2015 general election

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Labour’s aggressive election campaign was evident in Miliband’s Budget response

Ed Miliband didn’t produce a spectacular response to the Budget, but neither did he have a bad outing at the despatch box. It was certainly better than his performance last year, and Labour MPs seem - in public at least - quite cheered by the whole thing. The Labour leader did have to contend with a wall of noise from heckling Tory MPs. The Treasury Support Group has got rather carried away with itself at the past couple of economic statements, producing a boorish roar that requires frequent interruptions from the Speaker rather than under-the-radar witty cricket sledging which works in unsettling the Opposition. You don’t want the public or indeed even the Speaker to notice what you’re doing, otherwise your attacks become part of the story.

The Spectator

Budget 2015: Full text of Ed Miliband’s response

Mr Deputy Speaker, never has the gap between the Chancellor’s rhetoric and the reality of people’s lives been greater than it was today. This is a Budget people won’t believe from a government that’s not on their side. Because of their record. Because of their instincts. Because of their plans for the future. And because of a Budget, most extraordinarily, that had no mention of investment in our National Health Service and our vital public services. It is a budget people won’t believe from a government they don’t trust and this chancellor has failed the working families of Britain. For the first time since the 1920s people are earning less at the end of a government than they were at the beginning. People are £1,600 a year worse off.

James Forsyth

A typical coalition Budget – designed to put the Tories back in power | 18 March 2015

Here is a preview of James Forsyth's political column from this week's Spectator, out tomorrow George Osborne usually tells his aides to prepare for each Budget as if it were his last. This time round, the Chancellor and those around him needed no reminding of what is at stake. They knew that this statement had to boost the Tory election campaign and define the choice facing voters in May, otherwise it really will be the last Budget he gives. As one Tory MP put it, ‘The Budget’s got to deliver some political momentum or we’re done for.’ Osborne has long been aware of the importance of this Budget for his career. If David Cameron returns to No. 10 after the election, Osborne will take the applause.

Fraser Nelson

Budget 2015, explained in ten graphs

As ever, the story of the Budget was hidden in the small print. There are no hidden tax rises, but the story isn't really in the tax. It's about the cuts to come, the incredible jobs recovery and the games already being played for the general election campaign. Here's my take:- 1. The rollercoaster of cuts to come:- The OBR has rather huffily pointed out the weirdness of the cuts planned for the next four years: a ‘rollercoaster,’ it says, devoid of logic. After the election, cuts will be four times sharper than those implemented in this (election) year. Then most weirdly of all, right at the end, spending soars.

Isabel Hardman

PMQs: Was Ken Clarke snoozing? If so, he missed nothing

The PMQs before the Budget is always pretty pointless, and David Cameron turned up clearly determined to trivialise his exchanges with Ed Miliband as much as possible. He came armed with a plethora of jokes about second kitchens, chuckling about throwing two kitchen sinks at problems, that if the Leader of the Opposition couldn't stand the heat, he should get out of the kitchen, and that the Shadow Chancellor wouldn't be able to tell which kitchen he could find his leader in. It was partly a device to blunt the attacks that Ed Miliband made, which predictably were on the NHS, on his promise not to reorganise the health service, on cancer treatment rates and on hospital ward closures.

Isabel Hardman

Nick Clegg is preparing to boast about which Osborne ideas he quashed

Nick Clegg is turning up to the Budget today, which is an improvement on the Autumn Statement, which he bunked off in order to hang out in Cornwall with Lib Dems trying to get re-elected. He’s even got his own Lib Dem alternative Budget tomorrow. This may mean his party doesn’t get much of a hearing until 24 hours after the main event, though inevitably various Cabinet ministers will be out and about trying to take credit for various measures. The Lib Dems want to persuade people to vote for them on the basis that they would stop either party indulging in its worst excesses: the Tories wouldn’t create a fair recovery, while Labour would wreck it.

