Anyone following the recent local elections could be forgiven for believing that a new powerful political force had emerged in the form of UKIP.

The BBC, Sky News, ITN and every other media outlet seemed determined to make a story out of the dullest of election campaigns for many a year and, in the absence of anything more interesting, lazy journalism led to a flurry of outrageous stories claiming that UKIP had made a major political breakthrough, with Nigel Farage and his band of merry men (and women) on the verge of smashing the traditional parties out of sight.

This myth was extolled by commentators who, quite frankly, should know better, and has continued in the aftermath of the May polls despite the fact that UKIP won only 14% of a low poll, and is still looking to secure its first parliamentary seat. Outside of its policies on immigration and Europe, UKIP have little or nothing to say on the issues that really matter to the electorate, the NHS, education and the economy.

It may suit Euro sceptic Tories and the Murdoch press to pretend that UKIP should be taken seriously. However, a glance back at recent history will tell you that UKIP are simply securing protest votes from the disaffected who are finding the mainstream parties and their leaders in need of a bit of a kicking – whilst most voters have decided to stay at home.

Back in the early eighties, as the Prime Minister who recently passed away with eulogies bordering on martyrdom was presiding over a country riven with division, experiencing high levels of community disorder, mass unemployment and inner city riots, voters were looking at how they could give her, and the Michal Foot led Labour Party, a kicking.

In 1981 Roy Jenkins was Nigel Farrage. He had, along with Labour defectors David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers, formed the Social Democratic Party. Jenkins, a Euro enthusiast who had served in a sixties Labour government as Chancellor, successfully courted Liberal leader David Steel, and an Alliance was established between the two parties.

Such was the fervour surrounding the launch of this new political movement Steel proclaimed to delegates at the Liberal conference of 1982 “Go back to your constituencies and prepare for government.”

He was not saying this for effect, nor had he taken leave of his senses. Jenkins had won a parliamentary by-election in Glasgow Hillhead. Shirley Williams had won Crosby, Merseyside. Polls showed that the SDP-Liberal Alliance commanded over 50% support of the British electorate. David Steel and his colleagues had every reason to believe a media circus that was peddling the notion that the end was nigh for the two ‘big’, traditional parties.

Twelve months later, in April 1983, Margaret Thatcher was re-elected as Prime Minister with a three digit parliamentary majority – a landslide victory over second placed Labour who secured just 204 seats. The Alliance returned with just 23 MP’s.

Their bubble had burst, the electorate had decided ‘better the devil you know. Of course there were other factors. The Falklands War, Thatcher’s new found confidence in its aftermath, an economic recovery of sorts to name but a few. Nonetheless, I have no doubt that in the General Election of 2015 UKIP will be buried and become the footnote in history that they deserve to be.

It is true that Cameron, nor Miliband, is Margaret Thatcher. But then again Farage is no Roy Jenkins, and look what happened to him!

The passing of Margaret Thatcher has inevitably led to an exploration of her years as Prime Minister; how her leadership affected the country and how her policies impacted on the people she governed.

As a politician she was formidable, forthright and an election winner. Three consecutive election victories is an impressive record in anyone’s book. However, the fact that during her eleven years of power she was aided and abetted by a Labour opposition that split, leading to the formation of the SDP, and lurched too far to the left to be taken seriously should be accounted for. And then of course there was the Falklands War. Pre the war, despite Labour’s lack of direction under the leadership of the intellectually bright, but personality light Michael Foot, the Tories were badly trailing in the polls.

Her war victory – and she made sure that it was very much perceived as her victory - gave her not only an electoral bounce, but an unwavering, some would argue unhealthy, confidence in her ability and beliefs.  The Left’s continued flirtation with insanity throughout the eighties did little to restrain her.

She took on and crushed the Trades Unions. She persuaded enough of the electorate to buy into her vision of free enterprise, buy council houses, and buy shares from Sid. She significantly reduced the power and influence of local government, even abolishing the Greater London Council and Metropolitan County Council’s.  She outmanoeuvred and out fought her internal opponents, including giants such as Heseltine, Clarke and Howe. And she became a major player on the international stage.

