Eddie Izzard backs Brown against Thatcher’s children

As Labour spin-doctors try to unravel what exactly happened last night - Nick Clegg clearly 'won' the great TV debate, but who lost? - the party today unleashes its secret weapon: Eddie Izzard, comedian, actor, marathon runner and sometime "card-carrying transvestite".

Izzard is travelling around Britain supporting local Labour candidates. He was in Cambridge and East Anglia this week, dressed - to Gordon Brown's relief, no doubt - in a sober blue jacket and jeans rather than a cocktail dress. And according to one Labour insider, local party activists are lapping it up.

"It's a lovely sunny afternoon in Cambridge - but if the Tories were in power it would be raining," he told a group of students gathered on Christ's Pieces, in Cambridge.

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Slipping effortlessly into more serious election-speak, he told the Cambridge Evening News: "The recession we're now coming out of had nothing to do with Labour Party policy: ­ it was caused by capitalist casino gambling.

"If the Tories get in, there would be billions more in cuts than Labour are planning.

"I've been in Labour since the mid 1990s. They're just fairer: ­ they believe in fairness. If the Tories believed in fairness, then they wouldn't be in the Tory party."

Tonight, a political broadcast starring Izzard will be broadcast on the main television channels, starting at 6.55pm on BBC1.

Izzard uses last year's experience of running 43 marathons in 51 days to argue that the Conservatives are wrong to describe Britain as "broken". If the Tories got on their bikes, they would discover that Britain is "brilliant", he says.

"Remember," Izzard concludes, "these people are Thatcher's children - be afraid, be very afraid!"

Preaching to the converted? Yes. But after Gordon Brown's wooden performance in last night's TV debate - especially in the joke-telling department - Izzard's performance is just what the Labour spin-doctors ordered.