Election catch-up: known unknowns and knowns about what happens on 8 May

Plus some stuff that is not about the election at all, because there will be enough of that over the next week

1. Cartoon by Jake Goretzki: “Tolstoy down the ad agency.” More of his brilliant work here.

2. The May2015.com rolling average of opinion polls has the Conservatives leading by 0.9 percentage points this morning. Still very close to the seesaw point, a Tory lead of four or five points, where Ed Miliband at the head of a minority Labour government tips into David Cameron clinging on, but needing both the Lib Dems and the DUP to support him.

3. One thing we do know about the election is that on 8 May UKIP is finished, as my friend Dan Hodges says. If Cameron is Prime Minister, UKIP would be the lead organisation in the No campaign for the EU referendum, helping to ensure that it is defeated. If Miliband is, UKIP is finished sooner.

Talking of which, Cameron tells The Guardian today: “If you put your head in the sand and just drift on as we are I think you will get closer to Brexit more quickly.” I think he is right, but the Scottish experience should make anyone pause.

4. I thought it was worth lifting my ban on the mention of Russell Brand to comment on Ed Miliband’s interview with him, in which Miliband was forced to get in touch with his inner Tony Blair.

5. Important news from Claire Calzonetti: The world leader with the shortest name is Hun Sen, prime minister of Cambodia. The one with the longest name is Madagascar’s president, Hery Martial Rakotoarimanana Rajaonarimampianina.

6. And finally, thanks to Moose Allain for this:

“I remember on my 010th birthday I received an anagram from the Queen.”