time Brown was on base. The cringe factor was not high however. More than any of the other leaders Brown hammered home his key message the most relentlessly: fearing for the economy if the Tories win. It is a simple but powerful message. Labour has steered the nation if not out of the woods, then to the edge at least. The dreaded 'double dip' was the spectre that Brown raised at every mention of swinging Tory cuts, echoing voters' fears about risking the recovery. Brown doesn't have a face you can warm to as a viewer. He used to be the Iron Chancellor, and his steely demeanour didn't disguise itself long. When he did a fake chuckle of derision at a Cameron comment , and one of those painted on smiles, he was frankly chilling. Both Brown and Cameron tried to rein in the combatative spirit of the Commons' PM Questions. When it did spill over it was better for telly, breaking the neat choreography of the debate, and better for Nick Clegg, who in the minds of most neutrals was a clear winner.

Clegg has a likeable face. When the tedious hum of key messages spouted again and again became a faint buzz, and we had all zoned out, we will remember Clegg's honest face. Simples. Despite the tangible consensus with Labour on so many of the issues Clegg would always come out on top as he had an easier job. No power has equalled no responsibility and no bad decisions taken.

My staunchly apolitical flat mate turned to me during the debate and said "why do they keep saying the same things over-and-over again. I have forgotten which is which. Can we please change channel?" Maybe the PR advisers were wrong. Hammering home the same key messages again and again rendered the whole debate an exercise in tedium for the floating voter, who I suspect has come out more baffled than they went in.

Eimear