Will we learn anything from any of the parties in this election campaign? And will the polls tell us anything either? Yesterday Labour was excited that it had a four-point lead over the Tories in a YouGov poll. Today the Tories are excited that they’re four points ahead in a ComRes poll. The polls are certainly moving, but only like a pendulum, swinging back and forth, at present. Meanwhile Labour’s frontbenchers are struggling to explain how they’d cut the deficit, the Tories don’t want to explain how they’d cut £12bn from welfare, and the Lib Dems are still explaining why they do/don’t want a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, depending on which way you look at it. It all sounds rather repetitive.
David Cameron has started the first official day of campaigning by warning of a £3,000 Labour tax bombshell. The Tories want to make this campaign as much about voters’ doubts about Ed Miliband’s economic competence as they do about the Conservative Party’s own strengths.
Labour is unlikely to spend a great deal of the campaign talking about its chosen topic for day one, though. Today Ed Miliband, Ed Balls, Chuka Umunna, Rachel Reeves, Douglas Alexander and Caroline Flint are warning of the dangers of an EU referendum in an attempt to appeal to businesses. Labour has taken out a full-page advertisement in the Financial Times to promote its business message, and is launching a ‘business manifesto’ in London today. The party does need to counter attacks that it is anti-business, and in doing so is highlighting what the Tories see as a weakness – no EU referendum – as a sign of strength. But this will not be the centrepiece of its campaign: the NHS will be.
In a sense neither party needs to use today as the launch of its key message, as both have already been talking about their central campaign issues since January.
The surprises over the next few weeks will probably be surprises for the parties themselves – campaign thrills and spills – rather than exciting shock announcements. And the intrigue in Westminster is as much about who would work with who as it is about what they would do.
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