Politics

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

Thursday

30 Apr 2015

Ed Miliband’s refusal to admit that Labour overspent could cost him dear

Tonight’s Question Time special with Cameron, Miliband and Clegg provided the best television of this campaign so far. A well-informed audience relentlessly pressed the three leaders on their weakest points. At the end of the evening, an ICM poll for the Guardian gave the evening to Cameron by 44 per cent to Miliband’s 38 per cent with Clegg garnering 19 per cent support. Miliband’s didn’t have a great night and his most awkward moment came on the record of the last Labour government. The audience were audibly irritated by his repeated refusal to concede that the last Labour government had spent too much money. Under questioning from the audience, Miliband

The Spectator

As it happened: Question Time leaders special

Welcome to the Spectator’s live coverage of the special edition of Question Time with David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg. We’ll be providing live analysis of the final TV programme with each of the party leaders from 8pm. This page will automatically reload.

Ed West

The cultural significance of Ed Miliband’s mockney accent

I’m mildly posh – nowhere near David Cameron posh, for example, let alone the Olympian heights of Brian Sewell, but I’m unlikely to ever play a football hooligan or an East End gangster in a Guy Ritchie film. And I’m better spoken than I was as a teenager, when I used to affect a slight Mockney accent with a mild Jafaican inflection, as is the case with most Londoners born after about 1976. Not as bad as some of my contemporaries, but enough to sound like a bit of a berk. One day, as our gang was walking down that notoriously deprived inner city street, Holland Park Avenue, I heard an

Mark Gettleson

The Lib Dems struggle to replace old political blood with new

The Liberal Democrat resilience in countless marginal seats has confounded many commentators. While perhaps winning half the number of votes as Ukip nationwide, it is far from inconceivable that they will win five to ten times the number of seats. Take Sutton & Cheam, for instance, where despite having a majority of just 1,608 votes, Paul Berstow seems all but certain to retain his seat. This has, quite correctly, been attributed to the personal following of Lib Dem incumbents – and their ability to build an often robust local campaigning machine around their cult of personality. People of all sides of the political spectrum flock to banners, irrespective of their underlying party

Isabel Hardman

A (partial) defence of the spin room

Tonight’s ‘Question Time’-style TV debates will be followed by what has become probably the most hated aspect of this rather uninspiring general election campaign: the spin room. This spectacle of journalists interviewing journalists as they listen to frontbenchers from all the parties parroting lines about how their leader was the best (or, in the Tory case, how well Nicola Sturgeon has been doing) is odd enough inside the room, let alone for those watching at home. The way the politicians spinning talk is even less natural than usual: it’s like a Westminster version of Made In Chelsea, stuffed with people acting at being actors. And yet there is a reason

James Forsyth

Cameron needs to keep the momentum going in tonight’s Question Time

Tonight’s Question Time is, probably, the most important TV event of the campaign. The fact that it is on BBC1 in prime time means that it is likely to attract a bigger audience than the previous debates. That it is on the BBC also means that any newsworthy moments will be pumped out across the BBC’s entire network from local radio to the world wide web. But what really makes tonight so important is how many undecided voters there still are. Today’s Mail poll has 40% of those going to vote saying that they are either undecided or might yet change their mind. The parties seem to agree that around

Sean Kemp

Westminster’s obsession with US politics is both embarrassing and foolish

Can you sense it? That thrill in the air? The feeling that suddenly the Labour campaign is just somehow more exciting? Yes, that’s right, David Axelrod is back in the country. Try to control yourselves. The Guardian recently revealed that 26 April was the date that The Axe was landing back in the UK. And not a moment too soon, as some in the Labour party have started to question what Obama’s former adviser has been doing for his reported £300,000 apart from the odd conference call. The idea that the election was a fight between the American and Lynton Crosby – who, whatever you think about him, clearly eats, breathes and

Steerpike

Camilla Long’s Have I Got News For You appearance causes problems for Ukip

After Camilla Long claimed on last Friday’s Have I Got News for You that she had spent more time in South Thanet than Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader failed to see the funny side. In fact such offence was taken by party members that one of his team took the unusual step of calling in Kent Police. The police have since rejected the complaint and word now reaches Steerpike that fractions are forming in the party over whether it was wise to report the incident in the first place. ‘We didn’t report her,’ insists a source close to the leader. Instead they say that they merely ‘reported the incident, which is

Fraser Nelson

The Spectator’s election briefing, tomorrow night: join us!

