THIS was clearly an offer you couldn't refuse. "It gives you great results yet is really affordable. The right one for you at a really low price," was the promise made in the TV advertisement.

The woman was actually promoting a washing machine but might just as well have been flogging the delights of the Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat Party.

It's not easy telling the difference between the commercials and a Party Election Broadcast these days. They all make promises they're unlikely to keep.

"Top dog, top deal" may be the slogan on a video shop ad but has more impact than a simple Vote Labour or Vote Tory slogan. Hopefully no politician will adopt a "Buy one, get one free" philosophy as the mere thought of two Ann Widdecombes is not something you want to entertain.

In the run-up to this election the party political broadcasts have been demoted from primetime TV and tagged on to the end of early evening regional news programmes on BBC1 and ITV, proof that they're nowhere near as important as they used to be.

Once, these short campaign films were the ultimate in spin, the one place party managers could be guaranteed to put across their message without interference. Now they're too busy controlling the public appearances of candidates to worry about the odd, very odd in the case of some political broadcasts, five minutes of TV.

The first offerings of Labour and Tories offered contrasting ways of making a point. Neither are likely to challenge EastEnders or Coronation Street in the TV ratings or be taking home any Baftas next year.

The BBC sandwiched Labour's broadcast between trailers for Heavyweight Boxing (Battling Ann Widdecombe v Two Chins Prescott, perhaps?) and My Hero (Cherie talks lovingly about Tony, maybe?).

"Has Britain Changed Since 1997?" asked the opening caption before answering the question with endless captions detailing improvements in the NHS, education and so on as a pop song played on the soundtrack.

Perhaps they thought they could beat us into submission with statistic after statistic coupled with an occasional glimpse of a famous face such as Geri Halliwell. The ex-Spice Girl was shown serving tea to a couple of pensioners as we were reminded Labour had introduced free TV licences for the over-75s. And what were they watching? Geri, of course, although pensioners aren't really the core audience for Top Of The Pops.

Geri had one of the few lines of dialogue in the whole broadcast with her cry of "Tea's up", a performance that won't have caused her phone to ring with acting offers. I'm sure that Geri loves her mum, but her appearance making tea for old folk was ludicrous and I'm certain had nothing to do with the fact that she has a new record out.

Paralympics gold medallist Tanni Grey-Thompson, who lives in Redcar, was seen. So was the Angel of the North. And, staying in the region, the closing comments were spoken, if I'm not mistaken, by Kevin Whateley, who presumably needs the work now Inspector Morse has finished.

While Labour boasted of their good record, the Tories opted to draw attention to the Government's bad record. The manner in which they chose to do this did at least get them publicity, even if nearly all of it was critical of their approach.

Prisoners in handcuffs were shown being taken out of a prison van and put behind bars in a grainy black-and-white sequence. Goody, goody, we thought, an extra episode of Bad Girls. Alas not.

The aim was to show how Labour's special early release scheme has backfired. "What have they been doing when they should have been serving time?" was the question posed. The answer appeared to be that they've been robbing old ladies in slow motion. Having preyed on those fears, the broadcast moved to petrol and claimed Labour policies would force up the price. Cue shots of disabled people stuck indoors unable to afford petrol to go out and granny sitting alone because relatives don't have the money to fill up and come to see her.

"Not all parties are the same" ran the caption. The trouble is, they are, making election broadcasts that misrepresent the facts. How much better if, instead of these broadcasts, candidates had to take part in special editions of TV game shows to decide the election. We could have Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, renamed Who Wants To Be A Prime Minister with No 10 not one million notes the big prize. Better still, get them on The Weakest Link and subject them to Anne Robinson's acid tongue. Who wouldn't vote to hear her say: "Tony/William," - delete where applicable - "you are the weakest link, goodbye".

THE other week I asked why the adverts and trailers on TV seemed so much louder than the programmes themselves. It's not the first time John Nicholls, from Tyne Tees Television's technical department, has heard these concerns. "Audio compression", so it seems, has been a problem over the years. This is caused by advertisers pumping up the volume on the commercials they supply to the TV companies for screening. The result is loud ads that register as normal on the monitoring equipment.

Mr Nicholls says that at Tyne Tees and Yorkshire, they take great care when they're transferring commercials across from the original to reduce the sound to combat audio compression.

But it also appears we're hearing things. "When you go to a commercial break you go into music and that's by design because they're trying to grab your attention. That can appear to be an increase in sound level - and it's not," he explains.

"You wouldn't notice as much going from the music of Coronation Street into a commercial as you would going in from a sad play."

Remember, you heard it here.