Both sides claim victory from first live TV indyref debate

The Ukip leader's antics were a hard act to follow but the Scotland Tonight production team should not feel too disconsolate. Ultimately their debate on the economics of independence was of greater significance to Scotland's future than the question of whether Mr Farage's party has the organisational capacity to stage a press conference in a pub (it hasn't, if you were still in any doubt).

We learned a number of things, most obviously that the Deputy First Minister is a more accomplished TV performer than the Secretary of State for Scotland. Neither politician, however, landed a killer blow in the course of the hour-long special and, as is the way with these things, both sides later claimed victory after extracting "concessions" from their opponent.

The SNP claimed that Mr Moore had agreed for the first time that UK assets and liabilites would be shared out fairly in the event of a Yes vote next year. The SNP welcomed his comments, having threatened on a number of occasions to walk away from the UK without accepting a share of Britain £1trillion national debt if Scotland was denied its rightful share of national assets.

The real prize, of course, is the pound and specifically a formal deal to share the currency in a sterlingzone. But if the SNP thought Mr Moore had conceded an independent Scotland's right to enter a currency union they were quickly disappointed. The Liberal Democrats stressed yesterday there was a difference between assets like military hardware (to be divvied up) and assets like sterling or membership of international organisations (to remain with the UK).

For its part, the pro-UK camp highlighted two points in the wake of the debate. The first was Nicola Sturgeon's claim that a currency union would only place constraints on a Scottish government's debt and borrowing limits.

That's a much more optimistic view than the one put forward by Chancellor George Osborne last month when he suggested an independent Scotland's budget – including its tax plans – would have to be approved by Westminster under the terms of any deal. (And that was if a deal could be struck at all, which he doubted.)

Secondly, they seized on the Deputy First Minister's refusal to reveal whether the SNP had a "plan B" for an independent Scotland's currency in case a currency union could not be agreed.

The argument – and this is shared by the SNP's Yes Scotland allies the Greens as well as the pro-UK parties – is that an independent Scottish Government would enter currency negotiations in a very weak position indeed if it did not have a fall-back option. It would simply have to agree to whatever terms and conditions the UK wished to impose as a price for sharing the pound.

At present it's just not clear whether the SNP does have a Plan B – a brand new currency, for example, or continuing to use the pound without agreement with the UK – or whether it would join a sterlingzone whatever the cost.

Both of those Plans B, by the way, are possible but problematic for the SNP. A new currency, though favoured by many within the broader Nationalist movement, would be hard to sell to undecided referendum voters, while economists' views on adopting sterling unilaterally range from less than ideal to downright risky.

Yesterday Better Together said that uncertainty over the currency had become a "central issue" in the campaign while the Nationalists pointed out, quite reasonably, that no-one had actually said No to their currency union proposal.

Debate-winning concessions? Hardly. This first televised encounter ended in stalemate but the arguments were well put on both sides and the exchanges benefited from a formula which allowed Ms Sturgeon and Mr Moore to cross-examine each other. Let's hope its success ends the silly stalemate of Alex Salmond refusing to debate live with Alistair Darling.