How to vote for Boris

7:19pm

If you’re voting in London tomorrow, you are going to be given three ballot papers—one for the mayoralty, one for the constituency section of the London assembly and one for the proportional vote. In the mayoral vote, you can vote for a first preference—we’d recommend putting a tick next to Boris—and a second preference. If your first preference is Boris or Ken, then your second preference is irrelevant. But if you’re voting for one of the other candidates, your second preference is key. In reality, there’s not much point putting anyone other than one of the two leading candidates as your second preference as the votes will be reallocated between the two people who finish with the most first preferences votes. (Obviously, if one of Boris or Ken gets more than 50 percent of the first preference votes, second preferences won’t come into it.) In the other two ballots, you just vote for a candidate in the constituency section and a party in the general one as normal. 

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A snapshot of Sderot

4:29pm

Yesterday, I visited the Southern Israeli town of Sderot. Being perched on the border with Gaza, it's subjected to a constant barrage of rockets from Hamas and their associates. A few stream-of-consciousness observations and thoughts below – all lifted from my notebook and from conversations with Sderot locals – as well as some photographs and video footage:

1) On our arrival, at just before 10am, we were told that 8 Qassam rockets had already fallen on Sderot that morning. One of these hit a house in the Niot Neviin suburb, Thankfully, the only casualty was the bathroom [see the video footage I shot on the scene, below], although it's hard to imagine how traumatised the owners must be. They'll have a thousand grim “what-ifs?” running through their heads.

2) Since the beginning of 2008, over 1,600 rockets and mortars have been fired from Gaza into Israel

3) The rockets wreak terrible psychological damage, particularly on children. We heard tell of – among other things – pre-school children who are clinically depressed, and teenagers who still wet the bed at night. The rockets dominate every aspect of their lives and upbringing – they even play “educational” games which simulate rockets falling.

4) The warning sirens have been criticised for being almost imperceptible. Rather than the blitz-era wail you might expect, it's a man's voice saying (in Hebrew) “Red colour, red colour”. When a siren sounds, it means you have around 15-30 seconds to find shelter before a rocket hits.

One of the many rocket shelters dotted all across Sderot.

5) Why don't people leave? For starters, a number already have. At the start of the attacks, the population of Sderot was around 24,000. Now it stands at 20-21,000. For those who remain, the primary obstacle to their departure is that they can't afford it. I guess property in a town-turned-warzone isn't particularly popular, so it's difficult for current residents to sell up and move on. Some people do remain out of choice – because they grew up in Sderot, because it's their home, etc.

6) There have been three generations of “home-made” Qassam rocket, the latest of which carries a 5kg payload a distance of 19km. Hamas have also acquired some military-made Grad rockets, although they use them much more sparingly. These carry a 7kg payload around 21km. This means that it's not only Sderot which is affected – some 267,000 Israelis are in range of rocket attacks from Gaza.

7) There's a significant amount of anger with the Israeli government among the residents of Sderot. Here's what one had to say (in agitated tones): “I'm not sure the people want the Government to be more aggressive ... but the Government should take greater responsibility for the situation ... it is the responsibility of the Government to make sure everone is protected.

8) Hamas are tearing Gazan infrastructure apart to ensure the rockets keep falling on Israeli heads. Why are there no traffic lights in Gaza? Because the pipes which support them are being cut up and made into Qassams. Why is the Gazan drainage and sewage system so substandard? Same reason.

9) Since the rocket attacks began in 2000, 13 Israelis have been killed; 345 injured; and 1000s treated for shock.

10) According to the local police spokesman, , Hamas and their jihadist associates concentrate their attacks at 7am-10am, and 3pm-6pm. Why? That's when people are up-and-about, and children are going to/from school.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfield standing beside 500 used Qassam rockets.

11) The most astonishing discovery of the visit was the feeling of solidarity that the residents of Sderot have towards the majority of the Gazan population. There's a real sense that the two groups are in this together; that their suffering is shared. One resident told us: “We're hostages ... we're trapped in the same situation ... and we know that's true for the people in Gaza as well ... we cry when their babies die.” Why no anger? Because the Gazans are regarded as distinct from the Gazan leadership: “I believe the ones running Gaza [i.e. Hamas] are the ones who want to destroy Israel."

