David cameron

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

“All my life, I’ve opposed the old politics,” says Nick Clegg ad nauseam. Not so it seems. Peter Oborne’s Mail column reports that one youthful indiscretion has been omitted from Clegg’s CV: ‘In fact, he has a background as a Westminster lobbyist with the firm GJW, where he worked as an account executive for 18 months. (Something he has omitted from his curriculum vitae on the Lib Dem website).’ So, Clegg glosses over his stint of political kerb-crawling. Hypocrisy always makes a good story but the Tories should, and probably will, shun this story. They have lost the media narrative and the last thing Cameron needs is for the campaign

These have been a grim few days for the Conservative party. But there is a sense, just a sense mind, that the worst might be behind them. Today’s ICM poll shows the Lib Dems still surging, up 3 to 30, but Tory support is only down one from Sunday’s ICM poll to 33. Labour is in third on 28, down one. Obviously, these polls numbers would have been considered pretty darn awful a week ago and no one would pretend that they are what the Tories would like to see right now. But they are not as bad as some feared they might be and as Julian Glover writes, “the

We’ve had the insta-polls and that eyectaching YouGov poll, and now we get the political reaction to Thursday’s TV debate.  Interviewed in the Times, Alan Johnson plays up what Labour and the Lib Dems have “in common,” and opens the door on a potential coalition.  While, in the Telegraph, David Cameron sets about Lib Dems policies – attacking, for instance, the “flimsy backing” to their plan for making the first £10,000 of income tax-free These different responses to the Lib Dem surge are stiking, if predictable.  Labour see Clegg as an opportunity: an opportunity to whitewash Brown’s mechanical performance in the TV debate, and to keep the Tories out of

The consensus is that David Cameron made a mess of last night’s TV debate. And whilst he wasn’t bad, he certainly wasn’t good, especially to watch. In a post over at Cappuccino Culture, I make the point that Cameron was the most static and soulless feature of a static and soulless piece of television. Undoubtedly the Tories’ greatest presentational asset, his subdued performance is inexplicable. Whilst there is no cause for panic the Tories are rightly trying to regain the initiative. Gary Barlow’s appearance with Cameron at a school this morning didn’t relight Dave’s, or anyone else’s, fire. But Paul Waugh reports that the Tories are beginning to point out