Politics

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

Friday

30 Apr 2010

Too little, too late | 30 April 2010

My gosh, these latest Labour posters are open for all kinds of spoofery. But at least they’re positive and colouful – unlike Gordon Brown’s performance in the TV debate last night. Which, really, highlights Labour’s fundamental problem during this campaign. The big set-piece events have been almost relentlessly negative, whilst they’ve left what passes for a positive prospectus to posters which will barely make it past the confines of the political blogosphere. But, never mind – Tony Blair thinks that “Labour’s got every chance of succeeding.” So all’s well then.

Daniel Korski

Tories win Today’s first post-debate debate

Today’s debate was riveting. It showed two candidates who were miles away from each other. One was clear, honest and able to avoid the traps set by the interviewer. The other was dissembling and unclear, his line of argument collapsing under the barrage of questioning. If a doubting voter had heard the debate, unsure beforehand whether to vote Tory or Lib Dem, they would likely have plumped for the former, afterwards. Oh yes, there was a debate yesterday, too, among the three party leaders. But that’s not what I’m talking about. No, with the debates now firmly part of the British political system, an equally important feature has arrived with

David Blackburn

Labour’s campaign implodes

Labour’s campaign has been dysfunctional. ‘Bigot-gate’, the concealed cuts, the absence of a spending review, open challenges to the leadership, infighting and a manifesto that read like the terms of surrender, it has been beset by gaffes and self-immolation. Last night, Gordon Brown personified the desperation at Labour’s core. He was negative – dour predictions accompanying an ashen expression. He defibrillated the old cuts versus investment line – a lurid grope for his core vote and one that is incredible in the current circumstances. We expected all of that; what we did not expect was that Brown no longer agrees with Nick. Pitching for what remains of his position on

Peter Hoskin

The Tories’ final push

Fresh from David Cameron’s victory in the final TV debate, the Tory campaign has taken another assured step this morning. As Tim Montgomerie reports over at ConservativeHome, they’re going to flood the doorsteps with the leaflet, ‘A contract between the Conservative Party and you’ (pdf here). Inside, a list of clear policy commitments from “publishing every item of government spending over £25,000,” to “reducing immigration” to the levels of the 1990s – meaning tens of thousands a year, instead of the hundreds of thousands a year under Labour.” And, on the back page, a refutation of some of Labour’s most misleading claims about the Tories. Clear, simple and direct. You

James Forsyth

Tonight David Cameron turned in the performance he needed to. In the post-debate polls, Cameron has won three comfortably, one narrowly and tied the other

For the first forty-five minutes it was rather like the first debate. Brown attacked Cameron, Cameron hit back and all the while Clegg soared above it. But then immigration, Clegg’s Achilles heel, was thrown into the mix. Cameron went hard for Clegg over his amnesty policy, and Clegg had no clear answer—initially backing away from the policy, before coming back to it. Throughout this exchange, Cameron had covering fire from Brown. Clegg appeared knocked back as he came under the most sustained attack of the campaign and didn’t get back into his groove until his closing statement. In the meantime, Cameron capitalised; delivering some of his strongest answers of the

Thursday

29 Apr 2010

Fraser Nelson

Cameron shines, Clegg wobbles and Brown sinks

Well, Cameron saved the best till last. His aides are even joking that they could do with a fourth debate because their man is really getting in the swing of it. He looked more confident, assured – and spoke convincingly about immigration at last, a subject he fluffed last time. I’d place Clegg second. Brown was worse than awful: third in this debate, and will probably be third next week’s election too. Clegg was his usual telegenic self – in thespian terms, an accomplished performance. But he ran away from his own asylum policy, and was comically inept with the facts. He screamed at Cameron: “Will you admit that 80

Peter Hoskin

Sunshine wins the day for Cameron

So that’s the second time that immigration has had a major impact upon proceedings this week. Until we came to the question on that topic, I thought Clegg was bossing the TV debate. He was clear, personable and managed to hover elegantly above Brown and Cameron’s dusty brawl over spending cuts. But as soon as it came to clarifying Lib Dem policy on an amnesty for illegal immigrants, the wings rapidly fell off the yellow bird of liberty. All of a sudden, Clegg sounded rattled and unpersuasive. From then on in, it was Cameron’s game. It helped that Cameron had the clearest – and, I suspect, the most popular –

Alex Massie

At last! Cameron Wins

This was hardly a vintage debate even if it is increasingly clear that these men have little regard for one another and that both Cameron and, especially, Brown are irritated by Nick Clegg’s stickability. This was actually Clegg’s weakest performance. After a good start and the best of the opening statements, Clegg’s performance was less focused, less detailed, less persuasive any time he moved away from the Lib Dems’ flagship proposal to raise the income tax threshold to £10,000. That may not matter much since this policy has the great advantage of being popular and easy to understand. Elsewhere, Clegg retreated to a cheap populism on bankers bonuses and the

Martin Bright

An Important Election Intervention from the Left-Wing Intelligentsia

The letter in support of the Lib Dems in today’s Guardian was a brave intervention from Richard Reeves, John Kampfner and a group of prominent figures from left-liberal Britain. It is all too easy to dismiss such interventions as the actions of the usual suspects addicted to writing to the papers to remind themselves of their own sense of importance. But this marks a real shift of the intellectual centre of gravity on the left. The letter ends: “The question is where the energy for the future of progressive politics is to be found. It is a contemporary political fact that the stronger the performance of the Liberal Democrats on 6

Fraser Nelson

Ten questions for Gordon Brown tonight

By rights, Gordon Brown should fear this debate on the economy more than any other. Here are ten questions I would like to hear him answer: 1. You told Gillian Duffy yesterday that you have a “deficit plan to cut the debt in half over four years.” This was a lie, wasn’t it? Our debt is £771bn now. Your deficit plan - ie, to run huge deficits for years – will actually double it to £1,406 billion within four years according to the Treasury. The debt for which Mrs Duffy and other taxpayers are liable would double under your plans - yet you told her it would halve. How

Rod Liddle

What would you like me to ask David Miliband?

