Liberal democrats

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

Election day is here at last

The usual form, on mornings such as these, is to put up a post setting the scene for the elections ahead – although, really, there’s not much more to add than was said yesterday. Apart from a readers’ survey in the Metro this morning, the only poll to hit after yesterday’s ICM bombshell is a YouGov one for the Sun, and it gives No a 20-point lead. Even given the complications of turnout and geography, it looks as though Team No are heading for a straightforward victory. As if to underline his increased personal involvement in the campaign, and perhaps tie himself that little bit closer to the eventual result,

Wednesday

Jonathan Jones

Your guide to tomorrow’s elections

In light of ICM’s latest poll, Lib Dems might be relieved to hear that tomorrow isn’t all about the AV referendum. But it’s a meagre sort of relief: they’re facing a drubbing in the local elections too. We’ve put together a quick guide to those elections, as well as those in Scotland and Wales, so that CoffeeHousers know what to look out for, and Lib Dems know what to fear. Here it is: England The main question hovering over England’s local elections is: how big will Labour’s gains be? There are around 9,400 seats up for contention, of which the Conservatives currently hold about 5,000; Labour, 1,600; and the Lib

James Forsyth James Forsyth

New ICM poll has No 36 — thirty six — points ahead

Tonight’s ICM poll is even worse for the Yes campaign than last night’s ComRes poll. The poll, in tomorrow’s Guardian, has Yes heading for defeat by a margin of more than two-to-one and in every single region of the country. The turnout adjusted numbers are No 68, Yes 32. If these last two polls are accurate, and it is difficult to estimate what the turnout will be tomorrow, it will be a monumental humiliation for Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. Defeat on this scale would take Lib Dem nervousness about what the coalition is doing to the party’s brand to a whole new level. Indeed, its effect would be

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A very quiet exchange

PMQs today was dominated by the parties trying to get their lines out ahead of the voting on Thursday. David Cameron accused “Labour local authorities of playing politics with people’s jobs” and urged voters “not to let Labour do to your council, what they did to our country.” He received plenty of chances to make his local election case as Tory backbenchers served up one patsy question on councils after another. Ed Miliband jibed that the coalition was no longer two parties working together in the national interest but “two parties threatening to sue each other in their own interest,” a reference to Huhne’s hyperbolic threat to sue over the

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 4 May 2011

VERDICT: A sedate sort of PMQs today, particularly in comparison to the fizz and fire of recent sessions. The reason is simply the date: with the local elections tomorrow, much of the emphasis was on making a straightforward pitch for votes. Miliband’s was to attack the “broken promises” of the coalition — a charge that, if not exactly new, is one he is deploying more and more. Whereas Cameron’s was to emphasise that councils can make cuts while improving services — and that Tory councils have been particularly successful in doing so. Both men broadcast their messages today, without really scarring the other. The winners and losers will be better

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Whatever the Lib Dems claim, Michael Gove will be voting No tomorrow

A senior Liberal Democrat is putting it about this morning that Michael Gove, the education secretary, will be voting for AV tomorrow. But a very close friend of Gove tells me that ‘this is categorically untrue. Michael will be voting to keep first past the post.’ This Lib Dem’s briefing strikes me as rather ham-fisted. One might even call it disorganised wickedness. UPDATE: Michael Gove is not only voting No tomorrow, he’s getting out the vote for No. The education secretary, who has up to now stayed out of the referendum campaign, will be making phone calls to remind Conservatives to go out and vote No tomorrow from CCHQ this

Peter Hoskin

Yes to AV on the ropes as the final round approaches

Thanks to this ComRes poll, the question floating around Westminster this morning is: how much?! You see, with only a day to go until the AV referendum, it has the No camp on 66 per cent, and the Yes camp on 34. That puts No a punishing 32 points ahead of its rival. Even allowing for the peculiarities of a bank holiday weekend – as noted by Anthony Wells here – it’s still an astonishing gap. It augurs a landslide. Or does it? To my mind, much still rests on turnout and on the voting patterns of Wales, Scotland, etc. Yet there’s no denying that Yes are up against it