Isabel Hardman

Budget 2015: The challenges for Labour

Ed Miliband will respond to the Budget today (the Shadow Chancellor responds to the Autumn Statement, and has a Budget speech the day after the main event). In the past couple of years the Labour response hasn’t been fantastic, partly because the Tories have got a very well-organised (and at times just rather brutish and silly) heckling squad ready to create a wall of noise, and partly because it is difficult to respond to a Budget that contains good figures. But Labour thinks the Autumn Statement gave it the opportunity to attack the Tories on something other than the cost-of-living. The party can now say that George Osborne is planning ‘extreme’ cuts that will take Britain back to the 1930s and that this will damage the NHS, which voters hold dear.

Sebastian Payne

Are the Conservatives really running the most ‘positive possible campaign’?

While the nation is on tenterhooks for the 2015 Budget, the Tories have filled the news gap this morning with a new attack video. As you can watch above, Conservative HQ has dug up 18 year old TV footage from the Treasury, featuring Messrs Miliband, Balls and Brown promising to spend money wisely and keep unemployment down. As we now know, this didn't quite go to plan so the Tories are keen to remind voters: ‘don’t let them do it again.’ This ad has been viewed just under 10,000 times, which is pretty good for a political video. The tone is one of an attack ad, crafted to scare voters away from Labour and the two Eds. The timing is odd, coming days after David Cameron denied the Tories were 'going negative'.

Steerpike

Andy Burnham burnishes his foreign policy credentials

If Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham's future leadership aspirations were ever in doubt, then take a look at his reaction to the news of Benjamin Netanyahu's re-election as Prime Minister of Israel last night: https://twitter.com/andyburnhammp/status/578116833653305344 Burnishing his foreign policy expertise: tick. Cat-nipping the Labour left: tick. About as subtle as Burnham's recent attempts in The Spectator to rebrand himself as 'mainstream Labour'. The general election campaign has barely begun, and already potential Miliband successors are getting their ducks in a row.

The Spectator

Budget 2015: key announcements and figures

George Osborne delivered his final Budget of this Parliament today. Here is what you need to know. Key announcements Personal Savings Allowance: From April next year, the first £1,000 of the interest on all savings will be tax-free. Tax free allowance up to £11,000: The personal tax-free allowance will rise to £10,800 next year and to £11,000 the year after. Osborne said it will means the typical working taxpayer will be over £900 a year better off. Help to Buy ISA: From the autumn, for every £200 put into a deposit, the government will top it up with £50 more. 'Fully flexible' ISAs will be introduced to allow savers to withdraw money without losing their tax-free allowance.

Steerpike

Nigel Farage: I’ve no doubt my health will have failed by 2020

After Mr S revealed the strict door policy for the launch of Nigel Farage's new book The Purple Revolution at the Blue Boar in Westminster, the impromptu drinks affair was filled with mostly friendly faces from the media. Columnist Isabel Oakeshott introduced the Ukip leader, telling the audience that 'of all the politicians I've had lunch with over the years — and there are an awful lot of them — Nigel is right up there in the top five of the best people to have what I think he calls a PFL: a proper f---ing lunch". Farage himself was in an ebullient mood, following the multi-day serialisation of his book.

Steerpike

Wanted: Nigel Farage lookalike

As the election approaches, politicians will find their diaries packed with various events. It's an equally busy time for those born with the gift of looking like a politician. ‘I’m lucky that I look like Boris,’ says Drew, a Mayor of London 'lookalike' who is on the books at the Susan Scott agency. ‘I often get stopped and while it’s not always pleasant, it’s nowhere near what a David Cameron lookalike I know gets.’ Alas, Boris won’t have Drew’s vote. ‘I may make money out of Boris, but I have never voted for him and that’s not going to change.’ With election party season on the horizon, Mr S has gathered a selection of his favourite lookalikes to invite to your own soirées.

