The View from the Hill on Wednesday 5th May

Jake's still walking like a small horse who is stuck in dressage mode - but at least he is still walking.

The final 24 hours before the polling stations open and it's all change again with the opinion polls suggesting that the Lib Dem surge is receding and we could theoretically be seeing the end not of Mr Brown but of Mr Clegg.

If Cameron doesn't win an overall majority but does have the most MP's, Gordon Brown will have to make the call to Nick Clegg and that puts Clegg in an awful position. Does he bail out Brown?

If he does he loses credibility after talking about change for the whole campaign. He loses many of the new voters he has energised because they will see him as part of the problem not the solution.

If he decides not to back Mr Brown he is throwing away the best chance in a generation to get the electoral reform that this country needs.

This is the Clegg dilemma - damned if you do and damned if you don't - he literally can't win anything.

It gives me no pleasure to say this but as a Liberal supporter I would rather take the time in the next 4 or 5 years to consolidate on the gains the party is bound to make and hope that it can be built on rather than support a failed Labour party.

So this is where we are now - it's either going to be Cameron or Brown, after all the hype of the campaign, after the heights and exhilaration of the game changing election - we are actually watching the boat race - same two teams Oxford or Cambridge, both paddling upstream against a tide of debt and slowly sinking.

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Our elections are free - it's in the results where eventually we pay.

Bill Stern