Tuesday

James Forsyth

The significance of today’s Cabinet bust-up

On the Today Programme this morning, David Cameron stressed that for all the tensions about the AV referendum, ministers were still capable of sitting round a table and working together. But within a couple of hours of saying this, Chris Huhne had destroyed this argument by using Cabinet to continue his attack about the tactics of the No campaign.   When the Energy Secretary is demanding that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor justify their behaviour to him it is impossible to pretend that it is business as usual. It is now indisputable that the fallout from the AV referendum campaign is having an impact on the functioning of the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Clegg’s implicit attack on the Tories

Up until a few months ago, David Cameron and Nick Clegg tried to avoid doing big set piece broadcast interviews on the same day. This was driven by a desire to both maximise the coalition’s dominance of the media agenda and to avoid having to give a running commentary on what the other had said. But this rule has gone out of the window as the AV referendum has got rougher and rougher. So, following on from their both doing separate interviews on Andrew Marr on Sunday, they both were on the Today Programme this morning. Clegg even told Justin Webb to ask Cameron about the split between the two

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Huhne lays into Cameron and Osborne at Cabinet

At Cabinet this morning, I am told that Chris Huhne directly challenged David Cameron and George Osborne about the claims that the No campaign have been making. He asked them both in turn, if they were going to — or could — defend them. Osborne responded by telling Huhne that his behaviour was inappropriate and that Cabinet wasn’t the place for such disputes. The fact that this row broke out in Cabinet shows just how badly relations within the coalition have been damaged bv the AV campaign. That Huhne is leading the anti-Tory charge even within Cabinet will also stoke the rumours about what the Energy Secretary is planning to

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

How a degree of separation will strengthen the coalition

Almost a year ago, David Cameron and Nick Clegg staged their love-in at the Downing Street rose garden. As I say in the News of the World (£) today, this era is now at a close. When they come back from the 5 May elections, Clegg and Cameron have agreed that they cannot go on as before. An agreement has been struck for an amicable separation. Not divorce — the coalition will keep going. But Cameron and Clegg will put clear blue (and yellow) water between them and drop the pretence that they agree on everything. The coalition is about to enter its Phase Two.   Clegg’s analysis is that

Peter Hoskin

Chris Huhne pitches to the left

We’re used to AV platform-sharing by now — so it’s not the fact that Chris Huhne has written an article for the Observer alongside Labour’s John Denhan and the Green’s Caroline Lucas that shocks. It’s the words he then puts his name to. “Britain consistently votes as a centre-left country and yet the the Conservatives have dominated our politics for two-thirds of the time since 1900,” begins the article. “No wonder David Cameron says the current system ‘has served us well’,” it continues. Although subsequent paragraphs are more conciliatory — claiming, for instance, that Tory voters in the north also suffer thanks to our electoral calculus — this is nonetheless

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Temper, temper

I have rarely heard the House as loud as it was after David Cameron’s ‘calm down, dear’ put down to Angela Eagle. The Labour benches roared at the Prime Minister and Cameron turned puce, while the Liberal Democrats looked distinctly uncomfortable. There is already a rather over-blown debate going on about whether the remark was sexist or not. But whether or not it was, it was certainly ill-judged. It was a tad too patronising and directing it at one of the more junior members of the shadow made it seem bullying. The Labour benches were heckling Cameron more than usual today, a result of him losing his rag with Ed

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 27 April 2011

VERDICT: To paraphrase that famous football cliché, this was a session of two halves. Cameron put in a confident performance against what should have been the trickier set of questions: on the economy. But when it came to Ed Miliband’s second topic of choice, the NHS, it all went suddenly awry. The PM’s arguments were unusually messy and convoluted, lost in themselves. And he only made matters worse with his Winner-esque exhortation at a Labour frontbencher, “Calm down, dear!” You can argue whether it was sexist of the PM, or not, particularly as it’s not clear whom the remark was aimed at (although the smart money’s on Angela Eagle). But

