Polls are polls.

in the words of Alan Partridge " Lynn, I hate the general public"

What about the Tories record for foobaring up the economy:

Ted Heaths government: energy crisis, three day week, unemployment shoots up, Heath tries to inflate away unemployment, he just gets 16% inflation and unemployment keeps rising....

Margaret Thatcher's government: early 80s, deepest recession since the war, inflation in double figures, unemployment triples. Inflation briefly gets under control for about 3 years in the mid 80s as the economy rides on a North Sea oil boom. By the end of the decade inflation is back at 10%, unemployment shoots up again and Thatcher is forced out just as Britain goes into another deep recession.

John Major's government: Comes in with high inflation and high unemployment. Major pins his strategy on ERM membership and uses the exchange rate as the target of monetary policy. This finally gets on top of inflation but the recession is lengthened due to us trying to match Germany for high interest rates to maintain the pound in the ERM boundaries. High levels of repossessions and unemployment. In the end we fall out of the ERM anyway and Major's credibility is permanently damaged.

In fairness to Major I will say this - he achieved the holy grail which had been beyond Thatcher, Callaghan, Wilson and Heath, of pulling down inflation and establishing a permanent low inflation economy, and AFTER we fell out of the ERM and interest rates could be cut, Major got on top of unemployment as well. He was already destined for defeat in the 1997 election once the ERM had happened anyway....but in terms of quietly efficient economic management, the Major/Clarke era was IMO the best example of Conservative economic performance.

Mrs Thatcher never got on top of unemployment, hence her welfare benefit bill was bigger than any of her predecessors and sowed the seeds of todays dependency culture, ironic that this is one of her legacies as she hated doss culture. And also I don't buy this talk that Thatcher had to give a dose of unpleasant medicine because of the legacy of the previous Labour government....Labour had only been in for one term, in which they inherited a messed up economy from Ted Heath. They hadn't gone on a spending free for all because they borrowed from the IMF, who then imposed strict spending rules on Callaghan's government, and Callaghan was the first post-war British PM to challenge the Keynesian consensus.

Far be it from me to sing the praises of "New Labour", but if we are doing an analysis of economic management, they have been far better than the Tories: 10 years low inflation, sustained growth, low unemployment, then 3 years of a global recession which started in the US. The only arguments the Tories have had against Labour's economic management is about this recession, which lets be honest would have smashed a Tory government as they would have allowed unemployment to shoot up.

History has shown us Tory governments are poor at dealing with recessions, once they get into one they tend to last for a long time.

Were we not in recession in the late 80s and early 90s?

Not really. It was more the other way round, ie New Labour were able to ride off the proceeds of economic growth to spend on public services. They didn't spend at a level which inhibited economic growth. Yes a global recession came, but it wasn't caused by UK public spending being too high.

The Tories are being misleading when they are saying Gordon Brown didn't mend the roof when the sun was shining etc, because the national debt went down in proportion to GDP until the recession hit, the banks were bailed and the government pumped money into the economy to replace the money that had dried up from the private sector.

Not withstanding the fact Labour have balanced the books without having a decent resource to privatise.

Out of curiosity, what sort of scores do we have to reach before the Lib Dems would actually become the top party seats-wise, and Mr Clegg would become Premier?

It really is a bizarre system we have that under those latest ratings, Labour would hold power in a hung parliament, though it is a huge irony that Cameron and his party are the only ones who oppose electoral reform, yet are the likeliest to be stung by it in this election.

It is now also becoming painful watching Cameron appealing like a desparate man to the British public, to not vote positively for a candidate that they actually want to vote for, but rather to vote for him and his unappealing crew just to stop 'nasty' Gordon and his evil Labour Party.

Whilst I fear that Clegg and the Lib Dems may indeed blow themselves out in the next fortnight, I really hope they can maintain a healthy percentage of the vote, just to give a bloody nose to the 2 main parties and most of all to p!$s off Cameron, who, quite brilliantly, has had that smug smile wiped off his face in the last week or so.

Labour now at 25% in a poll tonight. Is this the worst performance ever for a governing party?

Trying to side up to the Lib Dems has made them look very weak, if the Tories don't win this now they never will.

poor little you you do make me laugh at times! having just facilitated a 12 hour shift of spunk redistribution in A&E I have to confess the NHS is no different now to how it was under the tories, same different decade in my opinion, no change in real terms on waiting times, the figures etc are just as well manipulated under labour as they were 23 years ago when i first started nursing, there just appears to be more managers (a trend started by the tories in the 80's and built upon by new labour)

The tipping point for the Lib Dems is between 38%-40%. They are badly discriminated against in our political system at anything lower than 36%. At this point they would be coming 2nd in many seats, which means any extra shift translates into seats falling to them like dominos.

At 38% they would be the largest party in terms of seats in a hung parliament. At 39-40% they would come into power. Anything over 41% and they would win with a landslide. If they were to get 42% or above it would be all time record territory in terms of size of majority. Oddly, Labour or the Conservatives would not nearly get as big a majority if they polled 42% (which is quite common for winning an election in the past). Such are the quirks of our system, it works against the Lib Dems on the lower numbers but once they get into their tipping point they surge quickly.

This still might look a long shot but the political correspondents are a bit edgy because in the modern internet driven generation 'people power' can get out of control quickly, and the big volatility factor with the British electorate is that usually so few of them vote anyway....if a decent proportion of the 'non-voters' were to turn up and vote Lib Dem then the other two parties could be in big trouble. The Lib Dems were polling 16-20% before last week, after Clegg's been on one debate they are up to 30%....if he has another good debate and they start going up to 34% (which one or two rogue polls had been forecasting them on last week anyway) then people will start to think they might win, which could encourage a lot of lukewarm Labour/Tory voters to switch to them out of fascination.

People said that when Labour lost in 1992 in the middle of one of the worst Tory recessions, but in John Major's book he said as soon as the 92 election was over he pretty much knew the Tories wouldn't win again because they would have been stretching the democratic elastic too far to expect to win 5 in a row and get over 20 consecutive years in office. Hence they were smashed in 97 when the economy was in a far healthier state than it had been in in 83, 87 and 92 when the Conservatives had defended their government at an election.

So if it was to stay 'first past the post' system, I would say if the Conservatives lose this time they will be in with a landslide next time, and enjoy a lengthy period in office, which won't happen if they sneak home this time (they will probably lose next time if that happens)

If it's a Lab-Lib coalition government though, and the Libs barter a change in the electoral system as their terms for a hung parliament, then the game changes, it will be very difficult for the Tories to ever get an overall majority again because there is too big a section of the electorate who fundamentally don't like them. Because the Tories won't be keen on offering electoral reform to the Lib Dems, they make it much harder to entice them into a coalition, so for the Tories it is a case of win a narrow overall majority or bust.

If the Conservatives fail to get a majority this time then they may never get one again and Cameron will go down in Conservative history as the man who dealt a fatal electoral blow to them by managing to blow what should have been one of the easiest election wins in history.

Vicious attacks from the Sun, Mail, Express and Telegraph today. That tells me that the Tories think this is more than a blip; they must be hearing on the doorstep that the Lib Dems are popular. Tonight should be thrilling TV.