So we have one political leader who doesn't care about the working class, and another who insults the working class.

No doubts that Brown has just hammered the final nail into his political coffin....However, it says a lot about the world we live in that we are picking Cameron for Prime Minister simply on the fact that he is a nice fellow, and Brown is a grumpy begger......



Imagine that famous drunkard, and all round champion rude man of all time, Winston Churchill, trying to get elected nowadays???....

He had enough of a job trying to win over the electorate in 1945. Everyone said Maggie Thatcher won in 1983 because the public still had the Falklands fresh in their mind from a year earlier....I am guessing they had all forgotten about World War Two when they voted Churchill out and Attlee in with a landslide in 1945.

Maybe the media kept focusing on the levels of borrowing Churchill had racked up in the preceding years...?

Equating Churchill with Brown. Nice.

The Atlee/Churchill thing was far more complicated especially seeing as Churchill was PM again in 1951 in effectively his 3rd stint.

Wasn't Churchill given the PM's job because he was the only politician who was popular with all parties in a coalition government ?

I don't think the same could be said for Gordon, he's probably not even popular in his own party.

Churchill had been a bit of an outsider in his own party but he was such a high profile figure as to be the obvious 'man for the job' in the time of war. He wasn't voted in, after Chamberlain resigned, King George VI invited Churchill to do the job as head of a coalition government. In practice this meant Churchill co-ordinated the war effort, and Clement Attlee (Labour leader) was effectively the domestic PM, co-ordinating rationing, Home Guard, response to the Blitz and so on. Both of them did very good jobs and worked well together (who says coalitions can't work...?)

After the war was over, despite Churchill being a very popular individual figure, people just didn't rate him over Attlee as a domestic PM and Churchill alienated voters with few non-PC comments in the election campaign trying to claim that Attlee would be a communist dictator with a Gestapo, which was ludicrous as Attlee was well respected. Attlee won with a huge majority which shocked Churchill, and that was the most left-wing Labour government ever, setting up the NHS and welfare state.

Churchill did get voted back in six years later with a smallish majority but he was in his late 70s, he also had a few strokes during his second term which affected his ability to work, he was a bit more of a figurehead leader at this time.

Last throw of the dice for Brown tonight? Got to hit Cameron hard on cutting public services and jobs....

After three weeks of campaigning, I now get the feeling that my original prediction of a Tory overall majority of 20-30 seats is coming back into sight.

Hell.

Funnily enough the latest "poll of polls" on the BBC site has got Labour nudging back into 2nd place on share of the vote, they've managed to creep back ahead of the Lib Dems. The seat forecaster on the current poll of polls would have a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party 283 seats, Conservatives with 255, Lib Dems 83 and others 29.

Labour coming 2nd on share of the vote is significant because Clegg ruled out the Lib Dems joining forces with Labour if they came 3rd on share of the vote, but he has got more of a case to join forces with Labour if they are 2nd on share of the vote, and 1st on seats. That would be politically the best option for him because not only are they more likely to agree to electoral reform as a bargaining point, but most Lib Dem voters could stomach a coalition with Labour much more than a coalition with the Tories. The Lib Dem supporters I know say that they will never vote for them again if they bring Cameron into No.10.

So my prediction at the moment, based on the polls going into this debate, is Brown to be PM of a Labour/Lib Dem coalition.

Let's all really put the cat amongst the pigeons and vote for the monster raving loony party!

You seem to have an endemic problem ( jealousy ?) towards GP`s - strange that thought you would be one and same - been middle class and educated like ...

I disagree, we're heading for a hung parliament, and as someone said above me, a Lib-Lab coalition with Brown as PM and, I would guess, Vince Cable in the Treasury.

Cameron should have had this one won long ago, and it seems he is falling at the last.

I sincerely hope you are right. 1992 is still too raw in my mind....

[url=http://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/8130400.Blooming_frustration_over_flower_planting/Red tape and bureaucracy[/url

Just remind me who runs our Council...

I thought it was the Labour Government who had all the silly rules and that Tories and Lib Dems are going to give power back to the people.

This could be the Tories version how the 1992 election went for Labour.

Now, who can we send to get Cameron drunk in Sheffield a few nights before the election?

Again, I sincerely etc....

Made up my mind. Tories get my vote.

Style over substance - count me in.

Lib Dems for me.

If you're a Labour supporter you should be glad that one went away. I remember doing an exercise in uni about what would have happened if Labour had won in 1992. As Labour were committed to us staying in the ERM, they would have been the ones who suffered us falling out of the ERM, because the odds were that was always on the cards. The Tories would then have had a field day saying Labour couldn't manage the economy, and knives would have gone into Kinnock. Michael Hestletine would probably have been a formidable Leader of the Opposition and would have put a lot of pressure on Kinnock. Kinnock would have faced a lot of internal pressure as well as there were ambitious young figures in his Cabinet, eg Bryan Gould, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, all manoeuvring for their position.

In all likelihood, a Hestletine-led Conservative government would have been re-elected in 1997, probably with the other big offices of Foreign Secretary, Chancellor and Home Secretary, filled by John Major, Chris Patten and Ken Clarke, the figures closest politically to Hestletine. That would have meant the Tories came back into power just at the point of the global economy going through a decade of low inflation and sustained growth, and the Tories would have ridden off the back of it and possibly destroyed the Labour party which would have gone through a period of backbiting and in fighting and basically looked like they were permanently out of office. Blair and his chums could even have gone off and split the party and formed another SDP style alliance with the Lib Dems.

Big picture I know what you are saying. I meant the gut wrenching feeling as the results came in.

United kingdom independence party have my vote.

I remember that night well. They started the election night coverage talking about the key figures, something like 4.5% swing to Labour would give a hung parliament, 6.5% would give a Labour majority. Through the campaign everyone thought Labour would win a narrow majority. Then the BBC's exit poll produced the shock figures that Labour would be short of a majority and would only be the largest party in a hung parliament. The pundits spent half an hour or so talking about that, and whether Labour would be able to prove the polls wrong and get the 6.5% they needed to get over the line. Then the first seat came in (its always that Labour seat in Sunderland where they race to win the fastest count title every election). Lab hold, with a swing of about 1.6%.....

What the hell was that face pulled by Brown at the end of the debate? Never seen anything like it.

what about the face he pulls at the end of every other word.

How did you come to that conclusion from my post? I was lamenting the fact that the deal negotiated for GP's was terrible (from a patient/tax payer perspective).

PS - It's being not been.

Latest Opinion Poll - Labour 24% (!!), Tories 33%, Lib Dems 32%.

Guardian supports the Lib Dems
Times supports Tories.