Skipper

The origin of the word 'spin' derives from US media aides' efforts to big up their masters at party conventions. The aftermath of these debates provide a perfect equivalent to such conditions and I fear spin has intruded into the camapign with an unseemly lurch. To me it seemed all three candidates were basically no better or worse than last week, though I did feel Gordon had raised his game more than a tad. Yet the instant yougov poll gave the game to Cameron with Clegg second and Brown third. This dubious judgement was feted as gospel truth by the triumphant Tories but some later polls gave it to Clegg by a sniff or two.

I was pleased to see Sky News had decided this morning to say the debate was 'too close to call' which was about right. Nobody delivered any knock out blows, least of all Cameron; Gordon was combative and believable I thought; and Clegg, if not sparkling as before, did not allow his momentum to stall. If you look at the papers though spin dominates. The Sun was back to 1992 form with its absurd cheer leading for Cameron. It was also The Daily Mail for Dave; Times for Dave; The Guardian for Gordon and the Mirror for Gordon> The Independent opted to highlight the poll which made Clegg as the winner. So, given the closeness of the polls the papers chose the result which suited their prejudices. So depressing when organs of opinion surrender any objectivity to bang their partisan drums.

I have to confess I was attracted by the idea underlying the Tory manifesto and it seemed initially the Conservatives had come up with something quite fresh and radical in their quest for the hackneyed old idea of 'change'. But now I'm not so sure it's a good idea either intrinsically or as a piece of political marketing.

Yesterday's Guardian quoted a grass-roots Tory saying 'Power to the people isn't it? That's a pie in the sky dream. Community minded people are few and far between'. The Observer editorial took a look at it and found it flawed:

i) it seemed to assume 'voluntary action' will be a substitute for central funding- this smaller state will require smaller funding, whilst such reduction would reduce extent and depth of provision.

ii) there is no process envisaged whereby this tsunami of voluntarism will be generated: 'the method for harnessing this charitable impulse turns out to be mere exhortation'. I heard a community development worker on Radio 4 saying it might take a decade to encourage, wheedle and nourish a community to become self starting and ready to particapate in its own self improvement.

Writing in The Economist, Bagehot is sceptical of this overarching theme:

I'm afraid Cameron and the author of this idea, his key strategists, Steve Hilton and Oliver Letwin, will have to accept that the main intellectual framework of the manifesto suffers from exactly the failings of which the Tories have always accused the left: well intentioned but impractical and based on an over oprtimistic assumtion about the average person's altruism.

How can you sell such an idea on the doorstep? Do two job families want to spend their evenings sitting in boring meetings to work out how litter can be picked up? Or would they prefer to spend these precious few hours available to them watching the telly en famille with maybe a visit to the local boozer later on to watch football on the telly and have a bit of a laugh?

I wish it were not the latter but anyone involved in volunbatry work will know that people recently invloved might display some initial enthusiam but that this most often falls away after a short period. The kind of wholly committed community minded activist is a very rare creature indeed. And yet Cameron has based a whole 100 page plus manifesto on the assumption such people are there, plentifully in our midst and just raring to go. Oh dear.

If the Tories have a mountain to climb, the Liberal Democrats are looking from base camp to Everest. They had 63 seats in the last parliament. A 1% swing would bring that to 68 seats, 2% to 78, 3% to 97 (where they are on the latest YouGov figures), 4% to 121 seats, 5% to 154 seats, 6% to 197, 7% to 250 seats – where they just might be the largest party – and 8% to four short of the 326 needed to be the majority party.

So it's a really a big ask for them, a mountain they have only just begun to climb and Clegg faces at least two problems come Thursday's second round: firstly both Gordon and Cameron, awfully politely and smiling like crocodiles, will be swimming through the interview waters to chomp him; and secondly, after his star debut, he might find it hard to keep up the same intensity of performance. My bet is he'll not be quite as good.

And this will be for one of the reasons he was perceived as being so good last Thursday: the media love exciting newcomers who exceed expectations. So it was with Cameron and his 'look Mum, no notes!' at the 2005 party conference; so it was with fusty Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent that time; and so it was with fresh faced relative unknown Nick Clegg on his debut. He'll never quite have the portents so favourably arranged as he did last Thursday. But, having said that, he's probably sunk the Tories' chance of winning an overall majority now. 'Thanks Nick' smirks Mandelson in a recent email to party members but goes on, less believably, perhaps, to predict : ' most people will not follow through on their current flirtation with Nick'

In fact, Cameron was a bit at sea. He couldn't quite fit in. As a result he was wholly unable to expand upon his Big Society theme- you know, about including everyone in the government of ther country. I don't think he mentioned it more than once, which suggests it is as I suspected, a ploy to seduce the voters rather than anything he truly believes in. I'm fairly sure Tory strategists today will be rueful about agreeing to the debate in the first place. As the front runner he had the most to lose but his unimaginative advisers failed to realise this would be in no way like PMQs where Dave has weekly skewered Gordon like a matador.

At first I thought Nick Clegg was too lightweight but he adapted rapidly and showed no nerves- a sign he has made the upward shift into the top league. I even thought Vince Cable could not have done any better which is something I never thought I'd think. After last night Dave and company will find the 23 Lib-Dem marginals they need to win to accumulate the seats they need to win, might well have become a degree or so less marginal.