What question should I ask David Miliband on tomorrow’s (Friday) edition of the Campaign Show on BBC News? All contributions gratefully received, even those which are not obscene or make references to the Liebore Party, etc etc. There may be another politician on the show who will keep you amused for a while. In the meantime, hell, come on, spare me the research; what do you want to know from the Banana Kid?

James Forsyth

Cameron’s tactical dilemma

One thing to watch tonight is David Cameron’s strategy for dealing with Nick Clegg’s plan to take peoples’ first ten thousand pounds of income out of tax. This policy is clear and appealing and one that many Conservatives like. Indeed, Cameron himself called it a ‘beautiful policy’ in the first debate. So it is imperative, that the Tories have a way to try and defuse it. During the campaign, the Tories have used two different attacks on it. One is to criticise it from the left, to argue that the policy is not progressive as it does not help the lowest paid: you have to earn more than ten thousands

Alex Massie

Annals of Punditry | 29 April 2010

It can be a risky business, this game. There’s always the temptation to produce some counterintuitive theory that, generally speaking, is too bleedin’ clever by half. And the more everyone else says black is white so it’s tempting to write that, actually, it’s red. So, as we await the third and final leaders’ debate this evening, it’s ‘fess-up time for the silly sod who, on March 30th, suggested that the answer to the question: Do Debates Really Help the Liberal Democrats? is, um, No. What a fool.

Alex Massie

Brown and the Union

Ben Brogan accepts Labour’s challenge to judge Gordon on substance not style and, unsurprisingly, finds him wanting. But in his critique he also includes this: On the substance of the constitution, he gerrymandered new bodies that turned on Labour and undermined the union. What on earth is he talking about? What are these bodies, how have they been gerrymandered and how have they undermined the Union? I really have no idea. I assume Brogan is talking about the Scotttish parliament but, as an ex-Glasgow Herald man, he must know a) that Brown did not drive devolution, b) that “gerrymandered” is a very strange word to use about an electoral system

David Blackburn

Should Cameron attack Brown or Clegg?

Obviously, yesterday’s disaster has written-off tonight’s debate for Brown. But ‘Bigot-gate’ is obscuring the European bailout crisis. Allister Heath and Iain Martin surmise that the euro crisis gives David Cameron a further advantage, if he can exploit it. Iain writes: ‘Mr. Cameron has just been dealt a potential ace by the markets. It will be interesting to see if he realizes this and works out a way of playing it in a manner that voters understand. The worsening crisis in the euro zone has attracted very little attention in the general election, thus far. After all, the U.K. isn’t a member. However, the growing crisis is at root about large

Ed Howker

Dubious Lib Dem tactics, continued…

Last week, I reported on dubious expenses scheming by two Liberal Democrat MPs – Paul Rowen in Rochdale and John Leech in Manchester Withington – and subsequently wrote a blog fdetailing Paul Rowen’s method of funding his political campaigning at public expense. Inevitably, having failed to respond to my questions, Rowen stated that the pieces were part of a “Tory smear campaign” – but that’s just not the case. In fact, in the last week, I’ve received a wodge of correspondence from constituents disgusted not just by the candidates’ questionable fundraising methods but also about the campaigns themselves. I thought I might share a few of them. First up,

Peter Hoskin

A tale of two images

Labour’s, erm, “poster” ahead of the TV debate tonight: And Coffee House’s take on what Number 10 might look like on May 7th (with thanks to the great Carla Millar for putting the photo-montage together):

Peter Hoskin

To what extent should Cameron and Clegg use Brown’s gaffe against him?

Given the timing of Brown’s Mega Gaffe, you’ve got to wonder how it will play out in the TV debate tonight. Will it, for instance, mean that he gets a hostile reception? Will he try to defuse the situation by repeating his apologies, or perhaps by making some sort of light out of it (“Yesterday, I met a woman in Rochdale…”)? Will it overwhelm the deeply serious economic questions which need asking and answering? And so on. There’s one question, in particular, though, that I’d be keen to hear CoffeeHousers’ views on: how much should Cameron and Clegg use Brown’s gaffe against him? My thinking is that they’ve played it

James Forsyth

The morning after the duffing up

It will be hard to isolate the influence of ‘bigot-gate’ on the polls as any taken after today will also include the effect of the final debate. But a few things are worth noting. First, this will be a ‘slow-burn’: Brown’s dismissal of such a large section of the electorate will take a while to sink in. It’s the kind of thing that is going to get discussed for days. I was doing a phone-in on Radio Five last night and those working on the programme told me that it was one of their highest ever volumes of calls. Second, its ultimate result might be reduced Labour turnout—note how Mrs

The Spectator

WEB EXCLUSIVE: William Hague interview

Over at Spectator Live, our panellist Gaby Hinsliff asks who has the three qualities – momentum, hope and stamina – needed to close the deal in the last week of campaigning. After his exhausted blunder yesterday, Gordon Brown looks finished. Also at Spectator Live, you can read an exclusive interview with William Hague, written by Hague’s biographer Jo-Anne Nadler. Hague has discovered a life outside politics, but if the Tories win Hague will serve as Foreign Secretary. It is the only job he wants.