The Two-Horse Race

At this early stage in the formal General Election campaign, it is a good time to deal with any pretenders.

First, no minor or fringe party stands any realistic chance of making any meaningful impact in this election. That's how it is, like it or lump it; and nothing that any of those parties has done yet comes close to changing that situation.

The BNP are the only ones with anything like the right idea, as were the Liberal Democrats until they allowed "Saint" Vince Cable too much air-time. His constant flip-flopping on policy, and his disregard for his party's official line, now seem to have put him on course for a big split-up with the Lib Dems as a whole.

For now, he has brought the party some apparent (superficial) credibility to the masses of the public who have no real idea about how economics and public finances work; so he will no doubt be allowed to continue for the time being: the party has little choice anyway, now that an election campaign is fully under way.

He will, though, need to be very careful during the next four weeks (i.e. until after Polling Day) as the Liberal Democrat ratings aren't all that brilliant with the public as a whole. Even their opinion poll ratings have now peaked at just over 20% and look like sliding away again.

Fortunately for Vince, it'll be his leader, Nick Clegg, who will from now on be more in the spotlight, including in the three televised Leaders Debates. That'll take the pressure off Cable for much if not most of the election campaign period. He is, though, a media favourite so that might not work out in practice...

Why is he a media favourite? Well, he does come across quite well, seemingly knowledgeable and able to express financial and economic matters in an easily digestible form. Of course, he is in reality a hard Lefty who went from Labour to the Lib Dems some years ago, but hasn't actually changed in outlook. He is still just as hard Left as ever, as has been reported and documented on a number of occasions.

Don't be fooled by the Lefty media's fawning love of "Saint Vince"!

Meanwhile, the Lib Dems are trying to portray themselves as a "third horse" in the race to Number Ten. This is of course nonsense; but even more pertinently it goes against their customary election literature message when, using dodgy bar charts (and we've probably all seen them), they try to portray elections in specific (target) seats as "a two-horse race". Hypocrisy indeed!

No: despite any signs to the contrary that they are the media might try to convey, this election really is a two-horse race, and that doesn't include the Liberal Democrats! The indications of a hung parliament now appear to have been rather conveniently manufactured by ignoring real voting patterns.

The polls are now widening anyway, and it seems likely that this trend will continue from now on (with, no doubt, the odd hiccup along the way) so the Lib Dems look like remaining a more-or-less complete irrelevance. This could change in theory, but it seems very unlikely now.