Politics

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

Saturday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nicky Morgan’s market place fight to hold her marginal seat

Nicky Morgan’s record as Education Secretary is coming under fierce attack in the Loughborough market place where she’s campaigning. A furious man is telling activists that he will never vote for the Tory candidate because of ‘what she’s done’. The campaigners brace themselves for a diatribe about Tory education policies. Instead, it turns out that his complaint is that ‘she’s kept all the kids in school for longer’. This has had a devastating effect, not on the kids themselves, but on the fish and chip shops in Yarmouth and Skegness, where this particular voter cannot now buy a delicious feast as he’d wish. ‘Rubbish!’ he bellows, as one Tory member

Steerpike Steerpike

Politicians deliver careful messages of congratulations for the royal baby

This morning the Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a baby girl. The girl, who is the Queen’s fifth great-grandchild, is the fourth in line to the throne. As members of the public began to celebrate, the political leaders were quick to put out their own carefully worded messages of congratulations. With the election less than a week away, each leader must work out how to toe the party line on the monarchy, while not coming across as cold-hearted or too politically-minded. First out of the starting blocks was Nick Clegg who managed to mention both his constituency and his better half Miriam in his messages: Just behind him was ardent royalist David Cameron who offered a simple message,

Steerpike Steerpike

Rupert Murdoch jets into London to see off Miliband

Ed Milband used his interview with Russell Brand as a chance to bash his arch-enemy Rupert Murdoch. The Labour leader claimed that the media mogul is ‘much less powerful than he used to be’. The disrespect is mutual: Murdoch has taken to Twitter to mock Miliband for queuing up to shake his hand at his annual summer party only days before he decided to play the Murdoch-slaying hard man. Well, Mr S sees that Miliband will soon have a chance to feel the full weight of Murdoch’s power as he has jetted into London ahead of next week’s election. While over here, Murdoch is expected to run a tight ship across all News

Friday

Sebastian Payne

Lord Ashcroft’s final marginal polling shows how tight the election remains

Lord Ashcroft has released his final marginal polls before the election, looking at ten marginal seats in England and Scotland. The Tories are set to hold onto four key marginals: Battersea, Croydon Central, Pudsey and Stourbridge. In Croydon Central, Ashcroft has found significant movement towards the Tories: last October, there was a six point Labour lead, which shrunk to a four point lead in March and has now turned into a four point Conservative lead. This movement is thanks to a decline in the Ukip vote share, which has dropped nine points since October. There’s also good news for the employment minister Esther McVey in Wirral West. The Tories are very keen

Sebastian Payne

Election podcast special: six days to go

In today’s election podcast special, Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth, Isabel Hardman and I discuss the most significant moments during the campaign this week. Did Ed Miliband’s interview with Russell Brand make any impact? Which moments of the Question Time special will be remembered? And what might happen one week today if the Conservatives are unable to form a government? You can subscribe to the View from 22 through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer or iPhone every week, or you can use the player below:

Steerpike Steerpike

Noel Gallagher: Ed Miliband is a f–king communist

Tony Blair once counted Noel Gallagher as one of New Labour’s key celebrity backers. However, under Ed Miliband’s leadership, Labour can rely on no such support from the musician. In an interview on Alan Carr’s Chatty Man, which airs tonight, the former Oasis member said he was unable to endorse any politician out of the current line-up: ‘I’m not sure I can get behind any of them at the minute. I dunno. The fact that Cameron didn’t turn up for the debate is a disgrace. I think that Miliband, if he gets in, is just going to fail us.’ And why would Miliband fail? ‘Because he is a f**king communist.’ Mr S suspects it’s

Steerpike Steerpike

Who are the precocious producers of Milibae: The Movie?

Oh dear. Ed Miliband did not have a good run on Question Time last night. After he was grilled by the audience over Labour’s history with debt, even the most die-hard Milifan would have struggled to find any sex appeal in his trip as he hurried off the stage. However, Miliband fans are made of tough stuff and haven’t yet abandoned their leader in his hour of need. Instead, they have made an entire movie about him, which brings together highlights from the Milifan movement. Warning: contains disturbing images It’s unknown whether Milibae: The Movie will be rolled out for nationwide release. However, Mr S was most impressed by the video, which showed a rather precocious knowledge of politics. Perhaps the Milifans asked

Steerpike Steerpike

Michael Gove claims Tories will win more seats in Scotland than Labour

Michael Gove was out and about with fifty odd Tory activists dressed as Nicola Sturgeon in Westminster today, when he made an extraordinarily bold prediction about next week’s election results. The top Tory claimed that his party would end up with more seats in Scotland than the Labour Party. He also suggested that Sturgeon was more dangerous than Russell Brand, ‘because she votes’. While Miliband’s party might well be set for an absolute hammering north of the border next Thursday, they do currently have 41 Scottish seats whereas the Tories have a single constituency. Mr S later asked the Chief Whip to back up his claim. ‘It is a reality based prediction, yes,’ Gove

