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Campaign analysis: Sunday April 17
Daniel Forman's daily diary of the election campaign.
Sunday April 17 1:40pm BST
Is this election going on outside Westminster? Touring East and South London constituencies this weekend there was scant evidence that it was.
There were a handful of Conservative posters in leafy Dulwich homes, while Respect leaflets contributed to the litter in East and West Ham.
Granted none of these are ultra-marginal seats, but neither is this a by-election. It is where the country gets to decide who governs it for the next five years.
But London did not feel as if it was taking part in a great national debate. By and large the messages that absorb us in SW1 are largely by-passing the public.
The first party election broadcasts had relatively healthy viewing figures.
However it is harder to quantify how many people watched them all and considered the differences.
Fewer still will have read the broadsheet breakdowns of each main party manifesto.
And yet fewer will have actually read the documents themselves.
While the debate is only beginning to break out of media briefing rooms and into town halls and households, many people will actually have cast their ballot by the end of this week via controversial postal votes.
Two – albeit hypothetical – conclusions can be drawn from this curious lack of interest.
One is that turnout will continue to plummet towards the psychologically important 50 per cent mark.
The second is perhaps more encouraging. It is that voters tend to make their minds up over the full course of a parliament, rather than in the claim and counter-claim of an election campaign.
On that count the Conservatives are doomed. Labour has been well ahead for all of the past four years.
Whatever their recent improvements in performance the Tories have had a terrible time on the whole since 2001.
Tony Blair was there for the taking over Iraq, but the Opposition never came close. Not that anyone seems to care.
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