Seconds out. Parliament dissolved. The queen has given her approval – although she has no formal role in the dissolution – and the bout is finally on. Thirty-seven days to the general election. and the parties yesterday came out swinging. Thwack. “That’s for your deficit!” Thump. “One in the eye for your mansion tax!”
In retrospect, it was remarkable that the current administration went the whole five-year term. The formation of the coalition between the Tories and the Lib Dems in 2011 had been met by deep suspicion, both leaders, David Cameron and Nick Clegg having to put their authority on the line to win over deeply sceptical backbenchers.
It had been an article of faith among Tories, like in Fianna Fáil before necessity forced its hand, that coalitions were inherently unstable and detrimental to strong government.
In the Lib Dems a mixture of ingrained hatred of the Tories and aversion to compromise was only overcome with a half promise, never fulfilled, of electoral reform. And yet the coalition stuck together successfully through painful austerity, cuts and, inevitably, plummeting Lib Dem polls – as Irish Labour could have warned them, the price paid by the smaller party in a coalition.
But as the Financial Times observed, UK politics has been "forever altered by the experience of coalition". Majoritarianism and the safe seat are no longer. No more two-and-a-half-party politics – now Ukip and the SNP and even the Greens are turning the vagaries of first-past-the post on its head.
In Scotland, massive swings may deprive Labour of up to 40 seats, in England Ukip inroads into both main parties are likely to throw open scores of seats in three-way lotteries, constituency by constituency. The only thing that is pretty certain is that no-one will have a majority.
To the surprise of most, Labour starts ahead in the latest poll – 36 to 32 per cent – its leader Ed Miliband having defied predictions by putting on a "sparky" (Financial Times) performance in the first of the TV debates.
A subdued Cameron seems also to have thrown his own supporters with a promise – unplanned and unnecessary – not to seek a third term if re-elected. He has called it – they always do – “the most important general election in a generation”.
The battleground will be the economy, specifically how each will make a £30 billion structural deficit disappear over the term of a government. The prime minister says “Britain is back on its feet again” and Labour will raise taxes by £3,000 per family to pay for welfare and out-of-control spending.
Labour, that it can reduce the deficit through growth, that spending will only be protected in health, education and international development – with reductions elsewhere . . . and that’s only day one. Thirty-seven to go.