You might have missed with all the focus on the royal birth, but this is election week in the UK. Thursday, in fact. And it's good to see the fun being had with YouTube electioneering, some official, some coming from the media and general public.
Tory leader David Cameron has been feted in a catchy Conservative Friends of India clip.
Labour's Ed Miliband has Bonnie Tyler's 'I Need a Hero' (see above) and Eminem's '8 Mile' appealing to music fans across genres. I really cannot decide which one is more inspirational. '8 Mile' was also used by the video satirist CassetteBoy (caution: NSFW language) last year as the soundtrack to David Cameron's edited 'rap' speech to the Scottish Conservatives, but the Miliband footage has rawer street appeal.
Disappointingly safe, The Greens official video 'Boy Band' depicts the main party leaders singing 'in political harmony'. It fails to fully capture the intended parody and rapidly becomes forgettable, predictable and dull (unlike the actual Australian-born Greens leader Natalie Bennett, whose entertainment value comes from her fumbling her party's policies not only during a captivatingly disastrous media interview in February, but again last month).
Then there is the Sinn Fein official video. This might have been a good joke in the office, but the Star Wars-themed video is agonisingly amateur in theme, dialogue and execution. A Stormtrooper opens the door of his suburban home to the candidate, Gerry Kelly, who almost bores the Stormtrooper into agreeing to vote for Sinn Fein. Why a faceless foot soldier from Star Wars? Why not a trusted, recognisably heroic character — if not Luke or Leia or Han, then surely Chewie would have been a better choice? And why Star Wars? 'May the fourth be with you' says the Stormtrooper as the candidate leaves. 'May the seventh', corrects the candidate. I'm guessing that's meant to be terrifically funny. It's certainly memorable, though not in a good way.
What the polling and analysis is telling us is that no matter how much effort (or not) goes into appealing to the British electorate, there is unlikely to be a resounding victor by the end of the week. If there is another coalition government, I'll be hoping for a video announcement with a soundtrack.