The quiet man is here to stay...

Nick’s speech was interesting – the conferences this year will be the opening salvos in what will no doubt be a long and bloody election campaign. The messages have been dusted off to a certain extent in Westminster already, but they’re constantly being refined and/or junked – each party trying to paint the others as bad guys, everyone selectively raking through history for ammunition – 18 years of Tory rule, the dashed hopes of 1997, meetings in restaurants, the Bullingdon club, who did what to whom. It's irritating when you're working there to hear the same lines day in, day out - but everyone's clamouring for the same fifteen seconds of news.

And I have to say, it’s all going to get dull pretty swiftly. There’s a bit of a phoney war going on at the moment – the real election stuff stays in the box until the Labour party sort themselves out. No-one at Westminster really believes that Gordon Brown will still be leader of the party going into the election – except perhaps for the man himself, but even he must be having doubts at this stage. Having a younger chap at the helm of the governing party is going to change election strategies – you can’t go for the same old same old, unless the man at the top was standing behind Norman Lamont on Black Wednesday...

Nick has always been criticised for being a bit Cameron Jr., which he tried to address but didn’t really manage to do that well. Personally I think he still has a bit of weathering to do, to rid himself of the slight patina of youthfulness. Young and dynamic works well for the main two parties because people know that they're full of ancient MPs and inherently establishment -when you're the youthful, inexperienced outside party that hasn't tasted real power since a previous life a hundred years ago, it doesn't do to have the chap in charge personify that too well.

It’s a shame, and slightly ironic, given that the theme Nick tried to make of his speech was fairness, but it looks like Britain is going to be keeping its two-party system for a little while longer.