The election is called

You have to take your jewel-encrusted hat off to the Queen. Her Majesty dropped in to Buckingham Palace from the skies, a chopper hop from Windsor, with less than five minutes to spare before dispensing one of her most important constitutional roles.

No sooner was she across the lawn and in the back door than No. 10 sent Gordon Brown off out the front door to drive to the Palace.

If Gordon Brown loses this election he will return to Buckingham Palace, possibly as soon as 7 May if he lost decisively.

Today though he is back in Downing Street after a brief exchange with the Queen, standing with his entire Cabinet in front of the No. 10 door.

Gordon Brown said he was asking for a clear mandate to secure the recovery. And he wanted a mandate to improve public trust in politics.

I am not a team of one, he said, a dig at David Cameron.

A protective hand on the back from Harriet Harman as he went back in doors. In January she was widely thought to be trying to plunge something between the granite shoulder blades.

It was all a bit funereal, less punchy than the pledge card launch words two weeks ago. Mr Brown started with a joke about this election date being the worst-kept secret.

The other thing that struck you was at the top of his address when he labelled himself “middle class”, not the last attempt you will hear by a leader in this campaign to claim an identity with the mystical Tolkien-like land of middle Britain.