The glory days of the election battlebus

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Further evidence, if any is needed, that the election is upon us.

Howls of protest erupted from newsdesks around the land last week when they discovered how much it will cost them to send hacks on the party leaders' battlebuses.

In the case of the prime minister, it's in the region of £500 for a day pass with season tickets offered at a discount rate of £13,000. Cheap at half the price.

Mind you it is unfair, not to say inaccurate, to call these tours battlebuses.

There may be a battle on but there will be precious few buses involved - helicopters, limos, trains and aircraft more likely.

The days of the battlebus - in which a group of political journalists spent the entire election campaign cooped up in a charabang following the leaders around the country, hearing the same speech three times a day before finally losing their already slim grip on reality - are long gone.

Their heyday was the 1987, 1992 and 1997 elections and anyone who spent time on them will never forget them.

Cabin fever was always the looming danger and produced some extremely aberant, and occasionally anti-social, behaviour from politicians and journalists alike.

Drink was often taken as a form of medication and therapy, honest guv.

Indeed when one party aide handed out the packed lunches (yes, really) , with specially prepared salad sandwiches "for the vegetarians amongst us", the cry went up: "What about the cans of lager for the alcoholics amongst us".

Then there was the occasion when the journalists piled onto the Labour coach only to discover all the windows had been covered by election posters.

Travelling on that particular bus was the equivalent of being locked in a sensory depravation chamber on wheels, it pushed travel sickness to a whole new level of pain.

Neil Kinnock was the first to break out of the bus and take to the air in '92 on the Red Rose One aircraft - a relic DC something-or-other which had almost certainly seen service during the Berlin air lift.

It was, of course, a disaster.

On its very first outing, and after much Labour hype about modern campaigning techniques, it stubbornly refused to start, let alone take off - something to do with a flat battery if memory serves - so providing the inevitable stories about the campaign failing to get off the ground.

In desperation, an alternative was hired and paid for using the credit card of Kinnock's then aide, Patricia Hewitt. You couldn't have made it up.

But what about the story we all missed? Kinnock's then minder, Charles Clarke, recently revealed there was even worse on that day.

On the return trip to London, aides had phoned party HQ and told them to lay on some Hertz mini-buses to ferry the travelling party from the airport back to town.

As the plane started its approach, Clarke spotted a line of hearses waiting on the tarmac.

Only frantic phone calls and some speedy manoeuvring got the vehicles out of sight before the hacks spotted them.

If news editors had heard how we all missed this little gem, careers would have been brought to a premature end.

That is assuming Clarke isn't just winding us up with the sort of story he regularly accused us of making up. Perish the thought.

It was shortly after this that the battlebus was sent back to the garage for good.