An election fought on different fronts

The Labour leader drew a crowd of around 200 members of the public to quiz him on what he'd do if he became Prime Minister.

But I have to admit, I think I was too cynical last week when I raised the prospect of the event being filled by only Labour supporters.

There were plenty of sceptics. Indeed one of the audience, from the Support Stafford Hospital campaign, walked out of the Aquarius Ballroom in Hednesford at the end vowing to never vote Labour again.

Throwing the topics open to the floor brought some interesting results, given that Mr Miliband and the organisers had no prior warning or control over them.

There was not a single question on Europe. Not one query about immigration. Not a dicky bird asked about the deficit.

There were, however, questions about health, the future of Stafford Hospital in particular, support for children with special needs, the minimum wage and plenty of things that Mr Miliband was generally comfortable answering.

He was clear that there would be no false promises on Stafford Hospital. But other than an 'undertaking' to review the downgrade on 'medical' grounds rather than 'penny pinching', there was not enough to prevent the aforementioned member of the support campaign from vowing members would stand in council wards in May.

It made me wonder what David Cameron would say if he faced the same questions.

The parties are not showing their differences on the same issues. They're fighting on vastly different issues.

For UKIP it's all about immigration and Europe. For the Tories it's all about the economy and for Labour it's a game of 'whose recovery is this anyway' and suggesting that those at the top are still the ones benefitting at the expense of everyone else.

At Prime Minister's Questions Mr Miliband and Mr Cameron will argue but on totally separate points.

I really hope the TV debates go ahead, particularly the head to head between the two men vying to be Prime Minister. At least then they'd have to take the same questions and be judged accordingly.

Until then we'll have to cope with each party trying to set the agenda with their own spin machine, leaving all of us trying to piece everything together.

I probably should not be surprised that Mr Miliband would not answer when he was asked which party or parties he would seek some form of deal with in the event of another hung Parliament.

In fairness to him, such an answer would be taken as an admission that a majority might elude him and would come across as defeatist.

Even so, it's something we could all do with knowing, given that the opinion polls show the bigger parties to be so close.

Some form of back room deal is entirely possible.

The frustrating thing is we have been going through months of electioneering while everyone tries to emerge as the top dog.

When the dust settles the direction of the country for the remainder of this decade is going to be settled over the course of a few days while the country wonders what all that fuss was about.