All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
What was probably Brown’s last PMQs performance as Prime Minister was classic Brown. He answered questions that hadn’t been asked, dodged ones that had, rattled off list after list of tractor production figures and mentioned Lord Ashcroft at every opportunity. But, as he has in recent months, he had some one liners to get off
Stay tuned for live coverage of PMQs. 1200: We’re about to start. Brown is flanked by Harriet Harman and Jim Murphy. Douglas Alexander, Alistair Darling and Alan Johnson are also on the front bench. The heavy hitters are out in force… 1201: And here we go, for what could be Brown’s last ever PMQs as
With plenty of domestic issues to debate, the election campaign promises to see little intrusion from the outside world – barring Russia invading a small neighbouring country, a terrorist attack or another financial meltdown. Nor will Britain say much to the world in the next couple of weeks; ministers will be be represented at international
Nick Clegg won’t get many opportunities to sell himself to voters and he has just been demolished on the Today programme. All things to all men, Clegg was all over the place. He couldn’t give an exact answer when questioned about the size of the deficit, and the Lib Dems’ shifting position on the depth
You will be hearing a good deal of mind-numbingly stupid, meaningless or plainly inaccurate quotes from politicians over the next four weeks. So instead of buying a pump action rifle and crouching in combat gear at the end of your local high street out of frustration and fury, send the worst ones to me here:
Well, on Day One of the Great Campaign no-one seemed to be talking about immigration. This is understandable given that it’s a subject that discomfits most of the parties and, for that matter, many voters. This is to say nowt about the potential it offers for demagoguery and cheap and easy populism. But while one
The polls are coming thick and fast in this campaign and there’s another one just out with the YouGov tracker to come later on. Populus’s latest for The Times has the Tories on 39, Labour on 32 and the Lib Dems on 21.Populus last poll, taken in February, had the Tories on 40, Labour on
Over the past couple of years, Big Business (as in, “being in hock with…”) has been deployed almost as an insult against the Tories. But they’ve now used their campaign on national insurance to turn their business associations into an advantage. Exhibit A: the above picture (via PoliticsHome) of Cameron’s visit to the Warbutons HQ
PMQs today is going to be the last time that Gordon Brown and David Cameron face-off against each other before the debates. Both men will be keen to score pyschological points against the other and to send their troops off in good heart. This means that PMQs will be an even noisier affair than usual.
Did you know that there are fewer British-born workers in the private sector than there were in 1997? I’d be surprised if so: these official figures are not released. The Spectator managed to get them, on request from the Office of National Statistics. We use the figures in tomorrow’s magazine, but I thought they deserves
This campaign is going to be a bit like three dimensional chess. There’ll be the Labour Tory contest but there will also be the Tory effort to win Lib Dem seats, 24 of the 120 top Tory target seats are Lib Dem held. A good example of this 3d chess came in the washup, the
We’re not even one day into the election campaign proper, and already the internet is fulfilling its role as the Exposer-in-Chief of spin, deceits and slip-ups aplenty. I direct you towards Guido’s post on Brown’s – ahem – impromptu support at St Pancras station earlier. Or Left Foot Forward’s account of the omissions from Cameron’s
Sunder Katwala thinks that Dave’s talk of the “Great Ignored” carries echos of Nixon’s “Silent Majority”; Hopi Sen doesn’t much care for the phrase either and wonders why Cameron didn’t go for Chesterton or Kipling instead. This seems sound advice though I wonder if eloquence and allusion can carry a message these days without being
Freeing Manchester United from the Glazers is not what I envisaged when Ed Miliband promised ‘a radical manifesto’. But the Guardian reports that a fourth Labour government will legislate so that football fans can buy their beloved clubs. Clearly Brown’s granite is plastic to the touch. I’ll reserve judgement until the manifestos are published, but,
David Miliband’s blog during this election promises to be very interesting, not simply on account of what he writes but because, if Labour lose and Gordon steps down then, well, you know, he could be the next leader of the Labour party. So, tea leaves and all that. Here’s his first campaign post: It seems
At times the chasm between Britain’s political parties is as great as the San Andreas Fault. Sometimes the difference is more like a small rift, a matter of tone not policy. In this year’s election, the difference between the parties is somewhere in between, like the lesser-known Tunnel Ridge Fault in Eastern California. In part,
Well, well Gordon Brown has started his election campaign in a constituency that is notionally a Tory seat. Rochester and Strood is being fought for the first time at this election but the invaluable UK Polling Report tells us that the Tories would have just won this seat in 2005. I suspect that Brown has