12) A Sderot resident: “It's important that the world knows there's a war going on, and it's going on on both sides.”

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Cameron is walking into an elephant trap on 42 days

2:54pm

Like Fraser, I thought that David Cameron went on the wrong topic today. But I think the bigger mistake the Tories might be making is in trying to turn 42 days into a trial of Brown’s political strength. Regardless of what one thinks about 42 days, and a good case can be made both ways, there is something deeply unappealing about people playing politics with the issue. Now, you can say that both sides are doing it but today Cameron looked like the main offender. The Tories also face the problem of what do they do if, as looks likely, they defeat Brown on this issue. The sight of them celebrating would be distinctly unseemly, it certainly was in 2005.

There is also the most hideous scenario of all to be contemplated: that another terrorist attack succeeds. If that were to happen, this whole debate would look very different. Suddenly, Brown’s approach would be far more appealing to the public. The electorate might also turn on those who had appeared unserious on this subject. I can’t imagine that this has escaped Brown’s attention.

The Tories should avoid walking into this trap. If they are to oppose the measure, they must do so in a high-minded way and eschew making political capital out of it. Pressing on the question of whether it will be a confidence measure is particularly foolish, as it highlights just how political the Tory approach is.

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In crisis, there'll be an opportunity for Brown

1:13pm

If Livingstone loses on Thursday and the Labour vote slumps elsewhere in the country, the headlines for Gordon Brown will be dire and he’ll be plunged further into the mire. But in this crisis there will be a brief window of opportunity for him. The press will be in full ‘government in crisis mode’ and getting so excited by the remote prospect of a leadership challenge that Brown will actually have the freedom to carry out a drastic reshuffle. It will be embarrassing and humiliating for Brown to sack or demote those who he chose less than a year ago, but Brown will already be embarrassed and humiliated so he might as well get all the bad news out at once.

The signs are that Brown will not have a clear out straight after the elections; Downing Street fears that this would signal that the Prime Minister has hit the panic button. But the arguments for a dramatic reshuffle are sound. At the moment, the Chancellor and the Home Secretary are either not up to the job or incapable of successfully communicating Labour’s message. (Maybe, the same can be said of Brown. But there is no realistic alternative for Labour but to carry on under him; a governing party can not have three leaders in the same Parliament and remain credible). Alistair Darling and Jacqui Smith will have to go if the government is to get anywhere close to firing on all cylinders and so Brown should remove them now rather than waiting and setting off another round ‘government in crisis’ headlines at a later date.

Brown should have his three best communicators into the three top jobs. Jack Straw is an effective media performer and would be a credible Chancellor. Alan Johnson would be a perfect fit as Home Secretary, putting a more human face on this government.  He’s also the only Labour figure who has a hope of steering 42 days through. David Miliband should stay at the Foreign Office but should be pushed forward more.

As for the rest of the cabinet, Liam Byrne is a natural fit for Justice and Constitutional Affairs. While Ed Miliband would give some intellectual dynamism to Labour’s health policy and show up just how dire the Tory trust the professionals’ approach is. 

Once he has reshuffled, Brown should do a string of interviews with the TV news anchors admitting that he’s tried to run the government as he had the Treasury and that it hasn’t worked. Confessing this is dangerous, but Brown needs to show the public that things are going to change and admitting error—something he is not exactly prone to do—would signal that.

The good news for the Tories is that Brown is probably too risk-averse, and perhaps too proud, to do this. There are, obviously, risks in this approach. But if things go badly on Thursday, Brown will need to take risks to recover.

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A better PMQs for Brown

12:57pm

In a not-very-hotly contested category, this was perhaps Gordon Brown’s best PMQs performance. His content wasn’t any more accurate, but sounding confident is half the battle. And he did. He didn’t stutter or garble his words and looked much more relaxed. As ever, there’s a bit of Dr Johnson’s dog about this - but Cameron chose the wrong issue and if he expected Brown to crumble he was mistaken.

