Election catch-up: SNP surge, Ed Balls’s giraffe noises, and Cameron’s gaffe

Cameron said this was a 'career-defining election' when he addressed Asda employees in Leeds - he was talking about jobs and plainly wasn’t referring to himself

Photo match: Nicola Sturgeon on the balance beam on 27 April. Just like that other overnight sensation, Russian Olympian Olga Korbut, in 1972 (Getty)

Good week: Danus George Moncrieff Skene, the Scottish National Party candidate in Orkney and Shetland, the hardest seat for the SNP to win, but which an Ipsos Mori opinion poll on Wednesday suggested might fall to a clean sweep.

Bad week: Liam Byrne, whose self-mocking “I’m afraid there is no money” note to his successor at the Treasury five years ago became the Prime Minister’s favourite campaign prop.

Good news that turned out to be bad: Green Party leader Natalie Bennett lost her voice altogether, but this failed to lift the party’s opinion-poll ratings, which continued to drift down.

New thing we learnt: Ed Balls is a riot. He does a great performance of We’re Going On a Bear Hunt, which he read on a school visit in Hove on Wednesday, along with duck, cow, pig and giraffe noises. (Another new thing we learnt: giraffes go, “chomp, chomp, chomp”.) On 1 May, he was line dancing with pensioners in Kilburn, becoming so enthusiastic that one lady told him to “stop showing off”.

Least important so-called gaffe: David Cameron said this was a “career-defining election” when he addressed Asda employees in Leeds. He was talking about jobs and opportunities and plainly wasn’t referring to himself.

Photo match: Nicola Sturgeon on the balance beam on 27 April. Just like that other overnight sensation, Russian Olympian Olga Korbut, in 1972.

Least significant event: Ed Miliband stumble-tripping off the podium at the end of the surprisingly tough haranguing he received from the audience on the BBC’s Question Time Special on 30 April.

Quotes of the week: The leaders competed to sound macho. On Monday, David Cameron pressed the “passion” button: “Taking a risk. Having a punt. Having a go. That pumps me up.” Ed Miliband pulled out all the glottal stops in his interview with Russell Brand on Tuesday, mixed in with American football talk: “That is hard yards but you’ve gotta do it.” Now Nick Clegg tells this newspaper he will “hang tough”. Hell, yes!