Liberals in the lead? - we're not in Kansas any more...

Politicshome has a new BPIX poll for the Mail on Sunday, and it makes for shocking reading:

Lib Dems 32% (+12)

Conservatives 31% (-7)

Labour 28% (-3)

I'm not sure what it will do to seat counts, or even UNS, but it's sure to set some nerves jangling this evening at Conservative and Labour HQs regardless of the fact that BPIX isn't a member of the UK polling council.

So, is it still a blip after the debate on Thursday? Or is this now a trend? The next couple of days will tell us more, but I will say one thing: John Cleese once said in a PPB for the Liberals that half of voters would vote yellow if they genuinely thought the party could win. Could it be that the Liberal Democrats are now finally being seen as a real alternative?

UPDATE: John Cleese video...

Leaders' Debates - they work!

In between all the coverage, the spinning, the 'who beat who and who was paying' of the 12hrs or so since the first Leaders' Debate, one thing has really struck me. The Debates work. They really work.

Yesterday my non-political friends would normally shudder, sleep, or hide (or all three) whenever I tried to talk to them about the election. This morning, quite the reverse - there is huge debate about the political Parties and their policies. One colleague who admitted she couldn't pick Nick Clegg out of a line-up before last night is now considering voting for him. There's a discussion in our kitchen as to why David Cameron slightly dodged an answer on police spending; was it that he didn't have enough time to get into the detail, or is there something wrong there? Our team meeting this morning kicked off with a chat about whether Gordon Brown is simply unable to get his personality across or whether, god forbid, he has and that's actually it!

Put simply, there's a buzz about the whole election in a way that I haven't seen for some time. People are interested; they're re-engaging with politics. Could the debates be the catalyst that finally allows people to forget about the excesses of politicians, or at least allows them to separate politicians from politics and policy?