Listen to the silence. Which silence are you refering to. Unless you have been scribing from a convent, you may have heard a few rumblings, which by the time of the next GE will have grown to a crescendo.
Brown, Miliband....dosen't matter. Finished.
Get thee to a nunnery.

john williams, vitre, france

Labour just want to tax the working middle class people trying to make a better life for themselves - we are the people that can be policed, pay our taxes & Council tax. They want to tax our so-called 'nice peaceful homes' & survey our driving so we can be made to pay for every mile we drive. These measures don't affect the long term unemployed or asylum seekers, just the people who work & contribute to the coffers of the country. The conservatives cannot possibly be any worse than Tony & his cronies have become in the last few years so I will be voting blue at the next election.

Jane S, Lincolnshire,

I am from Milton Keynes, and this new city, needs a new leader, a fresh face, not someone linked to the failed Blair episode. I for one am for conversative!! I'm sure many others here will agree with me

Adam Webb, Milton Keynes, Bucks

my dad allways use to tell me that i would feel and see the difference if this country returned to a labour government and oh how very true his words have been. The sooner we get rid of this shambling excuse of a government the better

paul , lodon , england

Labour under Gordon Brown is not as palatable as under Blair. Why? Because Britain is (and always has been) an essentially centre-right society. That key 40% figure that analysts keep banging on about - that's your winning majority right there. The remaining 60% are, loosely, left and right voters, insufficient within their own numbers to force a majority. The centre-rigth are the voters who voted for New Labour in 1997 because Blair shifted the party to the right and made it electable. These are the same voters who will vote for the Tories on the basis that they perceive Labour under Brown as going back to more typical 'Labour' values. So the issue really is, who can grab that 40%? Brown, according to the latest poll, looks unlikely at this stage to do so. If the polls continue in this manner, or get worse for Brown, expect a leadership contest. What logically-thinking Labour MP in a marginal seat wants to be led by a man who the polls say is going to lose them their seat?

James, Dublin, Ireland

In the Northampton area, where (contrary to your report) a great deal of employment is semi or unskilled distribution centre / clerical work, immigration has become a huge issue as eastern-european migrants have held down wages whilst the cost of living has exploded. Labour's incompetence on this issue will hurt it across the social spectrum. This part of the country has also seen little benefit from the redistribution of taxation funds towards 'labour heartlands'. Labour will struggle.

Adam, Northampton, Northants

Labour are totally discredited in Swindon after a series of dictatorial , incompetent, and unpleasant leaders. The Council now has a strong Conservative majority and they are doing well.
Swindon South must be a realistic gain for a Conservative candidate-Swindon North perhaps as well.

David Kent, Swindon., Wiltshire.

Just remember the name "Labour" - hard work. People are fed up with their "We will punish you for living or for trying to improve yourself" ideas. We've had enough.

Phil, Preston,

The entire Labour government looks tired. It's drawing to the end of an era. Time for the other lot to get a chance.

SImon, London,

A plague on both the major political parties; neither of them have demonstrated their ability to come forward with rational policies to handle matters of concern to the public.

First past the post electoral systems encourage parties to pronounce bland policy proposals, which are then adjusted to more extreme solutions on the pretext of 'having a mandate'.

The sooner we accept a form of proportional voting the sooner we will get greater concensus and consequent actions to secure more widely accepted legislative measures that address the issues of concern.

Jerry Latham, U, England

Remember, the Blair cabinet of 1997 had no previous experience

Duncan, Rye, UK

Your article fails to realise that Gordon Brown doesn't need to beat Cameron in Milton Keynes; he needs to beat Mark Lancaster who is loved by the general populus for being a great constituency MP and is a future star of the Conservative Party.

Labour don't have a cats chance in Hell of winning the transport corridors this time around.

