Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Thursday

The Spectator

The other union

The election campaign is becoming increasingly dominated by a small party whose raison d’être is to preach independence from membership of a union it claims is hindering national ambition. But the party is not Ukip, which had been expected to play a big role in this election. It is the Scottish National Party, which seems ever more likely to hold the balance of power after 7 May and is determined to use it ruthlessly to its own advantage and to the furtherance of its sole objective: the dissolution of the United Kingdom. Nicola Sturgeon has been the only party leader talking about the virtues of national self-government, and she has

Sebastian Payne

Tories ahead by 4pts in two new polls — and Farage is on course to win South Thanet

The opinion polls almost veered towards a trend today. ComRes/Daily Mail report in their latest poll that the Conservatives are four points ahead on 36 per cent, while Labour is on 32 per cent. Survation/Daily Mirror also put the Tories four points ahead on 33 per cent and Labour on 29 per cent. Alternatively, the latest YouGov/Sun poll has Labour two points ahead on 35 per cent and Tories on 33 per cent. With two weeks to go till polling day, it’s still very tight and no one has a notable lead. While the Conservative lead in the ComRes and Survation polls edges outside of the margin of error, the movements in these polls are still within three

Douglas Murray

The fall of Lutfur Rahman shows the power of brave campaigning journalism

So farewell then Lutfur Rahman. On Thursday the Islamist-aligned Mayor of Tower Hamlets was found guilty of electoral fraud. The poll in which he was ‘elected’ has been declared void and he has now been barred from office. There is much to be said about this and the implications for British democracy as a whole of what went on in Tower Hamlets. But this is also a time when certain people should be given a huge amount of credit. The lawyers and the four local residents who brought the case obviously deserve admiration for their tenacity and their principled stand against corruption in public life. But it is also worth

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Tristram Hunt: Education Secretaries can send their kids private

In the Daily Politics education debate just now on the BBC, Tristram Hunt declared that it was acceptable for an Education Secretary to send their own child to private school. Under questioning from Andrew Neil, Hunt said that it was fine in ‘certain circumstances.’ The other members of the panel—including Nicky Morgan and David Laws—then agreed with Hunt’s statement. Is it acceptable for an education secretary to send their child to a private school @afneil asks his #bbcdp panel? https://t.co/A5VI9mnHlz — DailySunday Politics (@daily_politics) April 23, 2015 Hunt’s remarks are politically brave. Those on the hard left will take issue with his statement as they did with Ruth Kelly, who

Jennifer Williams

The Conservatives are strategising regional media out of the grid – and it won’t help their cause

This has, I think we can all agree, been the most stage-managed election ever. Nobody on a soap box, no punches thrown, no bigoted women. Just a seamless marathon of national messaging that starts with the Today programme and ends with Newsnight. It is the regional media, however, that feels the iron grip of the parties’ media machines the most. We work where voters actually live. So how we are treated during political visits can be revealing. And Labour, most regional reporters seem to agree, seem to have chilled out. Ed Miliband and other senior Labour figures are freely giving up their time. We do get asked what sort of

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Breaking: Politician spotted talking to a real voter

I’ve just witnessed an extraordinary moment on the campaign trail in Edinburgh. No, it’s not this, but a political party leader talking to a real voter. This is Ruth Davidson, Tory leader, talking to a random voter in Edinburgh. I know he was a random voter because I ran after him to check. You never know, after all. He wanted to ask Davidson some questions about migrants drowning in the Mediterranean. So he wandered up to her and asked them. And she answered. What’s more, the answer seemed natural, he said. Well, this is strange. Strange, at least, for this campaign. The reason the Tories in Scotland are doing these

