A strange disease is spreading, convincing the world that Ed Miliband is our next PM

We're now at the halfway point of the general election. Actually, we’re in that dead zone between “halfway point” and “countdown to polling day”. But halfway point is a neater narrative peg.
And it’s at this point in the campaign things start to get a bit silly. Election fatigue begins to set in. People’s vision and judgment become impaired. In extreme cases victims start to suffer mild hallucinations. Eventually the symptoms pass. But the effect can be disconcerting.
Over the past few days two specific examples of “midpoint disease” have emerged. From opposite sides of the political divide.
The first holds that the election is now over and Ed Miliband has won. The polls haven’t shifted. They won’t shift. There is no plausible path to the minimum of 323 seats the Tories and any potential coalition partners need to allow David Cameron to remain in Downing Street. Labour’s happy warrior is our next prime minister.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11554794/A-strange-disease-is-spreading-convincing-the-world-that-Ed-Miliband-is-our-next-PM.html



Very interesting view poiint this puty across, of which I found this point very interesting:



But there’s also another way he can get there. Or at least, there is if you’re infected with the second virulent strain of midpoint disease.
This cruel virus convinces its victim Ed Miliband can only be Prime Minister if he wins “the right way”. And in this case the “right way” means he must secure either the largest share of the popular vote, or the largest single number of seats in the commons, or both. If he fails, then even if he can secure a working majority with the SNP, or other minority parties, it doesn’t count. There is some unwritten rule that says for him to govern in these circumstances would be unconstitutional. He would not have a sufficiently robust mandate.
One person who has come down with a nasty case of this is the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland. On Saturday he wrote: “If this deadlock holds, a battle is coming over Ed Miliband’s legitimacy…A large anti-Tory bloc, whose Scottish contingent is made up almost entirely of nationalists, may not be enough. To head off the coming battle over legitimacy, Labour will have to be the largest single party as well.”
To be fair to Jonathan, I think this piece was actually a well meaning attempt to head off argument from those Tories who may themselves attempt to undermine Miliband’s legitimacy in the event of a hung-parliament. But the simple fact is that he, and they, are wrong.