But what do they believe in?

"Perhaps party manifestos or leaders speeches could contain a short utopian vision of a better world..."

Utopias tell us about people’s visions and dreams of a good life. People who create utopian visions think about what’s wrong with their world. They identify core problems with the present and cast their minds forwards to imagine a world in which these problems have been solved.

The Nice Party Turns Nasty?

In her foreword to the Green Party manifesto, Caroline Lucas suggests that the Liberal Democrats have dumped their positive attitude towards government intervention, in favour of the view that ‘the state is a problem’. The ‘nice party’, she writes, ‘have just got nastier’.

Pick and Mix

With less than a fortnight to go, here are some of the highlights of the blog over the last two weeks:

The manifestos compared – can you guess which one talks about chaos more?

Why the ippr don’t get the BNP – and why the BNP targets Islam.

Why Newnight Review don’t understand political fiction

How the polls aren’t really moving as much as you think

Why you should be sceptical about all the talk of this being an internet election

Plus:

Labour’s secret weapon: the World Cup

The benefits of attack ads

Gordon sings a song

And how to lose a TV debate, even if your opponent has punched a child in the face.

Professor Philip Cowley

The absence

News that Labour is set to change its campaign strategy, moving Gordon Brown more centre stage, brings to mind David Hare’s play Absence of War.

Why is no one criticising Nick Clegg’s Vietnam War record?

"The Daily Mail trumpeted the Conservatives’ success in raising £1.5 million in the first week of the campaign, but Obama could raise that between sneezing and blowing his nose..."

For those of us who treat elections as a spectator sport, the general election campaign is bubbling up nicely. But for a politics-as-sports fan like me, it lacks something in comparison with presidential campaigns in the United States. Sure, we’ve got our own ‘Yes we can’ (albeit ‘probably not’) dynamic going on. And the debates have been fun. But unlike the US, we don’t get to enjoy candidates’ paid-for advertising campaigns.

The Ghost at the Feast

"How do these three men in a boat see the world, and our place in it?"

In Roman Polanski’s film, The Ghost, currently doing the rounds, Pierce Brosnan plays a recently retired British Prime Minister, sequestered in his American home-from-home, hard at work on his tennis and his memoirs. With his uncertain accent, impossible tan, ersatz charm, pectoral presence and petulant glamour, Pierce Brosnan makes an unconvincing Tony Blair. He is in good company. Tony Blair makes an unconvincing Tony Blair, for precisely those reasons.

Blame is the Spur

"The honeymoon period is over Rab. We want results"

With the nation swept away on a tide of Cleggmania, it is tempting to think that real life really is stranger than fiction. But for those who cannot get enough politics from the election campaign the arts are doing their bit to help fill the gap.

Polls stability again (well, sort of)

Again, the polls appear to be all over the place. Last night’s ComRes poll had the Conservatives in front by nine points, Populus by just one. You Gov had the Lib Dems ahead by three, Angus Reid had them ahead by just one. Lib Dem support had either ‘burst’ (ComRes had them back to 26%, albeit a level of support that many Lib Dems would have sold their souls for just a week ago) or was at its highest level (34%, with YouGov).

Leaders debates - lessons from Romania

"...finding a balance between using kid gloves and attacking your opponent is very difficult..."

Nearly all the pre-debate coverage last week tried to draw lessons from the US experience of presidential elections. But it’s not just the US that has them. Romania has had televised presidential debates since 1994, just four years after the revolution.

Multiple polling days

"Postal votes will be landing on doormats soon.  They could well be doing so when the Lib Dems are enjoying their best election campaign ever..." 

A couple of months ago, I was chatting to a party strategist, and asked what he thought had done most to change the nature of British elections in recent years. His answer: postal voting.

Shorter, fairer, more polluted? The Lib Dem manifeso compared

"At worst, the government has provided too much and voters will actively want less. Either way, other parties can make gains..."

Following on from the previous comparison of the Conservative and Labour manifestos, what about the Liberal Democrat manifesto?

Letters From Economists

"The tale of the 364 may simply illustrate that the backing of economists – though rhetorically useful for politicians – is not a reliable guide to good policy..."

Those following the on-going debate about how and when to reduce the deficit will have seen a letter printed in last Thursday’s Daily Telegraph. Signed by almost sixty academic economists, it is the second to back Labour’s plans to delay spending cuts until ‘the recovery is well underway’, and warned that Conservative plans to cut immediately could ‘imperil not only jobs but also the prospects for reducing the deficit’.

Now that's what I call a poll

"Who said elections were dull?"

Until the debates, every opinion poll during the election had shown the Conservatives on 38+/-3, and Labour on 30+/-3. The YouGov poll published in the Sun today is the first to show movement beyond the sort of fluctuations you get from sampling error.

Creating the Big Society?

"There are many problems with localism, from its potentially damaging effects on democracy and equal and universal services to a bias towards certain groups..."

Despite Labour’s odd choice of cover, it was the Conservative manifesto that looked the most unusual last week. It was presented as an invitation to ‘join the government’ – to set up our own schools, to elect local police chiefs, to run the local post office, and to form co-operatives to deliver local public services.

More MOE

"Move along, there’s nothing to see. Yet."

Yesterday I pointed out how the polls had been remarkably stable during the campaign, despite talk of their ‘volatility’, once you allowed for the margin of error inherent in sampling. Up till then, all but one poll during the campaign had put the Conservatives on 37 +/-3, Labour on 30 +/-3.

Forget debates...THIS is how to engage people

"Filipino voters expect to be ‘charmed and entertained’ by their candidates. Surely UK elections would be less tedious if we demanded the same? Gordon Brown, take note..."

In the Guardian recently Hadley Freeman wrote that UK elections are so boring that they might lead people to ‘self-lobotomise with a spoon’. Her comparison was with US - long and tempestuous, and UK - short and boring - elections.

Polls in stability shocker

"Most people involved in politics know about sampling error, but, as last night, they often forget its implications."

There were four opinion polls last night, all showing different sized-Conservative leads, ranging from 3 to 10 points. Cue confusion, and lots of talk about the polls being ‘all over the place’.

“I feel like I win when I lose”

"No-one (in their right mind) would want to find themselves governing in the scorched earth years that lie ahead of us. Not so much a poisoned chalice as a barrel’s worth of the stuff."

A familiar part of any electoral spring is the appearance of our old and counter-intuitive friend – “it’s a good election to lose”.

In varying forms, it has already made an appearance in The Guardian, The Independent and the London Review of Books courtesy of Messrs. Legrain, Lawson and Lanchester, respectively.

Out with the new, in with the old

"...to focus on their internet strategies whilst ignoring their direct mail operations, is like reporting on a football game by describing the corner kicks in loving detail but ignoring the goals."

Marcus Aurelius said that a man’s worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions. I’m not sure what that says about me, given that one of my ambitions is to go on Stars in Their Eyes as Diana Ross.

And now for something serious...

"... just voting might start a process that leads to the parties taking them more seriously..."

We have been told that this is going to be a Mumsnet election, the parenting website whose users are principally affluent, ‘aspirational’ women in their thirties and forties concerned with ‘quality of life’ issues. They are the latest version of the classic ‘swing voter’ who lives in the kind of marginal constituency that now supposedly decide general elections - the Worcester Women for our own times, the British cousin of the American Soccer Mom. Since 1997 many other names have been coined for what is basically the same group of women. In 2005 Labour focused on the School Gate Mum. Last year the Conservatives said they would woo Holby City Woman. More recently Douglas Alexander referred to Take a Break Woman as critical to Labour’s fortunes in 2010.