Here's What To Expect In Tonight's Leaders' Debate

Ed Miliband vs. Nigel Farage vs. Natalie Bennett, Nicola Sturgeon and Leanne Wood. Should be fun.

BBC News

Tonight will see five opposition leaders take part in what's been dubbed a "challengers' debate".

There have been two debates so far. The first, which wasn't actually a debate per se, saw David Cameron and Ed Miliband get grilled by Jeremy Paxman, as well as facing questions from a live audience.

The other debate saw each of the five leaders who are taking part tonight – Miliband, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, Green party leader Natalie Bennett, UKIP leader Nigel Farage and Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood – line up alongside Cameron and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg.

And at 8pm tonight on BBC One, we'll have this debate between the various opposition leaders – from which Clegg, much to his chagrin, has been excluded.

After giving their opening statements, the leaders will be asked five questions from the audience. Each leader will have one minute to reply, which will be followed by 10 minutes of debate around the issue. The whole thing will take 90 minutes in total.

Anyway, here's what to expect from the various candidates.

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What's at stake for him?

The leader of the Labour party has the most to lose from tonight's debate. The general consensus is that Miliband has performed far better than expected in the TV debates, with his own personal ratings having improved in the last few weeks.

What does he need to watch out for?

The key thing about tonight is that the Labour leader has chosen to participate in a debate with four anti-establishment parties.

With Labour the only major party taking part in the debate – and the only one with a record of being a governing party – Miliband could find himself under attack from the other candidates.

Anything else?

Particularly interesting will be how he chooses to take on Nicola Sturgeon: given that Labour has witnessed a near-collapse of its support in Scotland, he badly needs to appeal to her core supporters. He also needs to fend off criticism from UKIP and the Greens, who are taking votes from Labour. But go too populist or left-wing, and he could alienate floating voters in the centre.

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What's at stake for her?

The SNP leader will walk into tonight's debates feeling pretty happy with how the campaign is going.

Sturgeon, the first minister in Scotland, isn't actually standing in Westminster but is taking part in the debates because she's the party leader. So this is a chance to land some cheap hits on Ed Miliband, shore up her party's commanding position in the Scottish polls and reassure the English that she's an acceptable coalition partner for Labour.

What does she need to watch out for?

Not much, in the last debate, she saw her popularity rise even further, with a number of English voters asking whether they'd be able to vote for her. Natalie Bennett and Leanne Wood are her natural allies, so she'll be in a majority on stage.

She'll also be drumming home a message that many will find quite appealing: Austerity sucks. She's likely to get a fair hearing as well for her argument that the decision to renew Trident, a £100 billion nuclear defence system, is the wrong decision.

Anything else?

The X factor here is Labour. Sturgeon had a pretty easy ride in the previous debate, but if Labour's researchers have done their homework, Ed Miliband could give her a much harder time of it tonight.

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What's at stake for him?

The UKIP leader might not have done as well as Sturgeon last time – though most of the polls showed him doing pretty well – but he made himself the focus of attention, positively basking in the fact that the forces of political correctness (in the form of the other party leaders) were uniting against him. More of the same would do him just fine.

What does he need to watch out for?

The UKIP leader will be perfectly happy to be the only right-winger on stage – he can lob hand grenades at Ed Miliband over Europe and immigration and know that he's striking a chord with his natural supporters. But being isolated isn't always the most comfortable position, especially when his party has had so many awkward moments and controversial candidates that the other leaders can drag up.

Anything else?

The big question is how outrageous Farage is willing to be. During the last debate, he came under fire for saying that migrants with HIV cost Britain huge amounts of money. If he raises such hot-button issues again, there could be fireworks.

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What's at stake for her?

The leader of the Greens has had one message since the beginning of the campaign, which has been to tell people to "vote with their hearts".

This is because Labour strategists have been releasing adverts targeting voters considering leaving Labour for the Greens, arguing that a vote for Bennett could see the Conservatives back in government. Tonight, she needs to keep the waverers onside.

What does she need to watch out for?

Another head cold. More seriously, Bennett should have a more comfortable time: she knows that she has the backing of Sturgeon, who has told English voters to back the Greens. Along with Wood, they're all campaigning on an anti-austerity message, something reflected in the party's manifesto this week.

Anything more?

Have her opponents read the Greens' manifesto? The massive spending hikes proposed, and the long list of unrealistic policy objectives, could make her seem fundamentally un-serious if Miliband and others really let fly.

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What's at stake for her?

Not much, but that's mostly because no one's really figured out why the Plaid Cymru leader is taking part in the debates, or remembers what she said in the last one (except for the word "Wales", over and over again).

What does she need to watch out for?

Coming off like Bennett and Sturgeon's stooge: her anti-austerity attack lines are pretty much the same as theirs, but her profile – and Plaid's poll ratings – is much, much lower.

Anything more?

Not really. This was meant to be Plaid's breakthrough moment – but on last time's showing, it could be more a case of "Leanne Who?"