So, after friggin' weeks of hot air, the election's off (if in fact it was ever on).

Today's widespread reports of "jubilant" Tories are absurd; Conservatives and LibDems both will be breathing huge sighs of relief this week, having been spared an election campaign they were neither prepared to fight nor likely to win.

Certainly Brown has made a tactical error in handing Cameron and Campbell a stick with which to beat him at the next PMQs, and no doubt that vein of criticism will continue until such time as actual events- not hypothetical ones- assert a greater pull on parliamentary life.

Conference promises are easily made, especially by opposition parties, and tend to be qualified, neutered or simply forgotten come the day that a manifesto must be written. But the rapturous frenzy that's greeted the concept of the £1 million inheritance tax threshold has shown us two things with crystal clarity: firstly, for all his attempts at ecumenicalism, "Dave" Cameron is coming to accept that his party is squarely, irretrievably middle class and middle England; and secondly, how very different that England is from the rest of the United Kingdom. On what proportion of Scottish lives would such a change have any effect?

Yet as the Labour vote melts away in their traditional heartlands, either drifting to Celtic nationalism or disappearing amid a fugue of apathy, one might argue the best, healthiest, most logical move is for the Conservatives to finally let the veil fall and openly champion the Home Counties England that has always been their bedrock. This would see them make significant gains and perhaps open the way to their retaking of the London parliament and, if combined with the Euro-scepticism and hard line on immigration those Home Counties voters prefer, rob the UKIP fruitcakes and even the BNP of their votes. Hard to imagine twenty years ago, but it's easy to see a near-future wherein the various peoples of a devolved British Isles have no use for the Labour Party, neither trusted in power not valued as an opposition. Many have opined that Brown is afraid of becoming this generation's Jim Callaghan. A second Winter of Discontent is unlikely on his watch, but another hallmark of the Callaghan years- Benn/Jenkins style dissent and radicalism within the party- would be welcome at this point. Wither a lefty "Gang of Four", an inverse SDP?

So much for speculation. There's been far too much punditry already, perhaps far more the root and fuel of the problem than any "constipated dithering" on Gordon Brown' part. The only consolation for the Prime Minister this week is that- having nixed an election for the foreseeable future- all poll results, good or bad, have been rendered utterly irrelevant.