Over the past couple of years, Big Business (as in, “being in hock with…”) has been deployed almost as an insult against the Tories. But they’ve now used their campaign on national insurance to turn their business associations into an advantage. Exhibit A: the above picture (via PoliticsHome) of Cameron’s visit to the Warbutons HQ
Gordon Brown’s visit to the Innocent smoothie HQ in London today is the subject of a great post from Paul Waugh, who reveals how close the PM came to a photo-opp nightmare. But it also reminded me of this insight from Jonathan Freedland a few months ago, which I blogged at the time: “[The Labour
So, mending our broken politics has been shoved to the forefront of the election campaign – at least for the time being. Brown has just given a speech on the issue, which – if you divorce it from all context – was actually fairly effective. Sure, things like reducing the voting age to 16, or
As I said earlier, today’s PMQs was all about giving the various parties’ campaign messages a walk around the block. Cameron’s questions reduced down to “They’ve failed – give us a go”. Clegg pushed the Lib Dem’s Labservative prospectus. And Brown droned on about “£6bn being taken out of the economy,” as well as about
Stay tuned for live coverage of PMQs. 1200: We’re about to start. Brown is flanked by Harriet Harman and Jim Murphy. Douglas Alexander, Alistair Darling and Alan Johnson are also on the front bench. The heavy hitters are out in force… 1201: And here we go, for what could be Brown’s last ever PMQs as
We’re not even one day into the election campaign proper, and already the internet is fulfilling its role as the Exposer-in-Chief of spin, deceits and slip-ups aplenty. I direct you towards Guido’s post on Brown’s – ahem – impromptu support at St Pancras station earlier. Or Left Foot Forward’s account of the omissions from Cameron’s
Hat-tip: ConservativeHome
Nick Clegg – who he? According to a poll this morning, that’s what two-thirds of the country will be thinking when they see the Lib Dem leader on their screens over the next few weeks. But, regardless, he and his party are worth paying attention to. Most importantly, of course, because of the possibility of
So there we have it. Brown has been to see the Queen, he’s returned to Downing Street, and now he’s announced what we all knew anyway: the election will be on 6th May. He was flanked by the entire Cabinet as he did so, like some grim school photograph. And he repeated the same lines
If there’s anything we don’t already know about today, then I’m struggling to find it. The election will be declared for 6th May. Brown will make a pitch which bears close resemblance to his interview in the Mirror today: “We have come so far. Do we want to throw this all away?” Cameron will say
Last week, the Tories strengthened their tax-cutting credentials with a smart policy on national insurance. I’m sure you didn’t miss it. But one part of the recent Tory resurgence is, to my mind, being underplayed: they now have a much stronger message on government waste. After all, the NI policy is being funded by cutting
There’s me thinking that Labour wouldn’t go negative with their latest poster, created via an online competition among their supporters. I mean, surely they wouldn’t want to undermine their whizzy, positive, digital energy by picking a design which didn’t present an equally positive Labour vision. But, oh, how they did. Here’s the winning design: Now,
David Cameron said as much in his Today Programme interview, but now we know for sure: we’ve heard everything we’re going to about Tory spending cuts this year. George Osborne confirms the news in an interview with the Guardian today: “In the interview, the shadow chancellor also disclosed, for the first time, that he would
Oh dear. Today’s frontpages form the most eclectic set of damaging headlines for Labour for quite some time. On the front of the Mail and the Times: allegations that the government – specifically, Ed Balls – “interfered” with a report on the Baby P tragedy. On the Independent: a claim that Brown “misled” the public
Most press releases don’t really catch the eye. But when one hits your inbox from The Department of Government Waste, you can’t help but take notice. In it, the Secretary of State for Government Waste, Robin Ewe (geddit?), celebrates 13 years of “waste-maximisation,” and there are links to a departmental website, complete with reports and
Want some more David Cameron? Well, the Tories are happy to oblige. After their party leader’s speech yesterday, he is interviewed in the FT and appeared on the Today programme earlier. The FT interview was certainly the more comfortable of the two. In it, Cameron stikes a confident note – saying that his party have
Via the excellent C4 FactCheck blog: A pdf with explanatory footnotes can be found here.
Last week, it was all doom, gloom, debt, the deficit and austerity from the Tories – and rightly so. But, this week, they’ve returned to the sunny uplands. First, we had George Osborne’s tax cut for seven out of every ten people. And, today, we had David Cameron’s closing speech at the Tory Big Society
The Tories have just distributed the policy document to go alongside their event today. There’s stuff in there about new funds for social enterprises, a recruiment drive for community organisers, neighbourhood grants, and so on. But it’s the last page of the document which caught my eye… Apparently, the Tories would introduce an annual, national
One of the main problems with the Tories’ Big Society/post-bureaucratic/responsibility agenda is how to sell it to the public. At the moment, it all sounds a bit too metropolitan, a bit too vanilla latte, a bit too wonkish. How do you better convey the often solid thinking that lies behind the management consultancy speak? Well,
