As we head into the last 72 hours of the campaign there is still so much to play for here in Loughborough.

This has been one of the most amazing elections I have been involved with. Usually by this stage you know what is likely to happen on Thursday. I don't know the exact result but I have been able to tell within about 500 votes how it will look in the past. This is not the case this time. I know we are neck and neck (a few votes ahead) with the Tories with the Lib Dems back in a poor third place with the minor parties picking up a small sprinkling of support. But it is the one third of people who are yet to make up their mind that will decide who the MP is on Friday morning.

However, I have never seen such personal enthusiasm for my campaign. People are coming out of their doors to wish me luck and to take posters. I have not seen that in 2001 and 2005. There is a realisation that being a marginal seat there is a possibility that Loughborough could end up on Friday with a Tory MP and not me. That certainly seems to be concentrating minds.

You would think from the media that there is no connection between MPs and their constituents. I think they are wrong. I know we have identified 2000 'personal votes' in the last few weeks. From the number of people offering unsolicited support and telling positive Andy Reed stories I am know there will be more. Fear of losing a good hard working MP is concentrating minds.

So I am now more confident that I can still win Loughborough. It is down to those who have still to make up their mind. They will decide.

A year ago the Tory press had decided this election was all over - Cameron just had to say nothing and keep smiling and he could walk into No10 with a 'massive' majority.

Well it doesn't look that way now does it. I will take pleasure at denying Cameron the keys to No 10 for 3 reasons.

First and foremost to stop him doing the damage the Tories did in the past to working people and public services. They have not changed and will do the same.

Second to deny Cameron. As many people will know I have deep distaste for his smug arrogance. To see that wiped from his face will give great pleasure.

Third - to see Murdoch humiliated. He has thrown everything at getting the Tories in to make sure his News International Empire is protected by the Tories and the attacks that will follow on the BBC. I hope the defeat of his attempts to buy the election will mean we all stand up to foreign media moguls damaging Britain.

There is all to play for. One third have people have yet to make their minds up. I find most I speak to are not wanting the Tories back. The horror of the 80s & 90s is still with them.

On all our figures Loughborough is a narrow 2 horse race which we can win. It will be a fascinating last few days as people start to finalise their choices!

For some strange reason the Tories still seem to have fooled themselves into thinking they did well in this seat in 2005. They keep repeating that 'they' reduced my majority.

So the facts. In 1997 the Tories got about 37.8% of the vote. In 2001 it fell to around 36% as my share went up to just under 50%. In 2005 the Tories went back up to 37.1% - still below their 1997 figure. To claim a success and still be behind their 1997 showing is the sort of spin that gives us all a bad name. The Tories have flatlined in Loughborough and they know it!

It was an increased Lib Dem vote in 2005 that caused the narrowing of the majority - not any Tory resurgance.

Hope that helps clarify things!

I ave been asked several times in the last few days about only having one ballot paper for the 'local' election and none for the national election.

After enquiry I discovered some people assumed they got a vote for their local MP and then one for the Prime Minister/ Party as their national vote.

Just to confirm there is no local and national ballot -just the one! You get one vote for who you want as your local MP. It is then the Party with a clear majority that forms the government and the leader of that party is asked to be Prime Minister. So Brown, Clegg and Cameron will not be on your ballot papers.

That is why you should think about who you want representing you in Parliment next week. It should be the person you want to speak up for our area who you think can do the job best.

In view of the fact that it looks like it may be a 'hung parliament' if the polls are to be believed, who do you think would have the experience to get the Loughborough voice heard is also going to be vital.

The biggest loser from the TV debates has of course been David Cameron. And doesn't it show.

I always predicted here that once there was any scrutiny of the Tories their house of cards would start to crumble. And boy has it done just that.

Now the Tories dismiss the debates as '6th form debating clubs' or Cameron says the problem was the questions were too 'subjecty'. You couldn't make it up. He was the one boasting he had been calling for these debates for years! Not so keen now is he.

You see the entire Tory strategy has been say as little of substance as possible. Create a marketing campaign which ignores the party and promotes the shiny Mr Cameron. But nobody has really warmed to Cameron. Certainly not the public and not even his own back bench MPs!

