Recently in General Election 2010 Category

So now we know. Telling porkies in election leaflets can cost you the election, if you win. Phil Woolas has learnt that the hard way.

Simon Hughes, deputy leader of the Lib Dems and no stranger to offensive political leaflets, says the first-time-in-99-years election court puts down a new line in the sand when it comes to the rough and tumble of political campaigns.

I don't think so. The line was always there, it's just a case that over the last 100 years many candidates have taken a chance that they can get away with smears, assuming that there won't be any comeback.

One common theme seemed to dominate the morning press today - a sense of sneering at the new Con/Lib government - better known in Fleet Street as a 'love in.'

With the tents being taken down on College Green, Kay Burley back in the Sky News studio away from the chants about being sacked, and Adam Boulton perhaps dreaming of a sunshine break, the serious business of parliament is resuming.

To me, what we saw yesterday was the creation of the Westminister version of the Chuckle Brothers: Quite amusing as a double act in front of the Press, but how much can we, as the electorate, trust them to get things right?

In fact, how much trust can voters for each party place in their respective party to honour the manifesto commitments which, just seven days ago, 65% of the voting nation passed judgement on?

If you're a journalist, then becoming a Twitter trending topic is never going to be good news. Much as Twitter is a brilliant tool for two-way communication, it certainly isn't a place thousands of people will join in praise of a journalist.

So what should Adam Boulton be feeling this morning after his remarkable bust up with Alastair Campbell on Sky News yesterday afternoon?

Unfortunately for Boulton, reacting so badly to the born-again spin doctor has given plenty of people with axes to grind something to crow about.

Coming up first, you have the anti-Murdoch brigade who believe that Sky News somehow subverts OFCOM rules and is biased against Labour at the moment (something the Tories used to accuse Sky of too, when they were struggling in the polls).

And not far behind, you have the Labour losers, who still can't get their heads around the fact that Labour lost the election, and who refuse to believe that it could be because a) the public thinks they've run the country very badly; b) The Tories actually ran a better campaign and c) the public can't warm to Gordon Brown.

To them, their election defeat is all down the big, bad media, which ganged up on Gordon Brown and didn't let them get their message across on a level playing field. It's ironic in the extreme that Alastair Campbell has become chief campaigner in the second camp, given the support New Labour enjoyed from parts of the Murdoch Empire - not Sky News - until just a few years ago.

In my column in Tuesday's Liverpool Daily Post, I make the point that over the weekend, the discussions around a coalition government over the weekend seemed to have all the urgency of an end-of-term PTA meeting.

With the clock ticking to the opening of the stock markets for the week, we should have been frantic back-and-forth, not some gentlemanly Sunday discussion before retiring for tea before the Antiques Roadshow.

Of course, the pace quickened today somewhat, not least because it turned out that Nick Clegg was having secret meetings with Gordon Brown. Secret in the sense that David Cameron apparently didn't know anything about these meetings. How secret Clegg really expected the meeting to be isn't known. If he did expect it to be a secret, then he was a tad naive. If he wanted it to get out to the Tories, then it was masterstroke in playing games.

Either way, it doesn't bode particularly well for a coalition government. In fact, over the last 24 hours it's become increasingly clear that the Lib Dems don't really want to make a decision. They are behaving as though they are just enjoying the attention, suddenly being in the thick of things.

David Cameron isn't one to get his words wrong. So I suspect him constantly telling us that a 'hung parliament would be bad for the economy' and that 'a hung parliament will not have the confidence of the markets' was an intentional half-truth designed to scare people into voting for him.

Actually, what Cameron should have said minority government, not hung parliament. A hung parliament can still be a very decisive parliament, if the right agreements and coalitions are in place.

A minority government is an entirely different situation, one which all but guarantees instability, uncertainty and general malaise whenever a difficult, or unpopular, decision needs to be made.

So having won the election, but having not convinced enough of the electorate that he is the man to lead Britain, Cameron is in a rather difficult spot.

At five minutes before 10pm, in the shadow of Big Ben, a man with bagpipes started playing. After a couple of minutes, his tune ended and the last strains drifted down the River Thames, beyond a the London Eye bathed in multi-coloured lighting.

"I didn't know it was gay pride this week," said an accent which was clearly from the other side of the Atlantic.

"Bloody stupid Americans," said a voice which was clearly from north of the river - the River Ribble, that is. "Don't they know there's an election on, and all the colours are for that. They won't want to be seen as biased."

"I'm Canadian, not American," replied the woman.

The streets around Westminster are unpredictable at the best of times. Even at the height of a parliamentary session, when our law makers are supposedly burning the midnight oil to try and get a piece of legislation through the Commons, the roads around the Palace of Westminster can be remarkably quiet.

So after four weeks of political campaigning out in the regions - even if it was more a case of taking the Westminster village on tour than actually getting out to meet people - you'd expect Westminster to be a quiet old place.

But there were plenty of windows lit up in the rather unimpressive offices which are home to the government departments which all three main parties are so keen to get an axe too.

General election campaigns tend to have at least one memorable unscheduled clash between member of the public and a politician. Think Tony Blair and the woman outside a hospital in Birmingham or John Prescott's right fist and a voter in North Wales.

It's safe to say the 2010 general election unscheduled gaffe will belong to Gordon Brown after his 'bigoted woman' comment after meeting pensioner Gillian Duffy in Rochdale today.

Encounters between members of the public and party leaders have been few and far between this time around. This morning, Brown gave a speech at which one of his own candidates asked questions. Yes, really. So it's no wonder that people grab their chance when they can to ask questions when they see a politician walking down the street.

After appearing to come off the worst in the leaders' debate, David Cameron's response was always going to be interesting to watch.

Much of yesterday's activities can be discounted in that respect - the Tories certainly didn't just rustle up Gary Barlow to sing 'The Greatest Day of All' to Cameron after the ITV debate. Though, even if he had done best in the debate, surely his spin doctors must have known the prospect of Cameron clapping his hands and swaying along to a Take That song had the potential to become instant political send-up fodder on the internet.

His interviews would have been the same win, lose or draw in the debate - that he enjoyed them and thought they were now a fixture of British politics. And so it proved to be.

Today, however, is a different story. Cameron, says the BBC, has warned of the dangers of a hung parliament and said only a "decisive" Conservative government would "get the job done".

His argument is basically that if you vote Lib Dem, rather than Tory, you increase the odds of hung parliament, which will be bad for the country because it'll take longer to take decisions. That is a risk, of course, but by no means the guaranteed outcome.

9.9million viewers, three men on a stage, one audience in silence and a funny wiggly worm running across the bottom of the screen for online viewers.

There's no doubt the first of the leaders debates was impressive in terms of style, but the format itself meant that when it comes it substance, it was sadly lacking.

Eight questions over 90 minutes was never going to be enough to really challenge the leaders. Taking a question on health and then allowing the debate to evolve at the discretion of the three leaders takes control away from the very people who are supposed to be benefitting: the audience.

So what will you be doing on Thursday night? Revelling in the prospect of seeing the three main political leaders do battle or cursing that your regular evening viewing has been thrown out for the night?

While there's no doubting that the prospect of three televised leaders' debates is a massive step forward in terms of scrutinising what the main parties stand for, the success of the shows as a cure of the poor reputation of politics lies squarely with the three men involved.

Time and time again during the first week of election campaigning, vox pops on TV and radio have included people saying something like "I just wish they'd be honest and tell us about the pain they're planning" or "They just won't give us a straight answer."