Voters are not 'lurching', they're responding to elitism

Mr. Miliband was already considered by many voters - including Labour supporters - to be a bit too policy-wonkish to be a credible and well-rounded national leader. The events of last week would have done little to overturn this perception.

Meanwhile, Nick Clegg appears to be well on his way to overseeing the demise of the Liberal Democrats as a major political voice. Again, the charge of elitism is regularly pitched in his direction even, at this point, by members of his own parliamentary party. They fear that he does not represent their overall cause, mainly because of his failure to connect with the electorate on a personal level.

Few of them seem willing to consider that perhaps they have an even bigger problem than their choice of leader. Perhaps the British nation is less ultra-liberal in its thinking than some of them would like to believe.

Whatever he does these days, Mr. Clegg cannot seem to overcome the common perception that he likes to talk down to people. In his televised debates with Nigel Farage, he sometimes seemed exasperated by the fact that he had to argue the rightness of his cause at all - and with someone he appears to regard as an intellectual inferior.

Many people who are not necessarily drawn to UKIP's agenda may have felt alienated by Clegg's aloofness and impatience with dissent during the debates. Certainly in the lead-up to the council elections, many Lib Dem candidates were adamant that they did not want any mention of their party leader in their election literature.

Prime Minister Cameron hasn't fared well in these elections either. Elitism is a charge which has long been thrown his way.

Granted, it is an easy accusation to lay at the feet of someone with a privileged family background. Yet David Cameron does little to help himself when he surrounds himself with senior advisers drawn from a similar cloistered class.

It may be natural for a leader to listen most to people who live nearby, or who share a similar life experience and outlook. However, when it comes to being Prime Minister, one is expected to represent or at least understand the interests of a much broader cross-section of society.

Even among normally conservative voters (I use the word here in its small 'c' sense) David Cameron is often seen as being more of a liberal than a conservative thinker on certain key issues.

His promised public debate on changes to marriage never took place and his promise of a referendum on Europe in 2017 seems too weak or meaningless to satisfy many within his own rank-and-file.

Meanwhile, his offer of an independence vote for the Scots was a too hasty for some - and his making the case for a 'no' vote a little too slow.

Nigel Farage has not been fully tested in regard to elitism - he has, as yet, no domestic parliamentary record. But he may well find himself in a similar position to David Cameron if his relatively privileged background as a City commodities trader ever becomes a story in itself.