Tuesday

James Forsyth

Why I’m sceptical of all the early election talk 

Something has undoubtedly changed in the coalition in the past fortnight. Even those at the centre, who have been most loyal to the concept of coalition, are now happy to complain about the other side and its behaviour. But I’m still sceptical of all the early election speculation which has been sparked by Jackie Ashley’s very clever Guardian column. The main reason why I don’t think it will happen is the Cameron brand. Ever since David Cameron became leader of the Conservative party, the top of the party has believed that the protection of the Cameron brand is essential to electoral success. Cameron has too much personally invested in showing

Daniel Korski

The Tory-Lib Dem row could lead to a DPM’s department

I have for a long time been sceptical of the idea that the AV referendum will damage the work of the coalition — even once the recriminations start to fly. Having seen it up close, I know how much effort both Tory and Lib Dem ministers actually put in to keep each other informed of their work and policies. Tory-led Departments often consult Lib Dems. And the PM and the DPM seem to have a better relationship than most of their predecessors had. They are certainly more ideologically aligned than Tony Blair was with John Prescott. Now Sam Coates says in The Times (£) that things are hitting the skids,

Peter Hoskin

The coalition’s self-repair effort will meet backbench resistance

This week, breakage. Next week, super glue. Given the noises emanating from Downing Street, there’s little doubt that the Tory and Lib Dem leaderships are going to do a repair job on the coalition once the AV referendum has been decided. As Rachel Sylvester puts it in her column (£) today, “Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg have had several amicable meetings to discuss how to handle the fall-out from the referendum. Both agree that whoever wins should be gracious, and allow the lower to take a bit more of the limelight in the weeks after the vote.” They will be looking for quick and easily triggered bonding mechanisms, not least

Peter Hoskin

Labour spot the dangers and opportunities of the AV referendum

By some dark magic, the Ghosts of New Labour have been roused from their political slumber. Over the extended weekend, we had news of Gordon Brown’s new job and Alistair Darling’s new book. Today, it is Peter Mandelson and Alan Johnson who are haunting the newspapers. Both give interviews  – one to the Independent, one to the Guardian – with the same purpose: to rally the vote in favour of AV. Mandelson’s is even front page news. “This is our chance to hurt Cameron,” reads the headline, underneath a portrait of the man whom Labour learned to un-love after last year’s election. Both interviews suggest that Labour are catching up

Monday

Hamish Macdonell

Balls and Miliband to rescue Labour’s Scottish campaign…

Can Ed Miliband and Ed Balls save Labour in Scotland? The two Labour heavyweights have decided to move in to rescue their party’s disastrous campaign in Scotland — with Balls being sent up north to sharpen his party’s teeth. A desperate measure for a desperate situation: Labour has not only blown a 10-15 point lead over the SNP in just a few weeks, but now languishes some 10-13 percentage points behind. A mammoth, humiliating defeat looms. Until now, Labour has liked to portray its campaign for the Holyrood elections as a totally Scottish affair: run in Scotland, organised in Scotland and led by Scottish politicians. Not any more. Senior staffers

Ed Howker

Exclusive: Yes to AV leaflets printed on ballot machines

Chris Huhne’s decision to threaten the Prime Minister with legal action — as I mentioned earlier — is particularly curious because he must be well-aware of the conflicts of interest at work in the Yes campaign. After all, his partner, Carina Trimingham is a director of Yes! and the Electoral Reform Society. She has been involved in this referendum from the start. And Mr Huhne must, therefore, know why Conservatives, and plenty of others, feel nervous about the relationships between the Electoral Reform Society who are running the Yes campaign and their business arm, Electoral Reform Services, who are financing the Yes campaign. I have just discovered, for example, that