The phoney war ends and battle commences

For those of us who remember the days before the rigours of Clinton’s perpetual campaign and the demands of 24 hour news, it was not always so. We were able to breathe easily and prepare ourselves before shyly brandishing the dreaded rosette and setting off with a bagful of leaflets to alarm and sometimes frighten the electorate.

It feels like this campaign has been running since the New Year when the Tories threatened to unleash a new policy a day on an unsuspecting electorate who were more concerned about running off the excesses of Christmas. This brave new world lasted all of two days when Cameron was undone on marriage and, had he not been saved by the tomfoolery of Hoon and Hewitt, then his party may have rounded upon him and told him to pull his socks up pretty sharply.

Since then we have endured a series of non-events, variously described as policy launches or photo-opportunities disguised as visits. We have been treated to speeches or even the extraordinary spectacle of a launch of a pre-manifesto, whatever that is supposed to be.

And so it finally came to the absurdly pompously-named ‘Declaration Day.’ It was always the case that the Prime Minister of the day would make their way to the Palace with a nod and wink to the waiting cameras. Such was the theatre and the faux secrecy that any tourist would have been forgiven for thinking that they may have been asking The Queen for her hand in marriage rather than simply a dissolution of Parliament.

Never have I watched a Labour Prime Minister leave Downing Street with such relief and pleasure. In days past this would have given the electorate due warning that their peace was about to be disturbed with the launch of the manifesto which would finally herald the beginning of the campaign proper. This week the phoney war ended before the Prime Minister returned to Downing Street and before Her Majesty had time to finish her tea. The Tories rounded up the sons and daughters of the Shires to listen to their leader make another of his impromptu speeches. Only Nick Clegg seemed surprised to hear the news.

There have been skirmishes but no early knock-out blows. The Tories tried to create a storm of protest enlisting their friends in business to act with indignation and mock innocence to support their National Insurance campaign. It took Labour some time to respond and to point out that every one of the people quoted would benefit hugely from Conservative plans to further enrich the most wealthy.

At the same time the unhappy Chris Grayling joined that great Tory tradition of hiding from the public. Following the example of Oliver Letwin in 2001 and Howard Flight in 2005, he was forced to answer his critics from an unknown telephone box least the identity of his safe-house be discovered. If anything his unwise and poorly-judged remarks demonstrated the extent to which Britain has changed in the last 13 years. Such casual chauvinism is no longer acceptable and by exposing the double-standards within Conservative thinking, he did at least perform a valuable service to the wider public.

Meanwhile, the week ended with Liberals taking their campaign for a hung Parliament to new heights by predicting riots and the breakdown of social and public order if the electorate wake up on May 7th only to find that they have elected a government – even a disagreeable one.

But I am employed here (for no fee, of course) to comment upon my own party. So how has the Peoples’ Party fared over the last few days? The Government has been suitably governmental. The confidence of the Prime Minister and his key lieutenants seems to be growing with the narrowing of the Conservative lead in opinion polls. They have not yet brought the full focus of the campaign onto the key battlefields of the economy and the future of public services. But they have withstood the NIC storm and emerged unscathed. To be in this position at this point of the campaign is a triumph of sorts. And if things continue in this vein then the Labour Party may well learn to love Peter Mandelson, which is a much taller order than the British public learning to love Gordon Brown.

The coming week will bring us both the traditional manifesto launch and the novelty of the leaders’ debate. And next week we may be in a better position to finally review the first full week of this long march.

Let battle commence.

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