Conservative party

Now that David Cameron and Nick Clegg have had their final audiences with the Queen at Buckingham Palace, they can get on the road. Their shiny battle buses are waiting to accompany them on the campaign trail. The Lib Dems are charging hacks who want to clamber aboard their bus £750 per person per day, which is rather a lot for a bus journey, even if it does take you from seat to seat. You’d expect a champagne breakfast personally served by Tim Farron every morning for that fee. Still, the Tories have only invited certain people on their bus, and those certain people seem to be broadcast journalists rather

The stakes have been raised, at least psychologically, for Thursday night’s debate. Today’s YouGov poll has Labour four points ahead, in contrast to a two point Tory lead in their last survey. This is being seen in Westminster as a Paxman bounce for Miliband. If this Labour leads is still in place at the end of the Easter weekend, Tory nerves will begin to fray. Thursday’s debate will be a crowded affair with seven leaders on stage. Despite it being a two hour debate, there’ll only be time for four questions. As I say in the Mail On Sunday, the debate will almost certainly turn into Cameron versus the rest as they

The Tories want to frame this election as a straight choice between David Cameron and Ed Miliband. So, today Cameron delivered some of his most direct attacks on Miliband yet. Anticipating criticism, he said, ‘Some might say “don’t make this personal” but when it comes to who’s Prime Minister, the personal is national.’ Cameron warned that Labour could reverse everything that has been achieved in this parliament, the ‘painstaking work of the last 5 years – they could undo in just 5 months.’ He attacked Labour as ‘the welfare party’ and derided Miliband as a ‘Hampstead Socialist’. In contrast, he tried to paint the Tories as the party which is

The most remarkable poll of the week was the one which suggested the British public find Ed Miliband more of a toff than David Cameron. It takes something to out-toff an Old Etonian with a patrician air and liking for green wellies. But is it so very surprising? Ed has, after all, just shown himself to be on the friend of wealthy idlers, by hinting that the brunt of tax rises in a Labour government would fall instead on those who work for a living. Ed Miliband began well in the last Prime Minister’s Questions before the election. He noted David Cameron’s direct answer to James Landale’s direction question on his future as

As Fraser Nelson says on this morning’s Spectator podcast, David Cameron will likely be regretting yesterday’s announcement for the rest of his premiership. He’s not a ripe watermelon; highlighting that he has a best before date won’t encourage anyone to eat him now, before he grows mould. Worse, he’s announced a shortlist of three possible successors: ‘the Theresa Mays, and the George Osbornes, and the Boris Johnsons’. We all know the troubles a similar announcement caused Tony Blair, but even if Dave managed to sleep through the Blair-Brown years (from the opposite green benches), dipping into the biography of any pre-modern English monarch should have taught him of the dangers of

Two polls out today have the Conservatives and Labour neck and neck, while another has Labour ahead by two points. Lord Ashcroft’s national poll has the two main parties at 33 per cent — both up on last week — while Ukip is on 12 per cent, the Lib Dems on eight and Greens on five. Tonight’s YouGov /Sun poll has a similar outlook, with the Tories and Labour tied on 34 per cent, Ukip on 12, the Lib Dems eight and Greens six. Populus, however, has Labour two points ahead on 33 per cent, putting the Conservatives on 31 per cent, Ukip on 16, the Lib Dems on nine and Greens on five. The polls have moved around a