What do political bloggers think?
Updated on 22 October 2008
More 4 News/Channel 4 News gathered together some of the country's leading political bloggers to discuss the results of our exclusive poll.
The Tory lead may be down in the key marginal constituencies - but how long will Labour's bounce last?
If there were an election for chancellor of the exchequer in these key seats, Vince Cable would beat George Osborne and Alistair Darling hands down. But how do the Lib Dems avoid being squeezed out when the country goes to choose a prime minister?
Some extracts from the discussion
What they said about the economic crisis:
Jag Singh: "This poll showed that one in four Labour voters still believe the PM bears a lot of responsibility for this whole crisis, so there's a lot of work for Gordon Brown to do to set out his vision and really encourage us to believe in him again."
Tim Montgomerie: "Most people see it as a world economic problem, which is why the Tories have got to get their critique right.
"They can't blame Labour completely for this problem - voters won't believe that. But what we've got to say is the regulatory failures, the borrowing too much during good times means that yes it's a global problem, but we're less prepared for it."
James Graham: "The Lib Dems tend to do well when there are these big hard-hitting times.
If you go back five years, the Iraq war was the making of Charles Kennedy, and I think in many ways this economic situation could become the making of the Liberal Democrats and of Nick Clegg."
The blogosphere: activists vs party leadership
Jag Singh: "I think the blogosphere in the UK is best suited as an engagement exercise.
"The parties don't necessarily engage with their grassroots that much. I can safely say on the Labour side that there is a real current of discontentment. People just feel left out of the whole experience."
Tim Montgomerie: "I don't think there's a big gap, but I don't think the party leaderships - and it's probably true of all parties - take their activists seriously enough.
"The Conservative party's just launched its own blog and one of the first entries was written by this person who talked about how wonderful it was to be in the front row of the conference when David Cameron was speaking, and that she managed to shake his hand. It was like a boy band-type blog entry."
The panel is:
Tim Montgomerie, editor of ConservativeHome
Jag Singh, co-founder of LabourHome
James Graham, who writes Quaequam - last year's Lib Dem blog of the year