John O'Neill

Four things you need to know about the IFS’ manifesto analysis

Nobody’s perfect, are they? The IFS found something to criticise today for all the parties — the Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems and SNP — whose tax and spending plans it has examined. The main charges are of leaving questions about spending and borrowing unanswered: The Conservatives ‘have not been completely explicit about exactly what level of borrowing they would want to achieve’ and nor have the SNP, Labour has ‘provided disappointingly little information on what they would borrow’. There’s a gold star for the back of the Lib Dems’ exercise book: they have been ‘more transparent’ about their fiscal plans than other parties, but they get a rap on the knuckles too for saying that ‘largely unspecified’ anti-tax

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Jim Murphy rallies Labour activists in Edinburgh

Jim Murphy held a street rally in Edinburgh today. Given many of the election events from the main parties have been behind closed doors, the Scottish Labour leader deserves credit for pitching up right outside the Scottish National Gallery and standing for about an hour in a space where real genuine members of the public were walking.  He was, of course, protected by a rubber ring of activists wearing T-shirts with key Scottish Labour pledges on it, such as ending exploitative zero hours contracts and lowering tuition fees. They had placards with #toriesout splashed across them. And given the rally was secret and only advertised to the media before it

Steerpike Steerpike

Confirmed: Ukip would let St George into the country

It’s St George’s Day so to celebrate Ukip held a press conference where they gifted red and white jester hats adorned with St George’s flags to journalists. Talk soon turned to the real crux of the matter: as a foreigner of alleged Turkish descent, would Ukip have allowed St George entry into the country? Patrick O’Flynn was on hand to answer the pressing immigration query: ‘If Ukip were in power in the third century then yes I suppose St George would be allowed in the country. He is a skilled migrant, he could slay dragons.’ A Ukip party spokesman has since gone one step further and suggested that St George

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The polls could decide the fate of the Lib Dems

A Lib Dem West Country MP told me at the start of the year that he thought his party would keep his seat if the Tories were broadly ahead in the national polls on polling day but lose it if they were level or behind. His thinking was that if it looked like Cameron was going to continue as Prime Minister his constituents would both feel it was safe to vote for a local champion and would want some protection against the Tories cutting public services too far. But if the Tories were behind, he feared that these swing voters would feel that they had to vote Tory to try

Steerpike Steerpike

Image from Islington: Lib Dems troll Emily Thornberry

It’s St George’s Day today, and presumably Labour’s Emily Thornberry is out looking for ‘amazing’ houses draped in English flags. To help her out (in a way), her Lib Dem rival in Islington Terry Stacy has decided to put this about as his election address: Mr Steerpike is very keen for any other election candidates showing off quite how comfortable they are with flags.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Boris is being careful with his dinner invitations

One of the main risks of wheeling Boris out this week was that he was never just going to be asked about this election in interviews. The Mayor and candidate for Uxbridge ended up saying ‘in the dim and distant future, it would be a wonderful thing to be thought to be in a position to be considered for such an honour’ when asked about becoming Tory leader. He knows as well as anyone else that the way this campaign is going, that this ‘wonderful thing’ might get underway within a month, or indeed in the more distant future. His allies in Parliament have been very careful to refrain from

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why identikit lines on the SNP are important for the Tories

This morning when George Osborne defended the way the Tories were fighting the election campaign, there was something slightly odd about what he said in response to John Humphrys’ first question: ‘We’re two weeks to go to this election and it’s coming down to a very clear choice on the economy, and on 8 May we can either get straight back to work with a clear plan that is delivering for our country or we face this deeply unstable Miliband/SNP government committed to much more borrowing, and that leads to a dangerous cocktail which increasingly, international investors say will lead to higher mortgage rates, higher taxes and lost jobs, and

Sebastian Payne

Is Ukip painting itself as the SNP of the south?

