Lesley Riddoch: Clegg offers England a chance to rule itself at last

THE new American remake of The Prisoner has made a timely reappearance on our screens. It is nowhere near as compelling, cultish or downright strange as Patrick McGoohan's 1960s original. But one feature still works. The horror of being stuck in The Village.

A place where nothing is questioned and tomorrow unfolds like today. A place of numbers not names. A place with no past, future or borders – above all a place with no exit.

A bit like Britain under the Icelandic ash cloud, facing the inevitable and mildly despairing nature of the General Election campaign – until last week's TV debate victory by Nick Clegg.

That feeling of numbing conformity has been blasted to the four winds, and opinion polls – showing the Lib Dems leading for the first time in their history – confirm that fact.

Pundits and papers that couldn't conceive of such a third-party surge will now be working hard to find new reasons for pessimism about the Lib Dems' chances of a breakthrough. The Big Two will now, we're told, take Nick Clegg and his wobbly policies apart. No more Mr Nice Guys, Brown and Cameron will move on to Clegg territory, push hands into their own pockets, look directly at the camera, learn a few policies in detail and namecheck all questioners at the end. Throw in the market collapse after news of Clegg's first debate win – indicating the money-men truly fear a hung parliament – and even though they got us into this mess, the grimly incanted warning will work.

Voil. End of Clegg, removal of egg from collective face and return of General Election to business as usual.

The reason that isn't going to happen is the same reason this column could predict the possibility of an Icelandic ash cloud, the 2007 victory of the SNP and the likelihood of a Nick Clegg triumph.

I don't live in The Village. Nor do British voters. Nor do the people of Iceland – where volcanic activity is so common, weather forecasts are always accompanied by seismic readings.

Experts failed to predict the SNP's 2007 election win because they didn't seriously consider all the possibilities. The public quietly did.

All Nick Clegg had to do was explain how to crack open the class-ridden, overcentralised, undemocratic shell that's stifled growth and protected the Big Two Parties from genuine challenge since the Second World War.

And he did. Why did that seem to come as such a surprise? Especially to Scots, versed in the arts of electoral surprise. In many ways, English voters are now following our example.

Scottish voters punished the Tories after years of electoral impotence. Scottish voters used their votes to remove every Tory MP, an astonishing bit of gamesmanship that went relatively unnoticed in the euphoria that gripped the Village as Labour's predicted UK victory finally occurred.

The Scots then went one better, building the democratic equivalent of Hadrian's Wall, to create the Scottish parliament as a bulwark against future domination by an "alien" philosophy. London now appears to be light years away – almost another country.

A bit like hearing your neighbour's music through a connecting wall, the thumping and breast-beating of the General Election campaign on network (that is, south-of-England) TV and radio has been an irritant, not a call to arms.

No wonder Alex Salmond and the SNP fought desperately to be included in these debates. Unlike Village inhabitants, they realised that one hugely hyped, gladiatorial TV contest would allow a skilled minority leader to triumph just as William Wallace triumphed 700 years ago thanks to his own canny choice of battleground.

But thanks to the Clegg coup, the Lib Dems will mop up the anti-establishment vote – especially in England.

Installing a powerful chunk of Lib Dems at Westminster demanding proportional representation (PR) is the easiest way for English voters to create a bulwark against cynical, ineffectual, non-consensual government.

The absence of the "get-out of jail" card available to Celtic voters means the English have twice the reason to feel despair or motivation to see change at Westminster. It's all they've got. There is no mitigating force.

Scots feel mildly scunnered by the expenses debacle and the waste of time and money during those fat cat decades – imagine how the English feel. They have been stuffed by their ain folk, and there's no way out.

English voters may now have the sense of mission Scots had in 1997 and use their votes strategically to ensure they cannot be stuffed by two big complacent, conniving parties ever again.

They may come to view PR and a balanced parliament as the only game-changing result that can be achieved this time.

If anyone thinks Clegg will goof up in the next debate, on international affairs, think again. He speaks five languages and was an MEP. His Dutch mother almost starved to death in a PoW camp, and half his father's family fled the Russian revolution.

With the exception of his woolly Trident policy, it's Nick Clegg who will be in pole position on Thursday unless he has a Gary McAllister moment before the open goal.

The single word "Iraq" should bring Brown to his knees. "Nazis" (or marginal right-wing European allies) should do the same to Cameron. Or indeed "China", since Cameron suggested the super state's behaviour justifies renewing Trident.

Outside the Village, the public is becoming slightly attached to the Lib Dem underdogs – so clumsy attacks and surreptitious kicks won't work.

Alex Salmond will have to pray the Clegg Spring is as weak as the Cameron Bounce in Scotland. The Big Two will quite bluntly have to transform their current offers or prepare for PR.