Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
Why is predicting this election so difficult? Because voters themselves don’t know what to do. Before each of the last seven elections, Ipsos/Mori ask voters if they might change their minds. In 1983 and 1987, about one in seven said yes. This time, almost half of the British electorate may change their minds. This explains
Should David Cameron just call the IMF immediately? Like, on Monday? This argument has been doing the rounds in Tory circles and tomorrow’s Spectator has an important contribution from Niall Ferguson. He advises that Cameron takes a two-pronged approach. Prong one is to ‘axe ruthlessly’ and prong two is to call the IMF. He says:
“Don’t fall for it, Dave!” implores the front cover of this week’s The Spectator – together with a leader (precis here) urging him to form a minority government rather than enter any pact with the LibDems. It looks like he will not disappoint us. The Telegraph today discloses that: ‘Even if he fails to secure
Even after the Gillian Duffy incident, tonight’s polls either point to a hung parliament or a gossamer Tory majority. So the prospect of a Con-LibDem alliance, being forged next weekend, remains all too real. In the leading article of this week’s Spectator, we urge Cameron to go it alone with a minority government – rather
The Guardian missed a trick today. It should have endorsed the Conservatives. As a regular reader of that great newspaper, I can diagnose the ailment: it is confusing intentions with outcomes. It wishes for a more progressive society, greater equality and the betterment of the most vulnerable. But it has not quite worked out that
As election day approaches, David Cameron talks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth about Tory principles, where his campaign went wrong, and what might happen if he doesn’t win To gauge how much trouble David Cameron is in, one need only check his smile. In the days when he enjoyed a seemingly impregnable lead over
The election is six days away, Labour civil war is seven days away. And Alistair Darling has today delivered a rather nice put-down to Ed Balls for BBC Campaign Straight Talk. Here is his conversation earlier today with Andrew Neil: Andrew Neil: Has Mr Brown given you any indication that you’d stay as Chancellor if
Word reaches me of another Brown live mic incident, breaking now. Our Dear Leader has just been at Blidworth Oaks Primary School in Mansfield, talking to eight year olds about NICE and drug rationing – boring the bejesus out of them. The teacher, sensing impending classroom unrest, tried to shut Brown up by thanking him
Well, Cameron saved the best till last. His aides are even joking that they could do with a fourth debate because their man is really getting in the swing of it. He looked more confident, assured – and spoke convincingly about immigration at last, a subject he fluffed last time. I’d place Clegg second. Brown
By rights, Gordon Brown should fear this debate on the economy more than any other. Here are ten questions I would like to hear him answer: 1. You told Gillian Duffy yesterday that you have a “deficit plan to cut the debt in half over four years.” This was a lie, wasn’t it? Our
Every politician will be thinking “there but for the grace of God…” today – but the Gillian Duffy incident is not just a gaffe. It is bad for Gordon Brown and Labour on very many levels. Here are ten of them. 1. The image of the Politburo pulling away in the Jag, slagging off
We have just witnessed the biggest moment of the 2010 election campaign. It wasn’t that Brown let off steam: it was that he instinctively described as “bigoted” a woman who represents what should be Labour’s core vote. Sure, she mentioned immigration – but just said “where are they coming from”? Her main concern was the
David Cameron has just taken his first real “kicking” of the campaign from a parent of a disabled child. Handled it brilliantly, I think. The parent is angry, understandably, about the problems he has finding a normal school for his wheelchair-bound son. The Tories are suspicious of the “inclusion” agenda – often a code for
Fireworks at Labour’s press conference this morning, thanks to some brilliant questioning of Mandelson and Balls about the cuts which Labour is concealing from the public. A while ago, the FT did its own version of a table that Coffee House ran in February: the implied cuts that departments will make under HM Treasury forecasts.
Given that Labour has put out a hilarious plea to discuss “issues” rather than personality (or lack thereof), I would like to rise to this challenge to discuss an excellent point raised by David Cameron on Friday: that the state spending/GDP ratio is far too high in many parts of the UK and needs to
Is this the end of the LibDem soufflé surge? Tomorrow’s News of the World has an Ipsos-Mori poll – conducted the day after the second debate – putting things back to where they were pre-debates: Tories with a six point lead over Labour and the LibDems lagging seven points behind Labour, i.e. 36-30-23. This is
The Spectator’s endorsement of David Cameron started with his ‘free schools’ policy – and we could have ended there. We said that this is, in itself, enough reason to vote Conservative. This week’s Economist has produced one of the best explanations of this policy, and its potential. This is important because this election campaign shows
Today’s new economic data gives a handy piece of ammo to the Conservatives. It is untrue that, as Gordon Brown says, this recession was somehow milder than others. The economy contracted by 6.3 percent this time – it was 3.8 percent in the 1980s recession and just 2.4 percent in the early 1990s recession. I
The headlines will be “score draw”, but I’d say Cameron won – and comfortably. I write this as someone who could have happily have sunk a few pins into a voodoo doll of David Cameron earlier on this evening – for taking the Conservatives (and Britain) to this appalling point where he may yet lose
Voting with one’s feet is always the most sincere sign of faith – or despair – in a country and its government. And for many the departure lounge, rather than the ballot box, is the surest route to better schools, lower tax and safer streets. The phrase “brain drain” was used in the 1970s and
