Polly Toynbee is back in the pod, and Observer leader-writer Rafael Behr joins us for the first time. We've got him because we so enjoyed his insider's guide to politico-speak.
Speechwriting expert Simon Lancaster is on hand to dissect the oeuvres of Brown and Cameron before we weigh in with all the petty grievances typical of political journalists who have heard one too many alliterations and perorations. Raf thinks the average speech could be improved by shrinking them drastically (the current crop are most often about an hour long – when they could be three minutes maximum) while Polly attributes the arid style of both Brown and Cameron to a reticence to tell it like it is.
A hung parliament probably won't happen but we're in that four-month window in which it looks like it might possibly maybe sort of happen so we're having a brief discussion of it today. Polly says bring it on – both parties could do with a good dose of Liberal Democracy – while Raf deploys a hefty chunk of psephological learning to suggest it won't. On 7 May, he predicts a Tory majority of 30.
All this and Gordon Brown's diet of nine bananas a day.
