The Tories have been desperate to convince people that a hung parliament would be a disaster. They suggest our currency would be shot to pieces, claiming that our experience in the 1970s offers a grim portent of what might follow.

Veteran Tory politician Ken Clarke cited Labour's decision in 1976 to ask the IMF for a loan as an image of what happens under hung parliaments. But Ken got it seriously wrong. Britain didn't have a hung parliament in 1976. Or in the other years when sterling was on life support: 1949 and 1967 (Labour) and 1992 (Conservatives).

The story of that IMF bail out isn't as clear cut as right-wing legend would have you believe. Labour's decision to go to the IMF was prompted by Treasury forecasts that later proved unduly pessimistic. We didn't actually need the money in the end. Andy Beckett's enthralling account of the Seventies, When the lights went out, sets the record straight.