Matthew Dancona

We have had the debates. We have had the interviews. We have had acres of newsprint, some sensible, some way off the mark and some downright scurrilous. Can anyone doubt that this has been an exciting mayoral race? But it isn't just about excitement. This is the real thing: Londoners, today you must vote for change or more of the same. A fresh start and a candidate fizzing with ideas, or a tired municipal socialist demanding four more years for his rusty old gravy train. And those outside London: watch and keep your fingers crossed. Whatever national politicians say to the contrary, this contest will be a hugely important punctuation mark in this Parliament and the narrative arc leading inexorably towards the next general election.

Further to James's observations about the Mail on Sunday’s coverage of Lord Levy's book: I was struck, to say the least, by the disclosure that His Lordship was deputed by the Blair inner circle to have a word with the then PM about the lengthy massages he was receiving from Carole Caplin. The account of the two men's embarrassment during this exchange is intrinsically hilarious, of course. But it also shows that the controversy which quickly became known as 'Cheriegate' - flats bought through convicted conman Peter Foster, his eccentric girlfriend Caplin, her Svengali-like role as style guru to Cherie - could so easily have been 'Tony-gate'.

Take two: Gordon did better in his interview with the BBC today than in his exchange with Nick Robinson last week. As I wrote in the Sunday Telegraph, Brown answered Robinson’s questions in the earlier exchange about people’s anxieties over the economy without a shred of apparent empathy or feeling for worried mortgage holders and aspiring home owners. Today, the PM tried hard – so hard – to show the emotional intelligence that you just knew his media handlers had been urging upon him. So today it was different: deep breath: “I wake up in the morning thinking about how I can help those people who have mortgages or are looking for mortgages for the first time.” Back of the net!

There is a must-read piece in the Mail on Sunday by the impeccably connected Sue Cameron, who provides a compelling inventory of the Brown administration's dysfunctions. My favourite detail - so rich in irony - is that Number Ten is frustrated by the poor flow of information from the Treasury, and that the PM's aides were especially furious that details of the changes to capital gains tax were settled without reference to them. The reason? Habit. During the Blair-Brown years, the Treasury's entire culture was founded on the principle that its officials kept Number Ten in the dark until absolutely necessary. 'We don't normally tell No 10 what we're doing,' according to one senior official quoted in the article. 'We haven't been telling them for the past ten years.

Hugo has a terrific lead item in his Times column: namely that John Cleese is offering his speech-writing services to Barack Obama. Having had the amazing opportunity to co-write a short script with the great man years ago, I can heartily recommend him to the Senator for Illinois. And one can only wonder where such a collaboration might lead. Imagine how Basily Fawlty would have dealt with the Jeremiah Wright furore: “Don’t mention the pastor – I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it!” Or, more probably, a discourse on the Audacity of Despair. And is it too much to ask that the Democrat contender would offer to set up a Federal Bureau of Silly Walks? Or that he might refer to Hillary as an ex-candidate – she has ceased to be?

It all depends who says it, doesn’t it? I hold unfashionably robust views on the proposed extension of pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects (the arguments are familiar now: see my article here). I have traded blows on air with opponents of the change and I respect most of their anxieties. David Davis is one of the politicians I admire most, and he and I happen to disagree on this issue – which is fine. Likewise, the Government should certainly take seriously the challenge to its plan by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (chaired by the admirable Trevor Phillips). These, like Liberty’s Shami Chakrabarti, are serious people with serious reservations about an undoubtedly significant infringement of core liberties.

Nicolas Sarkozy's address to both Houses of Parliament was a remarkable political performance, bristling with confident charm, and a reminder that, for all his travails, the French President is a politician of the first order. Flanked by his new wife, Carla Bruni, Sarkozy gave a speech that Jacques Chirac or, for that matter, Ségolène Royal would never have countenanced. Most of the content was predictable and unremarkable: homage to Britain's role in the Second World War, encouragement to this country to be an active participant in the EU, the promise of more French troops for Afghanistan, conciliatory words on CAP reform, calls for cooperation on immigration.

Like Mother Theresa, it was Arthur C Clarke’s historic misfortune to die in the same week as someone with more “celebrity” (Anthony Minghella in his case, rather than Diana). But Clarke was a hugely important figure. Much has already been made of his prophetic abilities as a scientist, notably on satellite communications and moon exploration. But he was also one of the truly great science fiction writers, up there with Bradbury, Blish, Philip K Dick and Asimov, and far superior to the trash fantasy writers of today who have followed in the footsteps of Frank Herbert and Michael Moorcock (while never matching them).