'Volcano??', he erupted.

Monday 19th April.

As the heatwave - or rather sunny spell - continues here, a volcano has erupted causing chaos, panic and a perpetual new story on all major channels. No, not the Icelandic natural phenomenon, dubbed the 'Volcano Crisis' which has downed European Airline fleets and thus marooned among others, my God-daughter in New York and my old Aiki Do Master in Las Vegas. I'm talking of course about the surge in Liberal Democrat support following last Thursday's first leader's debate.

Those who follow my tweets will already know that I was a little underwhelmed by the first debate: I subsequently tweeted that visually, Brown appeared earnest, Cameron smooth and Clegg irritable. But, trying to be as objective as possible I could not determine a clear winner; although to my mind, the clear loser was Gordon Brown. What I did think was that while our man Cameron was quietly confident, Clegg stole a march on him during the debate -when he wasn't becoming angry(!) - by taking on the persona of 'Everyman'. It was what Blair used to do; convince everybody that he was taking to them personally and delivering in a manner that appeared to be common sense.
And it worked.
The subsequent surge has created media frenzy that has brought a dash of excitement to the then hitherto electoral dryness, the end of the Tory party and in some quarters even talk of a Liberal Government.

But lets not become too excitable.

It may become, as Peter Oborne wrote in the Daily Mail (don't blame me, it was the only paper available...) a 'seismic shift' when viewed in the future, although I rather think, upon reflection, that that particular door has already opened. Similarly, there is a possibility that the 'Blair-Mandelson' grand plan to remove the Tories forever may yet occur if the Liberals cut a conjoining/merging party deal with the Labour party, but I sense that there are too many 'Tory' Liberals in place for that to happen just yet.

No. To me its a warning that the result of the General Election, based on current projections is more likely of becoming not decisive enough to deliver what GB needs. The spectre of a hung parliament is now a very real proposition and we must mobilise to ensure that such a desperate situation does not in fact occur.




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