History may remember the General Election of 2010 for the first televised leaders’ debates and, if the polls are to be believed, a balanced parliament that may ultimately produce seminal changes in the way we vote.

There is a danger, however, that more immediate memories of this election could lead to a further decline in the reputation of MPs and the main political parties.

Thus far, the campaign has been a triumph of style over substance.

The one big question facing us all, and in particular those who would govern us, is how we are going to deal with the massive budget deficit.

In a report this week, the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies criticised Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats for failing to identify how they would reduce the deficit.

While they talk about reducing the deficit by between £46bn and £63.7bn over the next five years, the most any one party has actually identified is £12bn of savings.

How the deficit is actually reduced will define the next Government, yet how many of us will be able to say that we voted either for or against it?

Why is it that all three of the main political parties are unable to share with us their plans for making the necessary cuts?

It cannot be that they have no plans. One suspects that each of the main parties has carefully worked through what it would do in the first 100 days of government.

Are we, the electorate, not to be trusted with this information, presumably because it would dissuade us from voting for party x, y or z?

The issue of MPs’ expenses was rightly seen as a scandalous, but the lack of anything other than a surface debate among the key parties about the issue at the heart of this election is no less scandalous.

There will be an opportunity to hear the three party leaders on the economy in the final TV debate tonight.

Will it be remembered for the moment when the party leaders laid it on the line and outlined in detail what cuts they would make and what taxes they would increase to achieve a level of savings the like of which this nation has not seen for 40 or more years?

We doubt it. Instead, we will have to rely on style, on whether we believe that one leader or the other has what it takes to make the right decisions.

The scale of the deficit means that those decisions will have a very big impact on every single one of us for many years to come.

The relationship between public and politicians still has some rocky times ahead.