By BAGEHOT
BRITISH election campaigns are usually carefully choreographed affairs. They are short and sharp: just a few weeks of formal campaigning compared with America’s year or so. And they are divided into two parts: before and after the publication of the party manifestos. Before the publication politicians fend off pesky interviewers by saying, “You’ll have to wait until we publish the manifestos.” After the publication they fend off pesky interviewers by saying, “It’s all spelt out in detail in the manifesto.”