As much as it pains me to say it - as a Labour Party member - the Lib Dems appear to be ahead in the on-line election campaign. The latest is the Kennedy Campaign blog. The brains behind the blog is retiring Lib Dem MP and veteran blogger Richard Allan.

I suspect Richard is also behind this Lib Dem campaign to "Stop Nuisance Election Calls". I admire it for its execution - the advert on the blog, the send a letter to your local paper, forward to warn a friend, the local news releases etc.

However, I think its substance is extremely dubious. The Lib Dems are doing democracy a deep disservice by encouraging people to look on political phone calls as being the same as cold-calling for marketing purposes. One consistent complaint from people is that they only hear from political parties at election times. Using phone calls is one way that parties can actually listen and talk to people all year round. It's also far less intrusive than having someone knock on your door.

At a time when the number of people voting is falling it should be the duty of every political party to encourage turnout. This campaign does the very opposite.

I fully understand why the Liberals are doing this as a campaign tool but I really don't think they've thought through the consequences and if they have it's a quite despicable attack on democracy.