David cameron

The Guardian/Observer website is running with this story headed 'Britain set to face weeks of political paralysis after election poll'. That's a safe prediction. But what's intriguing is that the article – by Daniel Boffey, Toby Helm and Ashley Cowburn – is entirely devoted to the prospect of an extremely shaky Conservative-Lib Dem coalition, harassed or indeed blocked by Vince Cable and right-wing Tories. There's no discussion of a Miliband-led government. Interesting. The Labour-supporting Guardian and Observer give the impression that they're very tentatively calling it for Dave (despite insisting that's it's 'too close to call').

This morning the Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a baby girl. The girl, who is the Queen’s fifth great-grandchild, is the fourth in line to the throne. As members of the public began to celebrate, the political leaders were quick to put out their own carefully worded messages of congratulations. With the election less than a week away, each leader must work out how to toe the party line on the monarchy, while not coming across as cold-hearted or too politically-minded. First out of the starting blocks was Nick Clegg who managed to mention both his constituency and his better half Miriam in his messages: https://twitter.com/nick_clegg/status/594444543220654080 https://twitter.

Lord Ashcroft has released his final marginal polls before the election, looking at ten marginal seats in England and Scotland. The Tories are set to hold onto four key marginals: Battersea, Croydon Central, Pudsey and Stourbridge. In Croydon Central, Ashcroft has found significant movement towards the Tories: last October, there was a six point Labour lead, which shrunk to a four point lead in March and has now turned into a four point Conservative lead. This movement is thanks to a decline in the Ukip vote share, which has dropped nine points since October. There's also good news for the employment minister Esther McVey in Wirral West.

Given that Nigel Lawson served as chancellor of the exchequer in Margaret Thatcher's cabinet, Mr S suspects that the Conservatives will have hoped that they could rely on Lawson for a vote of confidence as polling day approaches. Alas, Lawson says that he has been disappointed by the manner in which the Conservatives have conducted their election campaign.