OK look, I'm knackered. I'm as cranky as Janette Krankie was when she found out there was a new Jimmy Krankie auditioning and stayed up all night doing crank. I've been up for 36 hours trying to get my head round the debate numbers. I've read the whole of Twitter. I've watched both Dimblebuds, QT, all the local news. Rewound the worm polls, and checked the backgrounds of the focus group members. And still hungry for the red meat of reaction at 6.30am, I put the paper lad in a half-nelson and made him give me three key words on each party leader's performance. The good news is he was very encouraging. We may also need to sort out a quiet visit to Harley Street re a compacted shoulder joint.

As you know, I always said Clegg would be a formidable opponent. Any suggestion he would be a mere Weetabix with a Dictaphone sellotaped to him was to put you at your ease. I always said the debates were going to be game changers. They were exciting, they were engaging, and we should see if there is any possible way in the world for us to get the fuck out of the rest of them.

Obviously we can't lead on this. But can we have a back-channel chat and see if we can't get the Tories to withdraw, claiming that public debates over policy are a distraction from the real business of debating policy publicly?

Clegg: I know there's a view that Clegg winning is OK for us. And I was fine with Peter running Spin Alley. You need control. You can't just have a bunch of cabinet ministers bouncing around the room like bollocks in a tumble drier. And journalists like Peter. People feel they know where they are with a sociopath. But the thing about promoting the Yellow Surge is that although a tidal wave of piss obviously sounds very attractive, everyone can get soaked. It's all a great laugh when the Tories are seeing their cocks cut off into their pints of cider in the West Country. Not so funny when we get kicked in the bollocks in the Ribble.

Hot Buttons: I think in the world where the man with the golden tie is doing well we may need to reposition ourselves on some hot button issues. On gays and Europe there has been a residual fear that if we point out too much that the Tories are homophobes and xenophobes we will deliver unto ourselves the liberals and the homos and the people who have three kinds of olive oil, but these may actually be outweighed in this great country of ours by the queer-bashers and closet racists – so our moral stand could leave us marginally worse off. That's not the kind of moral stand I like. Let's all stamp on a paedo. That's my kind of brave crusade.

I've looked at the numbers and the maths are difficult to calculate even using Mosaic, but if we look at proxy questions like "Are you relaxed about the introduction of new varieties of breakfast cereal?" (87% of homophobes aren't) or "Would you agree with the statement that in general the Cox's Orange Pippin is superior to the avocado pear?" (79% of racists hold this view) compared with the numbers who agree 3-D films are primarily an innovation to drive up cinema revenue (83% liberal), then it does seem that this nation is actually basically decent, so far as we can tell. But only marginally.

One thing we know for certain is that the people of this country do not enjoy humour or fair play. These are our defining national characteristics. Polling suggests the public are more comfortable with the humourless and want to escape economic pain for themselves while others pay the price. They just very much like to be told they enjoy humour and fair play. Remember this next time around. No jokes. It's going to be tough. But not for you.

Finally. Just a note regarding the repeated claim that this is going to be at some point the dirtiest election campaign in history. Please, can people stop saying this shit to me unless they mean it, because you know how excited it gets me.

Regards, Malcolm.

• More election comment from Cif at the polls