Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
A neat election-time spot from the Guardian’s Haroon Siddique, who brings us the above photo of Brown’s speaking notes from the TV debate last night. Turns out – surprise, surprise – that the “two boys squabbling” line was prepared in advance. As were a few other clunkers that we thankfully didn’t hear. I mean: “You can phone a friend, you can ask the audience, you can go 50-50 with Nick.” Really?
Now we know: the official preliminary estimate says that GDP grew by 0.2 percent in the first quarter of the year. So the double dip looks to have been averted (for now) – but not by much. The figure is at the low end of economists’ estimates and lower than the growth experienced in the final quarter of 2009. Labour, of course, will spin this as further proof that we can’t risk the recovery by voting for those dastardly Tories. And the Tories will say that it shows just how damaging Gordon Brown has been for our economy. But I wonder whether voters will choose between the two messages, or
So, like last week: what’s changed? And, like last week, it’s probably too early to judge. The insta-polls may have Cameron and Clegg on level footing, but, really, we need to wait for voting intention polls before coming to any firm conclusions. As we saw the day after the first debate, they can work in quite surprising ways. My instinct, though, is that things will remain relatively steady. The Clegg surge of last week was, at root, a cry for change from the electorate – any change. So it will probably take more than a solid Cameron victory in one TV debate to have voters flooding back to the Tories.
The headlines will be “score draw”, but I’d say Cameron won – and comfortably. I write this as someone who could have happily have sunk a few pins into a voodoo doll of David Cameron earlier on this evening – for taking the Conservatives (and Britain) to this appalling point where he may yet lose the election. But he raised his game, substantially. At best, he spoke with passion and authenticity. This time, he looked like he was fighting for his political life, which (of course) he is. Things are looking up. Here’s my participant-by-participant verdict: Brown Brown was his normal automaton self. He does tend to mangle his words,
It seems that the general election of 2010 will turn on 90 minutes next Thursday. David Cameron was far better tonight than he was last week. This time he managed to bracket Brown and Clegg together and had the moment of the debate when he called Brown out on Labour’s leaflets claiming the Tories would scrap various things that pensioners currently get free. If there was a YouTube moment in the debate, it was that exchange when Brown said he didn’t authorise the leaflets making these claims. The Tory press team then delighted in pointing to a Labour party political broadcast where they had suggested the Tories would take away
Gordon just can’t help himself, can he? There can’t be a simple dividing line – oh no. It has to be one built on exaggerations, half-truths and plain lies. So it has always been with his brand of government, and for much of the time – think cuts vs investment – it has worked in his favour. But tonight, despite a surprisingly punchy performance from the PM, it seems to have backfired dreadfully. The Tories are going big on those misleading Labour leaflets – and rightly so. Brown denied that he authorised them. But the fact that a Labour party political broadcast made similar claims about the Tories and old-age
First things first: SKY lost. A debate that was supposed to be about foreign policy scarcely touched on many of the bigger, more interesting issues in the world. Nothing about China, Russia, Iran, Islam, Israel-Palestine, Africa, terrorism, etc etc. The ability of a British government to influence some of the issues arising in these parts of the world may be limited but it would be interesting, nevertheless, to hear what the leaders had to say about them. Instead there was europe, nuclear weapons and a brief detour into Afghanistan to allow the leaders to dust-off their favourite Afghan anecdotes (jogging! Mechanics!). Despite that serious limitation it was another surprisingly entertaining
Well, one thing was clear: Brown and Cameron have both been at the textbooks, staying behind for extra classes, and learning the lessons of last week. They came into this TV debate prepared. Not just for the very fact of Nick Clegg, but with strategies and soundbites to slow his advance. The result was a more passionate and confrontational show than I expected. Brown was the biggest surprise on the night. Sure, you have to apply the usual caveats and parameters: he is Gordon Brown, and being disingenuous and deluded is what he does. But, all that considered, he was uncharacteristically sprightly, I thought. His little prepared quips were half-way
The foreign policy portion of tonight’s debate offers Nick Clegg several opportunities to bracket Labour and the Tories together. Both of them supported the war in Iraq, both won’t take the military option off the table when it comes to Iran and both believe in the centrality of the alliance with the US to UK foreign policy. On this final point, it’ll be fascinating to see if Clegg launches a full-on assault on the view that the America alliance is the cornerstone of UK foreign policy. He sketched out the arguments against thinking about the special relationship in a speech the other day and there’s no doubt he could
Well, yes, it probably will have some effect. But as Jonathan Freedland argues Clegg may survive the press’s assault with his dignity and credibility more or less intact. Indeed, the entire episode might have the effect of firming up some support for Clegg. There willl be some voters who see it as proof that the Liberals must be doing something right and others who feel that it will be worth endorsing Clegg just to spite everyone else. It occurs to me that the Liberal Democrat surge is not quite unprecedented. That is, it can reasonably be compared, in some respects at least, to the SNP’s campaign during the Scottish parliamentary