Our last five Spectator debates have sold out, so tomorrow night we’re holding a subscriber-only election briefing. James Forsyth and I will go through the campaign as it looks so far, discuss the latest polling (and how to interpret it), what the campaign chiefs are thinking – and then talk about what lies ahead. Normally, the events are about £40, and even then they sell out. But this one will be at a special subscriber rate of £12, thanks to the generous sponsorship of the gorgeous Corinthia Hotel, where it will be held. It’s just next to Charing Cross tube, and a five minute walk from Westminster. A caveat: James and I are not promising good news (unless you’re a Scottish

Steerpike

Question Time: Will Ed Miliband take his lectern with him?

With Ed Miliband’s expensive election guru David Axelrod rarely spied at the Labour leader’s side, Miliband has found a new pillar of strength to get him through the campaign. Rarely a day goes by without Miliband being pictured next to a lectern: Apparently his party believes that the lectern helps voters imagine him as Prime Minister. So you can imagine Steerpike’s concern upon seeing a photo of the set for tonight’s Question Time Election Leaders special. The picture, snapped by BBC political correspondent Ross Hawkins, shows only one lectern: Since David Dimbleby will most likely have dibs on it, this begs the question: how will Miliband cope without his comfort lectern? Perhaps the venue has a BYOL* policy? Mr S has contacted a Labour spokesman to check whether Miliband will

Isabel Hardman

Douglas Carswell interview: Stop using my father to make cheap political points

Douglas Carswell seems rather excited about the Spectator following him around as he campaigns in Clacton, but it’s not clear whether that’s just because our interview starts in McDonald’s. Tucking into a quarter pounder with cheese, the Ukip candidate seems on good form, expounding at length on the failure of mainstream politicians to connect with the electorate, and enthusing about his vision for the party in the future. But a little later, as we plod around the streets of the constituency, his mood changes. He’s getting a lot of messages and calls about a BBC foreign affairs debate that he has pulled out of at the last minute. With each

Fraser Nelson

One-nation Boris

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/theelectionwhereeverybodyloses/media.mp3″ title=”Tim Montgomerie and Ryan Bourne discuss Boris’ vision for conservatism” startat=758] Listen [/audioplayer]Boris Johnson strides into the Uxbridge Conservative Club, asks after the barmaid’s health and sits down beneath a portrait of Margaret Thatcher. Churchill and Harold Macmillan are on the other walls. The room comes from the days when the Conservatives were not just a political party but a huge social network: a natural party of government. Times have changed, however. The Conservatives’ membership has dwindled and the party is in a desperate fight to hold on to power. But Johnson is full of optimism. He assures everyone that this election is going to have a happy

Melissa Kite

Miliband country

Imagine rural England five years into a Labour government led by Ed Miliband, and propped up by the SNP and perhaps also the Greens. If you can’t imagine, let me paint the picture for you using policies from their election manifestos and only a small amount of artistic licence. The biggest house-building programme in history is well under way, with a million new houses mainly being built in rural areas. Several ‘garden cities’ have sprung up in Surrey, Sussex and Kent, though in truth the gardens are the size of postage stamps. No matter, because having a big garden is a liability since right to roam was extended so that