What about the event as a whole? I was favourably impressed overall. It was a bit odd to have no applause and no heckling from the audience- this was not Question Time either- and it was notable that the audience only laughed- nervously and inhibitedly- a couple of times(Vince would certainly have improved the laughgter count). But with 10+ odd million watching, this had to be something special and I do hope it has injected some life into this lack lustre campaign. Though I doubt if the top Conservatives will be thinking along smilar lines just at present. I can't wait to see what effect the debate has had on the already up and down polls.

So what about the manifestos? I've only absorbed the two major ones second hand but I think here too the Tories have edged it. Labour's effort is brave and tries hard to sound radical in promising an 'active reforming government' which is 'on your side'. Interestingly Brown has gone for more Foundation hospitals, Academies and new procedures for removing poorly performing agencies. Rawnsley's book documents how Brown lambasted and impeded such policies as the first two when championed by Blair and Milburn in order to pose as leftish against a leader who had 'sold out'. It is fairly cynical one has to confess, but few things surprise me these days. 'This is a plan' writes Peter Riddell, in The Times, 'for an activist state'.

The Conservartive manifesto is surprising and impressive in its ambition. The product of what we learn is years of gestation, this weighty 130 page document invites each voter to 'join in' the government of the country' and take back control from the state. Amongst other suggestions, public sector workers will be given the chance to run their organisations as coops; parents given the chance to set up new schools in their communities; and academies expanded throughtout the country. I am sceptical as to the practicabality of coops in the public sector, especially as the Tories have dismissed such ideas as arrant rubbish in the past and I'm not sure how the coop model can be translated from, say, John Lewis, to say, a health clinic.

Nor am I sure voters want what they might have said they want to pollsters or in focus groups. A fair amount of participation is allowed in planning processes but experience suggests it is seldom taken up. Voters might think they want this surprisingly left-sounding 'invitation' but in practice will probably ignore it. But it catches the zeitgeist in this 'anti-politics' time and sounds sufficiently radical to be genuinely exciting. I suspect Cameron has come up with something authentically new this time- though totally counter intuitively so for his rightwing party. Personally I don't believe it, but I think it'll sell better than Labour's half cooked offering.

We have had the hilarity of health service spending being protected by "a £1bn cut in sick leave among NHS staff" (Labour). We have had an extravagant pledge of "a right to a new school" (Tories). We have had free care for the elderly (Labour), tax cuts for marriage (Tories), new trains for all paid for by more potholes (Liberal Democrats), no rise in VAT (Tories), no more council taxes (Liberal Democrats) and any cancer drug you like paid for by holding down national insurance on the NHS (Tories). Labour proposes to give football supporters their clubs, a £1m Green Bank and a living wage.

But the real action so far has circulated around the NI question. Darling proposed to increase it by 1% in his budget to help reduce the debt mountain. Cameron has opportunistically forgotten about his own number one priority and has switched tack to resist Labour's foul imposition. What is more he has suggested the amount to be raised- £6bn- should be raised by 'efficiency savings'. As Darling pointed out in The World at One, if he had included such a measure with such a nebulous cost justification in his budget he would have been laughed to scorn. But election campaigns are different: you can lie and then lie your way again out it. Cameron and Osborne know they are doing this, just as Brown and co. know they will probably do something similar later on.

The Tories have just struck lucky but it's a gamble. Labour have decided to stick with the NI issue and try to unpick it for voters so the mendacity of the Conservatives can be revealed. If they succeed they will win the second round and more. But voters- reassured by a tax averted- might not listen and Labour might have to cut their losses and move on. The endorsement of the Tory position by business leaders is damaging to Labour but is scarcely surprising. NI increases would indeed affect jobs and the Tories have been clever in focusing on this while avoiding the key issue of how it can be paid for. Busines, in any case, naturally cleaves to the Conservatives and have merely 'returned home' after a decade long etra-marital affair with New Labour.

i) there were not merely a 'handful' of phones being hacked into by NoW journalists and other employees but over 4000. As editor Coulson must have known about the widespread practice on his own newspaper. Yet he told the select committee he knew nothing about these illegal activities.

ii) that the officer in charge of the inquiry, assistant commissioner Andy Hayman, is now employed by News International, owner of NoW, as a columnist.

iii) the NoW has paid out £2m to two prominent victims of the hacking- PR agent Max Clifford and Gordon Taylor of the PFA.

iv) it has also paid out money to the jailed Goodman and private investigator Glen Mulcaire 'which are believed to require them not to speak'.

Joining up the dots the implications of Davies's findings, it seems fairly obvious that: Coulson must have known about the illegal activities of his newspaper; that he told porkies to the select committee; and that people who might speak out about it have been bought off. The result is that the sanctimonious Cameron, if he wins on 6th May, will proceed to place in a prominent place in British government, a person who has very possibly been party to flagrant breaches of the law. Labour will be mugs if they let the din of the campaign drown out the possibility of catching the hypocritical Tories bang to rights.

But the recent article by Martin Kettle contained a suggestion which caught my eye by 'one of his staunchest Westminister supporters' that 'Tony needs to donate a million pounds to the Labour Party.' I don't think it would win any votes but the party needs it and deserves it considering how much of his earning power is the result of the position won for him by the party and its 'small batallions' to which I belong. I think it would also reassure me and others that Tony still has a shred or two of integrity left. Mind you, I don't think Cherie would for a moment let him.