To begin, I have to make this complaint: I fail to see why Sky News decided to run a "leadership debate" with the four candidates when less than half of the programme was taken up by actual debate. Much of the first half was taken up by an entirely pointless introductory film (you can watch it here), which provided us with the amazing insight that party image is actually important.

When the candidates got talking, some serious points were made. All four seemed eager and enthusiastic and, although they agreed on most points, they were not afraid to disagree. Mark Oaten, in particular, was keen to differentiate himself from Campbell and Huhne on the issue of a smoking ban.

My gut reaction is that none of the candidates did themselves any harm with their performances, though the questioning was not particularly tough. I suspect that the main objective for the candidates was to get themselves on TV and begin carving out an image. For people outside of the party, or who do not follow politics particularly closely, this show will have served as a basic intro to the issues and the candidates. For party members and political junkies, there was little that could not have been predicted and little that had not been seen before (or will not be seen again, I'm sure).

Overall, I think this programme highlighted the need for a BBC Question Time Special featuring the leadership candidates. Tonight's debate was simply too brief for any of the candidates to put over anything but the most basic of ideas, with little questioning of the depth of their convictions or the logic of their policy ideas.