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Commentators gear up for .

the challenges facing Alistair Darling, George Osborne and Vince Cable:

"Osborne might be the man with the most to lose but he is also the man with the most to gain. Osborne's stock is undervalued at the moment, people are ignoring that he has won the argument on debt and that he was the man who forced Brown to call off the election that never was. By contrast, Cable's is overvalued - as that Andrew Neil interview showed, he is nowhere near as good as his press suggests he is. Darling has had an easy ride over the past few years because the political class sees that he is the man trying to restrain Balls and Brown's worst instincts. Darling's knowledge of economics and policy agenda have not been subject to forensic scrutiny."

The George Osborne has the most to prove out of the three and sets out its formula for his success:

"To emerge a winner from this debate, he must explain simply and clearly how he will tackle the vast waste in the public sector and reduce the terrifying national debt without crushing middle earners with punitive tax increases."

The Shadow Chancellor George Osborne's plans not to increase national insurance tax is a gamble timed to coincide with the debates:

"[O]ne can see the appeal for the Conservatives of today's announcement of a cut in national insurance. It comes just a few days after Alistair Darling's budget which was notably short on tax-and-spend doorstep pleasers - and on the morning of the chancellors' debate on television."

The timing of cuts is the only issue that will be contested in the debate:

"The parties are keen to draw the lines between them starkly but, as soon as Labour abandoned the absurd claim that they would invest while the Conservatives would cut, the distance closed. There is an argument about timing - sooner is better than later - but the difference is not measured in years. The debate, therefore, must be economically substantive. The reputation of politics is at a low ebb and, if the would-be chancellors cannot do better than play games, we might as well place a pistol in their hands and send them off to Putney Heath."

why he thinks it comes down to the timing rather than the detail of cuts:

"Given that we're in the process of electing a government for the next four or five years, this is depressingly myopic, even more so because economists themselves can't agree on the answer. For some, the key worry is the possibility of a Greek-style rise in the UK's borrowing costs, threatening the recovery. For others, the worry is a premature tightening of fiscal policy, again threatening the recovery. To ask the electorate to make a political decision on the back of a debate which even the supposed experts cannot resolve seems almost farcical.
There is, however, a good reason why the debate has descended to this. None of the political parties is prepared to admit the full truth. Instead, we hear claim and counter-claim about the need to protect frontline services."

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