David cameron

Russell Brand kicks back at David Cameron

From our UK edition

Yesterday David Cameron described Russell Brand as a 'joke' after it was revealed that Ed Miliband had paid a late-night visit to the comedian's home for an interview: 'Russell Brand is a joke. Ed Miliband meeting him is a joke. This election isn't funny.' listen to ‘David Cameron says Russell Brand is a 'joke'’ on audioBoom Brand has now responded and has ridiculed Cameron for claiming to be a football fan when he was once a member of the elite Bullingdon Club.

Why does Ed Miliband need his lectern in a back garden?

From our UK edition

Ed Miliband has clearly decided that a lectern is the way to help voters imagine him as a Prime Minister, and the Tories have clearly decided that it’s something worth mocking. Here, in case you ever need it, is a graph setting out how often Miliband has used a lectern, and how often David Cameron has. [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.uk/Jl2hJ/index.html"] It certainly seems a bit odd that the Labour leader needed a lectern in a back garden, or indeed a field, though the official line is that the only reason he has it is that he needs something to hold his notes. However, the party has been trying to play catch up on the question of who would make the best Prime Minister, which Miliband does not do well on. [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.

Election podcast special: nine days to go

From our UK edition

In today's election podcast special, Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth, Isabel Hardman and I discuss David Cameron's ramped up rhetoric on the SNP threat to the Union, the Tories' promise to create 50,000 new apprenticeships from Libor fines and Labour's latest attempts to talk about controlling immigration. We also briefly look at the Liberal Democrats 'red lines' for future coalition negotiations and Ukip's attempts to woo voters in the north.

Will Cameron’s ‘10 days to save the Union’ message work?

From our UK edition

David Cameron continues his anti-SNP campaign today, launching what the Times calls his ‘strongest attack so far’ on a Labour-SNP government. The Prime Minister tells the paper that there are ‘ten days to save the United Kingdom’, which is an echo of Tony Blair’s ‘24 hours to save the NHS’ and William Hague’s less successful ‘last chance to save the pound’. The Conservatives are increasingly talking about the SNP and spending money on billboards featuring a thieving Alex Salmond because they say this message is cutting through in marginal constituencies. But the SNP’s retort is that even if people are bringing the SNP up on the doorstep, it may make little difference to how they vote.

PM pumps up the passion after porridge and panic

From our UK edition

David Cameron is known as the ‘essay crisis’ Prime Minister, and today he did little to dispel that impression. With just 10 days to go until the election, Cameron produced a passionate, excited speech in which he insisted that he was ‘pumped’ about the election and about fighting Labour. Afterwards, when asked what he’d had for breakfast, he roared ‘PORRIDGE!’ with alarming fervour. This is the second furiously enthusiastic speech the Prime Minister has given in as many days, and it represents a significant shift in his tone after accusations of a boring and lacklustre campaign. Boring is, of course, the way Lynton Crosby would rather have it.

Did David Cameron take a dig at the BBC’s Robert Peston?

From our UK edition

After Mr S's colleague Camilla Swift revealed how the BBC misquoted David Cameron as saying he loved foxhunting when he appeared on the Andrew Marr Show, they were accused by some of showing 'left-wing bias'. Now a new row is brewing between the Tories and the BBC. Perhaps still angry about the BBC's behaviour two weeks ago when Marr interrogated Cameron about his 'favourite' sport, this morning the Prime Minister appeared to take a dig at the corporation's economics editor. Speaking at the Conservatives' small business launch, Cameron told small business owners: 'You are responsible for turn around. Small businesses, entrepreneurs, the grafters. A really big thank you for what you've done. 5,000 businesses wrote in to say continue the job.

David Cameron admits he cries at the Sound of Music

From our UK edition

This morning the PM turned on the passion in a shouty performance in front of a room full of accountants. Complaints from the lower orders about a lack of zing to the campaign have clearly reached the top of the Tory tree as the new emotional Prime Minister was not done there. Cameron went on to admit in an interview with Classic FM that he cries when he watches the Sound of Music, when those brave Austrian patriots declare their love for their national flower: 'I do cry in films, The Sound Of Music. As soon as we get on to Edelweiss I’m reaching for the Kleenex.' With the songs lyrics including the line 'Bless my homeland forever', Mr S suspects that this is an audacious bid by Cameron to lure back those lost Ukip voters.

Election podcast special: 10 days to go

From our UK edition

The general election campaign has entered the final stretch and each day between now and polling day, we'll be producing a short lunchtime podcast looking at the day's campaign developments. Today, Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth, Isabel Hardman and I discuss Labour's new housing pledges, the 5,000 small businesses backing the Tories, the hysterical talk of the SNP threat — as well as the unfathomable state of the opinion polls.

Cameron’s answer to the passion question

From our UK edition

David Cameron has been bugged in this campaign by the question of whether he’s passionate enough, of whether he really wants it. When Fraser and I asked him about why so many people aren’t sure of whether he has the passion for it a few days back, he replied, ‘I don’t know. There is something about me—I always manage to portray a calm smoothness or something.’ He then went on to explain why as a Conservative he wants to know what the plan is, not just what the passion is. As he quipped, ‘plan plus carrying out a plan equals dream. Dream plus rhetoric equals chaos.’ But in a speech in Yeovil today, Cameron gave his best answer yet to this passion question. listen to ‘'We can do it!