This poll is going to be rapidly overtaken by events, but tonight’s YouGov tracker has the Tories up one to 34, Labour up two to 29 and the Lib Dems down three to 28. We’ll have at least two instant post-debate polls tonight so we’ll have a good idea of who, if anyone, is going to get a boost from tonight’s poll before we go to bed. But this debate is expected to have a far smaller audience than last week’s so might not have quite the same impact. Although, I hear the Sky questions will aim to put the party leaders’ on the spot more than those last week
If seven days ago, anyone had suggested that the first debate would propel Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems to the top of the polls we’d all have thought that their lunch had gone on rather too long. But that’s what happened. Tonight, the questions are whether Gordon Brown reprises his ‘I agree with Nick’ routine or tries to check Clegg’s momentum and whether Cameron can turn in the kind of performance that begins to turn things round for him. Cameron shouldn’t be angry tonight. But he does need to bracket Brown and Clegg together at every opportunity. When three people are debating, the person who does the best
One thing’s for certain: the Lib Dems are coming in for greater scrutiny and attention from the media. The covers of the Telegraph, Sun, Mail, Express and, yes, The Spectator are testament to that – even if some are less substantial than others. But the question is: will this derail the Clegg bandwagon? And, like Iain Dale, I’m not so sure. Iain’s point is that some of the coverage is so spiteful that it will “serve to increase his popularity and position in the polls”. He adds that this would be a “sure sign that the power of the press to influence an election is on the wane”. He’s right,
Now the Lib Dems are riding high in the polls, they attract greater scrutiny – which, to put it mildly, they do not always stand up to. In this week’s Spectator, we look at what can be seen as the Lib Dem vice. They may not charge for duck houses, or mortgages. But they do specialise in taking money intended for MPs expenses, and finding “innovative” ways of putting it into their war chest. Here is a hard example that may interest CoffeeHousers and it stars Paul Rowen, whom Mr Clegg visited last week – and declared “has done a great job”. He certainly has: for filling the Lib Dem
Europe is likely to play a big role in tonight’s debate. It is probably the one issue that divides the Liberal Democrats and the Tories as much as electoral reform. Nick Clegg, a former MEP and adviser to then-EU Commissioner Leon Brittan, is a euro-enthusiast who would like Britain to join the Euro, even if it takes time. David Cameron is a euro-skeptic (though not, to the chagrin of many CoffeHouse readers, obsessed about the issue). But neither wants a confrontation with the EU and other European governments over the next four years – and the Liberal Democrats have become quieter over time about their pro-EU tendencies. Their support
Terrific stuff from Nick Clegg, reported in the Daily Mail here. Nick suggests Britain has a misplaced sense of superiority as a consequence of winning the second world war, should recognize that Germany has become a “vastly” more prosperous country and that we have a “greater cross to bear” than the Germans for the events of 1939-45. This is interesting because it is precisely the views of almost all foreigners, except for maybe the Norwegians. Nick seemed to have formed these notions while serving as an MEP, open to the influence of those Europeans around him and to whom he was inclined to suck up, and maybe also the input
I’d expected the papers to be full of Nick Clegg’s offer of an ‘In/Out’ EU referendum, should the EU draw up a treaty that would further alter the British constitution. He made the pledge on radio yesterday; he insisted that he would campaign to remain in the EU, but the people should decide. The papers are silent as yet, but I expect Clegg to have another crack this evening. For all his wide-eyed innocence, Clegg’s a cunning knave. Scenting dissent if not panic among conservatives, Clegg offers eurosceptics 30 pieces of silver. His promise is utterly disingenuous: Clegg’s record on the Lisbon Treaty proves he cannot be trusted, and the
Ah, the majesty of the British press! The Telegraph splashes on the fact that various Lib Dem donors funded a researcher and that these funds were paid into his own bank account. A curious, perhaps even sloppy, arangement that may do Clegg some damage but that does not seem to be especially venal not least beacuse the contributions were declared to the fees office and the Electoral Commission. “Stuff and nonsense” declared Paxman on Newsnight and I doubt the story, while not good for Clegg, has anything more than dwarf legs. Then the Mail splashes on Nick Clegg in Nazi slur on Britain as he claims ‘our delusions of grandeur’
Or rather, different polling. Each night it’s the same: we await the latest polls to see if any air has leaked from the Clegg bubble or Cameron has regained the Big Mo or Gordon come alive and then we plug the numbers into Electoral Calculus or UK Polling Report or the BBC and see What It All Means in terms of how the numbers become seats at Westminster. I wonder if most of it means very little. This goes beyond, but includes, the caveats we always apply about uniform national swings being a crude measurement and all the rest of it. Consider Scotland – a useful study and not just
George Osborne put in a fiery and impressive performance in the Chancellor’s debate today, firing off some memorable one-liners as well as unveiling a letter from the former head of the anti-avoidance group at the Treasury questioning the sums on which the Lib Dems’ tax plans depend. Indeed, since the Lib Dems surged, Osborne has found another level to his public performances. Today’s debate win followed a good spot by Osborne on the Politics Show on Sunday. One striking thing about the debate was how it was Darling who signaled the assault on Cable when he started querying Vince’s numbers. It’ll be fascinating to see if Brown takes any