Fraser Nelson

We have just witnessed Gordon Brown’s last and most audacious confidence trick. “Gordon Brown to resign” says the television newsflash: but the story was the very opposite. Gordon Brown is staying on, saying – pretty much – that it will take an SAS operation to get him out of No.10 before the autumn. He declared a "constitutional duty" to stay until a new administration is formed "with majority support in the House of Commons". Untrue. You just need a majority to pass laws. One can govern with a parliamentary minority (see Alex Salmond in Edinburgh, and Harold Wilson in 1974). Cameron won the right to govern, when he last week secured a greater share of the vote than Blair in 2005 and two million more votes than Brown.

Another extraordinary day in Westminster. A deal looks likely to be agreed by Clegg and Cameron tomorrow morning, put to backbench MPs in the afternoon and then Brown will advise the Queen to send for Cameron on Tuesday. (Brown may choke on those words, but if he says 'send for Ed Balls' I don't think she will fall for it.) This evening at 6pm, the handful of Tories MPs who are in London met Cameron at the Commons to discuss the coalition talks. Rumours still fly but as I understand it a deal has been reached where the LibDems will vote for Tory cuts - thereby fulfilling Vince Cable's pledge to be the guarantor of stability. "But they will want Cabinet seats," I am told by a LibDem source. "Why be tainted with cuts with nothing in return?

While both the Conservatives and LibDems support the idea of Swedish schools, a Lib-Con deal could kill the agenda stone dead. David Laws is proposing to allow local authorities to have the power to veto new schools – which would, in effect, mean no rollout. As we all know, this could strangle the Gove school agenda at birth. Local authorities, whether Labour or Tory, will hate the idea of competition in the provision of education. The local authorities and teachers’ unions are incredibly powerful, and defeated Thatcher, Adonis and Blair. They have also nobbled the LibDems to the extent that, I understand, David Laws believes that he could not get rid of the local authority veto. His party, and the special interests it represents, would not let him.

Why is predicting this election so difficult? Because voters themselves don’t know what to do. Before each of the last seven elections, Ipsos/Mori ask voters if they might change their minds. In 1983 and 1987, about one in seven said yes. This time, almost half of the British electorate may change their minds. This explains why 2010 has been the most volatile election in recent memory – with all thee parties having been ahead, in some way, during the campaign. And it also explains why prediction is a fool’s game. My gut still tells me ‘small Tory majority’ but I have learned never to bet on my gut. The press consensus is that Cameron will win over 300 seats, but no poll points to this result. And the bookies?

Should David Cameron just call the IMF immediately? Like, on Monday? This argument has been doing the rounds in Tory circles and tomorrow's Spectator has an important contribution from Niall Ferguson. He advises that Cameron takes a two-pronged approach. Prong one is to 'axe ruthlessly' and prong two is to call the IMF. He says: 'There is a very real danger that [things] could now spiral, Greek style, out of all control if foreign confidence in sterling slumps and long-term interest rates rise. Mr Cameron needs to do two things right away. He must instruct George Osborne to wield the axe ruthlessly with the aim of returning to a balanced budget over a credible eight- to ten-year timeframe.

"Don't fall for it, Dave!" implores the front cover of this week's The Spectator - together with a leader (precis here) urging him to form a minority government rather than enter any pact with the LibDems. It looks like he will not disappoint us. The Telegraph today discloses that: 'Even if he fails to secure an outright majority, it is understood Mr Cameron is preparing to “go it alone” and form a minority government. The Tories are confident an informal understanding with unionist MPs from Ulster could secure Mr Cameron a safe passage with his key early Commons battles, including getting a first Queen’s Speech and Budget passed. Last night, the Conservative leader said that, with three days before polling day, the momentum was now with him.

Even after the Gillian Duffy incident, tonight's polls either point to a hung parliament or a gossamer Tory majority. So the prospect of a Con-LibDem alliance, being forged next weekend, remains all too real. In the leading article of this week's Spectator, we urge Cameron to go it alone with a minority government - rather than enter into a pact, of any sort, with the LibDems. If Cameron fails to win a majority, he must form a minority government, do the best he can and then, when the time comes, ask the Queen for a dissolution of Parliament so he can ask the country for a majority. There are five reasons why this is the only sensible course of action. 1. Euro-style coalitions don’t work in Britain.

The election is six days away, Labour civil war is seven days away. And Alistair Darling has today delivered a rather nice put-down to Ed Balls for BBC Campaign Straight Talk. Here is his conversation earlier today with Andrew Neil: Andrew Neil: Has Mr Brown given you any indication that you’d stay as Chancellor if he wins? Alistair Darling: Yes he has, and I would. AN: You would? AD: Yes. AN: And you’d be happy to do so? AD: Very happy. AN: So Ed Balls should not be packing his bags to move into Number 11? AD: I don’t think Ed has got any intention of doing that. AN: Well he did it once, but he had to unpack them again. AD: There’s nothing wrong with having ambition. Wonderful.

Well, Cameron saved the best till last. His aides are even joking that they could do with a fourth debate because their man is really getting in the swing of it. He looked more confident, assured – and spoke convincingly about immigration at last, a subject he fluffed last time. I’d place Clegg second. Brown was worse than awful: third in this debate, and will probably be third next week’s election too. Clegg was his usual telegenic self – in thespian terms, an accomplished performance. But he ran away from his own asylum policy, and was comically inept with the facts. He screamed at Cameron: “Will you admit that 80 percent of immigrants come from the EU?” Cameron did not: because the real figure is a third.

Every politician will be thinking "there but for the grace of God..." today - but the Gillian Duffy incident is not just a gaffe. It is bad for Gordon Brown and Labour on very many levels. Here are ten of them.   1. The image of the Politburo pulling away in the Jag, slagging off the proles. This confirms the idea of an elite, who sneer at voters in private but try to charm them in public. And the idea that politicians (of all parties) say one thing on camera, and another when they think no one is listening. 2. The is not just a gaffe, but the PM on tape insulting the voters. It's the worst thing you can do in an election campaign (ie Obama¹s "cling to guns and religion" remark). Far worse than if Brown were, say, caught swearing, Nixon-style.

David Cameron has just taken his first real “kicking” of the campaign from a parent of a disabled child. Handled it brilliantly, I think. The parent is angry, understandably, about the problems he has finding a normal school for his wheelchair-bound son. The Tories are suspicious of the “inclusion” agenda – often a code for denying special-needs children the extra tuition that they deserve. But, as the father of a severely disabled son, Cameron knows more about this subject than almost anyone else in Westminster.   “It should be your choice, sir” he said: and he’s right. The voucher system would make a disabled child worth north of £22,000 a year to teach – four times more than an able-bodied pupil.