He Who Shouts Loudest

...often wins elections in the US. But surely not in little old Britain?

The newspapers have played an influential role in previous elections. The Sun's headline on the eve of 1992 election,"If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights" re-enforced plenty of views about the man in a fairly tight contest.

Just prior to an election almost all the papers declare which party's policies most closely match their views (the editors' that is, not the hapless readership.) But the tenor and content of the coverage this election feels like it has crossed another boundary this time. Some papers have become little more than campaign sheets for the Conservative Party. All pretence and subtlety has been dumped, the sub-plot revealed.

The Sun's editorial today, sandwiched between character attacks on Clegg and Brown, unashamedly repeated Cameron's slogan of 'Vote Clegg, Get Brown', adding, "only by voting Tory can you be sure of driving a stake through Labour's heart."

The Daily Mail newsroom must be equally panicked in thinking they have backed a loser in Dave, judging by today's ultra-shrill Comment page. The general tone was admonishing the public for being so thick in falling for Nick Clegg ("Time for voters to wake up and get real").

Who the hell are they to tell us? Or even more succinctly, who the hell are they?

The full page lecture contain a laughable defence of first-past-the-post even though it may deliver Labour as the largest party on less than 30% of the vote. Even the claim FPTP has given Britain "such stability over centuries," is not even true. It was adopted in the latter Victorian era.

Just shouting at people for "sleep-walking... into a Government as corrupt and inept as Berlusconi's Italy," seems destined to fail in persuading middle England from wishing for a new system of power-sharing. These dreadfully biased tabloids only use the deranged political language which the country appears to be rejecting in its rather mild-mannered way.

It is far from clear what is stirring across the country but it feels hugely uplifting and re-affirming in democracy and the independent spirit of British people.

Aged charmer, Dr David Owen, alluded to this mysterious shift in allegiances which is scaring the life out of the traditional power bases, when he told the Guardian. "I think things are happening deep down which probably none of us understand....the great British public out there in their strange, almost instinctive way are groping towards a solution."