Sebastian Payne

The fruitcakes are back as Ukip declares ‘war with the BBC’

Ukip is becoming a two-faced party. One side is made up of credible political challengers, while the other side comprises LibLabCon conspiracy theorists. Since the last election, the party has made progress by promoting this serious side, while sidelining the fruitcakes. But over the last few days, the more loony side of the party has reappeared, thanks to the party making the BBC a campaign issue. While out campaigning in Aylesbury yesterday, Nigel Farage said he had no complaints about the other broadcasters — just the Beeb: ‘We have this bizarre state of affairs where we have BBC, an organisation which we are all charged £145 a year to have the benefit of seeing, aren’t

Steerpike Steerpike

David Cameron: election is a ‘career-defining’ moment

Given that David Cameron will not see out another election campaign if he sticks to his bizarre pledge not to run for a third term, Cameron is nearing the end of his prime ministerial career regardless of the outcome of this election. Still, Mr S suspects that he did not mean to call the election a ‘career-defining’ moment at a campaign event earlier today. A Freudian slip perhaps? He then added that it was also a ‘country-defining’ moment. Update: Mr S’s colleague Harry Cole has been speaking to Michael Gove, who has defended Cameron’s comments, saying he was talking about the careers of the three million people who he wants to give

Steerpike Steerpike

Russell Brand says vote (but not for Ed Miliband)

At a recent screening of his new capitalism documentary the Emperor’s New Clothes, Russell Brand, the revolutionary who refuses to vote, said he was too angry to say nice things about today’s politicians: ‘When I watch it [the Emperor’s New Clothes], I sort of think come on Russell people really want to hear you say something about the election like Caroline Lucas is lovely, or Natalie Bennett is lovely, or Tom Watson is lovely or Ed Miliband is really trying his hardest, but when I watch this I think “nooo! Justice!”’ However just a week later and the comedian has changed his tune. After Ed Miliband paid a late-night visit to his

Sebastian Payne

Campaign kick-off: six days to go

By this time next week, the election will all be over and it will be a question of seats, leaderships and coalitions. With six days of campaigning left, today will be dominated by the fallout from last night’s Question Time special. David Cameron put in a good turn, Ed Miliband did not and Nick Clegg appeared to sail on through without much impact. To help guide you through the melée of stories and spin, here is a summary of today’s main election stories. 1. Miliband’s not sorry The special edition of Question Time last night with the three main party leaders was the best television of the campaign. Cameron, Miliband

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 30 April 2015

An instinctive Tory faith Sir: For once Bruce Anderson does not exaggerate: David Cameron did indeed win golden opinions for his ‘high intellect and low cunning’ at the 1992 election (‘The boy David’, 25 April), putting him among the most brilliant products of the Conservative Research Department over its long history. He contributed magnificently to the widely praised briefing material that the department produced for Tory candidates, in particular its 350-page Campaign Guide (a publication now discontinued after appearing at elections for 120 years, despite Cameron’s own boast that this is the ‘most organised’ campaign in his career). But there was more. Thanks to Bruce and others, no one in

Nigel Lawson

Diary – 30 April 2015

I have escaped this rather depressing election campaign by retreating to my home in la France profonde — to be precise, in Armagnac, in the heart of Gascony. My only outing, from which I have just returned, was a brief visit to New York, travelling there and back in the giant Airbus 380. The purpose of the trip was to drum up US support for the thinktank I founded in 2009, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, and its campaigning arm, the Global Warming Policy Forum, in the company of our outstanding director, Benny Peiser. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, the GWPF has a global reach, and its international

The Spectator

The right choice

When election day dawns, it’s worth bearing in mind that two million more people will be going to work than when David Cameron came to power. On an average day in Britain, there are 1,500 fewer reported crimes than there were before Theresa May was made Home Secretary. Some 2.2 million pupils now attend independent schools within the state system — schools given freedom through Michael Gove’s reforms. There is nothing theoretical about the advantages of Conservatism: they can be seen in classrooms, workplaces and streets all over Britain. But all this progress could be brought to a halt within the next week. If Ed Miliband is elected, it will not be

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The truth about Labour and overspending

Ed Miliband’s worst moment in the Question Time debate came when he refused to accept that Labour had spent too much before the crash. The audience reacted with fury: how could he be trusted if he has yet to work out what he did wrong? This is toxic for him because his denial is completely genuine: he has convinced himself that the debt crisis is unconnected to what he got up to when serving in HM Treasury. listen to ‘Ed Miliband says Labour did not overspend in government’ on audioBoom

James Forsyth James Forsyth

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 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