Analysing the election's debate 'Clegg effect'
The Labour tactic is now to turn this into a two-against-one election: the party is cosying up to the Lib Dems with the aim of ganging up against the Tories. You could see that in Gordon Brown's several "I agree with Nick" statements in ; the refusal of Mr Brown's other brain, Ed Balls, to utter a word of criticism of the Lib Dems on Friday's Newsnight while emphasising where they both disagreed with the Tories; and Alan Johnson's friendly musings about the virtues of a in Saturday's Times.
The Lib Dems in general and Nick Clegg in particular are wary of this Brown Bearhug and Mr Clegg even went out of his way to rebuff it on Thursday night: he wants to be seen as pristine and "uncontaminated" by the other two (the Lib Dems are benefiting from the anti-politics mood provoked by the expenses scandals and want to keep their distance this side of May 6th). But it hasn't stopped the Labour wooing.
Here's why. Though they won't say so out loud, or even in private, Labour election strategists have pretty much given up any hope of winning an overall majority: the campaign is just not moving in that direction. But they haven't given up hope of being the largest party and reckon that's mostly likely to happen if the Lib Dems do well -- so talk them up as you talk down the Tories and start being friendly to them because you'll have to deal with them after the election to stay in power. That, for what it's worth, is the private logic currently in Labour HQ
in tomorrow's Sunday papers show why this new, post-debate Labour tactic has a chance of success. They show the Tories still ahead, but not by much, with the Lib Dems either second or a strong third. Such are the vagaries of our first-past-the-post system when the vote is split three ways fairly evenly that such an outcome -- even with Labour coming third in the popular vote -- could mean Labour still being the largest party, with a boosted Lib Dem representation holding the balance of power. No wonder Labour is cosying up to the Lib Dems -- it could come third and still stay in power! 
I doubt our voting system would survive such an outcome: the Lib Dems would be furious that, despite getting almost as many votes as the other two parties they still got a lot fewer seats. They would demand something much more proportional than the AV system Labour is offering. Labour would probably give them what ever PR system they wanted if it meant it could stay in power (at least for a while). Even the Tories might start to look more kindly on PR: after all, in the scenario painted by tomorrow's polls, they would have more votes than any other party by a fair margin yet still be denied power.
I suspect PR would be inevitable in these circumstances and 2010 would turn out to be a truly watershed election, perhaps even leading to a realignment in British politics and a radically new party system for the 21st century.
Exciting stuff. But two caveats before we get carried away with all this. First, the "Clegg effect" might not be lasting; things could change in the subsequent debates and the current Clegg bounce could be an aberration.
Second, the transfer of vote shares into seats in the Commons is done on the basis of a uniform national swing, and such a thing may be meaningless in this most fragmented of elections.
Even so, there is a growing feeling among pollsters and pundits of all persuasions that Thursday night's debate was a game-changer. The future is still hard to divine but it is hard to avoid the sense that this is going to be a transformative election -- and that British politics will never be the same again.
The Tory high command is trying to come to terms with this since it is the Tories that have most to lose. There are recriminations about David Cameron's performance on Thursday night: some think it a mistake that he was advised to be subdued and not bite back when attacked.
A growing group of influential Tories want "Cameron to be Cameron" in the next debate. Others fear it might be too late: there is of course still all to play for but for the first time I detect senior Tories admitting in private that they might not win this election (in the sense of having an overall majority) after all.
UPDATE
With the Lib Dems now at centre stage, it is more important than ever to hold them to account (as I suggested in this blog earlier in the campaign) and I tried to do with my Straight Talk interview with Ed Davey.
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