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As predicted recently, the unleashing of the blundering Brown among root and branch ordinary folk has today heralded the banana skin moment which this Election has been crying out for. Any voters hitherto still considering a Labour vote have just had their minds made up for them by Gordon Brown. Here are the facts. The man who wishes to become our democratically elected Prime Minister has seen fit to label a woman as bigoted. A few points to note. It is he who has sought the views and opinions of the electorate. We are not asking him to like our views but he can at least extend us the courtesy of respecting them. He has apologised though. Not for genuine reasons of course but because it has since become clear that he inadvertently left his microphone on. This man is about as genuine as a fairy at the bottom of the garden. He is a disgrace and the truth is now out in public for all to see. Labour had their chances to replace him but blew it again and again and again. Now they must pay the price for standing by this arrogant ignoramus. Projected share of national vote for Labour on May 6th: 24% maximum. He has probably just given Nick Clegg and David Cameron 2% each and with that a comfortable Conservative majority. What an absolute idiot. The man is a walking disaster incapable of a humble action or thought. This country needs and deserves much better than this man. GET HIM OUT!!!!!

Will a coalition reach Christmas?

I feel the time is right to humour the statisticians. Every day we are assured that a hung Parliament remains the most likely outcome of the Election. So what will happen? The outcomes are numerous and the permutations, although limited, throw up some interesting options. For instance, should the Conservatives garner 300 seats, they would be 28 seats short of the required target. However, without having to resort to either of their main rivals, they may be able to make up the shortfall with the various nationalists. Of course, fundamentally, they could hardly cosy up to UKIP without losing credibility. However, as soon as the number of Conservative seats falls in the 250-300 bracket, the Liberals come into play. Tricky. Although these two do share several policies broadly within spitting distance of each other, their differences are surely too big to overcome. Specifically, the Liberals want to join the Euro and also demand a referendum on electoral reform. On neither of these could the Conservatives possibly negotiate. Thus, a Lib/Con coalition is an absolute non-runner. So, in short, anything less than 300 seats would almost certainly preclude the Conservatives from sitting in any coalition.

So let us consider the alternatives. Could Labour reach 300 seats and seek the support of the Nationalists? No, definitely not. First of all, I can hardly see Labour reaching 200 seats - never mind 300. They will be judged on their legacy and where we are now. This will be their downfall. Inflation is starting to rise. Ditto unemployment. Ditto government borrowing. The spectre of Greece appears uncomfortably close. I read a story a few months ago about a chicken which fell down a well in rural Egypt. One man climbed in to rescue it and drowned. Another man drowned trying to save the first man and so on. Eventually, several villagers lost their lives and yes, you guessed it, the chicken against all odds, emerged unscathed. When I think of this story, Gordon Brown and his cronies always spring to mind. Namely, in spite of the poor historical outcome, if you keep persisting with the same strategy, it will have to work eventually! Wrong! Advice to New Labour in the form of a famous saying: "Sometimes its better to just stand there and look stupid rather than open your mouth and remove all doubt".

So a Labour haul of at least 250 may put a Liberal coalition on the table. This assumes a Liberal haul of at least 90 seats based on current data. Even joining together, their collective majority would be paper thin. The differences between them seem too great although one wonders what Gordon Brown wouldn't do to cling on grimly to power. In short, such a marriage would only be short lived and I doubt whether it would even reach Christmas. Six months of a dithering, bickering Lab/Lib coalition would see the Conservatives returned with a stonking majority of at least 150 seats. By contrast, should the Conservatives realise a majority now, it is unlikely to exceed 20 seats. This would be too slender to go into a second term. This would be necessary to have a fighting chance of undoing the carnage wrought by Labour.

So, which would you rather. A doomed coalition with a short shelf life or tiny majority which would lead us back to where we are within four years. Looking at it like this, it seems that the Lib/Lab coalition would be best in the long term. But, should Labour come third in the popular vote, Clegg has stated publically that he could not endorse Brown to continue as PM. On what grounds? My understanding is that he feels that a party coming third does not have the right to provide the leader. Do you see where I'm going? I really believe Clegg aspires to be PM himself! With approximately 150 more seats, Labour won't wear that. So a compromise will have to be made. Who are the alternative Labour candidates? Johnson has already talked himself out of it when previously touted. Milliband wants it desperately but is respectfully waiting for the nod from the Dark Lord. Balls has made no secret of his ambition but I ask you, Prime Minister Balls? Now that really would be the icing on the cake. Who could take seriously a bickering coalition of Balls? Bring back Lord Sutch!

Doctor O'Dell

I've just seen a BBC news headline which puts me in mind of an old Spike Milligan limerick:

Doctor O'Dell fell down a well
And broke his collar bone,
But doctors should attend the sick
And leave the well alone

The headline I read was: "Peach mown down by police".

As it happens, Peach refers to a civil rights protester killed in police skirmishes in 1979. However, if I did not know this, I would wonder what the police would be up to next. It is bad enough that we no longer see police outside the creature comfort laden confines of their top spec cars but to start bullying fruit - well its all getting out of hand.

If you ask me, fruit have rights to and I think the police here have exhibited blatant fruitism.

Speaking of the unusual, it was brought to my attention today that the prospective Parliamentary candidates for Leeds Central count a rather unusual member in their number. They have the marvellously named "We beat the scum 1-0" party. As a lifelong Leeds Utd. fan, this is the most interesting thing I have seen to do with the Election so far. Bring back the eccentrics to politics - now that's what I call change!

A quick nod to the late Screaming Lord Sutch before I depart. In one of his last manifestos, Lord Sutch espoused the merits of metricating time. Ten seconds in a minute. Ten minutes in an hour. Ten hours in a day. Ten days in a week. Ten weeks in a month. Ten months in a year. You do the maths....

