Into the trenches

INTO THE TRENCHES 

Most elections present a clear choice-throw the bastards out or keep 'em-and a foreseeable result.Not this. It's a bloody war which may well be over by Christmas (2015) but won't be by 8 May,no predictions for a clear result and every indication that it will be a 1914-18 style  deadlock across a bloody, corpse littered battleground.

The kitchen clash is a warning of the massive bombardment to come. The Tories will have the biggest bombardment from the cobbler's clobbering batteries because they've got by far the most money. Labour will be stronger on the ground because they haven't got the money for professionals or big bangs so they're forced to rely on door to door fighting by party members while the Tory media will be spraying the field with their own blend of poison gasses.

All very First World War and like that fight to the death it's likely to end in a bloody stalemate with no winner and some kind of treaty to be cobbled together with all the small nations.It's a dreadful prospect and the end of the two party democracy we've had since the war.. I still believe in it. I still think it's the best system around. But the electorate has lost both faith and belief in it.

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As it becomes clear that no one is likely to win the coming election so we're going to end u in dirty deal territory everyone should shut up about what particular deal they want, who should shack up with whom and on what terms they should co-habit. With whom. The politicians have lost the power to make those decisions by running things so badly and failing to deliver the well being people want that they've produced alienation on such a scale as to make the two party alternation unworkable.

All those decisions have been handed to the people and at the end of the day-8 May it's up to the politicians to make whatever scion they give us workable.If that requires a period without a government and a long running circus on College Green, then so be it. It might even prove enjoyable to be wIthout any government for a time and will certainly be an education in democracy.

So Cameron and all those Tories who don't want Labour to have any form of int recourse with the SNP,all those Lib-Dems who're picky about why their pathetic rump  should go to bed with and all those Labour folk who say they'll wreck any deal with the SNP should just shut up and see what the people tell them to do. Once the campaign begins neither politicians nor parties rule any longer. The people have power and they're getting awkward. 

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Labour's 1997 pledge card setting out a series of small promises to improve the lot of the people was a brilliant idea.The one that's emerging now is crap.

Vague pledges to balance the budget pay down the debt or make life better are useless. No me believes them and delivery can't be verified. We should keep the focus on the bread and butter issues and the unnecessary costs imposed on the people. That means specific promises it airy fairy promises of virtue, clean living and regular brushing of teeth.The pledge card is to prove ourselves effective not show how virtuous we want to be

To be effective the pledge card should offer smaller class sizes, more doctors and nurses, more public housing for rent, controls to lower rents  and give security, reduction of utility charges .That's what people care about and that's what will win.They don't care two stuffs about balancing the budget or paying down the debt.Nor should we

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Next week: Sarah Vine on Miliband's lavatory. does he have two? Are they clean? Does he read Marx in them?