So the Tory Press has gone mental trying to break Nick Clegg today, and you can hardly blame them. What’s happening is a threat to the way those papers want things to work out – what’s at stake for them is access to the Government for scoops and exclusives and not having to change their editorial policy to pander to a new pro-Lib Dem readership. That’s the last thing they want. Alix Mortimer has a pretty good piece on this on what she believes to be the motives behind all this.

Truth is this barrage was always going to happen, and it happens to be happening today, as it happens. The journalists working on the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph are working around the clock to find something – anything – that’ll damage Clegg permanently… or, you know, just for a couple of weeks. That’s all that’s needed. That’s what a Free Press does. They’re supposed to do this, for better or worse. The only Nick Clegg that’s any use to anyone is one that can survive smears, innuendo and outright assaults from the British Press. If he can’t then any Government of his wouldn’t last 5 minutes and we all know it.

But while all this is going on, Labour’s campaign is, just for tonight Matthew, playing the role of the traditional Lib Dem campaign… you know, that ‘other’ party that’s also campaigning that no-one really cares about. The Mail and the Telegraph can’t even be arsed trying to smear Brown as he’s no longer any sort of threat to them. The ‘narrative’ of this election, that it’s a fight to the death between the Liberals and the Tories, has already claimed its first casualty in the cross-fire: The battle for Labour has become trying to get any kind of attention at all.

Even the Tories seem to be struggling to stamp their message on the day’s agenda. They surely can’t regard a Clegg story dominating the BBC News website as any kind of ‘success’ or helpful, surely?

I’ve got another piece up on Comment Is Free here, which you might like. I’ve been thinking that what Libertarians like me want is a limited Government (not simply a ‘small’ Government)… and it occurs to me that a Hung Parliament, which puts an end to the ability of Majority Governments to bulldoze populist, authoritarian legislation through, sounds pretty good to me.

Inspired by today’s newspapers, here’s the Top 10 Evil Things Nick Clegg Has Done.

#10 – Drowned Laser Kittens in a Satchel

In 2008 I met Nick Clegg, armed only with a dictaphone and a satchel containing 3 of my favourite Laser Kitties for him to autograph. Only he didn’t autograph them, no. After exclaiming, “What the shitting fuck are those?!” he grabbed the satchel and disappeared out of the room. We all chased him screaming, “Nick! Nick! What are you doing?!” but it was hopeless. He ran into the Gents and drowned each Laser Kitty in the toilets screaming, “Accursed creatures! Back to the depths with ye!”

#9 – Inspired Osama Bin Laden to bring down Twin Towers

Little known fact is that back in 2001, Nick Clegg (during his ‘muslim phase’) met with Osama Bin Laden and said, “You know, you could do a lot of damage with a commercial jet.”

#8 – Beat up John Sergeant

Just before John Sergeant quit Strictly Come Dancing he was paid a visit by Nick Clegg with a message from Vince Cable. “If you’re still on the show this time tomorrow, we’re going to break your fucking legs” Nick then crushed some chilli peppers in his fingers and proceeded to spend the next five minutes chasing a sobbing John round the room shouting, “I’m going to do your eyes! I’m going to do your eyes!”

#7 Swapped the sugar for salt

He apparently does this everywhere he goes, but the worst came when me met Gary Lineker. “Fancy a cuppa, Gary?” he asked. Gary, being a nice old sausage, said yes. Meanwhile he got Lembit Opik to fill a Lucozade bottle with urine, which was strategically left on the coffee table. Clegg soon returned with the saltiest cup of tea he’d ever made. Rumour has it that as the gasping, agonised Gary was handed the bottle of Lucozade, Nick said, “Quick! Drink this!” as cool as you like. No emotion at all.

#6 Got pissed with Diana’s Chauffeur

As reported by the Daily Express, Nick Clegg was in Foreignland (ostensibly to negotiate the surrender of Britain to the leader of Foreignland) the night of Diana’s death, and bumped in Diana’s Chauffeur in the hotel bar. “Come on,” he said, “Never seen a driver that couldn’t handle a pint of Vodka before a journey. What are you? Chicken?”

#5 Split up the Spice Girls

Twas the easiest thing in the world for the man who’d become Geri Halliwell’s favourite lover: “Oh,” said Nick, “Turns out Posh Spice is a much better shag than you.” Geri, stunned, screamed, “You what?” Nick replied, “Not my fault, Darling. The dozy tart threw herself at me. Said that she felt sorry for me, having to do the zig a zig ahhh with an elephant like you.”

Geri left the Spice Girls soon after, after being told by Nick that she’d ‘definitely’ have a successful solo career with him looking out for her.

#4 Sold his Grandmother to become Leader of the Lib Dems

“You know what I want” Lord Rennard was supposed to have said to Nick Clegg. “But…. I love my Grandma, Chris. What will you do to her?” “Best you don’t worry about that, Nick” It triggered a chain of events that brought down Ming Campbell and saw Nick win the leadership despite getting absolutely no votes from members.

Sources tell me that Granny Clegg is serving FTSE 100 executives as a ‘Nanny’ to ‘Big Babies’ and if you don’t know what that means then, really, consider yourself lucky.

#3 Got Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse Cancelled.

Nick apparently loathes Joss Whedon, but he hates the fans even more. It’s not enough to simply stop them being made – rather, he waits until the fans absolutely love the show then kidnaps executives from the studios and tortures them until they relent. To get Dollhouse cancelled, he simply kidnapped the CEO of Fox Television, stripped him naked and with a permanent marker wrote, “Spider Food” on his vulnerable belly. He pulled out a Tarantula from a Tupperware box and whispered, calm as you like, “Spiders can read”. The executive’s screams could be heard for miles.