For many in business, she was a breath of fresh air, introducing the possibility of entrepreneurship to a new generation that included leading Manchester success stories Tom Bloxham and Lawrence Jones, both of whom benefitted from her ‘Enterprise Allowance’ initiative. Even Labour supporter Sir Alan Sugar has been celebrating the Iron Lady’s premiership this week, and praising the cultural shift in Britain that she and her policies were undoubtedly responsible for.

Following the winter of discontent, a three day week and power cuts, it is difficult to argue that change was needed.

Nonetheless, my abiding memory of the late PM is that of someone who was destructive; a divide and rule kind of gal. Not to mention, a bully.

‘The ends don’t always justify the means’ was clearly not a phrase in her vocabulary. Communities were, quite literally, abandoned and closed down. Individuals who were unable to ‘get on their bike’ and find what little work there was for those outside of the ‘Yuppie’ panacea were written off. Miners were battered into submission in a brutal manner not befitting a civilised country. Our state services, most notably the NHS and education, was underfunded and undermined as billions of North Sea oil revenues were thrown away on a growing welfare budget that we are still grappling with today. Then there was the Poll Tax.

Of course her supporters will claim that on her way to ‘victory’ she was unaware of the consequences. However, they then have to account for some crass comments that she made including ‘Unemployment is a price worth paying’ and ‘There is no such thing as society’.

Whatever her successes and her personal attributes, a leader who so divides a nation and who cares so little for the impact of her polices on the most vulnerable of her citizens is not one that I can have any lasting admiration for. Thatcherism did a job, but then again, so did Norman Hunter!

One of the most important things that we need in life is the ‘C’ word – confidence!

We often hear economists and business commentators bemoaning the lack of confidence that exists in the market at the moment, stunting our ability for growth.

Everton’s centre forward Nikita Jelavic had bags of confidence when he joined the club last season, bagging eight goals in twelve games. His failure to score in his last thirteen matches is, according to his manager and most football pundits, due to a draining of that confidence.

The last time Downtown did an event with Labour leader Ed Miliband, in Lancashire almost two years ago now, he seemed to be suffering a crisis of confidence too. He was unconvincing in his presentation, hesitant in answering questions, and awkward in style.

I attended a dinner with him last night at an excellent venue, the Landing in Media City, and I have to say his performance has transformed. Well briefed, humorous, relaxed and, most importantly, confident, he delivered a short, punchy speech to a business audience of 150, and followed this up with an equally impressive Q&A session.

This was a very different Ed Miliband, and one that may, after all, be seen as a potential Prime Minister as the general election looms ever closer.  

And although last night’s Eastleigh by-election, on the face of it, does not offer the Labour Party a huge degree of optimism (they finished in fourth place) the fact that UKIP beat the Tories into second place means that David Cameron now faces a potential spring uprising from his right wing and backwoodsmen that will keep him occupied calming internal party nerves, rather than getting on with the job of leading the country.

Miliband can continue to slowly build momentum, take advantage of the Prime Ministers internal difficulties, not just with his own party but with his coalition partners too, and start to develop a policy narrative that can regain the trust of those voters whom Tony Blair converted to the Labour cause.

I believe the UKIP bubble will burst after the Euro elections next year. If that does happen, Miliband and Labour will have to be in a position where they have a set of policies that have a much broader appeal than the Eastleigh result suggests they have at the moment.

Nonetheless, Ed is in a much better place than he was eighteen months ago – and his confidence is visibly growing. 

The latest Populas opinion poll for the Times shows that Labour is 15 percentage points ahead of the Conservatives, 45% to £30% - unsurprisingly the Liberal Democrats are lagging way behind on just 10%.

Great news for Labour, as it is the biggest lead recorded for any party in this parliament, and so at their Manchester conference next month, Ed Miliband can tell delegates to go back to their constituencies and prepare for government. Well, perhaps not...

