Another three and a half weeks.

On and on goes the UK's General Election excuse for a campaign. None of those old fashioned town hall meetings to out candidates on the spot and in some cases (Labour notably) to be evicted if too challenging. No political PR person could possibly allow such hazardous things and God forbid that the unwashed should be allowed to get anywhere near the precious objects surrounded by a phalanx of security people movig at as high a speed as possible. Walkabouts are nearly all stage managed as are interminable meetings requiring the backdrop of factories (ideally in high vis jackets and hard hats), building sites (ditto) or schools or (hard pressed or smiling depending on party) hospitals.

This week sees the publication of manifestos. Labour go first on Monday,then the Tories and then on through the ranks. These are mean to explain the philosophy, beliefs, core values and priorities of the partys and then of course all the actual policies flow simply and logically from these, giving the voters clear and honest choices.

Some hope.

 Are we going to see Labour up front with "We believe that we should return to the socialism of the 1950s, that the government will make most decisions as to what the people get (schools, hospitals), spend whatever the unions dictate and ensure that individual effort, risk taking and private enterprise receive as few rewards as possible. We really are only interested in what we think used to be the working class,-we call them "working people,-" who should be treated and rewarded "fairly",- ie be told what to do and be taxed as heavily as possible if they get ideas above their station. Wealth , power and choice really are only for the Party elite,- as you electorate would of course wish.

Are the Tories going to say "We've rather lost our way actually. We don't have a philosophy but we are quite nice chaps and unlike most of the others we don't hate anyone. We'd like to build a lot more houses ,but not where we live. We didn't get to grips with the current account defeceit, rethink and redesign what the state is all about and really drive through all the reforms we should have done straight out of the traps in 2010 but then we don't have business people who've ever actually run anything or lived in the real world so it's been a steep learning curve. There are a lot of things we don't understand like the difference between immigrants we need, students who shouldn't be regarded as immigrants at all and people we don't need at all. We think we've more or less sussed it all though so give us another go. After all the other lot brought us to the edge of every imaginable abyss so you'd be wasting your time with them. Think Gordon Brown reborn".

Then there are the Lib Dems. As in 2010 Nick has actually fought a good campaign but he has been drowned out by most others so remains looking rather forlorn. Is he going to carry on saying "We are the middle way"? We offer a bit of this and a bit of that. More tax from seemingly endless supply of "the rich", bankers, non doms and any other figures of public hate who pay the bulk of Britain's taxes anyway. He could hold some ground but certainly not gain any.

UKIP, Greens, SNP we will skip over and leave for another time.

Our verdict on the past week? Cameron is flagging a bit but probably doesn't know why. Where would he get real feedback if he doesn't seem to have any network among real people? Slagging Miliband off simply lifts his opponent's stature. So did a press report that Ed may have been a bit of a lad back in uni days, knocking them over with his conversations about economics and so on. For some reason the female vote always seems to perk up at stories of falling trousers, even if years old. Remember John Major? The gut feel on Miliband is that he actually did quite well. His suits and features look better pressed and he doesn't look quite as much as if he needs a day off as Cameron who just isn't coming off the battlebus bouncing. Ed's big presentational plus is that he looks and sounds like a man with a mission and political conviction . And he is one,- devastatingly awful though the path he wishes to follow may be. Nick Clegg keeps beavering away and could come up with a better result (losing less seats) than has been assumed. Over the border Nicola Sturgeon continues to forge ahead . She looks on track to almost wipe out Labour's Westminster seats but she does risk overdoing it to the extent that some voters fear giving her too much power and scuttle back to the old old rustbucket Labour that has served Scotland so badly for decades.

More next week if you or we can stand it. Meanwhile the feeling in much of the south appears to be "Please let it all be over soon".

Oh No,- 45 more days to the UK General Election.

Even the most politically addicted must by now be wearying of the UK's longest ever election campaign. The coalition decreed fixed term 5 year parliaments as a means of ensuring that it stayed in business as long as possible and had to whatever the stresses and strains upon it. The former arrangement was that a government could run to a full five year term or at any time call a General Election with just 21 days notice. Although it did give the incumbents an advantage in being able to pick their timing it made for a short, snappy campaign during which it was possible to say most things once and then get on with the business. The speed of the process gave it impetus, energy and pace which swept many voters along with it. There was a sense of involvement and genuine, lively debate.

May 7th's election is yawningly different. It really began last year with the Scottish referendum which the Better Together campaign mistakenly thought they had won for at least a generation. The SNP thought otherwise and has kept peddling ever since.

