Next year’s election will be the dirtiest ever

By the time a politician stands up to give a speech, it has been briefed out, pre-butted, rebutted, shredded in print and spat out on TV. Politics has become a boring conveyor belt, meticulously organised and frankly dull. Focus-grouped and polled to death. The only unexpected drama comes when things get dirty — from verbal fisticuffs to the dark arts. But now even that is under threat. ‘I honestly believe that we need a new politics,’ said Brownite gruppenführer Tom Watson recently. ‘Service, love and compassion,’ dreams the man whose plotting brought down Blair. Reformed boot boy Watson embodies the startling emaciation of Westminster.

Another Labour hard man suspended his referendum tour of Scotland because the ‘organised mob’, also known as voters, called him names and threw eggs. According to Jim Murphy, tactics as old as politics itself were a shocking new low for Britain.

During a TV debate between Alistair Darling and Alex Salmond, pundits and politicians decried the fact that the moderator allowed the two to raise their voices.