All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
If you believe, as most people probably do, that Robert Chote of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Mervin King of the Bank of England should be listened to, then two conclusion emerge: one, that a new government’s budget-slashing will be far, far worse than anything the main parties have hitherto acknowledged; and that after
Here’s a minor turn-up for the political anoraks’ scrapbooks: donations to Labour outstripped those going to the Tory party in the third week of the campaign. Brown & Co. were handed £1,416,863 against the Tories’ £645,250. Which is no sign of an effective campaign – after all, almost all of Labour’s publicity has been heavily
Pete asks whether Labour’s tactical voting ploy can work. My suspicion is that it cannot and will not. This is not 1997. There is all the difference in the world between voting tactically against a government and voting tactically against the idea of a government that may otherwise come to power. More generally, the advice
Here’s the Tory film which I previewed in my last post:
“Where’s the popcorn?” I thought, as I joined a bunch of journos to watch the Tories’ final broadcast of the election campaign. It was a good nine minutes long, and might as well have been titled The Downfall of New Labour. The opening shots were of Blair and Brown in 97: “a new dawn,” and
In the last stretch of political campaigns, things tend to get ugly as the real cost of winning and losing becomes clear. This one is no different, with its suggestions of tactical voting and disagreements about tactical weapons. The latter has become particularly viscious with a former spymaster, an ex-general and a former CT chief
Michael Crick has just blogged about a ‘strange quirk in the British political system.’ Writing about a Lib Dem councillor he says ‘interestingly, because she is a Danish citizen, double-councillor Lockington isn’t just disqualified from standing as a candidate in the coming general election, she can’t even vote in it.’ But what seems strange to
Paul Waugh has an excellent post on the difficulties and opportunities that will face Cameron if he falls short of winning a majority. Much of the commentary on this has hitherto focused on the difficulties but Waugh is right to suggest that, actually, a minority Tory ministry could probably pass a good deal of legislation
George Osborne sounds a more confident note than most of his Tory bandmates in interview with the Standard today. On top of the obligatory Ready for Government noises, he rattles off a list of London marginals which are winnable for the Tories, and adds that an overall majority is “within our grasp”. Pretty direct stuff
The electoral map that most of the broadcasters use misses off Northern Ireland entirely. But if the election is as close as people expect, then those 18 seats across the Irish Sea could become vital. The first thing to note is that Sinn Fein remains committed to its policy of not taking its seats
There’s only one question which matters when it comes to Labour’s tactical voting plea: will it work? You can certainly see Brown & Co’s thinking on this. This is the election, after all, where the Lib Dems have become a viable option for a lot more people – so they might act as a speed
Alex Massie has now responded to John O’Sullivan’s post on Coffee House yesterday. You can find his response here and a coda to that post here.
…here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. Over at Spectator Live, Gaby Hinsliff argues that sometimes are at their best in a crisis. Fraser Nelson says that Cameron will walk the line, and explains why the Guardian should have backed the Tories. James Forsyth highlights the ‘what if’ that must
At last, the election has thrown up a real character. Manish Sood, Labour PPC for North-West Norfolk, has told the Lynn Newspaper: ‘Immigration has gone up which is creating friction within communities. The country is getting bigger and messier. The role of ministers has gone bureaucratic and the action of ministers has gone downhill –
Labour’s relationship with the Lib Dems gets more like Dallas’s JR and Sue Ellen with each passing day. Contemptuous and contemptible one day to lisping breathless compliments the next. Gordon Brown snarled at Nick Clegg during last week’s debate. Clegg would, Brown argued, leap gaily into bed with the Tories on Friday morning – a
As a coda to this response to John O’Sullivan’s response to this post it really isn’t the case that the Conservatives are doing badly. Not only may Cameron beat Labout by the same margin – in terms of the popular vote – that Mrs Thatcher triumphed by in 1979 (seven points) but his triumph will
I’ve been passed some rather interesting polling. It’s been done for Euro RSCG, the Tories’ lead advertising agency, and is based on a sample size of 2,000 and is, what they call in the trade, momentum polling. The idea is that you ask people which party they think is gaining ground and which is losing
My thanks to John O’Sullivan for his response to my post on Friday. A post that was so “well hidden” (as he puts it) that it was the top post for four hours and on my blog’s front-page all weekend. I’m grateful too that he sees fit to remind me that the current electoral set-up
One small piece of cheer for Gordon Brown as he heads towards annihilation is that he no longer has the support of The Guardian. That leaves it slightly easier for others of us to vote Labour. The Guardian has never been a party of the left, but instead one of the metro liberal faux left.
