All to play for

Luke and myself could start a full scale argument in a telephone box, but he is right on this. With a few honourable exceptions The Guardian’s middle-class chatterati are a shambles, and they have worked as hard as the Mail and Sun hacks to damage Labour over the last three years. At least we know that Murdoch has instructed his minions to do his bidding, and no doubt the Daily Heil‘s bunch of scribblers and scandalmongers have been operating under similar pressures.
But the mantra my MP has been repeating for years (even when the Tories had a 16 point lead in the polls instead of the small single digit lead today) remains true… it’s still all to play for.
Ashcroft can spend his millions on billboards and leaflets. Bloggers like Dale can think they are the key. Murdoch and the rest of the billionaire press barons can think it was them wot won it. Even the television debates are now being described as sealing the deal. But over the last month, and forward in to the next week, what will make the difference is whether anyone has taken the trouble to get out on the doorstep, eyeball the voters, and ask for their support. I have lost count of the number of people who I have met recently who have said, “Well, at least you’ve knocked my door, so we will support you”. There is no substitute for that… no matter how much cash you spend from tax haven billionaires.