Since I've heard these things tend to be a pretty big deal (after all it's our one chance to decide who we want to be writing condolence letters to David Beckham) recently I attended a panel discussion run by Gorkana, where some of the country's best respected journos were discussing the upcoming election.

The panel comprised...

• Michael Wilson, former Business Editor of Sky News who chaired the discussion
• George Pascoe-Watson, former Political Editor at The Sun, now a partner at Portland and the self-proclaimed 'mastermind' behind the paper's switch to the Conservatives
• Jeremy Warner, Assistant Editor at The Daily Telegraph
• Dan Roberts, Business Editor at The Guardian
• Iain Martin, Deputy Editor, The Wall Street Journal Europe and prolific political blogger

It was a lively debate with some great insights and plenty of (polite) disagreement but, for me, a few key opinions and ideas really stood out.

It's the economy, stupid

• All the panel agreed that this year's election is going to be based on one thing: the economy
• Warner was adamant that the one thing British business cares about this year is the government deficit: they want to know how and when it will be reduced and, so far, neither Labour or the Conservatives has provided any real assurances on this
• According to Warner, 'Brown's own personal "killer app" is that he can claim to have single-handedly saved the UK from a second Great Depression'
• This means a lot is likely to depend on the economic results for the end of the first quarter, which will come out before the election. If we've slipped back into recession, Labour's core strength will be badly damaged

The first Internet election?

• This is being billed as the first internet election but, as was pointed out, that makes it our 'fourth first internet election so far'
• When asked what the impact of social media was likely to be on the election, the answer was basically 'not a lot'
• Social networking is still 'immature' in the UK and, while huge numbers of people use Facebook, Twitter etc, they are not used to discuss politics
• Unless a game-changing social media campaign is launched in the next few weeks, this isn't likely to change
• The biggest impact of social media is likely to be as a source of stories for the traditional press, which (surprise, surprise) the panel all agreed was going to play a role. There's some nice examples of this here and here.

David Cameron courts the all-important puppy vote

Labour aren't doing well, the Conservatives are doing badly

• The consensus was that, given Labour and Gordon Brown's record, it is astonishing that the parties are so close in the polls
• The panel agreed that is a major failing of the Tories that there is so little anger at the Government over the state of the economy. They need to attack Labour on this area and try to focus public anger on Brown
• Instead of doing this, however, they've been putting their own alternative economic proposals forward and trying to demonstrate the breadth of Conservative policy. This is a mistake because what they really need is...

One clear message

• In the age of 24-hour news and the 7 second soundbite, you need a simple, clear message to stand out. (This applies not just to politics but to all mainstream media campaigns)
• The Conservatives have been launching a wide variety of policies and trying to address a range of issues. In short, they have been saying too much
• Meanwhile, Labour has been hammering away at one clear message: 'take another look at the Tories'. This has started to stick

BUT we're still heading for a Tory government

• Despite the recent collapse of the Tories' poll lead, the panel all agreed the Conservatives are going to win the election outright

• Pascoe-Watson even predicted Conservatives would have an absolute majority of at least 40. The argument being that the Tories' rebrand has been aimed at winning votes from the Lib Dems, who (in theory) would now prefer a Conservative government to a Labour one
• Apart from Brown, not even Labour believe they can win. Ministers don't expect to be back in office and David Miliband is being positioned as the next Labour Leader.  He is likely to have to undertake the same kind of rebranding exercise the Tories went through.

Phil