And we lose another 1%

Jon Bright (London, OK): Brown must be expecting a grilling at PMQs today. Not only does he have an election bungle to shake off, he has Darling's shameless appropriation of Conservative policy to spin about. Iain Dale sums it up: "Does anyone seriously believe that Alistair Darling would have made his announcement on Inheritance tax or on Non Domiciles if the Tories hadn't made hay with this last week?" I have a hazy recollection of voting for Labour a couple of years back (which is increasingly hard to explain to people) and I'm pretty sure "Whenever the Tories say something popular, we'll say it as well, in slightly different language" wasn't a manifesto pledge. This is exactly the type of politics that disengages people - relentless triangulation, tacking towards the middle ground, refusal to campaign on principle. 61% voted in the last election - how many will vote in the next?