Election 2010 Day 1

16:00 That's it.  I can't possibly keep this up for three weeks - I've just got too much work to do.  Perhaps by the next election, someone will pay me to do this?

15:11 Call this democracy? The Electoral Reform Society adds to the doom and gloom with this depressing but incontestable analysis of how few us will have an impact on the election result when we cast our ballots on May 6th.  They have caculated that 382 seats - nearly 60 per cent - are so safe that the votes of 27 million voters will make difference to the final tally of MPs sent to Westminster.

I've heard all the arguments against proportional representation, and I doubt whether full PR would automatically usher in a new era of progressive, people-centred politics.  But if democracy is about every citizen having an equal say in the way power is exercised on our behalf, then opponents of PR can hardly call themslves democrats.

14:48 Are we excited? Catching up with the papers, I enjoyed this piece by Geoffrey Wheatcroft in yesterday's Guardian.  I have to admit to considerable sympathy with his pessimistic take on the state of British politics and the chances of the election making a difference, which is summed up in the following paragraph:

Yes, all right, the Labour government presided over a spurious economic miracle that was really no more than an explosion of household debt combined with criminal recklessness in the financial sector, it has created the most intrusive surveillance state in Europe, and it took us into a needless, illegal and disastrous war – but, hey, the Tories might be even worse.

Hey, indeed.

13:04 Drink deeply from Obama's aura? That's what Gideon Rachman in the FT thinks David Cameron would secretly like to do if only the gulf between the apparently left-leaning Tories and the obviously right-running Republicans was not so wide.  It's a very good piece, and goes to the heart of Cameron's struggle to drag the tories into the 21st century.  The big question, of course, is whether Cameron believes in his own project, or if he's only doing it to win the election. Of which, more later.

12:46 Reaganesque? That's how James Forsyth describes David Cameron's first speech of the campaign over at The Spectator.  With no apparent irony he goes on to say that "the implicit message was youth and vigour".  Reaganesque indeed.

11:48 Cameron says: "We've had the biggest boom and bust for a generation. We need a new economy." I wonder what, exactly, he means by a new economy.  Perhaps the kind of economy advocated by the learned people at the New Economics Foundation. If so he'd certainly have my vote.  But the sad truth is that Cameron, George Osborne et al don't have the first idea what it is about current economic arrangments that cause boom-bust economic cycles, nor what measures are required to prevent them. 

That said, it was Gordon Brown who absurdly claimed to have engineered a boom-bust free economy not long before the biggest bust in nearly a century.  Vince Cable may have more of an inkling of the structural shortcomings that underly economic failure - he is, after all, a supporter of land value taxation.  Though I suspect we won't be hearing much from Vince on that topic during the campaign.

11:07 Ignored what?  Cameron has promised to fight for the great ignored, whoever they may be.  A departure from the ambition of his predecessor, Mrs Thatcher, then.  She, older readers among you may remember, made it her business to ignore the interests of the great majority.

11:03 Oh Dear: Probably not the first utterly meaningless soundbite of the campaign and certainy not the last, but Gordon Brown has just assured us that the future is within our grasp.  Well if it wasn't, there wouldn't be much point in campaigning now, would there?

10:18 Copy Cats: Apparently, some other websites are copying my idea of regular updates on the election campaign, among them The BBC, The Guardian, The Times and The Telegraph.  OK, they have some pictures and the odd video, but quite frankly, they are all reporting the same things.  By contrast, I shall be providing some alternative and original insights as events unfold - much more interesting.

10:00  Democracy costs: So The Queen is flying by helicopter from Winsdor to Buckingham Palace so she can attend to the formalities of a brief meeting with the PM before the election is called (and then she's flying back again!).  What a waste of taxpayers money.  Don't they have phones at Windsor?

09:51 Polling preferences: Strange how frequently opinion polls echo the desired outcomes of the organs that publish them. So today, the first day of the election campaign proper, The Guardian publishes an ICM poll showing the Tory lead cut to just 4 points, while the Sun and the Express publish YouGov and Opinium polls showing the Conservative lead holding firm at a whoppng 10 per cent.

I'm not for one minute suggesting the polls are rigged, but might there be a little built-in bias in the sampling methods of the different pollsters?  Or might certain newspapers decide only to publish the polls that suit their agenda?

09:00 Here we go: So, Gordon Brown's giving his shoes one last polish before heading off to the Palace.  Welcome to my rolling guide to the 2010 general election.