A day ahead of the local elections, Cameron could and should have picked a doorstep issue. Instead he went on the case for 42 day detention without trial. Brown seemed quite optimistic about it. When he was defending it, I fancied I caught a glimpse of the Blair strategy – when under fire, run into the fire. Given that everyone thinks this vote is already lost, it is – dare I say – rather brave to go on about it so much. Either that or he’s deluded.

Cameron repeatedly tried to ask Brown if 42 days would be a confidence issue (word is that Brown has decided just to lose the vote, like Blair did over 90 days). Brown understandably dodged the issue. Cameron had plenty of good points, made with ease. But for whatever reason (he was moaning only yesterday that he’d failed to get away from punch-and-judy politics) he let it descend into a rather lifeless exchange.

Brown tried a few insults – they work because they are so heartfelt, Cameron is a “shallow salesman” who “never addresses the substance of the issues” (you can almost hear him say the same about the electorate). When Nick Clegg did his usual unconvincing Angry Man impression – going on poverty and post offices – Brown responded by borrowing Chris Huhne’s Calamity Clegg jibe. I’m sure I heard the word “Cleggover” shouted somewhere, but could be wrong.

Oh – and yet another evolution in that monstrous whopper about Child Poverty. As I noted earlier, only 600,000 have been “lifted out of poverty” even by Labour’s weird definition and yet Brown claims a million have been. But today he said he is “on the road” to taking a million children out of poverty. In the same way, I suppose, that the Soviets were on the road to full communism and Venice is on the road to sinking. It’s so much better to travel hopefully. Or perhaps he means “we’re busy furiously fiddling the figures, which is why the DWP child poverty figures are delayed by so many weeks.”

Anyway, Brown will have a good lunch today, for perhaps the first time since PMQs started. Cameron could have had a few pre-election headlines out of this, or TV news footage of Brown looking dodgy. Instead, we have perhaps the first ever PMQs footage that will not be instantly deleted from the Browns’ Sky+.

PS Iain Dale (and about a dozen CoffeeHousers) suggests I’m being too kind on our Dear Leader. Iain gives Cameron 8, Brown 6 and Clegg 4. I’d disagree only in that I don’t think anyone did that well – I’d give Cameron 6.5, Brown 5 and Clegg 4. Any normal person can see any PMQs nowadays and think Cameron came out on top – unlike the Blair days where it was an even match. Cameron will always win: he can talk, he can ad lib, he can make jokes. Brown is happier behind a book. The problem reviewing this battle is that you have to judge each by their own standards – hence my point about Dr Johnson’s dog. Normally one watches Brown at PMQs and cringes: it’s so painful it hurts. All I’m saying is that today, in my view, was not one of those days.

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Today's Brownies

10:21am

Gordon Brown gives interviews like he is programming a computer. In his pre-election appearance on Today at 8.10am he fired off statistics, as if they spoke for themselves – sounding passionate, one might argue, and knowledgeable. But on several areas his information was misleading or simply false. Here’s what jumped out at me.

1). “We’re about to take a million children out of poverty”. A million children? The figure is 600,000 from the benchmark year of 1998/99, and that’s going by his narrow definition of children whose parents have incomes below 60% of the median. Choose a different threshold, say 40%, and it’s 400,000. Millions is spent trying to massage this figure upwards. Rounding up to a single digit is a far cheaper way of doing it.

2). “If young people are able to stay on at school to 18 which is the new legislation we’re bringing in and not 16 then that is a fundamental change to the education system”. Em, nope. Everyone is “able” to stay on to 18. Brown proposes forcing them to do so – risible, for a government that can’t even control truancy in primary school.

3). “We have the fuel price rises, now we’ve got the food price rises, now we’ve the uncertainty. All of that has come out of America”. Huh? The sub-prime started in the US – but petrol? Two thirds of the increase is tax, from the Treasury. Food prices have nothing to do with America. Much of the rise in imports is connected with the 12% collapse in sterling since August. As the Bank of England’s chief economist noted, this is the same fall as seen on Black Wednesday (h/t Guido).

4). “The agreement to build 3 million new homes” Now meaningless. The housing market has ceased up, new building has halted and Persimmon spelt out what this means last week: “In a market place where you can't sell property, there is little point in opening new outlets”. It is as if Brown has genuinely conflated his aims with reality.

