Brilliant Britain

David Cameron is on TV at the moment saying in one breath he's going to fight a relentlessly positive campaign and in the very next saying 'we don't want another five years of Gordon Brown, of dithering and despair and depression'. (There goes the dog whistle, we all know what he's getting at). For the record, Dave, I can tell you that voters in east Bristol aren't impressed by the current batch of billboards featuring a grinning Gordon (looking quite cute actually, in a pixie-ish way) and nasty slogans. They don't like negative campaigning, they want to know what the Tories stand for.

Voters this week were - I assume subconsciously - quoting back at me the message from Labour's Party Election Broadcast, the Road Ahead. 'We're on the right road and now is not the time to change direction'. (And incidentally, this must be the first election where PEBs aren't something you accidentally catch on TV at the end of the news, but where you can track them down yourself on YouTube and tweet or email the links to friends).

Our second PEB, starring Eddie Izzard, is also worth watching. Yes, it criticises the Tories, it points out what's wrong with their principles and their policies, but it's not nasty, it's not personal, and the overall message is overwhelmingly positive: that Britain is not broken, it's brilliant.

After praising the virtues of positive campaigning, I may be laying myself open to accusations of hypocrisy for posting the link to the Who Has David Cameron Met? site, but it is rather entertaining. I suspect he won't be relaying quite so many anecdotes about people he's met on the campaign trail when it comes to this week's leaders' debate. "Last week I met an imaginary foreign sort who told me that New Labour got a free car on the NHS". Enjoy.