Wake me up when it's over

So there's that exercise in pointlessness tonight. The "debate". Nigel Farage has said he will use the debates to keep the spotlight on immigration, saying: "Particularly, I shall be arguing and asking the Prime Minister and others, will they please admit that, as members of the EU, we cannot have an immigration policy of any kind at all". So there you go. The only tool left in the box and a lost argument. Meanwhile, Hugh Muir notes "If his party has too many pests, he caused the infestation". This blog has said all that can be said on that. With five weeks to go it's now just painful electioneering and marking time.

Dan Hodges finally catches up to this blog, speculating that the Tories can scrape a majority: "The Tories have started the campaign on 35 per cent, and are moving upwards. That is with the further decline in the Ukip vote, “the shy Tory”, “Prime Minister Miliband” and “better the devil you know” factors still to be priced in."

Ukip is worn out already. Farage fever is yesterdays news, everybody now knows who and what Ukip is and with Farage being their only "asset", with only the immigration song to sing, it's looking like a washout. We can't expect much from the forthcoming campaign except for media noise and hackneyed pseudo-analysis from the latecomers. It's more for their entertainment than our information. One just has to listen to the glee in the voice of Eddie Mair on PM as they discuss whether Ed Milband's "hell yes" retort gave Labour a minuscule bump in the polls or not. They live for trivia.

It was said the last election was the most ideas free election in living memory. By that measure, this one is sure to surpass it. There is still time left for one of the top kippers to be caught out doing or saying something egregiously stupid, but as of now, all us Ukip watchers are simply mocking the afflicted and trolling Ukip like Westboro Baptist Church at a veterans funeral. It's time for those of us who are interested in real politics to take a well earned break because the next five weeks is looking like a dry spell. If you're thinking of watching the debate, I urge you to consider watching something more illuminating instead.