Uk politics

Tony Blair gave a speech at Labour HQ this afternoon, I understand, which rather puts paid to the claim that he was doing the very minimum required of the former Prime Minister to help his party. I hear from those present that it was a very upbeat address, in which Blair told Labourites he was optimistic about the party’s chances in this election. He also reflected on his speech on Tuesday in which he warned of the dangers of a European referendum and described his party’s outlook as a progressive internationalist one. My source tells me the speech was very well received: even if there are many in Labour who are glad

Are the Tories throwing dead cats into the election debate? This question only makes sense if you recall Boris Johnson’s 2013 description of a strategy deployed by an ‘Australian friend’ of his: ‘To understand what has happened in Europe in the last week, we must borrow from the rich and fruity vocabulary of Australian political analysis. Let us suppose you are losing an argument. The facts are overwhelmingly against you, and the more people focus on the reality the worse it is for you and your case. Your best bet in these circumstances is to perform a manoeuvre that a great campaigner describes as “throwing a dead cat on the table,

‘How’s your shoulder?’ someone asked recently, and it was only then I realised, for the first time in a while, that my shoulder felt good again. In last year’s Grand National — you might recall if you watched it on television — I had a heavy fall when going well on Long Run, the wonderful horse on whom I won the Gold Cup. I landed on my shoulder and had to hobble off the course. Those famously intimidating Grand National fences may have been made a bit more forgiving in recent years — thank God! — but they are still huge, and when you fall going over one it hurts.

David Cameron took the stage at an election rally in Wadebridge, Cornwall this evening. He was surrounded by supporters waving placards. From the pictures, it seems there was a real sense of excitement about the Conservative party. But here are a couple of photos taken from a perspective that’s a bit, er, different. The PM is currently holding a rally in Cornwall, in what appears to be a massive cow shed pic.twitter.com/eJh6RrnsQ6 — Niall Paterson (@skynewsniall) April 7, 2015 To give you a better idea of the size of this barn, and the size of the rally, the event is entirely behind this bus pic.twitter.com/4SPBJ8B1X7 — Niall Paterson (@skynewsniall) April

It is rather fashionable at the moment for those involved in politics to moan about what a boring election campaign this is shaping up to be, and how the only excitement will be once polls close and the results start rolling in. But interestingly fewer voters than you might think agree with this view. YouGov asked at the weekend ‘how interesting or boring have you found the general election campaign so far?’, and while a majority – 51 per cent – said it was boring, 42 per cent said it was interesting. The ‘interesting’ camp was made up of 33 per cent of voters who thought the campaign ‘fairly interesting’, while

One of the things the Tories need to do in order to hold on to power is to convince those considering voting Ukip in the General Election that it is safer to back the Tories instead. To that end, David Cameron yesterday told a campaign event that he hoped such voters would return to the Tories so that Labour wouldn’t have a chance of putting the recovery at risk. He said: ‘Come with us, come back home to us rather than risk all of this good work being undone by Labour.’ Labour said this was further evidence that the Tories and Ukip were preparing to work together. But Ukip’s response

Nigel Farage has had a torrid few days – exactly as he’d planned. He had all six of his fellow contestants in the TV debate ganging up on him over immigration, just as he’d hoped. He’s provoked the Liberal Metropolitan Elite into attacking him over his comments about health tourism and HIV, just as he’d hoped. And today, to cap it all, he’s claiming a Tory defection. Mike Whitehead had been the Conservative candidate in Hull West and Hessle, standing against Alan Johnson in the Labour safe seat. The Tories came third here in 2010. Farage said this morning: ‘I am delighted to be welcoming Mike to the party at this exciting

The three main parties are having a fight about tax today. It’s the day the rise in the personal allowance comes into effect, and David Cameron will give a speech describing what is to most people the Easter Bank Holiday as ‘Money-Back Monday’ (which sounds a bit like a gameshow in a pound shop) and claiming tat up to 94 per cent of households are better off under the tax and benefit changes that come into effect this year. Ed Balls is also working today while the rest of Britain heads to the beach and scratches its head about how to sort out the garden: the Shadow Chancellor is also

After 15 hours of fascinating and – let’s face it – fairly exciting developments in l’affaire Sturgeon, here’s where I think we are, and I’ll try to stick as much as possible to incontrovertible facts, not political bluster: If this was all a grand misunderstanding, I think the various parties would have come together by now to explain what they think has happened, e.g. perhaps Nicola Sturgeon used the word ‘expect’, that got turned into ‘espoir’ back in the French embassy, and then relayed to the FCO as ‘hope’. That’s pretty plausible, but we’ve heard no such explanation yet. If it’s not a genuine misunderstanding, we’re left with the uncomfortable

I have never been impressed by round robin letters, so if Ed Miliband had shrugged off the letter to the Daily Telegraph this week signed by 103 businessmen with the words: ‘if they have got something to say why can’t they speak for themselves rather than bleating like a flock of sheep’ he would have gained my respect. If Labour had to counter it with a round robin letter of its own it might at least have tried to find 100 businessmen of its own. Instead it rustled up a bizarre letter of its own. Complaining about zero hours contracts it declared:  ‘We come from all walks of life, this