Hat-tip: ConservativeHome
Nick Clegg – who he? According to a poll this morning, that’s what two-thirds of the country will be thinking when they see the Lib Dem leader on their screens over the next few weeks. But, regardless, he and his party are worth paying attention to. Most importantly, of course, because of the possibility of
Reaganesque was the word that sprang to mind watching Cameron’s launch event. Standing on the terrace of County Hall with Parliament behind him, providing the snappers with some great images, Cameron spoke about the ‘modern Conservative alternative’ to five more years of Gordon Brown. The implicit message was youth and vigour. This was one of
Westminster today is dominated by the sound of helicopters hovering over head, waiting for Brown to set off from Downing Street to the Palace. This morning is the last time that Brown will have the full political advantage of his office, the ability to set the news agenda. The Tories are attempting to step on
Geoffrey Wheatcroft has kicked off the election campaign with possibly the most depressing article I have ever read about British politics. Jetting off to the States for an academic engagement, the old curmudgeon says he feels no regret at missing an election in which he has lost interest. This say more about the author of
If there’s anything we don’t already know about today, then I’m struggling to find it. The election will be declared for 6th May. Brown will make a pitch which bears close resemblance to his interview in the Mirror today: “We have come so far. Do we want to throw this all away?” Cameron will say
And so it begins. At last. The phoney war is over and now the grapeshot will be flying thick and fast. There will be casualties aplenty, decency, honesty and your patience amongst ’em. I’m sticking to my view, which is neither especially daring nor unconventional, that the Conservatives will win and finish with a majority
Lord knows that in these trying, perhaps even desperate, times we need some light relief. So here’s Chris Kamara cheerfully admitting that he hasn’t a clue what’s going on in the Portsmouth vs Blackburn Rovers game the other day. Now, if only political pundits and broadcasters were this honest… And no, I’m not knocking Mr
So there we have it. Brown has been to see the Queen, he’s returned to Downing Street, and now he’s announced what we all knew anyway: the election will be on 6th May. He was flanked by the entire Cabinet as he did so, like some grim school photograph. And he repeated the same lines
Is Barack Obama really a closet Tory? That’s the question Andrew Sullivan asks in the light of this passage from David Remnick’s new Obama biography. Speaking about race in America and his election, Obama says: “America evolves, and sometimes those evolutions are painful. People don’t progress in a straight line. Countries don’t progress in a
Tim Montgomerie has a nice way with understatement. His capsule-sized overview of the campaign to come, published by National Review Online, contains this passage: Cameron will not be to the liking of every U.S. Republican, but he’s much closer to American conservatism than the ruling Labour Party or the third party, the Liberal Democrats. The
Courtesy of Stephanie Flanders, the BBC’s Economics Editor: Welcome to the election. If we’re to believe Alistair Darling, the Conservatives’ ‘credibility gap’ on tax and spending has shrunk by 34% since January, or about £11bn. If they carry on like this, they might be thoroughly credible by election day. Naturally, that is not how the
Not much news came out of Washington last week which doubtless explains why my old chum Toby Harnden used his Telegraph column to chew over the Petraeus 2012 “speculation” one more time. This won’t be the last we hear of this, I assure you. Alas, as Toby laments, the good General stubbornly refuses to play
Chris Grayling’s erstwhile view that Britain’s inn-keepers can interpret anti-discrimination legislation as they see fit belongs where he originally found it: in the biggot bin. There is no place for anti-gay views in British politics, or the Conservative Party. This is not just a question of electioneering — ie currying favour with a symbolically important
The Tories have weathered Chris Grayling’s gay gaffe. The story could only gain momentum if the papers had gone to town on it. They have not. The Times gives it a couple of paragraphs at the bottom of an inner page and even the Independent and the Guardian relegate it to the interior. The news
When Alistair Daring admitted last week that there would indeed be job losses arising from the proposed National Insurance hike, it would have struck Gordon Brown and Ed Balls like root canal surgery. This blows wide open the main part of Brown’s election deceit: asking the public to look at the advantages of the borrowing,
As mentioned, one of the things we talked about during the House of Comments podcast was what, if anything, British pols can learn from the Obama campaign. The answer: much less than the press might have you think. Sure, there’s puff piece after puff piece about how both parties are snapping up Obama “advisors” in