You might have come to the conclusion that I actually missed the Leader’s Debate and decided to just make up a load of rubbish instead.

And, in fairness, you’d be right.  Truth is attempts were made to watch it but we all rapidly lost interest, preferring instead to engage in an activity I believe is called, “socialising” in a “pub” consuming something known as “booze.”

Only a week to go before the elections now, and then we can all be put out of our misery.

Or can we?

The company I kept last night wasn’t exactly going to be enthused by the efforts of Clegg, Cameron and Brown having just been to a meeting at the Adam Smith Institute where Perry De Havilland, Tim Worstall and Guido Fawkes thoroughly depressed us about the shite state of affairs in British politics at the moment and the simple underlying truth: No matter which party forms a Government, we’re going to get a very, very similar Government to the one we currently have.

It’ll be largely social democratic in nature, with a huge public sector that’s desperately trying to compensate for the weak private sector to give the illusion of a healthy economy.

Libertarians like me argue that the weakness of the private sector is in no small part due to the overwhelming redirection of national product into the public sector, and so waiting until the private sector sorts itself out before rolling back the public sector is a) Mental b) Wrong and c) Going To End In Tears.

The Government, you see, is currently overspending above and beyond what it takes in tax on an epic scale, and all three leaders say they want to sort that bit out. All well and good, but none will address the perversion of Keynesian thought that got us into this mess in the first place. Even Keynes thought the absolute maximum tolerable proportion of Gross National Product to be spent by the state was 25%… and we’re approaching 47%. In parts of Britain the public sector is 70% of the local economy which puts Soviet Russia to shame. We’re trying to keep a fire going by throwing on £50 notes with one hand, and buckets of water with the other.

And, in short, this is why there’s not enough jobs. There’s simply not enough stuff going on, so we have millions upon millions economically inactive, and an ever smaller number of businesses and people to pay for the ever growing public sector. This isn’t sustainable, or desirable, and truth is that the only choice is stop doing it or be stopped. That’s the choice.

One bit of the debate I did catch was Cameron saying, “it’s not good enough to borrow money from the Chinese to spend on goods made in China” which I think is a spot on summary of the underlying disease at the heart of our economy, and perhaps why he “won” the debate in the end. In our distant disillusionment, did we miss a leader who actually seems to get it? Perhaps he does… but what’s his solution? How far is he willing to go?

The challenge for the next Government (as set by the three leaders) is simply to get public spending down from “let’s just hand the keys to the IMF” to “catastrophically expensive.” But even if the deficit could be reduced to zero overnight, the Government would STILL be consuming too much of the National wealth. And that? Well, we can’t vote to do anything about that. That bit we’re stuck with. Before Brown sent the public financies to hell the parties used to squabble over one or two billion worth of spending… now they’re squabbling over a difference of about £6bn instead.

Just because all three parties are talking about cutting the deficit doesn’t mean economic liberalism is experiencing some kind of renaissance. It just means things are probably much, much, worse than we fear.

For those that missed it, the final debate will no doubt go down in history as one of the most remarkable live television broadcasts ever witnessed.

Sure, we expected a repeat of the format that’s already looking pretty tired after just two episodes of “I’m a party leader, get me out of here!” but that changed the second Wolf from Gladiator, clad in spandex, announced that Clegg, Brown and Cameron were to be put through their paces on the Eliminator at the end of the show.

I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw Clegg emerge from behind a curtain wearing a Mexican wrestler’s outfit. “I’m Mister Different” he roared, before flexing his muscles for the camera. Brown, bizarrely, chose to dress himself as a Union Flag with “I LOVE GILLIAN DUFFY” written on it. Wonder what that’s all about? “I AM THE POWER OF BRITAIN!” Brown said, blushing wildly.

Then, no word of a lie, Cameron emerges wearing a jewel encrusted thong and a bow-tie and a microphone pack… and nothing else. The crowd gasps, is silent for a few moments before launching into a rapturous applause. “I’ve changed” he shouts. “Should I change back? No! I AM THE CHANGE YOU NEED!”

Several elderly ladies on the front row pass out in shock. Cameron’s humping the air, with his hand curled into the Sign Of The Devil pose when Clegg clobbers him on the back of his head with a chair. With Cameron floored, Clegg turns to Brown who promptly cowers in a little flag-esque ball. Clegg is relentless, but Brown’s only playing possum – he leaps (pretty impressively for his age) and attempts to get Clegg in a headlock. Meanwhile Cameron has composed himself and maneuvered himself into a kneeling position behind Brown. “Do it!” he cries, and Clegg wastes no time – he shifts his body weight and Brown topples over Cameron like the great big lummox he is.

David Dimbleby announces that Clegg and Cameron, with their tag team attack, have earned themselves a five second head start on the eliminator.