Jeff Townsend, Chicheley, Just outside Milton, Bucks

I think Gordon Brown will be a disaster for Labour. He is to closely linked to the Blair years. Labour needs a fresh face and a new start.

michael riley, london, london

This focus on the leadership would seem to mark a change in the political sub-culture. At any rate, it now pre-occupies the media, and everything seems to need to be defined in terms of the figurehead. On the other hand, the electorate can hardly themselves have made the same transform. It is still Tory or Labour, as the detail of your article acknowledges. You are conveniently over-emphasising the issue, though it is amusing to see that the political spin doctors would seem to have temporarily got their knickers in a twist. The next election will still be a matter of Labour or Tory for all but the tiny minority of ‘activists’.

Henry Percy, London, UK

Yes,the UK has done well but nevertheless worse than most other developed and some developing economies in the last 10 years.
It has done better than moribund Europe of course but that is no is no standard to go by.

david kay, hemingford,

To Henry from London - the momentum in British economy is a consequence of changes brought forth by Tories in their last days (independence of Bank of England et al), heavy reliance of G. Brown on borrowing to run the economy (on top of private debt) and achieving "growth" by expansion of public sector rather than private sector. None of these are long-term sustainable solutions. On the wider point Brown v Cameron is a no brainer. The interesting one would be Milliband v Cameron. Given that Milliband has no other form of work experience apart from being a politician all his life till date, I have little faith in his abilities to be a capable average Joe.

Prabhat, UK,

Er, Jarod Weaver obviously hasn't noticed that the economy has done rather well under the 'envious socialists'. Perhaps that's why Labour won so handily in 2001 and 2005. Like many Tories, Jarod is still living in the 80s.

George Osbourne as Chancellor? Oh, please.

Henry, London, UK

You appear to conveniently overlook the fact that Tony Blair has failed to make Britain less selfish in almost a decade in power, according to a massive 90% of voters.The huge majority in a poll for the Sunday Telegraph includes 43% who think things are worse and 47% no better than under the last Tory administration. Apart from a surge in illegal immigrants, higher taxes, higher crime levels, and a growth in the number of sex offenders employed in schools what exactly has the voter gained from New Labour? And Brown is fatally tainted by association."New" Labour under Gordon Brown will be exactly the same as any Labour Government - tax and spend.
After 10 years the best successes they can point to are devolution, the minimum wage to equal rights and gay couples. Earth shattering stuff, obviously.

Istanbul Tory, Istanbul , Turkey

Mr Weaver,

As Mr Blair has demonstrated, image is almost everything in modern politics. The new Tory ensemble look like lightweights for the most part.

Part of Miss Miles' point is the ever-present "established party of government" factor. Better the devil you know, to put it quite disparagingly to the present incumbents.

You are obviously a Tory. No-one expects Labour to win voters over. The point is whether they will cling on to the the people who voted for Labour last time.

Mr IRJMilne, London,

Experience is not necessariy a substitute for competence. Labour under Blair and Brown have had 10 years to to demonstrate their competence. Has Labour been competent in governing foreign policy, immigration, police, crime, illegal drugs, the NHS, transport and pensions over the last 10 years? I do not think that they have, as all these areas cause increasing concern to many people.
I also think that Brown's claim to have run a successful economy is open to question. Most of the world's countries have seen strong economic growth over the last 10 years due to increased global trading - these increases are despite governments. To put it mildly Brown is a "taker" and if he had not taken so much from the majority of us we would all be a better off. Cameron and the conservatives, or even a coalition of other parties, deserve the chance to improve on Labour's incompetence.

Paul Horan, Stockport, England

Brown's cabinet? Experience? Alice Miles tends to forget that the reason that Labour have won the last three elections is because of Tony Blair, despite his cabinet, not because of. The Labour cabinet since 1997 has been full of ex-university professors, ex trade union officials and ex social workers. Compare that to a tory cabinet of ex business people who understand how Britain PLC works, and how the economy shouldn't be run by envious socialists, that hold our country down. Every time I read Alice Miles, she shines the new labour light without giving us any reason or evidence to why Britain should carry on under this corrupt, incompetent, spendfrift, and basically useless government. Alice, a Labour cabinet, wow me!

Jarod Weaver, Southwell, Nottinghamshire