Pay your money and take your choice

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!

The route to success

With the election looming in less than a fortnight and the three main parties separable only by a cigarette paper, it would be easy to imagine a hung parliament as being the most likely outcome. I would have been inclined to go along with such a forecast - until today. Today, it has been announced that Gordon Brown will henceforth assume a more vocal role in proceedings. This is the best Christmas present ever for the Conservatives and the worst possible news for the Cleggsters. Until now, the puppeteers at Labour HQ have succeeded admirably in deftly steering Gordon out of the way knowing full well the depth of public loathing for him. However, you can't keep a despot down and especially when his hunger for power is on a par with Gordon. What I don't understand is this: They recognise that electorally Gordon is a disaster and a liability and yet they fight tooth and nail to keep him as leader. Were they able to get away with it, I have absolutely no doubt that Labour would have Mandelson in the live TV debates instead of Gordon.

As I write the average of all the current polls points to a Tory lead over Labour of approximately five percentage points. The more public efforts of Gordon will make all the difference and push the Tories to the eight or so points which they will need to form a majority government. Also, I sense that the novelty of the TV debates is already on the wane. More pertinently, people seem to be coming around to the reality. Labour are finished. The Liberals can't win a majority. There is only Hobson's choice left and evrything now points towards it. I can't believe that a Party can have a majority the size of the Tories in the past two years and not get elected. The romance of Clegg has been an exciting addition to this election but it will not affect the inevitable conclusion.

Surge In New Voter Registrations

It is interesting today to note the apparent flurry of last minute activity principally in the sub25 age group to vote.

Historically, it has always been the domain of the young to effect change and so it is again. While I am not a fan of live television debates, I welcome them if they have effected this late surge. Ultimately, any elected government is only a reflection of those parts of the electorate who have voted. Given that the influx of registrations is most notably that of younger, often first time voters, we may rest assured on one outcome. It will not be good news for Labour. As to which of the other two main parties they will plump for, that is less straightforward.

An eighteen year old voting for the first time will only really have known this Labour government so should not need to much persuasion to cast their vote elsewhere. So what are the fundamental differences between the Conservatives and the Liberals? The former wish to involve the people more and the latter less. The Conservatives will also wield the axe on public services almost immediately whereas the Liberals are in the wait and see corner. The Liberals are pro Euro and the Conservatives anti Euro. The Conservatives wish to scrap the proposed NI increase whereas the Liberals want to introduce a minimum tax band of £10000. If only from a purely monetary perspective in terms of what is left in their pocket, it will be the latter which will woo the younger voter. The minimum tax band will have more appeal than a measly 1% difference in NI. The young are also far more likely to embrace the lure of the Euro zone being generally less traditional in their view.

I would therefore predict that for every 100 new votes garnered as a result of this last minute activity, 15 will go to Labour, 35 to the Conservatives and 50 to the Liberals. So it looks as though the Liberal band wagon is gathering momentum. The next debate covers the thorny issue of immigration where the difference between the parties is stark. So how important is immigration to us all? Well, by Friday morning, the picture will be a lot more clear. I suspect that in the main people are becoming rather cheesed off with it what with 2.5 million now frequenting the dole queue. Consequently, I expect the opinion polls by the week-end to look something like this: Conservative 35-39, Liberal 29-33 and Labour 22-26 - remember that many thousands of our number are returning home from their "holidays" having been delayed by the volcano. But they will not vent their anger against the volcano. It will be the blame magnet Mr. Brown who will be punished. Incidentally, should such figures in the opinion polls result and remain constant by the time of Election day, the Conservatives will command a slender working majority and do well to keep the Liberals close to coin the advice of Marlon Brando's character in The Godfather.

The Great Economically Inactive

Listening to the news today, I have just learned that the numbers of economically inactive people have reached a record high of over 8 million. Presumably, this figure includes only those people legally old enough to work. If true, this figure is huge. Or is it? I am a full time student and house husband reliant on a student loan and my wife for any income - although we do own our own home. On a serious note, I would dispute this term on the following grounds: I shop locally to support local jobs. I service our car locally for the same reason. I buy diesel for our car which is taxed (undersatement). I still pay council tax, car tax, car insurance, all of my tuition fees, utility bills and the TV license all of which are either direct or indirect forms of taxation.

Here is my point. Thanks to the judgement of Mr. Brown we now proudly boast the highest percentage of Public Sector workers in Europe - yes, even higher than France. Its a bit like Alex Bogdanovich beating Roger Federer on centre court at Wimbledon only the former is actually true and has regrettably been acheived. Who pays this ever growing mass of Unison loving, final salary pension guzzling, holidaying, striking "workers"? Tax payers. Whether direct or indirect, it is tax payers who facilitate this expansion and existence of Public Sector jobs. Thus, to be described as economically inactive when I give so much and care for a pre-school son is a little hard to swallow.

On the latter point, this country has an NHS which is existing in no small part due to millions of carers nationwide who go unpaid and largely unrecognised. You don't see them striking because morally they can not just walk away from their obligations. If Public Sector workers wish to strike, let them. But don't have them back and more importantly, don't replace them. Huge swathes of them are simply unnecessary and burdening us all in so many ways.

As we enter the final fortnight leading up to the General Election, I have a request for the political parties. I am not interested in your opinions of the proposals of your opponents. I only want to know what you are proposing to do about the mess the country is in. Message to David Cameron. Be bold and spell out exactly what you are going to do and you will take the Election with an absolute landslide. Don't be afraid to say where you will make the cuts - you will be far more popular than you may imagine.