Ukip kicked off St George’s Day by pledging to make today a national holiday. Although early morning press conferences have been abandoned by the other political parties, Ukip turned out the media bright and early to talk about patriotism and promised to make St George’s and St David’s Day national holidays. The party’s cultural spokesman Peter Whittle said they wanted to tackle the ‘cultural self-loathing’ Ukip believes has developed over Englishness. It was pointed out to Whittle that St George was an immigrant himself — from Turkey — but Ukip apparently wouldn’t have a problem with him entering Britain because he would be a ‘skilled migrant’, being able to slay

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

‘I have worked my socks off’

David Cameron is sitting underneath a sign that reads QUIET CARRIAGE, speaking loudly enough to be heard in the next carriage. He knows that even his closest allies are worried he may lose the election if he doesn’t show more passion, so he has been trying to compensate in recent days. He chops the air with his hands as he speaks, furrows his brow, and sounds a little more angry. He has no end of passion, he says. But he is the leader of the Conservative party — a tribe of people who, as he puts it, ‘don’t always wear their beliefs on their sleeve’. Why do so many people,

Bruce Anderson

The boy David

I can claim a milligram of credit for David Cameron’s first star billing. In early 1991, standing in for the late John Junor on the Mail on Sunday and seeking a weekly instance of some Labour frontbencher making an eejit of himself, I inquired who was the best sniper in the Conservative Research Department. The answer was David Cameron. I phoned him and, for the next three weeks, one sheet of paper arrived with brief quotes, all of them firecrackers. Week four: the boy David is on leave, so his boss, Andrew Lansley, the then director of CRD, stands in. I receive 20 sheets of very damp squibs. Around that

Jenny McCartney Jenny McCartney

The other kingmaker

Nigel Dodds, the Democratic Unionist Party leader at Westminster, is reflecting drolly on his party’s recent popularity: ‘I certainly think that the last year or two has been remarkable in the number of new friends we have encountered, people who are very keen to have a cup of tea or chat to you or whatever. I don’t put it all down to our natural charm.’ As pre-election talk of political pacts thickens — with both Conservatives and Labour angling for support — former House of Commons wallflowers have found their dance cards increasingly full. Which of the main parties might feel like a more natural ally? I ask. Dodds won’t

Wednesday

Sebastian Payne

Exclusive: Ukip slams ‘terrible’ ComRes poll of ten ‘target seats’

The Ukip fox may have entered the Westminster henhouse but how many more chickens will it kill? ComRes has released a new poll revealing that Ukip is trailing in third place in ‘ten Conservative-held seats which Ukip have targeted’. Across the polled seats, the Tories are on 39 per cent, Labour on 28 and Ukip trailing on 21. While the latter party’s vote share has increased by 15 per cent since 2010, ComRes’s findings suggests they will struggle to win thanks to the collapse in the Liberal Democrat vote. According to the poll, a quarter of Lib Dem voters in these seats say they will now back Labour and 21 per

Robert Smith

Chris Leslie makes ‘no apology’ for Labour’s focus on the current budget deficit

Senior Labour figures have looked uncomfortable during this campaign when speaking of their own party’s policy on balancing the books – the day-to-day spending books, that is. But this afternoon Chris Leslie gave an endorsement of the pledge that is as clear and enthusiastic as voters are likely to get. Challenged by Andrew Neil on today’s Daily Politics debate on the economy, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury said he made ‘no apologies’ for his party’s focus on clearing the current budget deficit, rather than the overall deficit. Leslie said: ‘The distinction is this…having a balance on the current budget is not the limit of our ambitions. We believe

Steerpike Steerpike

Exclusive: UKIP donor already organising South Thanet victory party

Nigel Farage has fought off accusations that he’s an invisible candidate in South Thanet, claiming to have held more public meetings than all of the other candidates put together. But are Ukip getting ahead of themselves in the ultra-tight race on the Kent coast? Mr S hears that invitations are already circulating for an election night party in the constituency, hosted by fun-loving donor Arron Banks. Organising the victory party two weeks out from polling day looks complacent at best. Sources familiar with party planning have revealed to Mr S that the multi-millionaire tycoon has invited people to join him in the constituency on election night and drinks will certainly