Of course, with a week to go before the big day, we can expect the sillier, the more surreal, elements of the campaign thus far - the chickens, the bulldogs, the drugged-up journos - to fade away into the background.

What follows then? Some Conservatives would argue that last week's chatter about Europe constitutes an heightening of political debate. Labour, on the other hand, would say that its discussion about community, about the importance of ordinary people becoming stakeholders, is the much sought after "vision thing". Meanwhile, the Lib Dems would report, with barely a trace of smugness, that by placing citizenship and proportional representation at the heart of their manifesto, they have succeeded in formulating the overarching political philosophy for the next century.

They all miss the point. The narrow political agenda passed out to the electorate by the main parties, in collusion with the mainstream media, is not actually relevant to most British people. Dotted with grant-maintained schools, private housing estates, private hospitals and nursing homes, it bears little resemblance to the places most Britons, certainly most British Asians, find themselves living in.

Flick open the Labour manifesto. Its happy, shiny folk could have emerged form some market town deep in middle England. Bran'-new, Barbour-wearin' types, they represent the archetypal Tory voters, the kind who backed Thatcher throughout the eighties, the kind Labour seems to think are central to achieving victory now.

The slight-of-hand trick achieved here is incredible. Since 1979, the overwhelming majority of British people, about 60 per cent of those turning out to vote, including the vast majority of British Asians, have voted against the Conservatives and their vision of Britain. And yet, this is exactly the vision New Labour has now co-opted.

If many have refused to buy into this brave new world, many others have found themselves shut out from it. According to a new TUC report, the British Pakistani-Bangladeshi unemployment rate stands at 26.9 per cent, while the British Indian rate stands at 11.8 per cent; the British white rate stands at 7.8 per cent. The TUC calls its report, "Black and Excluded".

Behind the stark statistics lies misery and a growing sense of alienation. If second-generation Asians are denied full employment and a decent future, then the government, whether Conservative or Labour, should expect the kind of rioting that occurred in Manningham in the summer of 1995.

And if sizable numbers of the white population feel excluded, cut off from New Labour's new Britain?

It is easy to become complacent about the far-right. But as eurosceptics increasingly turn into Europhobes and are accused of becoming xenophobes, then, as in the rest of Europe, there is a real danger that groups like the British National Party will gain legitimacy.

Which is why banning the BNP from our television screens is not enough. Of course, the new government must be tough on fascism; but it must also be tough on the causes of fascism.