Two conversations down, 3,999,998 to go for Labour

With no party commanding an overall majority in the Commons, the run up to May 7 is going to be something of a level playing field between Labour and the Tories.

Both of them need to hold on to every seat they won last time and both of them to win even more if they are to avoid another compromise laden coalition.

Both are losing votes to other parties, specifically UKIP, the Greens and the SNP (north of the border, obviously).

Hence Miss Reeves played the consolidation game in Dudley North, the most marginal Labour seat in the Black Country while Mr Balls heads for Cannock Chase.

The latter was the scene of a symbolic defeat, at least in numerical terms, for Labour. It's where the Tories saw the largest swing to them in 2010.

What that means is that it contains, in theory, the largest proportion of voters who were prepared to desert one party for its arch enemy.

If Labour can win this back, it stands to reason it can win back others as well by proving it has learned its lesson after Gordon Brown was turfed out of Number 10.

In the 1990s we had Essex Man, the typical voter described as 'working class, father electrician, right-wing, keen hanger, noisily rambunctious, no subtlety'. Then Tony Blair came up with another type of voter, who others christened the so-called Mondeo Man.

"His dad voted Labour," he said. "He used to vote Labour, too. But he'd bought his own house now. He'd set up his own business. He was doing very nicely. 'So I've become a Tory', he said. In that moment, he crystallised for me the basis of our failure. His instinct was to get on in life. And he thought our instincts were to stop him."

In both the Labour visits to the Black Country and Staffordshire, the front benchers were meeting apprentices. Under Mr Blair there was a drive to get half of young people into higher education. Now there's a renewed interest in apprenticeships to give employers the skilled workforce they need. While Mr Balls was tinkering around on a petrol-powered go-kart with two student mechanics at South Staffordshire College it occurred to me that Cannock Mechanic could well determine the outcome of this election.

Whether it's the young voter or their parent or grandparent, all of them want to know the younger ones are going to have a chance to get on in life, get a job and make a contribution. The big debate is going to be about how that happens. The parties have just under four months to convince us.

'Foolish' comments claim another UKIPper his post

UKIP's branch chairman in Walsall has stood down after posting on his personal blog that Labour's immigration policy was a form of 'ethnocide', or, as he explained 'the cleansing or diminishing of an indigenous population by methods other than mass extermination'.

Phil Bottomley has now left his position and been referred to UKIP's National Executive Committee.

I've no idea what a UKIP NEC meeting looks like when it has to discuss another one of its campaigners saying or posting what a spokesman called 'foolish and misguided', but I imagine it looks a lot like a group of people banging their heads on desks.