Two-horse race

3 new leaflets this morning – one from the Labour candidate, one card from Nick Clegg, and one letter from Nick Clegg. All three carry pictures of two running horses. The Lib Dems say only they can beat Labour, but Labour say only they can beat the Conservatives. That’s the main point of all the material.

The Lib Dems seem more convincing – for one thing, unlike Labour, their illustration demonstrates that they understand that horse races involve jockeys. But of course, the authorities on horse races are still considering the Lib Dems outsiders, though at 11/2 they’ve nosed ahead of Esther Rantzen.

Only one of the three documents (the postcard from the Lib Dems) has any mention of policy, and one of the four bullet points there is “action to get our economy moving again”, which doesn’t quite qualify as a policy for me.

Anyone out there who thinks that democracy is a good thing – how can it be right that the vast bulk of the material given to me by candidates is concentrated on the question of who is more likely to win? OK, PR would change that somewhat, but really, what is the explanation?

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