Your chance to put housing on the election agenda
Yesterday was less about policy and substance than momentum and image.
The starting gun fired, the three leaders simply wanted to make a good impression.
But one theme became immediately apparent, eventhough it would have been expected: their likely and necessary pitch for the vote of what we still find ourselves calling (in the absence of any other quite adequate shorthand) the middle-classes.
Gordon Brown said he was an 'ordinary' bloke. Nick Clegg said he offered something 'new'.
On the South Bank David Cameron talked about his concern for the 'great ignored'.
Put aside that this was as opposed, say, to concern about the great unwashed, who'll have to wait another day.
The phrase was interesting in another respect.
And possibly revealing.
It's not rocket science - and of course David Cameron would quite reasonably have been expected to get to the thought on his own - but the words had a striking echo of what his friend and colleague Boris Johnson has been saying at City Hall.
Last year the mayor marked a significant departure from his predecessor Ken Livingstone on the issue of housing when he announced that his aim was to help the 'forgotten middle'.
What this meant, in short, was that Mr Johnson had decided to use the millions of pounds at his disposal each year to focus less on providing social rented housing and more on so-called intermediate housing such as part-buy or shared ownership.
He says explicitly that he's very much a believer in 'getting a foot on the housing ladder'.
And his policy has explicitly raised the eligibility for subsidised housing to couples with a joint income of nearly £60,000.
The effect of this is that the notion of affordable housing - under the Conservatives - is shifting: from 'affordable' rent to 'affordable' ownership.
David Cameron wasn't talking about housing specifically, but he might have been.
When those Tory (likewise Labour and Lib Dem) candidates and canvassers come knocking, ask them about any changes that they propose to housing. Listen carefully to the answers.
And nevermind what we believe are - and have been - tensions between Dave and Boris.
In time of battle, a general will take ideas from anybody.
I'm BBC London's political editor and presenter of the London section of the Politics Show. Here I'll be identifying the key talking points during the election campaign and trying to offer a reality check to the many promises that you'll hear up to polling day. Your thoughts welcome.
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