Andy McSmith's Election Diary: Natalie Bennett left speechless - literally this time

The TV debates have propelled Natalie Bennett into the public eye as never before (Getty Images)

(Hoping to) Not fade away

Poor Natalie Bennett. Journalists will never let her forget the time she was rendered speechless on LBC by what she called a “brain fade”. She was again speechless, because in the stress of the campaign she lost her voice. Cue quips about a voice fade. She is scheduled to be campaigning in Bristol today. Let us hope she is capable of speech.

This sporting strife

“It’s a perilous thing to pretend you’re a fan of sport when you’re not,” Nick Clegg said, as he visited the Ageas Bowl cricket ground in Hampshire, making a point of not pretending to be a cricket fan. Could this have been a dig at his old coalition partner, David Cameron, the man who definitely supports a football team even if he can’t remember which?

Clegg’s sport is kickboxing. He has weekly classes, during which he hits things with his feet and hands. He does not often indulge himself by imagining that it is a person he is hitting, he told Classic FM, but “well, sometimes” he added, “Ed Balls might flicker through my imagination”.

Remember Ed Balls Day

Do not forget, Twitter users, that today is Ed Balls day. It was on 28 April 2011 that the shadow Chancellor accidentally posted the message that has been retweeted more than 37,000 times. It was the tweet that said it all. It said “Ed Balls”.

Quote of the Day

“If the Tories need an Aussie to run their campaign, why didn’t they pick one of the millions of nice ones?”

John Cleese agrees with Ed Miliband that the Conservatives should rid themselves of their Australian political strategist, Lynton Crosby

Another one gone

As I noted earlier, there is no Ukip candidate in Banff and Buchan, despite it being the constituency with the highest proportion of voters who want to leave the EU. Now there is no Labour candidate either. Labour has withdrawn support from Sumon Hoque because he has been charged with drink driving. Banff and Buchan is an SNP stronghold. At least anyone who wants to vote tactically to keep the SNP out knows what to do: vote Conservative.

A swing to the pandas

It is a well-known fact that since December 2011, Scotland has had more pandas than Tory MPs.

“You know that argument about the number of Tory MPs in Scotland?” Alex Salmond said on Sky News yesterday. “If they’re not careful that will be settled 2-0 in favour of the pandas.”

Meanwhile, so weird is this election that Ladbrokes has reduced the odds against the Conservatives winning more Scottish seats than Labour down to 8-1. In previous elections, you would have been wasting your money at 500-1.

Expat who doesn’t want your vote

A quirk of electoral law says that Britons living abroad cannot vote but can run for Parliament. To draw attention to this anomaly, expat James Franklyn Jackson, 71, travelled from his home in Carcassonne in France to Uxbridge and South Ruislip, where Boris Johnson is the Tory candidate, collected 10 signatures for his nomination paper by asking door to door, paid his £500 deposit, and is on the ballot paper.

Hoping to recover his costs, he has placed a £20 bet with William Hill that he will get fewer votes than any other election candidate.

I would not guarantee he will get the fewest. But if you live in Uxbridge, do vote for James Jackson. That will really hack him off.