After the fiasco that was Gordon Brown’s ‘Yellow Saturday’, Ming Campbell has just appeared on BBC1’s The Politics Show and announced that two Lib Dem MPs, Davids Heath and Howarth, will this week be presenting a bill in Parliament which would legislate for fixed-term Parliaments.

What will be the Labour and Tory response? After this week, Gordon might be almost relieved to have the decision taken out of his hands. Meanwhile, Dave has said only that it’s something he’ll take a look at some time. It might almost be called a ‘cosy consensus’.

Headline says it all really.

Let’s see how long it takes for a Labour loyalist to say, “Oh, but Gordon never ever intended to hold an election. He’s been courageous and decisive all along you know, and was never intending to hold an election. It has all been a clever wheeze you understand. But a statesman-like, getting on with governing the country approach at the same time, you understand.”

UPDATE: The partys’ Chief Executive, Chris Rennard, has just sent round this message to party activists and staff:

It now looks as though Brown is just about to make a statement saying NO imminent election.

The party has geared up tremendously well in recent months to fight this campaign.

We will keep up campaigning at a very high level until whenever the General Election is called.

We need to thank all the people at every level who have been working hard in anticipation of this campaign and ensure that we do not lose momentum.

The work of increasing our media profile, campaigning hard on the key issues, delivering the leaflets, making the phone calls, recruiting the members and raising the funds must continue.

100 days in power, and the toughest decision yet faces the Prime Minister: does he seek a mandate, or does he delay calling an election?

A week ago, the decision looked a formality. Labour was riding high in the polls on the back of their ‘nobody mention the Blairs’ party conference, and a couple of polls suggesting double-digit leads over the Tories. Spool forward, and it’s all looking a lot less rosy, with a slew of polls indicating a narrowing of Labour’s lead.

If there’s one thing more stupid than taking too much notice of opinion polls, it’s taking no notice of them. You can bet the last penny in your Northern Rock account that Mr Brown and his advisors will be poring over every single psephological detail.

If - and it remains a big if - Mr Brown decides it’s too risky, and rules out a November election, he leaves a wide open door for the Lib Dems and the Tories: the carefully cultured image of a strong Prime Minister in complete control of events will be impossible to maintain after weeks of dithering culminating in a conclusion that he’s not popular enough to win, even with the following wind of a 100-day honeymoon.

It’s not only his prestige with the public and the media which will take a knocking - so too will his credibility among the party faithful, who have so far shown themselves to be devotedly in thrall to Mr Brown. He’ll have marched them up to the top of the hill, only for them to discover he forgot to mention there’s another peak beyond. Pretty demoralising stuff. The Labour party has trusted their leader to know exactly what he’s doing. That Mr Brown’s now boxed himself into a corner suggests he’s not the political genius too many people have assumed on the basis of not much evidence.

Of course, he may well still call an election for November. Until now, I’ve thought Labour would be sure-fire winners of such a snap poll. Not any more. Mr Brown is obsessed, it seems, with trying to understand the British psyche - in which case he should appreciate the very real possibility that the public could react in a ‘bloody sod yer then’ way to any cynical attempt to bounce them into casting their votes before they’re good and ready.

If there’s one lesson of the last three weeks’ opinion polls it is that the public has still to make up its mind about any of the parties, and wants to see all their leaders properly tested in the coming months. Force-feeding voters a diet of under-cooked policies in a rushed general election will just give everyone indigestion.

That’s the warning from John Turner, chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, as reported in today’s Scotsman:

Turner said: “If there is an autumn election there will be a significant number of administrative problems. I’m fearful of the possibility of things going wrong administratively because of the pressures involved.”

Concerns centre on the problematic postal voting system, which continues to place election officers under a huge burden. The AEA has called on the Government to change the law to extend the time limit between the dissolution of parliament and an election by at least another five working days to 22 days. However, if he goes ahead with an early election, Brown looks set to restrict the time limit to the current 17 days.

Turner said: “The small number of specialist, commercial printers who produce the ballot packs will have significant problems in dealing with the additional volumes within the limited time available.”

The AEA is also warning that some people will be unable to vote or to receive a postal vote because the new electoral roll is not published until December 1. … Difficulties over postal votes, which have been championed by ministers as a way of increasing turnout, could be exacerbated by two UK-wide 48-hour postal strikes on October 4-6 and October 8-10.

The UK-wide AEA, which represents returning officers and other public servants responsible for organising elections, is seeking an urgent meeting with the UK Justice Department.

Turner said: “One minute after the polls closed in May we told the Government about our grave concerns. And at the end of last week, I sent a note to the Ministry of Justice saying that those difficulties still exist and asking how we could overcome them. The message needs to get out that there’s the possibility of problems that could affect the conduct of the election.”

So, there are two questions facing Gordon Brown this weekend:

(i) does he want to call an election which risks his premiership after 10 years of waiting; and

(ii) does he want to go down in history as the man perhaps responsible for one of the most administratively chaotic general elections in history, disenfranchising thousands, and quite possibly prompting the lowest post-war turnout?

Just how lucky does Gordon feel?

Election fever continues, and the Conservatives are ready for a snap general election, according to the BBC:

“The party has a £10m war chest, a draft manifesto and candidates selected in its top 200 target seats, sources close to leader David Cameron have said.”

Which is interesting, because they have not selected a candidate here in Islington South & Finsbury. It seems Dave accepts that with no Conservatives on the Council, and just 484 votes between Lib Dems and Labour here last time, there are better spots to plant his blue tree.

* Bridget Fox is Liberal Democrat PPC for Islington South & Finsbury