With so much talk of cuts, savings and efficiencies over the last few days, it was frankly a blessed relief to have the National Insurance row briefly interrupted by the first major scandal of the campaign on Friday. Yes, the disastrously-inappropriate tweeting on the part of young Stuart MacLennan led to his suspension from the Labour Party and removal as candidate for Moray; ironically, Mr MacLennan appeared to have predicted his fate, having tweeted that “Iain Dale reckons the biggest gaffes will likely be made by candidates on Twitter – what are the odds it will be me?” Well, Stuart, pretty high as it turned out. Perhaps Ladbrokes will be willing to offer you a way out of your current unemployment. Incidentally, it's possible that a certain Mr Hague in his younger years may have sympathised with MacLennan's affinity with alcohol - at one point MacLennan tweeted that "I think I might be sober for the first time in four days" - although on the other hand possibly not: on Saturday, Hague told reporters whilst ordering a Burger King that "the days of fourteen pints are behind me". Now come on, William: that's hardly the talk of a true Northerner.
It seems that the warning to other politicians of the dangers of online electioneering are unlikely to temper the efforts of John Prescott, who, perhaps surprisingly, is one of the most active tweeters and bloggers of them all; maybe the restriction on Twitter of 140 characters per message is a useful exercise for him in learning how to complete a coherent sentence. His solo 'Go 4th' campaign is being religiously documented on his blog (although has received disappointingly little media coverage), a highlight of which has undoubtedly been recent comparison of campaign transport. It appears that in light of the Labour Party's dire financial position, Mr Prescott has forsaken the Jaguar(s), and is traversing Britain in a Transit van, stopping only to showcase his 'Vote Labour' mobility scooter (see here) on the ground; a new nickname is undoubtedly in order.
Mobility scooter in tow, anyone could be forgiven for thinking that Mr Prescott is on the prowl to woo the so-called 'grey vote'. And he wasn't the only one to be doing so on Friday; believe it or not, he probably wasn't the least subtle, either. Cameron's first campaign method to draw the mature voter to him was to visit the Chelsea Pensioners, and it seemed clear that in order to make a good impression, he would need a companion: someone at the cutting edge of Conservativism, on the ball, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of policy, and the unfaltering ability to present themselves as having at least a vague idea of why they had been asked to be there. So of course Boris was the obvious choice. Oh dear. Having suggested off the cuff during a photo shoot (in the midst of spouting jovial war cries at the pensioners) that Tory plans for a voluntary National Citizens' service should be made compulsory (a tack completely at odds with official policy), he later told the BBC that he had meant 'as compulsory as is possible without really cheesing people off'. Well done, Boris; one can only hope for amusement's sake that he will have had some hand in crafting the manifesto - visions of "we'll cut benefits for serial cheats - but only if they've been really really naughty" come immediately to mind. I wonder if Cameron should take inspiration from Mobililty Scooter Prescott and pack Boris off in a transit van with only a blogger for company. Perhaps he could go to Liverpool again. They would probably love that.
Earlier that same day, Mr Cameron had faced a tirade of questions from the Today Programme, most of which he did manage (disappointingly for the purposes of writing this) to give reasonably straight answers to. Even this one (almost):
Evan Davis: Which daily newspaper are you most naturally drawn to?
Cameron: Now is not the time to make enemies of newspaper editors. I try to answer questions but I'm going to dodge that one... oh, the Daily Star.
Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, David.
Sadly, the distraction from the debate over the economy did not last all day, and the evening brought with it a rather heated exchange between the Chancellor and his shadow presided over by Jon Sopel, the gist of which was as follows:
Jon Sopel: We've brought together the Chancellor and George Osborne to try to get to the bottom of how severe job losses will be after the election. [For a start, this was surely wishful thinking.]
JS: We've heard an admission from the treasury that there will be job losses. Can you tell us how many?
Alistair Darling: The Tories have essentially said that they're going to cut jobs as well. (They actually haven't said that at all but I look better if they look worse. They started it.)
George Osborne: Why don't you publish the report from the Treasury that states where jobs will be cut now rather than waiting until after the election?
AD: I don't have an excuse not to, but if I quote yet again where I think the holes are in the Tories' plans for long enough, people will forget what the question was. In fact, so will I.
GO: How many job cuts will there be?
AD: Our budget adds up. Between none and some. Probably.
And thus the first week of campaigning drew to a close. Anyone hoping for some sort of respite over the weekend, however, was no doubt sadly disappointed.
...And finally: LibDem leader Nick Clegg spent some of the day visiting a care home, one of the residents of which, Beryl Seal, offered the following inspired observation of the Tory leader: "He's a bit of a wet duck in a thunderstorm, isn't he?"
