The Liberal Democrats

The next general election is still two years away, but the battle lines are already being drawn. In a series of carefully planned announcements, the mainstream parties have all made it crystal clear that immigration will be at the top of the political agenda. The 2015 election looks set to herald the most racist campaign in a long time.

The big losers in the elections were the Liberal Democrats. Their base in big city councils built up over the last two decades by posing to the left of Labour, were sharply eroded as Labour revived.

"I am not against - whether they are footballers or bankers - people who have particularly high skills or talents, being paid whatever you can get in the marketplace," said Lib Dem energy secretary Chris Huhne last month. Huhne should know, having used his (presumably) high skills and talents to make his estimated £3.5 million fortune in the City before joining the commoners in parliament.

Propelled into the limelight by the televised leaders' debates and riding high in the opinion polls, Clegg seemed to fancy himself as a British Barack Obama. "Change" was the order of the day. Labour and the Tories were the "old parties".

Coming from the leader of a party that was formed from a coalition of Whigs, free trade Tories and middle class radicals in the 1850s, this all seemed a bit rich.

The general election will be remembered as the election nobody won.

It was supposed to be the Conservative Party's triumphant return to power. Backed by Rupert Murdoch and the City of London, facing the tired and unpopular Gordon Brown, David Cameron was supposed to fulfil his Etonian destiny by effortlessly sweeping into Number 10.

Millions of voters will be faced with a grim choice at the forthcoming general election. An enormous gulf exists between the Labour leadership and a Labour electorate way to the left of it. The Liberal Democrats have carefully inserted themselves into the political space created by disillusion with New Labour, offering themselves as a 'progressive' alternative to a profoundly discredited Labour government.