Labour party

Alas, and most reluctantly, you've got to hand it to Brown: he's a scrapper. Just watching coverage of his speech in Bradford now, and he seems to be on punchy form.  The message is stridently negative, of course.  And he has entrenched himself, as David noted earlier, back behind the old "investment vs cuts" line (although now he calls it "selfish individiualism over public investment").  But this is clearly where the PM is happiest and at his most comfortable.  Aggressive clunk is simply what he does best. The question hanging over the dying stages of the campaign is this: will the negativity cut through?

Labour’s campaign becomes ever more like The Prisoner. Every time the plot seems decided, it veers-off in the contrary direction. The Prime Minister was interviewed by The Times yesterday and I feel for those who conducted it, stuck in the vortex of what Gordon will say next. If you cast into the recesses of memory, you’ll recall that yesterday morning was tactical voting morning. They were all at it – Balls, Brown, Alexander and Hain. If you’re yellow threatened by blue, vote red; if you’re red threatened by blue, vote yellow. It was so confusing I half expected them to endorse blue if you’re red threatened by yellow. That was yesterday morning. By mid-afternoon Brown did what he does best. He changed his mind.

There's only one question which matters when it comes to Labour's tactical voting plea: will it work?  You can certainly see Brown & Co's thinking on this.  This is the election, after all, where the Lib Dems have become a viable option for a lot more people - so they might act as a speed bump for people rushing away from Labour and towards the Tories.  And anything which depresses the Tory vote gives Labour a greater chance of holding the most seats in the House, and of making some kind of post-election pact with Nick Clegg. But as David said earlier, Labour's osciallating stance towards the Lib Dems - lofty sneers one minute, sickly grins the next - is hardly convincing.  And neither is the timing.

At last, the election has thrown up a real character. Manish Sood, Labour PPC for North-West Norfolk, has told the Lynn Newspaper: ‘Immigration has gone up which is creating friction within communities. The country is getting bigger and messier. The role of ministers has gone bureaucratic and the action of ministers has gone downhill – it is corrupt. The loss of social values is the basic problem and this is not what the Labour Party is about. I believe Gordon Brown has been the worst Prime Minister we have had in this country. It is a disgrace and he owes an apology to the people and the Queen.’ There is a further act in the farce. Mr Sood campaigns on the imaginative ticket of 'taking Britain back to the 1970s.

Labour’s relationship with the Lib Dems gets more like Dallas’s JR and Sue Ellen with each passing day. Contemptuous and contemptible one day to lisping breathless compliments the next.  Gordon Brown snarled at Nick Clegg during last week’s debate. Clegg would, Brown argued, leap gaily into bed with the Tories on Friday morning - a departure from the previous ‘we must form a progressive coalition’ line pushed by Andrew Adonis. This morning brings another volte face: Brown and several cabinet ministers urge ‘progressives’ to vote tactically. Writing in the Guardian, Gordon Brown pitches for Lib Dems to vote Labour in 100 Tory/Labour marginals.