So now they are without a cause or a strategy and they look a little lost. What makes me even happier is that they have poured £millions down the drain. Where is the Ashcroft effect now?

I have always said this is a word of mouth and doorstep campaign. It has to be for us as we can't compete against the Murdoch press or the Ashcroft £millions - the tax dodger funding the Tory party. His money is here in Loughborough.

We can't afford the expensive poster sites or masses of glossy leaflets.

But guess what - I don't mind. Because we are winning the ground war through the sheer hard work of a growing number of volunteers.

I have more people helping in Loughborough than we did even in 1997 when we were extremely popular! Every day people are returning to help us and more people who have never done anything political before are coming out to help the campaign.

One of the reasons is the fear of a Tory government. But for many more it is the possibility of me losing this seat. The marginality of the seat works in our favour. People have assumed for too long that I will 'be ok' and safe. Still too many voters are shocked to hear the seat is marginal. They assume I am safe. That's why many more neutrals and Lib Dem and Tory supporters and even members are out helping me.

Even Tory MPs have been phoning me this week to wish me luck and hope I get back in. For obvious reasons I cannot reveal their names but it heartening to know that we can take on the unequal battle with vigour and our heads held up high!

Each week the Peter Mandelson is updating us about the state of the race.. it's an interesting analysis of the choices in the forthcoming eleciton so I am happy to share it as widely as possible.

http://www2.labour.org.uk/peter-mandelson-issues-second-state-of-the-race-memo

I was asked by a journalist about the importance of the web, blogging and twitter today.

One of the main benefits I mentioned was the ability for me to tell the story as I want to set it out. I don’t have to see which quote from a 10 minute conversation they will use to back up or justify their storyline. For me this is the most important bit. I can tell you all the thoughts I want to put down and you can read them direct. If I get quoted out of context then it is my fault.

I enjoy setting out all the facts as I see them and then explaining my point of view and throwing in my opinions. Most newspaper stories will carry just one of the sentences I have given them. The TV is the same. You can record for 10 minutes and about a 20 second sound bite is used.

You see you get the ‘news’ through the filter of the journalist and the sub-editors headline. A blog allows us to fill in the gaps and go into more detail.

The other thing of course is the speed and immediacy of the blog and tweet. During the Digital Economy Bill I was tweeting what I was going to do and some of the comments. Constituents could watch BBC Parliament live, could follow tweets and facebook updates and comment back to me as their MP ‘live’ in the Chamber. This genuinely does open up democracy. Others will have relied on the papers that day to cover the story and print it 24 hours later. The moment has gone.

It will be sad to see some elements of our press disappear – but a joy to see the digital age replace the sort of biased reporting we see every day in our media. Come and get the news direct.!

It will be interesting to see how my quotes are used in the story. The last story written was the complete opposite to what I had said so I await this with interest. Especially as I predicted the slow demise of of the printed media in its current format.

There has been a coup in Kyrgyzstan this week. I have received information that up to 50 people were killed in riots in Bishkek the capital.

I bet nobody really noticed. I assume most people don’t even really care. I am sure even fewer have an opinion about the rights and wrongs. I wonder if many people could even find Kyrgyzstan on a map.

So why should I mention this during an important general election in the UK?

Well for me there are two important lessons. First it is about how we take our own democracy for granted. Probably 35% of us won’t bother to even take 10 minutes every 4-5 years to go and vote. Yet here in the streets of Bishkek people were willing to put their lives on the line.

Second. I have been to work on the streets of Bishkek a couple of times. I have met those agitating for change. I have met people looking after some of the poorest people on the planet. You see for me this is not just another news story. There was a worry that I may know some of those who were killed. Suddenly it is personal and matters. What troubled me is that I should think this every time I hear of death and injury around the world. There is always a personal tragedy for the individuals and families concerned. Yet we have all become immune. As I say I bet this has not even registered with most people. And most of you don’t care. But I just wished we lived in a world where more people did.

It mattered enough for it to interrupt talks between Obama and the Russians this week. In Geopolitical terms it is an important pert of the region. So much so that this former Soviet republic had both American and Russian airbases in the country!