Tuesday

Douglas Murray

Nick Clegg has damaged Britain’s counter-extremism strategies

There is some fuss around the publication delay on the government’s review into the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK.  But why the fuss?  After all, if other news today is anything to go by, nobody reads government inquiries anyway - let alone bothers to act on them. On the Muslim Brotherhood review and the possibility it will include negative facts about the group, the Financial Times quotes one ‘senior government figure’ saying last year: ‘This cuts against what the FCO has already been doing in this area… It risks turning supporters of a moderate, non-violent organisation that campaigns for democracy into radicals.

James Forsyth

Exclusive: Tories agree to TV debate offer

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 a Sky / Channel 4 special.

Isabel Hardman

Tory knives dangle over Grant Shapps

Though his Conservative colleagues have largely been very supportive of Grant Shapps during the latest row about his alter ego Michael Green, there is a contingent in the party who aren’t massive fans of the Tory chairman and who have pushed at previous reshuffles to have him removed. As I predicted yesterday, those opponents of Shapps certainly aren’t planning any trouble this side of an election. But that doesn’t mean they’ll leave him alone permanently. One critic whispers: ‘We’re keeping quiet as there is an election imminent. But the knives will be out after that. He lied on radio - and a Cabinet Minister who does that should be toast. And he will be.

Sebastian Payne

Poll of key marginal seats finds swing towards Labour

Are the Conservatives or Labour wining the ground war in marginal seats? Lord Ashcroft has polled eight key constituencies — of which seven are currently held by Conservatives and one by Labour — that he visited six months ago to see who is winning. In these seats, Ashcroft has found there is currently a five per cent swing away from the Conservatives. According to Ashcroft, Labour is on track to take five of these Tory seats: City of Chester, Croydon Central, Halesowen & Rowley Regis, Nuneaton and Wirral West — the latter being one of the few Tory seats on Merseyside, represented by the employment minister Esther McVey.

Steerpike

Whatever happened to Nigel Farage, the defender of free speech?

Once upon a time there was a libertarian champion, who led a self-styled 'People's Army'. He stood up to 'political correctness' and was famed for his outspoken views that often got him into trouble with the 'Establishment' and the 'mainstream media' that he railed against. Yet look how far Nigel Farage has come. Privileged invitees to the Ukip leader's book launch tonight have been warned that 'all conversations are to be considered off the record' at the SW1 event: 'Acceptance of this invite implies agreement of these terms. Information garnered at the event may be used for background, but should be considered non-attributable without further confirmation...

Sebastian Payne

Douglas Alexander: Facebook makes it more difficult for politicians to campaign

Labour is struggling to win back voters in Scotland because of social media conspiracy theories that are difficult to debunk, the party’s campaign chief said this morning. Speaking at a LabourList event, Douglas Alexander recounted a story about a voter who supported independence and bought into a conspiracy theories about the oil companies she read on Facebook. This echo chamber poses a great challenge for parties attempting to tell the truth, he said: ‘We’re used to a politics where we share facts but diverge on opinions. We are confronting — increasingly because of the rise of social media — a politics where people’s social media feeds can be an echo chamber for at the best of their opinion opinions and worst of their own prejudices.

Monday

Sebastian Payne

Four polls show that neither Conservatives nor Labour are pulling ahead

Another week, another set of polls that put Labour and the Tories on an almost level footing. In his weekly national poll, Lord Ashcroft has the Conservatives two points ahead on 31 per cent — down three points from last week — while Labour are on 29 per cent. Today’s Guardian/ICM poll also has the Conservatives slightly ahead, by one point, while Labour has jumped three points to 35 per cent. But the latest The Sun/YouGov’s poll tonight shows the opposite: this poll has Labour two points ahead of the Tories, who are down to 32 per cent. Another poll from Populus yesterday put the two main parties on 34 per cent each. Two weeks to go until the election campaign properly begins and there is still no clear frontrunner.