Well, after a drawn out phoney war and a slight delay resulting from a departing Pontiff, the 2005 General Election is now officially under way with, as widely expected, May 5th as the big day itself.

Not surprisingly this gets a few blogging mentions - Tom Watson and Political Hack are just a couple of bloggers who’ve been quick out for the starting gate although, somewhat amusingly, dear old Boris Johnson appears to have managed to find himself on a skiing trip in Austria while all the action takes place - if you are back in the UK as I write this, Boris, then I do apologise for misrepresenting your whereabouts.

Not surprisingly, as Tony’s trip to the Queen was fully expected today, the press have got in with a whole slew of announcement day polls which appear to show the Tories closing fast on Labour’s long-standing lead. The most interesting of these by MORI for the Financial Times and picked up on by Political Hack shows the Tories up by 5% when adjusted to take into account those who say they will definitely vote as opposed to those who say they might, but down by the same amount when the might vote’s are factored in - as clear a message as possible of the need for Labour to get its support out on the big day.

Still for all the warnings of the pollsters it’s useful to note that in last year’s US Elections there was one group of ‘pundits’ who were far more accurate in their predictions than any of the opinion polls, even exit polls taken on the day, and that was the bookies and particularly, the spread-betting markets - reputations be damned, there’s still nothing that concentrates the mind like having hard cash riding on a result.

With that in mind, and without getting complacent, the bookies currently have Labour at between 8-1 and 12-1 on to win on May 5th with the Tories a long way second at 7-1 against while the spreads market has Labour to win with a much reduced but still workable majority of 50-60 which, if correct, would make life very interesting in the Commons for Tony Blair, especially on some of the legislation which looks likely to carry over to a new Parliament - ID cards and incitement to religious hatred in particular as well as ‘house arrest revisited’ - where such a majority would leave Blair very much at the mercy of what has been dubbed in places the ‘awkward squad’ of Labour MP’s who will vote with their consciences and not the Whip when it comes to such matters.

Whatever happens, it looks very much like interesting times ahead.