Anything interesting happening today?

For some strange reason I have woken this morning to lots of emails telling me the date of the election has been leaked and it will be May 6th. Now, besides speculation of the will he or won't variety over the past few years I couldn't help but think I was going to get another email telling me the shocking news that the Pope was also Catholic.

Anyhow, the good news today I guess is that Gordon Brown will have finally done the right thing and called an election to get himself a genuine mandate. That's not to say of course that I want Labour to win a fourth term, far from it. Frankly I could not think of anything worse than another four years of Labour.

That doesn't mean I think the Tories would be inherently marvellous either though. After so many cynical years I've come to the conclusion that they are the least worst option available. On the positive side they at least seem to understand that the solution to the country's problem do not lie in ever increasing spending and spiralling debt.

We have four weeks now of what I imagine will be the dirtiest and most fierce election campaign for many years. There's been much talk about the influence the Internet will play this time, and whilst I don't think it will necessarily change the result overall we may see it impact on some candidates if they accidentally become YouTube hits with negative incidents.

The one thing all the parties need to be concerned about this time around though is turnout. The expenses scandal, shocking and outrageous as it is, could produce two impacts at the polls. Either lots of people vote for alternative fringe parties to send a message, or more likely just don't bother turning out at all.

I hope it doesn't happen, but if less people return an overall majority than returned Labour in 2005, then we have some serious questions to ask. If people really can't be bothered to vote it tells us a lot about the status that politicians are held in.

With that said I shall be popping into Westminster this evening for some fun encouraging people that they should make their minds up.