Anyone switching on ITV on Sunday night could have been forgiven for thinking ‘this party political broadcast is dragging on a bit’. What they were actually watching was Trevor McDonald’s supposed interview of David Cameron, which was perhaps the most cringe-inducing piece of television since, er, Piers Morgan interviewed Gordon Brown. The journalism was so lacking that Trevor McDonald’s interview technique made Panorama look like a serious documentary strand once again. Though, under extreme pressure, Cameron’s wife Samantha did confess that he loved all three of the Godfather films and watched them again and again. This means that either the info was planted to make him look like cool man’s man or that he has no critical faculties whatsoever, as everyone knows that Godfather III is unwatchable, particularly if you have just watched Godfather I and Godfather II.

What was most interesting about the show, which tried to make ‘Dave’ look normal and in which he spoke about Samantha Cameron once living in a rough area of Bristol, was following those who were watching the show on the TV and on Twitter at the same time, with the hashtag #TrevCam being the place to catch the action. The verdict from the left and from journalists seemed to be that the whole show was an extended PR puff piece, though, oddly, Conservative party followers thought it went well and some saw it as actual journalism (though some of them called it about right). Just goes to show how party loyalties can make you blind to the truth*.

This real time critique of TV shows is a growing trend and one that will continue throughout the election, as Britain decides upon its government for the next five years or so (possibly six months if no one gains a convincing majority). I am not convinced that Twitter is the kind of tool that will change minds during this election, as most of those who are using it to follow political developments will largely already be partisan or at least opinionated. But during the next election similar tools may become a pivotal part of campaigning.

*For the record, I am not a fan of Brown or Cameron, though I will decide on Clegg when he is grilled by his mum, wife or Christopher Biggins in the next in the series of these leader interviews.

The Conservative Party have jumped on the rapid rise in unemployment by covering their website in a rehash of the old Labour Isn’t Working poster. Nice classic piece of advertising that worked well, but, as history shows, unemployment rose even higher under the Thatcher government in the early 1980s: something that this visual dog whistle neglects to report. New highs were reached, industries decimated and whole communities destroyed.

We now live with that legacy, in the shape of benefits dependency and a lack of careers for our youth to follow. Instead we have McJobs, X Factor and a lack of community cohesion. But this is not about party political points scoring. As regular readers may know, I have as much dislike for the Labour Party as I do for the Conservative Party. I was born in a town where politics were bent and broken. A quick look over that way and it seems they still are. I imagine a good percentage of the population feel the same way about politicians where they are.

As a student of economics and someone who has been at both ends of the unemployment boot (I was on the dole, from whence I was plucked and given a job in an Unemployment Benefit Office), I like to think I have a better knowledge of the system than many. In my five years of working (under Conservative rule) it was a mess. We spent a good deal of time unofficially massaging the figures by persuading anyone with a mild sniffle to sign off from the unemployed register and on to the sickness register. At a stroke we generated a huge problem, in the shape of a vast pool of those who did not want to get back on the ‘dole’, as it was generally lower pay and you had to be ‘available for work’ and sign on once a fortnight.

The one thing that the latest Tory campaign seems to lack is anything in the way of a viable policy or idea to stop unemployment in an era when cyclical economy droop and its attendant unemployment has coincided with a world economic meltdown and the bursting of the property bubble. David Cameron only predicted the economic downturn in retrospect. So lord only knows what his party would have done about it. There seem to be no plans to stem the tide of job losses.

It appears that the coming election is due to be fought over platitudes and not much else. Fluff and advertising will rule. Policy will be thin on the ground. You can be sure that the unemployed will be subject to ’schemes’, ‘programmes’ and various other types of spin. But with no jobs to go to (apart from those available due to the staffing crisis in JobCentre Plus offices) it seems almost farcical to do so without a total overhaul of the way that such schemes are judged and offered.

In my time there was much being made of smartening up the offices, removing the barriers (often bank-style plexiglass) and putting in comfy chairs. With the rise in middle class unemployment maybe it is time to bring in lattes, scatter cushions and magazines. After all, what else are all those designers of the kind who lay out fancy estate agent interiors and coffee bars going to do now?