The Clegg Effect

With little further development of the election campaign since Thursday, the blogosphere and the media have been able to focus on the so-called "Clegg Effect" for two days now. The general consensus is that this hurts the Tories more than Labour (as also suggested in my post below). Amongst the plethora of commentary you could look at, there is Charles Moore in the Telegraph, explaining why the Liberal surge will let Labour in again; Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian examining the effects on Labour spin-doctors of a poll that showed them coming third in the aftermath of the debate; the New Statesman's blog considers the impact of Clegg in the 'twittersphere', but suggests it is having onlya limited impact on the party as a whole; and Lib Dem blogger Mark Pack examines how the usually Tory tabloids are coping with the Liberal resurgence.

All very entertaining of course, but the fact remains that with 2 more debates and 3 weeks of campaigning still to go, anything could change. This election, for all the apparent apathy of many voters, is proving remarkably hard to call. A hung parliament is the current safe bet, but for all that he's taken a dip, I wouldn't rule out David Cameron's ability to pull his party back to a small win. It'll still take a political earthquake to turn Clegg the decent TV performer into Clegg the leader of an alternate administration, and that's what might ultimately count with those voters who do decide to turn out on May 6th.