The party leaders are well known and there is little enthusiasm for any of them. Cameron remains seen as an aloof patrician, Miliband an aloof north London socialist geek and Clegg whatever he is. The rest range in many minds from the seemingly loopy to unthinkable as future leaders of government. Farage is a good man-of-the people type speaker/debater but his gloss is beginning to come off . He could have been entertaining and lethal in a three way debate with Cameron and Miliband as neither is as quick on their feet as he is and he wouldn't be relying on a script written by an Australian or American adviser or even Alistair Campbell. The SNP duo, Sturgeon and Salmond, can come over well and spontaneously but simply grate and irritate south of the border.

Arguments about austerity v borrow/tax and spend flow back and forth in WW1 trench warfare style. It's a slugging/slagging match and nobody is winning. TV viewers are immune to staged pictures of politicians in hard hats, high vis jackets or other ill fitting "work" garb as they colonise shop floors, schools or hospitals wringing their hands about this and that in front of bemused "ordinary" ad no doubt "hard working" staff. One off sideshow scandals come and go. A BBC or ITN political reporter declares "This is serious for X Party or Y leader". But it isn't. Not really. The audience is used to and expects a bit of this and that as part of the Punch and Judy show. Few such things change its voting intentions,if any,very much.

So what's missing? What's not happening and why is most of the nation finding it all so tedious?

The big gap is that nobody so far has put forward a vision for Britain. There hasn't been one. Nothing at all. Somehow big plans and visions are not part of the British way of doing things. Most people would like and rally to them but back in the 1960s Labour's George Brown was ridiculed for his National Plan and politicians have been scared of them ever since. We know that the NHS is under strain but nobody has proposed to do anything other than to throw more money at the underperforming state monopoly monolith which needs root and branch review and a PLAN. The taxation system ,occupying 11,520 pages spread over 5 volumes is unbelievably complex. That's because it fulfills two very different roles . Firstly the collection of money and secondly as a system of social and other micro engineering. The UK tax code in 2009 ran to 11,520 pages spread over 4 volumes. It needs reform and a PLAN. Hong Kong's, which shows flat rate taxes, no VAT, Death Duties,or Capital Gains Tax is contained in just 200. Then there's Education, Immigration, Europe and the rest. No real plans for any of them. The noise around them is mainly wheelspin. Lots of disjointed statements but no PLAN.

There is a glimmer of hope though. Last week a vision did appear. It was not labelled as such and related only to transport infrastructure but it was a vision all the same. With details to be announced this week, the news is the development of a much enhanced road network across the country. Taken together with rail infrastructure plans (including more electrification, revival of some closed links, enhanced signalling to give more line capacity) already announced and in some cases under way, this means there is now a government vision although it doesn't seem to recognise a vision even when it announces one.  If each party could now announce similar strategies for all departmental activity and wrap them into their individual  "Vision for Britain" to lay before the electorate there would be some exciting choices and the campaign could come alive.

 Unfortunately that doesn't seem likely to happen .Despite the media's attempts at hyping anything that comes to hand this is likely to be the longest and dullest campaign ever.

Juncker terrfies Moscow with EU army proposal.

Always a man with a talent for the the ridiculous, the EU's Jean-Claude Juncker has proposed the creation of an EU army to show Russia that the EU is serious about defending European values.(Don't ask)

The laughter from the Kremlin is audiable here. Defending? If the EU really going to risk a nuclear or even heavy conventional attack to defend an inch of Ukraine or even the Baltic states? Most unlikely,- and Russia knows it.

Putting that small matter aside, the idea of a joint EU army raises visions of Gilbert and Sullivan. They should be alive to set it to music. What would it do? Who would lead it?  Who would follow ? Who would decide anything? In which direction would it go? The mind truly boggles. Mr Putin won't be losing any sleep but he might drop off chuckling.

Plain Speaking Award...

...today goes to Kim Sears,Andy Murray's fiancée for a few expletives directed at the competition during the semi final of the Melbourne Open.

This was an occasion of high drama, tensions and above all the wish to see her man win. She said it how it felt, f- words and all.

In the current particularly British and American world of political correctness, which becomes more restrictive and oppressive by the day and in which she should obviously have said things like " a That's not very good" or  " Goodness me" , her outburst came as a blast of fresh air. Expressing feelings as they really are or with emotion is almost taboo and taken by the ranks of the slab faced miserabalists as vastly more significant than they really are. What she said on the spur of the moment was harmless , not pre scripted but spontaneous and alive. Excellent.

Dave to miss debate?

The news that David Cameron won't engage in any pre-election televised debates between the main political party heads (We can't really use the word leaders) unless the extra terrestrial Greens are included as a counter balance to UKIP's Nigel Farage comes as no surprise.

He seems to think any excuse will do.

