Snp

Alex Salmond has been oddly absent from the SNP’s spring conference this weekend. Although the former First Minister’s only official positions are as the MSP for Aberdeenshire East and the PPC for Gordon, it’s puzzling why one of the party’s most prominent figures wasn’t given a prime speaking slot. But that didn’t stop him from trying to steal the show. A small stage was setup in the hall for a Q&A session to promote his new book at lunchtime today. But as soon as Salmond arrived, a combination of sound issues and the ecstatic crowd led him to give up on the side stage and invade the main platform. As

Is Nicola Sturgeon trying to channel Nigel Farage? Scotland’s First Minister regaled the 3,000-strong crowd at the SNP’s spring conference today with some nuggets of policy, more demands for Ed Miliband and even a swipe at Margaret Thatcher. But she also positioned herself as part of a UK-wide movement seeking to ‘shake up’ Westminster in the name of ‘ordinary people’. You might add: the Ukip of the north. SNP folk loathe being compared to Ukip. In fact, when I was writing this piece in a bar at the conference centre, I was berated by a group of Nats who spotted the headline and took me to task. But let’s face

Given that Gordon Brown has hardly been seen in the Commons since losing power five years ago, it was a bit rich of him to say goodbye now. But the SNP uprising has started — it looks set to claim his own seat of Kirkcaldy — and so he’s off. In his final speech to the House of Commons today, he lamented the gradual breaking apart of the UK which was, of course, started by his own party. After indulging in niceties towards Parliament as an institution, the Speaker and his constituents, Brown promised to devote his efforts away from Westminster to ‘the idea of Britain’ and attacked the Conservatives’ plans to

Will the SNP eviscerate Scottish Labour? A new poll from the Guardian/ICM today suggests once again that the SNP is on course to do very well in the upcoming general election — and is currently on course to take 29 seats from Labour. As with Lord Ashcroft’s polling earlier this month, the numbers suggest that the swing from Labour to the SNP shows no signs of ebbing away. The SNP is currently on 43 per cent, the same as the last ICM poll in December, while Labour are 16 points behind on 27 per cent. The Scottish Tories are up one point to 14 per cent while the Lib Dems are languishing

After months of negotiations, a final deal on debates has now been reached. There will be no head to head debate between Cameron and Miliband. Instead, there will be one seven way debate on April 2nd broadcast on ITV. There will also be an opposition leaders’ debate on the 16th of April on the BBC featuring Labour, the SNP, UKIP, the Greens and Plaid Cymru. On top of these debates, David Cameron and Ed Miliband will both do separate interviews, taking questions from a studio audience on Thursday for a Channel 4 / Sky programme. Then, on 3oth of April, Cameron, Miliband and Nick Clegg will appear separately on a

Keith O’Brien, former Cardinal Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, was today stripped of the rank of cardinal by Pope Francis. Technically he has resigned. But the statement above leaves us in little doubt that O’Brien has had the red hat forcibly removed from him. He’s the first cardinal to lose his title since Louis Billot, a French Jesuit who resigned as cardinal in 1927 in protest at the Church’s condemnation of the far-Right anti-Semitic Action Française movement. Billot was the only cardinal to resign in the 20th century. [Update: see discussion in the thread over O’Brien’s title. This he has not lost, de jure, but de facto he is no longer

The Tories have pushed ahead of Labour again after George Osborne’s successful Budget. In tonight’s poll from YouGov/The Sun, the Conservatives are ahead by two points on 35 per cent while Labour are on 33 per cent. The Lib Dems have seen no shift, remaining steady on eight per cent, while Ukip is on 13 per cent and the Greens on six per cent. Budgets always tend to produce an immediate polling bounce for the incumbent party — assuming the Budget isn’t badly received. The Tories, though, will be pleased that they are back in the lead after falling behind Labour in the past week. As with all the recent

Downing Street has agreed to an offer from the broadcasters for one seven-way election debate on 2 April. The Tories felt that it was close enough to their final offer of one multi-party debate in the week starting 23 March to be acceptable. However, Labour has yet to agree. A Labour source said, ‘We’ve accepted the proposal from the broadcasters for three debates. There is no other proposal from the broadcasters.’ As well as this one seven-way debate, there would also be several election specials involving the various party leaders under this scheme. On 26 March, Cameron and Miliband would be interviewed by Jeremy Paxman and then questioned by a studio audience in

Labour has decreed today it won’t go into a formal coalition with the SNP, but this won’t stop the Tories from attacking Ed Miliband over the possibility. Despite Miliband’s proclamation that ‘Labour will not go into coalition government with the SNP’ and ‘there will be no SNP ministers in any government I lead’, a Tory source says ‘we’ll continue to campaign on this’. So expect more stunts and adverts highlighting the dangers of any union between Labour and the SNP. Conservative HQ has upped the ante of its Labour/SNP attacks recently, running the Saatchi pocket ad (above) in The Guardian, Independent or New Statesman during Labour’s Manchester conference this weekend, while dressing up Conservative activists in Alex Salmond masks holding Soleros lollies

The Liberal Democrats sense an opportunity in all this speculation about who the Tories and Labour would do deals with in the event of a hung parliament. They believe that they can position themselves as the responsible party that will keep the country in the centre ground in contrast to the other smaller parties. Today, in his speech to the party’s spring conference, Clegg ruled out joining any coalition that involved the SNP or Ukip. He also tried to use the moment to reinforce voters’ worries about either main party governing on their own. He argued that the Tories would cut needlessly—‘Cows moo. Dogs bark. And Tories cut. It’s in