Gordon Brown popped into my local Tesco the other day. Not for a loaf of bread or a crate of lager, though. He was there to shake hands with and gurn at shoppers. Sky News showed live footage of him standing in front of a huge red exit sign that said ‘GOODBYE!’. Unfortunate, but that has been the flavour of the PM’s campaign.

Most damaging was the ‘bigoted woman’ gaffe, although it hardly warranted the feverish media coverage that followed. Since then, Brown has been heckled at Sunderland Glass Centre (a place even the Mackems never visit…), had the most impressive speech of his campaign interrupted by a stage invader, and endured a no-hoper Labour candidate calling him the worst PM ever.

Let’s face it, there is less chance of Gordon Brown winning the election on Friday than there is of Andrew Stone winning Britain’s Got Talent. But it’s hard not to feel a bit sorry for Brown. He was unfortunate in having to follow the ultra-slick Tony Blair, and was then saddled with bailing Britain out of the global recession. He has actually made a decent fist of the latter, leading the introduction of global recovery strategies. But who cares about any of his achievements if he keeps doing that creepy smile?

Labour’s campaign has been a failure, attempting to have Brown compete with David Cameron and Nick Clegg in the personality stakes rather than on policies. Whoever gave the go-ahead for Brown to take part in the televised leaders’ debates needs a real rollicking. He was always going to lose them, and they have been hugely influential.

The TV debates are being praised for encouraging a whole new section of society to vote. But if that section of society votes on personality rather than who might actually be good at running the country can that be considered a good thing?

In any case, the entire voting system in this country is such a shambles that few of us have any real power to choose our government. According to the fascinating Voter Power Index, my vote is actually only worth the equivalent of 0.231 votes because I live in a safe Labour seat. According to the website, in 2005 more than half of voters voted against their winning MP. ‘Change’, to use that mind-numbingly overused word, is certainly needed, but it’s needed at the very heart of the UK’s electoral system.

It looks like we’re heading for a hung Parliament, and that might not be the disaster some are predicting. MPs would be forced to work together, and we might actually get the shake-up that Westminster so badly needs. It would certainly be preferable to a Conservative Government, with the Tories having shown nothing to suggest they can steer the country to safer ground.

It could all have been very different if Labour hadn’t cocked up its campaign. Maybe they should have considered an ad showing Thatcher, miners strikes, three-day weeks, rubbish and rioting in the streets… For all Labour’s mistakes, the country is a better place now than it was under the Conservatives. What type of place it will be come Friday is (sort of) up to you.

Politics Election 2010

How much has your MP claimed in expenses? If your local democratically elected representative has not yet been fingered by The Daily Telegraph, you can now view your MP’s claims from 2004/05 to 2007/08 here. Well, sort of. Because the important stuff has been blacked out, so you’ll need to wait for the Telegraph to get around to rooting through the uncensored version to find out about second home flipping and other sorts of top-level skullduggery.

But what is clear is the general day-to-day, or month-to-month, liberties taken by many of these people. MPs are entitled to claim up to £400 per month for food and £250 per month for petty cash without providing receipts. My MP, for the Blaydon constituency, is David Anderson. A look at his forms suggests that he claimed the maximum £400 and £250 every single month, on top of a hefty claim for mortgage interest.

Do the extra food costs as a result of travelling to and working in London really add up to £400 per month? And what does the £250 petty cash cover, considering he claims separately for things such as office stationery and taxi fares?

Could it be that Anderson has trousered the maximum amount possible, not because he needed it, but because he knew he could get away with it? Or because he thought he could get away with it?

On matters of transparency of Parliament, Anderson has almost always been absent from votes. In July 2008 he voted against a motion to create external audits and ban claims for furniture. Anderson had a personal interest in this as he has claimed for furniture. The motion was rejected. This April, in what looks like something of a turnaround, he voted for registration and declaration of expenses. This information is from the excellent TheyWorkForYou.com.

No doubt Anderson, like other MPs, will blame the system. The system is undoubtedly rotten, but no-one forced him to take advantage of it. Taking candy from a baby is easy, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should do it.

Politics MP Expenses