With the prime minister wrapping himself in the warm glow of a relatively healthy economy, there was a hint that "the most successful chancellor for a hundred years" would, in fact, be staying in that job were Labour to win - with simply a brilliant picture on the front of The Guardian.

But, thankfully for those of us who love a good horserace, that victory might still be anything but certain.

A YouGov poll for Sky News puts Labour and the Tories neck-and-neck on 36, with the Lib Dems on 21.

But the interesting part of the survey is the fact that Health and Immigration are easily the two issues most people say will primarily make up their mind. The war in Iraq is almost at the bottom of the scale.

Even though "Northern Ireland" no longer features in those lists of election issues, Wednesday's statement by Gerry Adams, calling on the IRA to end its armed struggle, could yet prove to be hugely significant if Downing Street can read the tealeaves correctly.

The IRA is apparently set to respond on Thursday to the challenge of taking "courageous initiatives which will achieve [your] aims by purely political and democratic activity..".


The Independent has a nice feature sifting "truth from spin" among the party leaders' claims and counter-claims, while in Wednesday's instalment of the whose-side-are-you-on stakes, Labour scored an equaliser, sort of.

According to Ladbrokes, there hasn't been a single bet on the prime minister increasing his majority in his Sedgefield constiutuency, although Labour are still heavily favoured to finish with an overall majority in the Commons.

After the PMQs exchange where Michael Howard made much of the apparent reluctance of Labour candidates to put Tony Blair's picture on their election leaflets, Nick Robinson on ITV News says that the cover of the freshly-printed Labour manifesto surprise, surprise, has no picture of the great leader either....