The idea of Afzal Anwar representing me at Westminster is scary.

As I have said many times before, it is a complete mystery to me how this man became the Liberal Democrat candidate for Pendle. I can easily think of a dozen local Lib Dems who could do a better job of projecting their Party’s policies and painting a picture of the sunlit uplands of a Lib Dem future.

Instead, they are lumbered with an inarticulate barrister (sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it ain’t) who can barely string a sentence together.

He parrots the Lib Dem Party line, insofar as he comprehends it.

There is no animation or excitement.

He doesn’t believe what he is saying. He is going through the motions.

On the back of Nick Clegg’s TV debate success, Ladbroke’s have shortened the odds on Anwar becoming Pendle’s MP from 40/1 to 6/1. I gasp at this.

This evening, I check out Electoral Calculus, the website that extrapolates national opinion polls into results for every constituency in the land.

Nothing prepares me for what I read.

Anwar is now second favourite in Pendle. I am trailing him!

The projected share of the poll in Pendle on 6 May is Conservative: 35.89%; Liberal Democrat 27.06% and Labour 26.21%.

According to the website the “chance of winning” for the Conservative is 57.6%; Lib Dems 23.06% and Labour 18.2%.

This tells me that the eggheads monitoring the election are living on the planet Mars.

Their projections are completely divorced from the reality on the doorstep.

It is such a tragedy we don’t have Community TV throughout the UK where people can tune into their local hustings to see the candidates and how they measure up.

Better still, we should have the candidates quizzed and roasted by serious journalists from the local and regional press. Grilling them on the issues that matter.

Instead, our politics are becoming presidentialised. All over the country, people are making judgements on how they will vote based on the performance of the Party leaders and not on the track record of their own MP, good or bad.

I find this sad and, if I am honest, a bit dispiriting.