Why bother with excuses though?  He should just say he doesn't want to do it because he is a pretty hopeless debater. He's OK, if wooden, at delivering pre-scripted and rehearsed speeches, often still relying on notes and autocues but he isn't good at the cut and thrust of spontaneous repartee. His real fear is not the Wallace-like miserabilist Ed who includes the class warfare stuff " For the many, not the few" in set pieces peppered with "hard working families" (why not singles?) in all he says. As far as most voters are concerned Dave and Ed are inner London political elite, alias the the speaking version of a heavy sedative. Both speak Martian and neither is really comfortable with talking to or mixing with the "ordinary people" about whom they talk so much.

 Nor is he or anyone worried about having to say "I agree with Nick" this time around.

The real problem for Dave, and to an extent Ed, is Nigel Farage. Here is a man with an armory of pre -prepared thrusts which he can deliver at will as occasion demands. He can think on his feet, repel and ridicule any assault and come over as the man in the bar with a pint in one hand and a politically incorrect fag in the other. Being savaged by Nigel and then kicked in the other Eds by opportunistic fratricidal Ed and hand wringing Nick when he's on the floor is not something Dave fancies,- especially on three occasions and multiple times within each.

If Dave wants to move on to Nigel turf, he  needs to reject the idea of televised debates by getting honest and say " I'm not crazy. Everyone knows I'm lousy at debates and don't enjoy them for a minute.They are just a piece of theatre like the weekly PMQs. I'm happy though to be grilled by Andrew Marr or anyone else in places where I feel more comfortable and can give more useful answers."

Unfortunately the chances of  our man having the courage to say just that are almost zero. That's why Farage is such a threat. He won't necessarily get enough votes to win many seats but he could split the right's votes in enough Tory seats to let Ed slip through the railings and into Number 10 as leader of the largest single party even though the majority don't want him or it. Just as in the Labour leadership election in fact. We could be facing the most undemocratic result ever of a General Election. Ed himself is said to believe that 35% of the vote will do it for him.

Back to the debates though. Our prediction is that one way or the other reluctant Dave will be forced to join Ed, Nick and Nige on a stage or two. He'd better start thinking now about how he will appear delighted to be there before Nige wipes the floor with him followed in short order by Ed and Nick too in acts of collateral verbal violence before they get too chirpy about it.

Footnote: The Oxford Union is not the best place to learn the arts of undergraduate debating. For that he should have gone to Glasgow University whose parliamentary debates have long been in a league of their own. But he wouldn't have known there was a Glasgow University,- or maybe even a Glasgow.

Britons Overwhelmed,-Things go Wrong.

Britons really have taken a hammering at home and abroad these last few weeks. There's been an air traffic control computer failure, snow in the Alps (wasn't that predictable), disruption on some railways due to over running engineering work (ditto). It's amazing that we've pulled  through to January 4th.

As we know there are set givens in our world of entitlements and rights. These include:

- The state is our Father, Mother and Nursemaid.

- When things don't go quite as expected someone (else) is always to blame.

-It is wrong that anything should go wrong. (Other people's) Heads must roll.

-There is no such thing as an accident. Any adverse event  must be actionable.

- "Not for profit" is how the world should be. It is immoral that however much anyone has risked or endured to create new products, services and jobs that they should in any way gain from their efforts.

-We have a right to cheap rail fares subsidised by the taxpayer. (Who?- That's not us, not really).

-The only acceptable way to make money is by winning or taking part in a TV reality show,playing football or scooping the lottery or being an imagined national treasure. These people should not be challenged.  All other forms of self advancement are exploitative and downright wrong.

-The railways should be renationalised. Memories of how things were before privatisation and the enormous post privatisation investments and improvements are very short.

- Also a candidate for nationalisation according to the RMT union should be a failed courier/parcels delivery company so that 2,700 jobs are not lost. Again the taxpayer can fund it .Why the nation should want to add to its debts the costs of keeping a non viable business in an overcrowded market is not explained. Maybe it's an extension of the educationalists view that nothing and nobody should be allowed to fail?  No chance of RMT's money following its mouth and buying it themselves.

-"Britons stranded in Alps" went the newspaper headlines. Well, yes, a few but so were Germans Scandinavians, French and many others. "We don't know where we are" wailed one lady at Chambery Airport into which she had just flown. Maybe this was a moment when a New York cop needed to be on hand with the crisp unsmiling reply "Buy a map". "Nobody's telling us what to do " is another frequent wail."Engage brain"would be the best, terribly un-British, retort. Think of the mental scarring that would leave. There must be compensation. Somebody must be sued.

Britain's NHS,- And they say it doesn't need reform.

Two real life encounters experienced  with the NHS in different parts of the country by members of one family last week:

1) GP to patient: "Normally we would run a few tests on this but as it's Friday afternoon we can't."

2) Helpline 111 responding to request for an appointment with the local out of hours GP service.(This little publicised facility is usually hidden away in hospitals, separate from but close to A and E departments). "It's 6pm now and as there are a couple of GP surgeries open on the other side of the county until 6.30pm we can't offer this service until they close so please ring back after that time."

Enough said.