Politics

Ed Miliband began the first 15 minutes of his NHS day talking about trust and the deficit. In a feisty interview on the Today programme, the Labour leader again did not apologise for borrowing too much when his party was in government. Instead, he argued it was a failure of banking regulation that lead to Britain’s financial problems: ‘Yesterday George Osborne’s permanent secretary at the Treasury Nicholas Macpherson published an article, in which he said that 2008 was a banking crisis pure and simple. And he reflected my judgment which is what happened in the country is that we had a dramatic crisis in banks which lead to high deficit.’ When he was

Labour MPs who spoke at Satruday’s sex-segregated rally in Birmingham don’t seem too keen on explaining themselves to The Spectator.  Siôn Simon, now a Labour MEP for the West Midlands, proudly tweeted a picture of a Labour rally in Hodge Hill, in which seven Labour representatives spoke at a packed Islamic community centre. Only problem? The picture clearly shows that men and women were seated separately in the audience, during what was supposed to be an event to encourage political engagement. And rather than defend this practice, none of the Labour candidates have been willing to comment on the subject. Jack Dromey, Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government, and husband of

The Tories were less than pleased last week when Danny Alexander revealed confidential communications between the coalition partners regarding child benefit to a paper, as part of an election campaign ambush. The disclosure brought back up old tensions in the coalition, with Michael Gove claiming that it simply served as a reminder of the party’s true colours. ‘I don’t think it took the leak from Danny Alexander to make us aware of what the Liberal Democrats are really like,’ he told Mr S. Still, with no majority in sight for the Tories ahead of polling day, the party are in a forgiving mood with regards to working with the party in the future . ‘We are prepared, always,

So, here we are. In 100 hours time, we’ll be half-way through election-day. But at the moment, the polls still remain deadlocked. Yet, there remains a sense that there’ll be some kind of late shift towards the Tories. Is there any grounds for this? Well, I argue in the Mail on Sunday that there are a few things that point towards this. David Cameron has finally hit his stride. His performances have improved markedly and the public appear to have concluded that he clearly won last Thursday’s Question Time, YouGov have the public giving it to him 42% to Miliband’s 26%. As Tim Shipman points out, Cameron’s lead as preferred

Ed Miliband has woken up to ridicule this morning after the Guardian unveiled his latest election accessory. No longer content with his trusty lectern, the Labour leader has bizarrely commissioned an 8ft 6in stone inscription which bears Labour’s key election promises.   Miliband plans to install this in the Downing Street Rose Garden if he succeeds in getting in to Number 10. Given that the Tories’ pledge to protect their tax cuts promise with a law was seen as a ‘last minute gimmick’, Labour have managed to take the phrase to new heights. In fact, Mr S thinks it all sounds a bit like a plot line from the BBC’s The Thick

Ukip has four key target seats in Essex and Kent it hopes to win on Thursday. In order of likelihood of victory, Clacton, Rochester & Strood, South Thanet and Thurrock are the constituencies to watch on election night. I visited three of these seats yesterday, to find out how each of the candidates are feeling about the impending election, as well as their predictions of how well Ukip will do. 1. South Thanet Ukip candidate: Nigel Farage Last Ashcroft poll: Ukip two points behind Tories WATCH: Highlights from @Nigel_Farage’s final public meeting of the campaign in South Thanet #ge2015 #ukip https://t.co/sIRqo4PtKg — Sebastian Payne (@SebastianEPayne) May 2, 2015 Nigel Farage held his