Why is Ed Milliband panicking his way to the end of the election?

"We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious. They stole it from us. Sneaky little hobbitses Tories. Wicked, tricksy, false!"

I return from a short break (I have really enjoyed this missing out on tons of election coverage as the parties try to have an election without any commitments at all!) to find Ed Milliband has turned into Gollum from the Lord of the Rings.

Gollum, in the books, is captivated by the Ring, the source of power. All is subsumed to its acquisition and though there is an inner battle, everything is sacrificed in the end for power.

In the past week, the true Milliband-Gollum has come to the fore. We all know he started this terrible path to power by ruining his own family by beating his more talented brother with the help of the union barons.

Fast forward to this week and he is truly desperate. Most of the Labour lines are about 'hidden' Tory plans to smash the NHS. Pure lies in all likelihood with no way of proving any of them. If anything the Tories are as cornered as everyone else by the mammoth NHS spending requirements.

But the lies pour forth with increasing desperation. Not content with just campaigning on a lie as the central theme of his campaign Milliband has gone futher.

To the depths of meeting with narcissist and anarchist Russell Brand - in search of unregistered younger voters to try to convince with the made-up message of the Labour Campaign.

Together with this of course, is is 'set in stone' pledges made last week.

This stunt has to be the worst I have yet seen - factless statements written into stone. Carefully chosen to avoid any Nick Clegg type disasters where commitment might late come back to bite you.

The only thing all of the above tells me is that Ed Milliband is really, really desperate for power. Of course, having ruined his family he personally has the most to lose from failure. But Gollum he is, willing to sacrifice everything to his insatiable appetite for power.

If he does win, this all leads me to think he will quickly degenerate to Gordon Brown levels of idiocy and bad leadership, so consumed with his own 'journey' which he mistakenly thinks this that of the country too.

And so it starts with Salmond at the Fore

Finally, the UK Election hoves into view as the main chapter in the Nation's life for a few weeks.

It is for yourself to decide how welcome this (I am on hols for abroad 2 weeks of it, lucky me!) for your media viewing habits....

Interestingly though this time is that the minor parties are still far up the agenda. This as we know from the last election means a hung parliament is nailed on. With coverage the minor parties have their Oxygen.

Mr Salmond has led the way with his frankly bizarre rants about holding Westminster to ransom. They are less bizarre when you remember how bitter he is to have lost the referendum and with it his job last year. Now is the time for revenge on those pesky English, the bogey men who cost him his job by not being able to vote for him in an Scotland-only referendum.

So now he remains keen to be as obstructive as possible - he is lucky that with such a and tiny vote base on a single issue, his clarity of strategy is easy. Wind up the English, make it hell for Westminster, appear lefty and populist to garner the votes of the '45%.' Simples.

Rather more of a nightmare for Milliband and Cameron. For them too is the Farage outlier, roundly attacked in the press and every slight mistake jumped upon, the role of traditional English underdog beckons for the campaign. The harder the mainstream try, the more oxygen he gets and his vote base firms up. Plus of course, he can become the English anti-Salmond - always important to be a lucky General.

Meanwhile, Cameron produced a non-budget to save excitement for the manifesto, so squandering his last big set-piece and Milliband, well the less said about him the better (literally true, as Labour is so much more popular than its leader...).

The debates finally agreed have an odd structure but this will suit the Government, with so many and such an arcane format they will likely not have the impact of 2010 - so helping the incumbent.

Still though, the Campaign will be bitter and repetitive with so many voices heard and few of reason amongst them.

How could Labour or anyone opt out of UNITE?

One of the interesting parts of Ed Milliband's speech last week was the very relaxed attitude of the Unions to his claims of being keen on changing their relationship.

We know why of course, it is because they know who pulls the strings in reality and whilst it made for good telly and bluster to put a stop to endless criticism, over the summer and winter the ideas will be quietly droppped and nothing will happen. Which is why they are so keen to be seen to be supportive today.

In reality, Labour cannot survive without Union funding and the left wing of the party cannot dominate its policy agenda without Union block votes.

The UNITE union is also well capable of playing a duplicitous game. We have seen from the likes of Guido how carefully and cynically they have managed their campaign to elect 'UNITE' MP's. it is a very impressive thing too, can you imagine if we had Barclays MP's for example of British Airways MP's in the numbers of 30 or 40? (Which reminds me, a ludicrous number of MP's are ex-lawyers and barristers, so perhaps this plus lobbying/political research is the real counter balance to UNITE MP's).

However, as demonstration of how underhand UNITE can be, I have looked here at their application form. Nowhere does it explicitly mention either the support for the Labour party nor offer any way to get out of paying it. Except in Northern Ireland, where I guess they would have trouble finding a party to give their money to, as Labour does not stand in Northern Ireland!

UNITE are led by cynical, communist leaders who have no interests at heart except their own. I can't see any change coming soon, whatever the Leader of the Opposition says on the Grandstand.

Energy, but at a price

Mr Drew is away, taken from us by mistress work to do his penury in far away places. And just as it seems the public is finally about to glimpse the coming disaster of an energy crisis.

A brief reminder of where we are. Ed Milliband as Energy minster, amongst 11 others over a few short years of Brownian rule, made broad and glorious speeches about the renewable future, Carbon Capture and other fanciful whimsies.

Sadly Milliband has been replaced by the equally useless Chris Huhne and now Ed Davey, both besotten with precious windmills and eco-platitudes to the gods of demagoguery.

And low, it has come to pass that we have now seriously started switching off the power stations in the UK and yet not a single new gas plant is under construction. They don't take too long, but none have been started. We face moving to a place where there is 5% capacity overage on the Grid, from 15% today.

Will it mean blackouts - probably not as those Frenchies with their vast nuclear power supply will be only to will to help out Perfidious Albion - they may though sense the potential of a rather large commercial opportunity for themselves. Similarly, that lovely Gazprom company from the land of Uncle Vladimir will surely help us too with much needed gas, for a small price.

So, here we are, blackouts of 20%-30% increases in prices - all without any increase in renewables or really reducing our carbon footprint (exporting the problem elsewhere surely doesn't count even for a Lib Dem?)

It says little for our democracy that long-term planning by Government in this space has become impossible - I don't fancy the chances of the Government that is charge when these particular chickens come home for a roost.