Last week, in a post entitled A Little Less Conversation, I was dreaming of a General Election campaign in which political parties (and, as a result, the press) spend their money publicising policies not printing posters lacking the sophistication of a Tipexed bellend on a desk lid.

In an addendum the following day, mention was made of Ed Miliband’s timely and similar sentiment, with the obvious caveat that – unless the bigger boys across the Commons follow suit – he’s left looking like a turkey voting to boycott Christmas.

Well, it’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

While Ed sat by the phone waiting for the Tories to return his call, Douglas Alexander (Labour’s so-called election ‘strategist’) echoed his plea in a written message to Labour Party supporters.  Wee Dougie, who couldn’t look more like a schoolyard victim if his y-fronts were tangled round his tonsils, wrote: “The Tories have now bought up hundreds of billboard poster sites on high streets across the country for the months of March and April to run their negative personalised adverts.  It already seems clear that in their campaign the Tories intend to spread falsehood, fear and smear.”  

Coughing up mouthfuls of mucky water he’d inhaled in the midst of a prolonged bogwash, he added: “The Tories will dig deep into their donors’ pockets – and plumb new depths – in their desperation to cling on in government.”

Now, Dougie might be right, but he faces two big problems.

The first is that his message would sound more high-minded and principled if Labour: (a) hadn’t gleefully engaged in silly bugger billboarding in the very recent past; (b) had any chance of winning a slanging match between ‘Dapper Dave’ and ‘Uncomfortable-in-his-own-skin Ed’; or (c) had the financial backing to compete in a PowerPoint pissing contest even if it wanted to.

The second problem is that whenever turkeys pick up placards proclaiming “BOYCOTT!  BOYCOTT!”, the press can’t resist decorating their reports with pictures of beautifully succulent, golden turkey crowns glistening on decadent beds of roast potatoes crisped in goose fat.  Likewise, when Dougie squeals, “I won’t do what the Tories are doing”, the newspapers print what the Tories are doing.

Take a glance at the coverage of Dougie’s message on the websites of the Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The Independent and The Guardian:

• all four included the recent Tory poster depicting a portly Miliband bro-mancing Alex Salmond and Gerry Adams outside No. 10 before, presumably, heading for an early night while his amigos went off to tear up the town;
• none mentioned a single policy Dougie wants everyone to focus on.  Left-leaning The Guardian even added an unattributed quote claiming his party had failed to obtain usual levels of funding due to a perceived “lack of clarity about what would be in the Labour manifesto“;
• The Telegraph tied its article to an odd photo of Miliband cast in shadow against a sandy background, perhaps suggesting to Labour it would be kinder to withdraw their man from the limelight and send him to join the Foreign Legion.

“What’s that, Dougie?  Stop hitting you?  I’m not hitting you: you’re hitting yourself.  STOP HITTING YOURSELF, DOUGIE!”

So what is Labour’s election strategy, other than not doing the thing they know they can’t do as well as the other lot?  Well, Dougie has one, don’t you worry.

He wants to chat.  Like, a lot.  Four million times to be precise, in what’s been billed as the biggest door-stopping campaign since Danny Baker ding-donged doorbells from Dorchester to Dumfries for Daz demonstrations.  This time, the soap box will take an even more prominent role, as Miliband told party activists that, with their help, he’ll be “making our case, explaining our vision, house by house, street by street, town by town”.

Although this has the makings of a zombie horror spoof, at first glance Dougie’s plan looks foolproof: if you can’t get your policies across in the press, cut out the middle man and head straight for the voter.

But voters can be equally cloth-eared, especially when some berk in a Saville Row suit interrupts their day to discuss political theory.  To misquote Tarantino’s Jules Winnfield, they’ve got to be a charming mother****ing politician to persuade me to endorse them while my kids are fighting in the lounge, the pasta’s boiling dry on the hob and a Lego brick’s just punctured the ball of my foot.

And here’s the other thing, Dougie: just because the Shadow Cabinet colleagues you meet once a week are the only people who’ll talk to you without taking your lunch money, it doesn’t mean they’re nice or normal.  In Ed Balls’ case (and I presume, by extension, Ms Cooper’s), they’re neither.

So it’s a gamble, Dougie.  And for your gamble to have any chance of paying off, you need to brush up and screen test the twerps around your table an awful more than you’re doing at the moment, because those people behind those doors might actually ask your MPs some questions.

Like yesterday, for example, when your esteemed leader was invited along to a gentle Q&A event for Sky News and Facebook, and was asked by a normal punter what experience he had outside of politics to show that he could represent the British people.

Here was Ed’s chance: an open goal.  “Well, I had a pretty gruelling paper round for the Morning Star … um, Daily Star,” he could have said.  “And then I had to save up for university, so I became a brickie by day and, by night, a go-go dancer at an underground rave venue.  Having to juggle two jobs, not to mention all the glow sticks, means I understand the struggles faced by ordinary men and women up and down the country.”

Or, if he didn’t do those things, he could have been upfront about it.  Instead, Edward Samuel Miliband trusted his instincts to freestyle his way into the affections of a nation.  Despite an uncertain start (“I’ve done a number of things which I think, I hope, are relevant to this“), he knocked this one out of the park by connecting with every working man and woman who’s worked as an economic adviser to the Treasury and taught government and economics at Harvard.

His Ronny Rosenthal moment could only have been more embarrassing if Paxman been there to pull his big, rubbery horse-face of mock incredulity (©Malcolm Tucker) and repeat the question until Miliband combusted.

So then, Dougie: time to earn your money.  If you don’t, it’s very hard to imagine that the turkeys will be the ones gobbling on Christmas Day.