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“... found a theme which can ‘cut through’ on the doorstep: the peril of Scottish nationalism. Sir John Major was wheeled out yesterday to stress the danger we all face. In Major’s words, ‘this is a recipe for mayhem. At the very moment that our country needs a strong and stable government, we risk a weak and unstable government, pushed to the left by its ...”

“... Ed Miliband’s intervention on the subject of abolishing non-dom status is interesting. The non-dom loophole is flagrantly unfair and has corrosive effects on social cohesion: nothing more overtly shows that we aren’t in it together. Look at the upper reaches of the Sunday Times rich list and it’s full of non-doms. The richest people in the US are American, the richest people in France are French, the richest in Germany are German, and so on ...”

“... been five wins for the party in government, one win for the challenger. That was in 1997, when John Major took the power to declare an election whenever he liked it to one extreme: it was declared on St Patrick’s Day, 17 March, and held on 1 May. That’s a full two weeks longer than the current campaign. Maybe Major thought that if the country had a ...”

“... This election result is not viable,’ Vernon Bogdanor said yesterday afternoon. ‘There will have to be another within months.’ (At least I think it was Vernon Bogdanor – it may have been David Butler or Peter Hennessy. It was a long siege in front of the TV, and apologies all round if I have misattributed. Constitutional experts don’t look alike but they do sound alike, I suppose because they are men from a similarish background who tend to be say-ing similarish things ...”

“... This election campaign was always likely to end with photos of David Cameron standing on the doorstep of 10 Downing Street. The story had far more twists than anyone can have expected, but it’s ended up at the place where it’s been heading for some time. Still – quite a ride. The final flurry was the flurriest of all, with Brown’s resignation and the accompanying offer of a deal on PR bouncing the Tories into increasing their competing offer ...”

“... Since the election was called I’ve been looking at a number of statistical sources who try to predict the outcome. I’ve been concentrating on sites where lots of individual opinions are aggregated, rather than looking for individual wizards. The three I’ve been regularly checking are: 1. Betfair, an exchange where people set their own odds for bets – in effect, a place which allows customers to be bookmakers ...”

“... To understand the Tories’ general election campaign, you have to grasp its central premise: that the Tory route to power lies through a collapse in the Ukip vote. If the Ukip vote stays where it is, and the SNP vote stays where it is, the popular vote is more or less a draw. Thanks to the party landscape and the geographical distribution of the vote, that puts Miliband in Downing Street ...”

“... At an earlier stage of this general election, I thought about proposing one of those drinking games in which people have a shot or swig every time a Conservative on the campaign trail used the word ‘plan’. I’m glad I didn’t go ahead with that. Anyone who’d taken up the suggestion would now be in a clinic. It was already bad, but the Tory manifesto takes it to another level entirely ...”

“... The BBC has a handy electoral poll tracker on its website. Here’s where we are: I’ve never seen polls like that. The thing which really stands out is that nothing stands out. They are as flat as the flattest of flatnesses. Five months ago, on 7 October, Labour was on 34 per cent and the Tories on 32 ...”

“... John Self, anti-hero of Martin Amis’s novel Money, is forced to sit down and read Animal Farm. A determined non-reader, he finds it very hard work indeed, though the book does have a few points in its favour. ‘I must admit, I admire the way in which Orwell starts his book fairly late in, on page seven.’ The party manifestos are a bit like that ...”

“... Sometimes, when you try to do something positive, it only draws more attention to what you aren’t doing. Ed Miliband has announced a new policy in relation to private sector rentals: for three years, landlords won’t be able to raise rents above the rate of inflation. It’s not hard to spot that this policy is targeting private sector renters. This demographic is young, and strongly represented in London, the only area of the south-east where Labour have good winning chances ...”

“... Most of the time, the question that decides an election is the one everyone remembers being put by Ronald Reagan: ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’ It’s a good question, but at the moment in the UK it’s also a difficult one to answer. Yesterday, George Osborne triumphantly tweeted about the latest numbers. ‘GDP revised upwards from 2 ...”

“... The general election campaign started today, which is strange, because it already feels as if it’s been going on for ever. The reason for that lies in the electoral rules set up in 2000, which set limits to spending during the festivities. The ‘long campaign’ began on 19 December 2014. During it, candidates can spend £30,700 per constituency plus 9p per constituent in the countryside or 6p per constituent in town ...”