The Telegraph reports that a Conservative minority government would rely on an ‘informal understanding’ with Unionist MPs and that David Cameron is preparing the ground for co-operation. It’s a courageous plan, in the Sir Humphrey sense. Many journalists argue that Cameron has a duty to preserve the Union. Certainly he does, but his overtures to
My apologies for responding so tardily to Alex Massie’s post of Friday, but it was quite well hidden, maybe prudently so. He begins by objecting to my assertion on National Review Online that given the failure and unpopularity of Labour, “the Tories [as the main opposition party] ought to be winning easily and by a
“Don’t fall for it, Dave!” implores the front cover of this week’s The Spectator – together with a leader (precis here) urging him to form a minority government rather than enter any pact with the LibDems. It looks like he will not disappoint us. The Telegraph today discloses that: ‘Even if he fails to secure
This is, I’m afraid, a real question and one to which the answer would appear to be no. Today’s text comes courtesy of John Rentoul and his colleague at the Independent on Sunday, Jane Merrick. On the matter of voting reform here’s what David Cameron has to say: JM: Is it true you once said
Oh yes, the Tories are broadcasting more Ready For Government noises this morning. There’s an article in the Telegraph suggesting that David Cameron would choose a minority government ahead of coalition with the Lib Dems. And the Guardian reports that a Tory government would set out a bulkload of spendings cuts in the first six
I have had a number of shocked emails from old friends on the left following my previous post here, which many saw as an endorsement of the Liberal Democrats. In fact, I remain one of the great undecided. This weekend I witnessed some good comrades embracing the party of the workers. Nick Cohen devoted his
A telling passage from Nicholas Watt and Patrick Wintour’s campaign report this morning: “Gordon Brown visited 10 London constituencies [yesterday] eventually leaving a pub in Kilburn by a side door after it was besieged by Tory and Lib Dem activists. He is now running a campaign almost exclusively warning of Tory cuts, and claiming that
We have now seen the party leaders at the same event for the last time before polling day. This afternoon, Cameron, Clegg and Brown took it in turns to address the Citizens UK Assembly, a collection of urban community and faith groups. Citizen UK had a six point manifesto they wanted to test the leaders
Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – providing your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no
The parties’ education spokesmen are debating on the Daily Politics shortly and so Ed Balls will be singing his favourite tune, investment versus cuts. In a classic Balls move, he is alleging that the Tories plan to make £6 billion of efficiency savings across government would lead to 14,000 teachers losing their jobs. Balls gets
Yesterday’s attempted car-bombing in Times Square doesn’t really tell us anything beyond that there are sociapaths willing to blow people up, and that sometimes luck – rather than judgement – foils their bloody plans. But, given the Pakistani Taliban’s claim that they were responsible for the attempt, it does serve as a grim reminder of
For the past few years, the Tory task has been to look like a government-in-waiting. Now, with the election only a matter of days away, David Cameron has dialled that process up to eleven. In interviews with the Sunday Times and Andrew Marr today, the Tory leader concentrates firmly on the nuts and bolts of
Gordon Brown knows he is finished. My prediction is that he will not use his constitutional right to hang on if the Tories are the largest party in a hung parliament. OK, the Labour leader might try to stay in No 10 – for a second, maybe a minute, perhaps even an academic quarter, trying
So, back to the Labour leadership with Patrick Hennessy’s snappy article on the subject for the Sunday Telegraph. The main sweep of Hennessy’s piece is that Brown is likely to step down quickly in the event of defeat; that Harriet Harman could well fill the caretaker leader role; and that certain Dark Forces are moving
We are, in all likelihood, only days away from a full-blown, out-in-the-open Labour leadership contest. In which case, the odds that Ladbrokes have just fired out are worth a passing glance. Underneath the news that the Tories are now odds-on to form a majority government, they’ve got this list: Next permanent Labour leader David Miliband