Blog: It’s all over bar the screaming. Just a few more hours of frantic campaigning and then our political leaders will fall into bed and suffer a fitful night’s sleep, writes John Hipwood.

They have every right to feel exhausted and so too do the British people after a four-week campaign on top of an unofficial campaign which started just after Christmas.

Gordon Brown’s sleep will be interrupted by the spectre of Gillian Duffy hovering over him, and the thought that he might never spend another night in the flat above Number 10.

David Cameron’s nightmare will see him standing naked at the lectern in a re-run of that first television debate when Nick Clegg stole his clothes; and Mr Clegg will see missiles from Trident submarines raining down on him.

All three will be worried about Mr & Mrs Undecided, and Mr Brown in particular will wonder whether the stay-at-home family will live up to their name. The Prime Minister has long resorted to a core vote strategy combined with an attempt to put the frighteners on anyone thinking of voting Tory.

In Manchester last night he clasped his hands prayer-like and told voters: “Come home to Labour.” In recent days when he has looked a bit more chipper, he has spoiled virtually every public announcement with the words “I feel I have to warn you that a Tory government would . . .” Fill in your own end, but it usually includes taking away child tax credits and sacking teachers and police officers.

In a sign that the Labour campaign finally lost its way, senior generals went AWOL by all but urging their supporters, in order to keep out the Conservatives, to vote Liberal Democrat in seats where Labour trail a poor third.

David Cameron meanwhile has gone on a coffee-fuelled, 36-hour through-the-night surge across the country like a crazed evangelist, stopping people to spread his message as they come off their nightshifts or buy a pint of milk in the all-night supermarket.

Wife Samantha, sensibly didn’t join him.

And Mr Clegg, the man who showed that there was a third force in British politics, continued to urge voters to grasp their best chance in a generation and “do something really different” by voting for Change with a capital C.

They’ve called it a crossroads election like those in 1979 and 1997. They may well be right.

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Although it’s unlikely in the near future, if Owen Paterson ever finds himself out of a job, he could write a very interesting book called Travels of an Itinerant Politician.

After being forced to regain the British mainland by catamaran from Northern Ireland during the first volcanic ash episode, the Icelandic dust messed up his travel plans again yesterday.

On his way to Manchester to catch a plane to Belfast where he was due to meet David Cameron for a campaign event, he was driving past Chester when he heard on the radio that the ash had forced the closure of Irish air space.

The Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary cut across to Crewe where he caught a train for London. To cut a tortuous story short, he and Mr Cameron eventually caught a helicopter from Stansted, but this had to turn back with mechanical problems.

They eventually made it to Belfast via a private plane where the north Shropshire Tory candidate received two grateful namechecks from his boss.

One was for his efforts to re-create the union between the Conservative Party and Ulster Unionists in Northern Ireland, and secondly for the amount of time he spends in Northern Ireland compared with Secretary of State Shaun Woodward.