9 April, 2010 11:58

Well, we’ve now had nearly a week of electioneering and there’s now just another twenty eight days to go.

Who’s top of the pile at the moment, nationally and locally?

Today, the Daily Express reports in its poll that the Conservative lead nationally has increased by one per cent and now on 11 per cent.

Nationally, without doubt David Cameron has had the best of the first few days of the campaign. The backing of so many bosses of industry who came out against Labour’s rise in National Insurance contributions was the biggest blow of the week from the Tories.

Labour haven’t really come close to landing any real killer punches compared to this. Save perhaps for Sarah Brown, who really is proving a great asset to her husband who’s obviously a man of great integrity but singularly fails to impress you with any sort of charisma at all.

Locally, the Tories have also had a pretty good week.

I’ve not been a great fan of Richard Graham and I have told him so before the election was called. I told him he needed to get himself involved more in the community and let us have more stories that reflect his message.

Give him credit, he reacted to my verbal kicking pretty well. We’ve seen some good stories from him, particularly his initiative to get some firms to back the move for Gloucestershire to play two 20/20 matches at King’s School.

As a cricket fan myself, I’m really looking forward to that. After all, it’s crazy that the county’s capital city cannot stage county matches any more.

Just noticed today’s Sun on Michael Caine backing the Cameron campaign. Great headline: We are the YOUTH Preservation Society. The Italian Job actor(my favourite film ever with The Ipcress file) favours the return of national service—I couldn’t agree more. It certainly didn’t do any harm to a lot of our tearaways.

Cameron’s speech bubble under his picture on the story says:” I hope this idea does more than blow the bloody doors off”. If the election coverage just gets too much this weekend,watch the original Italian job on video.

The new Chief Constable, Tony Melville, as you may have seen from yesterday’s paper was guest editor of The Citizen on Wednesday. I gave him 7/10. A good guy who is also a straight talker.

I’m looking forward to my stint in his job for a day! I’d be interested in what you thought you might like me to do.