All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
It’s the story which has been simmering throughout the election campaign, and now it has has boiled over onto the front pages: fear and loathing in the Labour ranks. After rumblings in the Sunday Times yesterday, its sister paper splashes with the headline “Labour in turmoil as pressure on Brown grows”. And, inside, Francis Elliot
The ideas buried in the Tory manifesto – buried I say because they’ve not spent nearly enough time explaining them – are good and classically conservative. Family, Community, Country. Those are the pillars. But they’ve not been able to build upon this good work and instead the “Big Society” has left voters cold and confused.
Rod Liddle’s right, Steven Mulvain should not be sacked for his limp attempt at humour. You know, Benedict branded condoms and the like. (Maybe endorsing the age of consent with a brand called ‘XVIs’ might have worked better. I don’t know.) However, there is a possibility that Mulvain’s email was part of an FO ‘brainstorm’.
David Cameron is visiting Hampshire today, hitting both Labour and Lib Dem held seats. In a visit to Southampton University, he was confronted by a feisty Lib Dem supporting student who accused him of planning changes that would make it more difficult for working class kids like her to go to university. Cameron dealt with
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
What should we do about Steven Mulvain, the young civil servant who suggested that the Pope, when he arrives for his visit here, should be asked to open an abortion clinic, or sponsor a new brand of “Benedict” condoms? If you haven’t already read about the case, here it is. Mulvain’s email is certainly typical
The sole current political certainty is that Nick Clegg will not prop-up Gordon Brown. Clegg holds Brown personally responsible for 13 years of failure and not even political marriages can be built on enmity. Labour’s choice is clear: remove Brown to accommodate Clegg. The Sunday Times reports plots are afoot to kill Gordon ‘with dignity’.
I am not surprised that Paddy Ashdown says the Liberal Democrats cannot work with the Conservatives. He would say that wouldn’t he? After all, Ashdown came close to selling his party to New Labour, lock, stock and barrel. Nevertheless, the idea that the Tories and Liberals cannot work together (though doggedly contested by this blog
Ian Leslie says much of what needs to be said about the Tories new and gimmicky tweak to the constitution – that anyone who becomes Prime Minister between elections must call an election within six months – a proposal that, as Leslie puts it, is “at once carelessly radical and hopelessly irrelevant.” It’s also yet
No-one should be surprised that the SNP are going to court to try and change the terms and conditions of this week’s final “Leaders’ Debate”. What may be more surprising is that the Nationalists have a point. A limited point perhaps but a palpable one nonetheless. The BBC would indeed seem to be abandoning its
Given that Labour has put out a hilarious plea to discuss “issues” rather than personality (or lack thereof), I would like to rise to this challenge to discuss an excellent point raised by David Cameron on Friday: that the state spending/GDP ratio is far too high in many parts of the UK and needs to
One of the interesting features of this election campaign is the near-absence of ex-leaders in national election roles. Tony Blair has been stuck in the Middle East because of the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano and has, at any rate, been “Gored” by Gordon Brown, who is as keen to have his predecessor canvassing for
Two noteworthy entries, today, in the will-they-won’t-they game of coalition government. The first from Nick Clegg in the Sunday Times: “You can’t have Gordon Brown squatting in No 10 just because of the irrational idiosyncrasies of our electoral system.” And the second from Paddy Ashdown speaking to the People: “Nick Clegg cannot work with David
There is clearly a real chance that the Conservatives will get the most votes and the most seats at the election but still be significantly short of a Commons’ majority. If Cameron is asked to form a government in these circumstances, he has two options. The first, as I say in the Mail on Sunday,
We’ve just seen the first Tory event designed to show—not tell—people what the big society actually is: David Cameron and Michael Gove speaking to a rally of parents in West Yorkshire who want to set up their own school, something that they’ll be able to do if the Tories win. At last, the Tories are
One of Labour’s talking points during the election has been that even the US administration is worried about Conservative Europe policy and how a government led by David Cameron may marginalise Britain in Europe and hobble Europe in the world. Until now, there has been very little to prove the concern. US Secretary of State
Let’s not forget that the Labour Party should not have been able to lose this election. I am still convinced that Cameron came to the Tory leadership with a two-election strategy. The swing needed to win a clear majority was always huge. Part of the reason that the party leadership has found it so difficult
Is this the end of the LibDem soufflé surge? Tomorrow’s News of the World has an Ipsos-Mori poll – conducted the day after the second debate – putting things back to where they were pre-debates: Tories with a six point lead over Labour and the LibDems lagging seven points behind Labour, i.e. 36-30-23. This is
More election videos on Spectator Live.
Really, what’s happened to the Labour campaign? You know things are taking a turn for the worse when you read that Gordon Brown is taking a more high profile role to save his party from a third-place finish. But then you see that high profile role in action, and, well … First there was an
The Spectator’s endorsement of David Cameron started with his ‘free schools’ policy – and we could have ended there. We said that this is, in itself, enough reason to vote Conservative. This week’s Economist has produced one of the best explanations of this policy, and its potential. This is important because this election campaign shows
Planting seeds, that’s what the Tories are doing – they’re planting the seeds of a Lib-Con alliance. Yes, it’s a subtle process, and is couched in terms of denial and defiance. But it’s still going on. I mean, look at Cameron’s interview with Jeremy Paxman past night (video on Spectator Live), where he declined to
I find the way the Prime Ministerial debates have been spun by the media and commentators more interesting than the debates themselves. It seemed clear to me that Gordon Brown was the real loser of the first debate, as all the post-event polls suggested, and yet the media – even the Tory papers – stuck
On Wednesday, Vince Cable said during the Chancellors’ debate that the Tories’ planned £6 billion of efficency savings really didn’t amount to that much. Here’s the exchange: Andrew Neil: ‘Vince you used to be an economist. Are you seriously arguing that 6bn would make a difference one way or the other to a 1.5 trillion
Jonathan Freedland is surely right: Labour’s best hope, now that the electorate appears to have decided that “change” matters* and dismissed Labour’s pretensions to offer that change, is to maximise its core vote in the hope of avoiding an electoral meltdown that would, say, leave them with fewer than 200 seats in the new parliament.
There is a terrible desperation about the Tory approach to the Lib Dem surge. There is a clear desire to find some sort of killer story about Nick Clegg or a killer strategy to reassert David Cameron’s claim to be the candidate of change. What is odd is that Cameron seems to have forgotten what
Today’s new economic data gives a handy piece of ammo to the Conservatives. It is untrue that, as Gordon Brown says, this recession was somehow milder than others. The economy contracted by 6.3 percent this time – it was 3.8 percent in the 1980s recession and just 2.4 percent in the early 1990s recession. I
Well, again, over to you chaps: what do you think of this one? Watching this and I’m afraid the unworthy thought occurs: David Cameron isn’t actually very good at delivering a speech. Perhaps that’s a little unfair. Better, maybe, to say that he’s not a natural orator. There is, in this campaign anyway, something missing.
David Cameron is recording his interview with Jeremy Paxman at 5.15 today, it’ll air at 8.30. Cameron didn’t want to do this interview. Originally, Clegg was the only leader to agree to be interviewed by Paxman. But after the first debate, Brown said yes and the Tories decided that Cameron couldn’t be the only party
Just to flag up an eyecatching poll from PoliticsHome, asking the public to pick the members of their ideal coalition government. Methodology and details here, and the results pasted below. Two things strike me: i) Alistair Darling once again proves he’s popular, which you wouldn’t necessarily expect of a Chancellor who has presided over a
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
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
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
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