Rod Liddle

Warning: this column may soon be illegal

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/theelectionwhereeverybodyloses/media.mp3″ title=”Listen to Douglas Murray discuss Islamophobia” startat=1350] Listen [/audioplayer]A couple of weeks back I wrote an article headed: ‘Call me insane, but I’m voting Labour.’ Among the many hundreds of people who reacted with the rather predictable ‘Yes, you’re insane’ was my wife, Mrs Liddle. She pointed out that Ed Miliband had vowed that upon being elected, Labour would make Islamophobia a crime. ‘So,’ she concluded, with a certain acidity, ‘not only will we be substantially worse off under a Labour government, but at nine o’clock on the morning of 8 May the police will arrive to take you away. You are voting for a party which will

The Spectator

Vote Tory | 30 April 2015

Andrew Roberts Biographer The Cameron ministry of 2010-15 will go down in history as having made Britain as the most successful economy in the developed world, despite it having inherited a near-bankrupt nation from a Labour party that spent money like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Ordinarily that should be enough to have it returned to power with a huge majority, but we live in gnarled, chippy, egalitarian times. The Prime Minister has overseen a hugely successful Olympics; saved thousands from almost certain death in Benghazi; won referendums on the alternative vote and (for the present at least) Scottish independence; protected 400 free schools and the great Gove education

Matthew Parris

The British public is about to make a big mistake

On the weekend of 25 April 2015 I started to believe that the party I supported might not win an impending general election. I’m used to that. But I started to believe, too, that my fellow citizens might be about to make a stupid and unfathomable mistake. I’m not used to that at all. It has come as an awful shock. For the first time in my life I have understood how it must have felt to be a convinced socialist in Britain these past 36 years since 1979: to live in and love a country whose people had got it completely wrong. ‘Well, diddums,’ I can hear left-wing friends

Wednesday

29 Apr 2015

Fraser Nelson

Economic confidence comes flooding back, just in time for the election

If there is any link between economic optimism and politics than David Cameron should easily win the general election next week. Today’s figures show consumer confidence around 30-year highs. The number who think now’s a good time to by a house (above) is surging. Not since 1987 have we had so many saying that the UK’s general economic situation has improved over the last 12 months. As Michael Saunders of Citi puts it (pdf):- With strong job growth (especially full-time employment), record level of vacancies and rising real wages, the “feel-good” factor is clearly back. It’s odd to think that, even with all of this going on, the election still hangs

Steerpike

Nigel Lawson criticises the Tories’ election campaign

Given that Nigel Lawson served as chancellor of the exchequer in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet, Mr S suspects that the Conservatives will have hoped that they could rely on Lawson for a vote of confidence as polling day approaches. Alas, Lawson says that he has been disappointed by the manner in which the Conservatives have conducted their election campaign. Writing in the latest issue of The Spectator, Lawson says that on a recent trip to New York, Americans voiced surprise that the Tories were yet to achieve a significant lead in the polls given the strong state of the British economy: ‘During my round of New York engagements, there was, inevitably, a fair amount of US interest

Steerpike

Alastair Campbell finds old habits die hard

Post Blair’s government, Alastair Campbell has billed himself as a pious, ethical commentator on the state of the media and politics. If there’s one thing he can’t stand, it’s the negative campaigning from the Tories, and especially from his old foe Lynton Crosby: ‘Meanwhile lest anyone dare to say the Tories are only fighting a negative campaign against Labour, perish the thought… I have seen some dire campaigns in my time. Crosby’s Michael Howard 2005 vintage springs to mind. But this one is taking all the awards for the direst. They are not so much making it up as they go along as going along not sure what they just made

Sebastian Payne

Nigel Farage and Nick Clegg still locked in tight battles to win their seats

Will there be a Portillo moment on election night with any of the party leaders? Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage are two most likely leaders to lose and Lord Ashcroft has polled Sheffield Hallam and South Thanet to find out how safe the Lib Dem and Ukip leaders are. As the chart above shows, Farage and Clegg are still in very tight races. In Sheffield Hallam, Labour is now just one point ahead of the Lib Dems — compared to a three point lead in November last year. In South Thanet, Ashcroft puts Ukip two points behind the Tories, compared to a one point lead in November 2014. Although the