During the election campaign Guido’s inbox was red hot with press releases, up to some 50 a day.  Yesterday saw not a single press release from any party.

Mandelson having engineered the relatively painless demise of Brown is now quietly inching towards putting Miliband into Downing Street, with the support of the LibDems, in exchange for perpetual representation and all we are seeing from the Tories in response is the deployment of Michael Gove around broadcasting studios.  Gove is merely spreading sweet reasonableness around the studios whilst Mandelson is manipulating events behind the scenes.

The Tories need to put their case to the people directly before Mandelson succeeds in trying to put together a government of all the losers. They should:

• Bang on that a coalition of celtic fringe parties would demand that England took the burden of public expenditure cuts whilst they kept their sovietised state-dominated economies intact.
• Nail LibDems for trying to get electoral reform without reference to the electorate.
• Shout about the narrow self-interest of the parties claiming to be acting in the national interest.

There is of course the possibility that Mandelson knows that a majority cannot be sewn together from the rag-tag of parties he is lining up and is merely arranging affairs to further the advance of Miliband.  With David Miliband as Labour leader Mandelson could rule by proxy as regent. 

This after all is Mandleson we are talking about…