This Thursday sees the final TV debate between "See No Evil", "Hear No Evil" and "Speak No Evil". It is also on the BBC and likely to attract the largest audience. Its subject is, I believe, the most likely to decide people's minds: The Economy. Fundamentally, we are faced with a stark choice. Start making the cuts to the Public Sector now (Conservative) or delay the same action for a few months (Labour and the Liberals). Given that everybody is in agreement about the current perilous state of our national finances, savings will need to be made to repay the spiraling national debt. So, we can either face up to it now and address the problem sooner or we can stick our head in the sands and hope it goes away. Cameron needs to score big on Thursday. He will have the biggest audience, the point upon which he has the biggest support and, most importantly, the last say. If people really are being swayed by these debates, I would expect the first post-debate polls to show the Conservatives back on 38-40% of the vote. Anything less than this will be disastrous and will signal the political end of David Cameron. If the polls come in showing 40%+, he will storm this election and garner a majority of between 30 and 80 seats. Unfortunately, the bad news is that whoever succeeds to power will have the unenviable task of dealing with the current mess - a task that will realistically take at least ten years. But will they be afforded the ten years needed?
A hung Parliament with more Brown will surely be an absolute disaster for the UK fiscally. I hope and predict that Labour will recede to about 25% of the vote and the Liberals to no more than 27.5%. Other outcomes do not bear thinking about!
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