by Louise Dunne and Euranet's Lars Bevanger

There’s just two days to go before the UK general election, which is shaping up as the most closely fought for decades. The leaders of the three main parties have been pulling every possible trick out of their bags to win over the crucial, undecided "floating” voters. And in what’s a relatively unknown phenomenon in British politics, the leader’s wives have become increasingly visible and vocal on the campaign trail. But could a woman's touch really be the make or break factor in Thursday’s vote?

It was Prime Minister Gordon Brown's wife Sarah who kick-started the trend with a surprise speech – introducing  her husband at the annual Labour Party conference two years ago. “ I am so proud”, she said,  “that every day I see him motivated to work for the best interest of people all around the country." At last year’s party conference she returned, to shed more light on the PRIVATE Gordon, telling a laughing audience about his messy household habits.

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Household secrets
Not to be outdone, the opposition Conservatives recently wheeled out their leader David Cameron's wife Samantha. In an interview on national television she seemed keen to outdo the Prime Minister's wife by painting an endearing picture of the man she hopes will be Britain's next leader.

"He loves politics, and I think so much of the Dave that I first met and fell in love with is Dave the politician... He’s not very good at picking up his clothes, he's a terrible channel flicker... I have to be quite firm about him not fiddling with his phone and his Blackberry too much..."

Silent support
In days gone by, political spouses tended to silently stand by their man - or in Dennis Thatcher's case his woman. No-one would dream of spilling the beans about what happened behind closed doors in the marital home. Sarah Brown and Samantha Cameron have changed all that. But not all politicians' wives feel comfortable in this new role. Miriam Gonzalez Durantez is married to Nick Clegg, the very popular leader of the Liberal Democrats. She's too busy in her job as a lawyer to do much campaigning, “I imagine everybody would want to help as much as possible. I want to help, but without giving up my life."

The real question?
Election strategist say giving the wives a role in the election campaign helps voters see the human side to the political leaders fighting for the keys to 10 Downing Street.  But it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think that what most of Britain’s voters really want to know,  is how the parties will deal with the country’s staggering 177 billion euro public deficit. So far neither the three political leaders nor their wives have come up with a full answer to THAT question.