At this point everything goes completely mental: Nick Griffin, dressed in a bear costume, leaps out from the audience and starts growling and snarling at the 3 leaders. What followed next defies what I know about reality, but the three men seemed to look at each other, some unheard, unspoken exchange… then they clasp their hands together and transform into a giant robot. Well, fuck me sideways I’m thinking…. I didn’t know they could do that! Pity giant robots can’t fix the economy because that’s impressive.

Griffin was dispatched in seconds, but at a heavy price – the audience is covered in Griffin chunks as the Giant Robot’s foot slammed straight down upon him. Fascism in Britain defeated, the robot returns to it’s constituent parts – Clegg, Cameron and Brown… except somehow Brown now has the word, “knobhead” written on his forehead. The audience, or at least the parts that weren’t traumatised from the Gibbing Of Griffin, burst out laughing. Cameron shrugs his shoulders, innocently.

I don’t remember the rest, to be honest, I’d done rather a lot of LSD and it stopped making sense at this point, but I think Cameron was the first to complete the Eliminator, followed closely by Clegg… not quite sure if Brown actually finished it or if he’s still trying to get up the travelator now.

As pointed out by Heresy Corner,

The problem isn’t that he called her a bigot; it’s that he assumed, on so little evidence, that she was.

It’s worse than that, of course. This is the same party with a ‘tough’ immigration policy and that famously stole the BNP’s “British Jobs for British Workers” slogan to pander to, well… bigots.

How are we supposed to react to this apparent world of difference between Gordon’s personal feelings, his willingness to be very nice and friendly in public with a woman he privately believes to be a bigot, and the policies he puts forward?

Is the real significance of this event that it’s exposed a bit of a liberal streak (in the ‘Liberal Conspiracy‘ sense of course) in Brown, one that he hides to create an image of himself as a hard nosed anti-immigration populist? Surely it’d have been worse if he’s said, “That was brilliant. She was anti-Immigration and she supports our policy”?

Sod Tebbit. There’s only one story that’s going to dominate the next few news cycles and that’s the footage of Brown chatting to a voter then getting into his limo with his microphone still on, creating an almost pure “The Thick Of It” moment. Transcript:

Brown: That was a disaster… should never have put me with that woman.  Whose idea was that? It was Sue I think… just ridiculous (punches back of seat?). Another voice: What did she say?  Brown: Och, everything, just some awful, bigoted woman. Used to be some Labour voter… (breaks up)

What effect will this have on the election? I think you can safely predict that the Gillian Duffy herself will have the entire media bearing down on her to give her reaction, and if the Tories and Lib Dems have any sense at all they’ll simply let this one play out without getting too involved.

Another consequence might be to reignite the stories about Brown’s temper and lacklustre social skills highlighted in Rawnsley’s book, “End of the Party”. Is this bad for Labour and Brown? Well, yes. It’s absolutely terrible and sensational at the same time. I’ll take my hat off to Brown though – he’ll have finally put Labour in top billing in the news for the first time this election.

UPDATE: I hadn’t finished typing this up when Brown had already gone on the radio to apologise. Gillian Duffy is apparently, “very upset”. Sky’s Adam Boulton says, “I’d be surprised if any of this turns out to be a vote winner.”

After yesterday’s delightful contribution to the election from Labour (“You’re going to die of cancer if the Tories get in, but not before you watch your children starve to death”), today sees Norman Tebbit in top form to give you yet another thing to be scared of.

If Clegg gets his way, the BNP will win 60 seats in the House of Commons, and not just that – Hitler’s National Socialist party won power through Proportional Representation. Oh yes. Vote Clegg, Get Hitler.

It’s a load of bollocks, of course. The rise of National Socialism in Germany was the end result of decades of anti-individualist, anti-British Liberalism, pro-collectivist thought in Germany, not a voting system. If you’ve got your brain plugged in, try Hayek’s “The Socialist Roots of Naziism” for more information on that. It’s not voting systems that give fascists power, it’s people being… you know…. fascist.

And on the specific point that PR is how Hitler rose to power? Try this from STV Action: Did PR bring Hitler and the Nazis to power?

No. As Enid Lakeman wrote in How Democracies Vote, “Once public opinion had turned to the Nazis, an election under a majority system [e.g.First Past The Post], would have resulted in a landslide in their favour. Under proportional representation, the party never won a majority in the Reichstag in a free election.” The Nazis seized power in a Putsch. Miss Lakeman adds that Hermann Goering gave evidence in his war crimes trial that, under the British system, the Nazis would have won every seat in the 1933 election. (h/t Sara Bedford and James Graham)

If you think you can stop the British Nazis from winning by rigging the voting system, you absolutely fail at politics in every way possible, and that goes double for Old Psycho Tebbit.