SO who actually cares what lingerie entrepreneur Michelle Mone thinks about who would be best to lead the UK?

Ms Mone, in a column for The Sun, devoted a fair number of words to her views of the personalities involved as she came out for the Conservatives.

She offered some views about the economy, highlighting a belief that Prime Minister David Cameron and his colleagues had done well on this front.

In the column, published hard on the heels of official figures showing UK economic growth slowed even further in the first quarter of this year to just 0.3 per cent, Ms Mone cited job creation numbers. She also talked about her memories of how bad things were during the 2008/09 recession, which was triggered by the global financial crisis.

But her focus seemed to be very much on personalities.

She said of Mr Cameron: "I've met the man and he looks, acts and talks like a true leader."

Moving on to words of wisdom about other party leaders, she added: "I am genuinely concerned that we could end up sleepwalking to this outcome: Ed Miliband in Downing Street, being bullied about by Nicola Sturgeon."

And Ms Mone did not stop there.

She added: "For most of my adult life I was Labour through and through. But though Ed Miliband is a nice guy, I just don't think he's real leadership material. And frankly, Nicola Sturgeon would run rings around him."

Extending her analysis to include the former First Minister, she continued: "Everyone thinking of voting in this election needs to realise that. Nicola Sturgeon would totally rule the roost. Along with Alex Salmond, she would call all the shots."

On the back of the column, Ms Mone took to the airwaves with Sky News to offer some more opinions.

She retweeted this from the Conservative Party press office: "Watch lifelong Labour voter & lingerie entrepreneur, @MichelleMone, tell Sky News why she's voting Conservative."

Ms Mone appeared a bit more complimentary about Mr Miliband on Sky News, declaring he was a "good leader". However, she described Mr Cameron in this interview as a "superb leader".

In some ways, perhaps Ms Mone is just chiming with the lamentable tone of much of the campaigning.

The Conservatives have certainly attempted to focus on personalities, with arguably childish propaganda posters featuring the Labour and SNP leaders and Mr Salmond. We've had Mr Miliband on puppet strings held by Ms Sturgeon, the Labour leader in Mr Salmond's pocket, and so on and so forth.

This campaigning has been nothing short of pathetic, and the anti-Scottish rhetoric might even make some people think of the pushing of the legend of Sawney Bean in English rumour magazines centuries ago.

Mr Miliband, for his part, has been unable to avoid getting himself tangled up not in the puppet strings of the Conservatives' poster but in all the personality stuff.

His interview with celebrity Russell Brand has commanded a fair amount of airtime and many column inches this week.

And it all got a bit more surreal yesterday when actor Hugh Grant backed Liberal Democrat Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury who is in danger of losing his Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey seat.

Mr Grant took to Twitter to proclaim: "Dear People of Inverness (incl my friends and relations), I know Danny Alexander and think you're very lucky to have him. Just an opinion."

Then again, maybe this was no more curious than Chancellor George Osborne's examination on social media of the implications of this week's poor UK growth figures.

Mr Osborne, not letting the wind be taken out of his sails by the fact growth in the first three months of this year was only half of the already below-trend rate of 0.6 per cent in the final quarter of 2014, tweeted: "GDP up 0.3 per cent, 2.4 per cent on year. Good news economy continues to grow but this is a critical moment & reminder you can't take recovery for granted."

It is a pity Mr Osborne does not do washing machines. That intensity of spinning would certainly get the clothes dry in double-quick time.

Just as tiresome as interventions by celebrities and high-profile entrepreneurs in whatever political debate is going on is the trotting out of lists of businessmen and women who support one camp or another.

Such lists were published by the Yes and No camps in the independence referendum. There were arguments about whose list was bigger and better.

Early in the General Election campaign, we had a letter to the Daily Telegraph warning of the risks of a Labour government from more than 100 "captains of industry".

AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot, whose name was among those listed, was one of a few to distance themselves and their companies from the letter.

This week, we have had a letter in the Daily Telegraph praising the Conservatives' economic plans and warning against Labour. The newspaper declared that "more than 5,000 small business owners" had signed the letter.

However many people sign them, the letters add little if anything to the sum total of knowledge about the key issues. The same is true of the interventions of the likes of Ms Mone and Mr Grant.

There has been way too much twaddle in the General Election campaigning.

Voters are perfectly capable of making up their own minds. They can make a judgment on what is best for the economy based on their own experiences and what they hear from people close to them. Those impressions are likely to vary in different parts of the country, and will depend on the circumstances in which people find themselves and the experiences they have enjoyed or suffered under the Coalition Government.

People can also take a look at the economic figures, as opposed to the spin around them, and form a view of whether or not the country is on the right track. And they will know, in terms of the economy, whether things feel good or bad to them.

Hopefully, voters will pay no heed to endorsements from businessmen and women or celebrities, or lists of names they have never heard of, as they make up their minds in this crucial election.