5). The tax burden. John Humphrys challenged Brown over the UK tax burden rising above 40 percent. Brown reacted as if he’d said today was Monday. “That’s just not correct, John. The overall tax rate is not 40p it’s around 37 pence, em, per cent. And the highest rate of tax ever charged in this country is under a Conservative government where it went up to 38 percent and nearly to 39 percent. Your figure is absolutely wrong.” The Humphrys figure was absolutely right – according to the OECD Britain’s tax burden has been above 40 percent since 1998 and is 42.5 percent this year. Even Treasury figures say it’s 39 percent, not the 37 percent Brown claimed. But the device he uses here is a complex one, worth explaining in a separate Brownie which I will post later on.

Thing is, only a small number of people sit there and think “that’s a porkie”. I suspect most people hear a barrage of statistics and get the impression of a Prime Minister so in love with his targets, plans and figures that he has lost sight of the real world. One of the Tories’ main election hopes is that Brown will be forced during the campaign to confront his worst enemy – the microphone. Today’s interview will do much to reinforce this theory.

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What counts as a good result?

8:58am

Over at the Red Box, Sam Coates has a very handy guide to what the parties are claiming would constitute success for them in Thursday's elections.

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Listen Live: Has America lost its moral authority?

6:24pm

Few questions have divided opinion as much as this one in recent years, Tonight, Spectator.co.uk broadcasts a debate on this topic featuring an all star set of speakers. Arguing for the motion are Matthew Parris, Will Self and John Gray. Opposing it are Simon Schama, Howard Jacobson and Martin Amis. You can listen to it live from 6.45pm, by clicking here.

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Brown plans a by-election bounce

4:56pm

Labour’s losing no time on the Crewe and Nantwich by-election – due three weeks on Thursday (May 22). I suspect they believe this will be a much-needed fillip to Brown. Sure, Gwyneth Dunwoody had a 7,000 majority – but it’s the type of seat Cameron needs if he is to win the kind of majority projected by the ICM/News of the World poll at the weekend. Therefore if Labour retains it, Brown can genuinely claim it is an achievement of sorts. Also you can bet the LibDems will turn up in their caravans, and gobble an unfair share of the anti-Brown vote. So a very small chance of a Tory victory, I’d say.

Update: Iain Dale points out that the election is being arranged before her funeral has taken place and that Fraser Kemp has refused to run the campaign.

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Mervyn King reveals truth behind Treasury spin

3:30pm

Remember when Alistair Darling “announced” the £50 billion loan package to banks? That time he summoned banks to a meeting saying he wanted better fixed-rate deals and mortgage holidays “in return” for this scheme? He was talking through his hat. He has this morning been rumbled by Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, who gave it straight to the Treasury Select Committee. This so-called Special Liquidity Scheme (SLS) is “a central bank scheme,” King said. The BoE, not any minister, proposed it. There are no conditions, no strings attached, no requirements for banks to ‘pass on’ Bank of England base rate. It is a facility there to provide relatively expensive emergency loans to any bank that needs it. Treasury approval was only required for technical reasons – ie issuing special Treasury bills. (Darling, remember, told MPs the SLS had been “developed following extensive discussions with the Treasury”–it was spun as our decisive government in action).

King added that the scheme does not aim to “kickstart the mortgage market” as had also been spun. In fact, he said it was a good thing that mortgage market is becoming tighter. “That is not a process we can, or should try to, stop" Not quite the message we had from Nos 10 & 11 Downing Street. And for good measure, King voiced “concern” about the grim inflation outlook facing Britain. And this morning the BoE said home mortgage approvals collapsed to 64,000 last month – only slightly above the all-time low of 62,600 in November 1992.

Attaboy. Since that intriguing Irwin Stelzer splash in The Sunday Times recently, King has struck me as someone unwilling to sit back and let himself be lied about for governmental convenience. The £50bn scheme is (as Michael Saunders of Citibank puts it) a “modern day financial lifeboat” that only becomes operational if banks are jumping in it. It’s not going to come help the 2.75m people (inc yours truly) coming off a fixed-rate mortgage this year. Mortgage misery is here to stay, and no amount of spin can make up for it.

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