Further scrutiny of the poll showed that a huge number of those questioned see David Cameron as a much more credible Prime Minister than Ed. In a General Election campaign, where we will be subjected to a series of ‘Presidential’ style debates, and have endless advertising campaigns and party political broadcasts about the ‘leading men’, then Labour strategists must fear that the 15% lead will disappear quicker than a large glass of red wine when placed in front of Downtown events manager Roger Jonas.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing the other Miliband, David, at a Downtown Liverpool event (click here for video). His confidence and charisma shone through as he dealt with issues ranging from Hillsborough through to the forthcoming American election and the global economy.

His reluctance to return to front bench politics and take a position within the Shadow Cabinet is understandable. He must, whatever he says, still be wounded by the fact that he lost his party’s leadership because of the idiocy of Labour’s union bloc vote.

His reason publicly for not taking a front bench post is that there would be constant speculation about when he was going to make his move to dispose of Ed. I don’t buy that; particularly as such speculation already exists anyway.

For Labour though, the issue is this. Can they really afford to have their most talented politician on the backbenches?

Ed Miliband will not win in a head-to-head contest with Cameron – and certainly not against Boris Johnson should the Tories get jittery between now and 2015. It is essential that the opposition make a case based on a strong team. Without David Miliband in the first eleven, Labour is Man United without Rooney, City without Yaya Toure.

However they do it, Labour must persuade David Miliband to put his personal feelings aside and take a frontline role if they are to have any chance of returning to government next time around.

It was sixties Labour leader and Prime Minister Harold Wilson who famously said ‘a week is a long time in politics.’ If that is the case, then the past seven days must have seemed like an eternity to David Cameron and his Chancellor George Osborne.

A huge uprising of Tory backbenchers on plans led by their coalition partners the Liberal Democrats to reform the Lords looked like bad news for the Tory leadership at the start of the week. However, that potential rebellion looked like a storm in a teacup by the week’s end.

Being accused of being a couple of out of touch toffs is an attack that both Cameron and Osborne not only suffer from but absolutely expect. However, they do not expect that attack to come from one of their own party’s rising parliamentary stars. They may try and dismiss Nadine Dorries comments as the mutterings of a maverick, but they hurt because they know it’s what a lot of those that really matter – the electorate- suspect. It is extremely unhelpful for a Conservative MP to remind us all of the fact.

This was then followed by revelations at the Leveson inquiry that the governments Culture Secretary  was allegedly up to no good in relation to News Corps takeover bid for BSkyB. The Minister in question, Jeremy Hunt, is a ‘Cameroon’ and it is of little surprise that the Prime Minister wants to keep hold of him if he can. However, if only a small part of what James Murdoch claimed this week is true, then Hunt will be gone before the end of the summer.

All this though, as exciting as it is for political commentators and ‘geeks’ like me, is simply bluff and bluster and political knockabout for the masses, who care little for such matters.

Another well known leader, President Bill Clinton, ran his campaign for election in 1994 by repeatedly reminding his team that ‘it’s the economy stupid.’

And it was the news on Wednesday that UK PLC had suffered a ‘double dip’ recession which will potentially have the greatest impact on the futures of Messrs Cameron and Osborne. People are resigned to the pain of cuts, but they have been promised a much more robust and swifter recovery than is proving to be the case.

Huge levels of unemployment, reductions in services and unpopular measures on the NHS are only worth supporting if we are getting some pay back. These figures suggest that we are not.

Osborne says there is no ‘plan B’. The right of his party want him to go further with his spending cuts agenda – but also to be more aggressive with his tax cutting agenda too. The opposition, who have a huge mountain to climb to regain their credibility in the area of economic competency, want to slow down the reductions in public expenditure – but that will definitely not happen under the current regime.

In the short term, the beneficiaries of this awful news will be Labour. As Downtown blogger Jim Hancock pointed out last week, they will clean up in the local council elections on 3^rd May. But, if a week is a long time in politics, then three years is ample time for Cameron, Osborne and the economy to recover. Many more weeks like this one though, and the Tory grandees in grey suits will be paying the ‘toffs’ an unwanted visit!