#2 Downloaded a movie from the internet

Weekend and Bernie’s, it was. Was some debate here at Gore Towers about whether simply watching that movie constitutes No 2, but we decided that because the crime of downloading movies is the worst possible thing someone can do, this deserved pride of place.

#1 Invented the Crazy Frog

Yes, it’s true. “The Crazy Frog” and the associated ringtone was the work of one Mr N. Clegg of Sheffield Hallam using his porn alias, “Erik Wernquist”. When Nick is in Foreignland speaking Foreign, he often uses this alias because he’s ashamed of his British sounding name.

UPDATE: Turns out Twitter beat me to this.. there’s a hashtag, #nickcleggsfault. If you liked this, you’ll love that.

I have no real evidence to support this (other than my own gradual return to sanity and the rate of growth of the Facebook group) that Cleggmania is beginning to fade. The next debate is on Sky News which, I believe, will get the smallest audience and have the least impact of the three – it’s hard to imagine another bounce like the one we’ve seen. Having said that, Michael Crick points out that this debate comes just before the Postal Voting begins…

I’ve just taken a call from Cowley Street, asking for a donations – “desperately short” of funds, apparently. I told them I’m an ex-member and don’t want to donate, but I asked him how things were going… are they finding it easier to get money? He said he’d not done this kind of work before. “All hands to on the deck manning the phones then?” I said. “Oh yes” came the reply.

However this week appears to have rocked the other two parties hard, and Labour have proven to be the big losers. Their lows are historic lows and, as expected, they perceive it as a catastrophic emergency that requires immediate action. I always wondered why the Lib Dems never saw polling lower than Labour currently are as a catastrophic emergency, but I guess it’s a question of perspective and expectations, at the end of the day.

The Tories seem to be faring better in that they seem to be ploughing on exactly as they were always going to, leaving attacking the Lib Dems to the Daily Mail instead – very wise. They’re polling fairly well, too, with no sign that their support is evaporating (which makes the curious case of new poster all the more peculiar) Brown, on the other hand, the man who can’t bring himself to say “Liberal Democrats” thanks to a lifelong grudge against the Social Democrat splitters, is rehashing Blair’s old story about creating a new anti-Tory progressive consensus. Well, he would. If one thing has become absolutely true in the last week it’s that Brown’s only real chance of staying Prime Minister is in coalition with the Lib Dems.

It seems a sad day when the incumbent Prime Minister is forced to continue with the degrading, “I Agree With Nick” line, and I wince at the inevitable rebuffs. This new humbled passivity from Brown is more frightening than anything he did as Stalin or Mr Bean. It’s frankly creepy. It’s what, I suppose, passes for what Brown as a coalition leader might look and feel like – humbled and reduced.

But, of course, the point of this manoeuvre is to portray the Conservatives as isolated extremists, and piggybacking on the popularity of the and I can’t actually quite believe I’m saying this Lib Dems.

For Cleggmania to fade it requires nothing more special than time to pass. For Labour to recover, they need… well… a miracle, in short. Maybe a perception that Nick Clegg is now bullying Gordon Brown (hey, stranger things have happened) will be ‘it’. Who knows?

I really haven’t got a clue what the hell is going on.

Are the Tories really about to “lurch right” at the last minute? Assuming the poster is for real, that is. Considering the quality and message it could be something only ever intended to be seen by readers of Conservative Home, to cheer them up. I really hope that’s the case. I really, really do.

First of all, let’s consider the message itself: “Let’s cut benefits for those who refuse work.” This policy is not shocking. Labour’s own manifesto says:

We will end for good the concept of a life on benefit by offering all those unemployed for more than two years work they must accept

The only real difference here is that the Tories have the guts to be specific about what “must accept” might mean. What about Labour? Removal of benefits altogether? Prison? Labour camps? At this point it’s anyone’s guess. Labour won’t be making a poster about their policy, either.

But it does provoke an obvious question: Is David Cameron still in charge of the Conservative Party’s message? Whether the four years of ‘decontamination’ has really worked remains to be seen, but this new message couldn’t be more explicit in saying, “No more Mr Nice Guy.”

Has the crisis in the polls and the firm, sharp, swift kick in the nuts that the electorate appears determined to inflict on both him and Brown caused what always happens to leaders when the troops become disillusioned and demoralised: They lose control. The troops mutiny and rivals begin to flex their muscles. Someone, somewhere, is in desperate need to bolster the Tory core vote and they’re getting their way. If Cameron’s behind this it’s a humiliating retreat into comfortable Tory territory and a pre-emptive admission that the last four years have been a mistake. Alternatively it looks like Cameron’s lost control of the message, or possibly worse that no-one at Tory HQ understands just how badly this sort of message plays with non-Core Tories. With apologies to my Tory friends, this doesn’t look good.

What’s tragic about this whole affair is that if Labour had said the same thing (and, you know, they have) they don’t endure the label of The Nasty Party. That’s because no-one seriously believes that Labour are in politics to punish the poorest people in society for their failures – whereas, true or not, people do actually believe that about the Conservatives. The decontamination strategy was supposed to change people’s minds about what the motives behind Tory policies are. The measure of its success would be their ability to get away with messages like this. But surely testing the credibility of the decontaminated brand is something you do during the second term, not before the General Election?

Time to get the popcorn out and wait and see.

UPDATE: Just to make it absolutely clear, I don’t have a problem with the policy. I actually admire any party that has the guts to tackle welfare reform. My point, in a nutshell, is that the Tories want to win, and that means appealing to more than just natural Conservatives. It means appealing to more people than they’ve ever appealed to before… this seems counterproductive.