Election launch: a nation reaches for the remote

Gordon Brown posed outside No. 10 Downing Street with his Cabinet. David Cameron stood on crates on his own outside County Hall, to frame the House of Commons in the background. Nick Clegg and Vince Cable launched their campaign from outside the LibDems Cowley Street headquarters.

The symbolism? Brown has a 'team to return him as Prime Minister'; Cameron wants to 'hide his team in his ambition to be Prime Minister'; Nick Clegg wants to 'show off Vince Cable as a potential Chancellor of the Exchequer'.

So it's a month of kissing babies, having cups of tea in semi-detached houses, and being hijacked by hecklers of opposite party hues. And come 6 May 2010, all this effort will boil down to a few dozen key marginals and the need for the Conservatives to gain a national swing of 6.9 per cent.

Fast-forward all the debate, play the odd gaffe in real time (and on YouTube), read the odd policy that relates directly to your material wealth, and moan in the pub over the odd pint, and the real world will soon hove into view once more on 7 May 2010 (or at least once the hung parliament coalition has been negotiated).


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