James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
This week of the election campaign is going to be dominated by the first leaders’ debate. The debate format means that these might well turn out to be stilted encounters that don’t sway many voters either way. But given how many people will tune in—the broadcasters are confidently predicting an audience of ten million plus—the
I expect that the Labour machine will be absolutely delighted with Gordon Brown’s interview in The Times magazine today. The interviewer concludes that Brown has more of a common touch than Blair or Cameron and that Brown’s press team are more relaxed than Cameron’s. The interview even goes into what Brown’s favourite love poetry is.
James Forsyth reviews the week in politics When a party loses an election, recriminations follow. But when it wins, an argument that is often as vicious breaks out over why it triumphed. This debate matters because, as Winston Smith knew, he who controls the past controls the future. The Tory party is preparing for such
Tonight’s YouGov poll has the Tories on 40, Labour on 30 and the Lib Dems on 20, rounding off a good week for the Tories, The Tory marriage tax proposal has also just been unveiled. It will allow people who are in a marriage or a civil partnership who don’t use all of their personal
This week The Spectator endorsed the Tories and David Cameron. Our cover headline read, ‘Give Cameron the keys.’ Now, I doubt that Gordon Brown was too surprised to miss out on The Spectator endorsement. But I must admit to being rather amused to hear that a copy of The Spectator was provided in every seat
So much for Jim Murphy’s words of support two hours ago, the Labour candidate for Moray Stuart MacLennan has now been sacked. As soon as one saw what MacLennan had tweeted–the desire for a ‘slave-grown’ banana, the remarks about pensioners and the like–it was clear that MacLennan was going to have to go if this
Gordon Brown is heading to Scotland today and it is hard to see how he can avoid the story of the Labour candidate for Moray and his Tweets. Forget Stuart MacLennan’s foul language, it’s the mindset that his messages reveal that is truly shocking. Take this one from July 8th:“God this fairtrade, organic banana is shit. Can I
The drop in the Tory lead to five points in the YouGov daily tracker caused some concern in Tory circles last night. But this evening, the Tory lead is nine and the party is at the psychologically important 40 percent mark. The figures are Tories 40, Labour 31 and Lib Dems 18. On a uniform
Labour today has tried to shift the National Insurance debate from whether you should cut waste to prevent a tax rise, to whether the Tories’ sums add up. When the Tories announced their plan to avoid the worst of Labour’s NICs rise by cutting waste they made a conscious decision not to offer details on
The Tory press conference this morning, launching their plan for National Citizen Service, shows how they hope to run a two track campaign. On the one hand, they want to be hammering Labour over their plans to increase National Insurance — Cameron called it a ‘a recovery killer, an economy killer, a job killer’ and
Laura Kuenssberg of the BBC is reporting that senior civil servants met this morning to discuss how they would implement the Tory plans for efficiency savings. Now, it is not surprising that the civil service is discussing how to implement the opposition’s plans. But what is intriguing is who told the BBC about the meeting.
Jason Beattie has an intriguing tale on his blog. He reports that Nick Clegg’s wife has taken to texting friends to complain about the ways in which Vince Cable upstages her husband. This adds to my suspicion that the Clegg Cable relationship might come to be one of the stories of the campaign. On top
The polls are coming thick and fast in this campaign and there’s another one just out with the YouGov tracker to come later on. Populus’s latest for The Times has the Tories on 39, Labour on 32 and the Lib Dems on 21.Populus last poll, taken in February, had the Tories on 40, Labour on
What was probably Brown’s last PMQs performance as Prime Minister was classic Brown. He answered questions that hadn’t been asked, dodged ones that had, rattled off list after list of tractor production figures and mentioned Lord Ashcroft at every opportunity. But, as he has in recent months, he had some one liners to get off
PMQs today is going to be the last time that Gordon Brown and David Cameron face-off against each other before the debates. Both men will be keen to score pyschological points against the other and to send their troops off in good heart. This means that PMQs will be an even noisier affair than usual.
This campaign is going to be a bit like three dimensional chess. There’ll be the Labour Tory contest but there will also be the Tory effort to win Lib Dem seats, 24 of the 120 top Tory target seats are Lib Dem held. A good example of this 3d chess came in the washup, the
Well, well Gordon Brown has started his election campaign in a constituency that is notionally a Tory seat. Rochester and Strood is being fought for the first time at this election but the invaluable UK Polling Report tells us that the Tories would have just won this seat in 2005. I suspect that Brown has
Reaganesque was the word that sprang to mind watching Cameron’s launch event. Standing on the terrace of County Hall with Parliament behind him, providing the snappers with some great images, Cameron spoke about the ‘modern Conservative alternative’ to five more years of Gordon Brown. The implicit message was youth and vigour. This was one of
Westminster today is dominated by the sound of helicopters hovering over head, waiting for Brown to set off from Downing Street to the Palace. This morning is the last time that Brown will have the full political advantage of his office, the ability to set the news agenda. The Tories are attempting to step on
The final pre-campaign YouGov poll has just been released and it shows the Tories over forty percent and ahead by ten percent, numbers that I suspect the party would have taken back in January and would be delighted to have repeated on election day. Even on a uniform national swing these results–Tories 41, Labour 31,