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To form a coalition, David Cameron had to give up the Prime Ministerial prerogative to determine when the election was called. But it is hard to imagine that, given the choice, he would have gone to the Palace any earlier than Monday. The Tories have merely drawn level with Labour in recent weeks and there hasn’t been a poll yet which points to him winning a majority. This will be the most polled campaign in British history. On the day it started, depending on your choice of pollster, the Tories were four points ahead of Labour, four points behind or dead level. But one clear theme is emerging from this cacophony of data: a hung parliament is the most likely election result. The polls suggested a hung parliament for most of the 2010 campaign. But they were not taken seriously.

The establishment drive to marginalise Ukip has been under way for three months now, and it has having its effect. You will not read anything about Ukip in your newspapers unless it is a negative story — some half-witted candidate’s office fraudulently claiming expenses, or a disappointed member explaining that they’re all vile people and so on. The papers have, by and large, cottoned on to the fact that Nigel Farage saying something a little gamey about race is not, actually, a negative story. Whenever the Ukip leader mused in moderate terms that he found it uncomfortable to sit on a train where he was the only person speaking English, the London media turned paroxysms of outrage and the Ukip vote dutifully went up a little.

George Osborne usually tells his aides to prepare for each Budget as if it were his last. This time round, the Chancellor and those around him needed no reminding of what is at stake. They knew that this statement had to boost the Tory election campaign and define the choice facing voters in May, otherwise it really will be the last Budget he gives. As one Tory MP put it, ‘The Budget’s got to deliver some political momentum or we’re done for.’ Osborne has long been aware of the importance of this Budget for his career. If David Cameron returns to No. 10 after the election, Osborne will take the applause. His stock will rise in the party; recollections of his disastrous 2012 Budget will be put aside. He will be hailed as the pilot who weathered the storm.

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/the-death-of-childhood/media.mp3" title="James Forsyth and John Bew discuss the lack of foreign policy in the election campaign" startat=928] Listen [/audioplayer]In the 1984 US presidential election, Ronald Reagan came up with an effective way of embarrassing his rival Walter Mondale over defence. ‘There’s a bear in the woods,’ ran his television advert, showing a grizzly bear wandering through a forest. ‘For some people, the bear is easy to see. Others don’t see it all.’ During the British general election campaign, the Russian bear isn’t making any attempt to hide — it is standing on its hind legs and pawing at the trees with its claws.

I have a friend who was a Young Conservative. Just the one, I promise, and he’s grown out of it by now. I remember him, though, back from a party conference, freshly despairing, some time in the bleak, dandruffy Tory doldrums of 2000-ish. ‘It would be very easy,’ I remember him wailing, ‘for them to have some funky lights and Morcheeba playing in the background. Couldn’t they at least do that?’ Easy or not, it would be another five years and two bald leaders before they’d do anything of the sort. By then it would be the Killers, rather than Morcheeba, but the idea was much the same.

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/the-snp-threat-to-westminster/media.mp3" title="James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the not-very-general election" startat=780] Listen [/audioplayer]There’s normally an easy way to tell which party is losing a general election campaign. Whenever one side starts telling you to ignore the national polls and look at what is happening in certain key seats, it is a sure sign that they are in deep trouble. In this election, however, all the parties are arguing that what’s going on in their target seats matters more than the national polls. No one is keener to dispute the relevance of the national polls than the Liberal Democrats.