David Cameron insists Tory campaign has ‘the most positive vision there could possibly be’

From our UK edition

There’s nothing wrong with negative campaigning in an election. If you think your opponents would damage the country, then you should point it out. What’s wrong with negative campaigning is when it’s the only sort of campaigning you’re doing, or when the balance appears to be tipping in its favour in terms of your key messages and big attention-seeking posters. The Tories are currently facing accusations that they are doing too much negative campaigning, and so today David Cameron tried to defend that campaign when he appeared on Sky's Murnaghan programme.

Andrew Marr apologises for misquoting David Cameron on foxhunting

From our UK edition

Is foxhunting David Cameron's favourite sport? Does he 'love it', as Andrew Marr quoted him as saying on his BBC show last Sunday? As I pointed out earlier this week, no, he doesn't. The quote in question never actually existed, and certainly not in the magazine that it was attributed it to - the quarterly one of the Countryside Alliance. But, to his credit, Andrew Marr this morning apologised to his viewers for misleading them. As he said: 'You may have noticed that the Prime Minister looked mildly disconcerted when I put to him a quote about his views on fox hunting. Well, not surprisingly. It turns out he never said it.... We can't expect politicians to apologise and then and then not do it ourselves, can we? Sorry.

Miliband’s position on Libya is deeply hypocritical

From our UK edition

What Ed Miliband lacks in charisma, he is attempting to make up for in polemic. Tragically for the UK's future, this represents an 'Americanization' of British electoral politics. In all likelihood, its origins are David Axelrod cynically taking a page out of the Republicans' playbook. Fortunately, repeated screaming of 'Benghazi' as if it were a primordial voodoo incantation, is unlikely to work on this side of the Atlantic. Speaking at Chatham House on Friday, Miliband sought to pre-empt his critics by laying out a cohesive vision for foreign affairs - usually considered his weakest policy area.

Video: David Cameron bizarrely switches his football allegiance to West Ham

From our UK edition

The Prime Minister's claim that he supports Aston Villa has never been quite believed by football fans. And today, it seems, he has changed his allegiance - telling an audience (above) that they should support West Ham. CCHQ has not, as yet, come up with an explanation as to why he didn't say Aston Villa (other than the fact that he's no more a Villa fan than Gordon Brown was an Arctic Monkeys fan - his biography has plenty references to villas, but none to Aston Villa). But when the explanation comes, Mr S will update. UPDATE: The Prime Minister may have been exaggerating his attachment to football. Here are some quotes, before he became party leader:- @paulwaugh @MarinaHyde @GaryLineker from Hansard in 2001. Admits not a football fan pic.twitter.

Ed Miliband should be careful when discussing foreign policy errors

From our UK edition

If someone accuses you of doing something that you haven’t done, there’s a really easy way of convincing them that you are not in fact guilty. The first thing you can do is deny the accusation. Very clearly, emphatically and categorically. Let me give you an example taken completely at random: 'Are you accusing David Cameron of being personally to blame for the refugee crisis in Libya and hence the deaths of hundreds of desperate people in the Mediterranean?' Now, can anyone think of a good way of answering that question which would be unequivocal and make it clear beyond any doubt whatsoever that this is not in fact what you are doing? One suggestion might be to say something roughly along the lines of this: 'No, I am not.' See, it’s really easy.

Have the Tories given up on taking seats from Labour?

From our UK edition

David Cameron and George Osborne's campaigning is focused on seats the Tory party wants to hold onto, while Ed Miliband is taking the fight to seats Labour wants to win from them. That's the view in Labour HQ, and they've got figures to back it up: Since 30 March, when the ‘short campaign’ began, Cameron and Osborne have made 61 campaign visits between them, Labour says. More than half have been to Tory-held seats, many of them on the ‘40/40’ list of seats that the Tories need to keep and win in order to end up with a majority. Here's where they've been: Ed Miliband and Ed Balls, Labour says, are campaigning to take seats from the Tories, with three-quarters of their 67 campaign visits to Tory held seats. [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.

Ed Miliband thinks Libya’s failure is so obvious he’s barely mentioned it until now

From our UK edition

With less than two weeks until polling day, it’s nice to see that Ed Miliband has discovered foreign policy as an important issue worth discussing. The Labour leader will attack the Tories today on a failure of post-conflict planning for Libya which has contributed to the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean. The Conservatives have decided to get very cross about this, claiming that the overnight briefing on this included Labour spinners saying the Tory party was responsible for the deaths. They have decided to make this about Miliband’s fitness to be Prime Minister.

The other union

From our UK edition

The election campaign is becoming increasingly dominated by a small party whose raison d’être is to preach independence from membership of a union it claims is hindering national ambition. But the party is not Ukip, which had been expected to play a big role in this election. It is the Scottish National Party, which seems ever more likely to hold the balance of power after 7 May and is determined to use it ruthlessly to its own advantage and to the furtherance of its sole objective: the dissolution of the United Kingdom. Nicola Sturgeon has been the only party leader talking about the virtues of national self-government, and she has met with reasonable success. No one else seems to be trying it. Nigel Farage is fighting the campaign as if it were a by-election in South Thanet.

Boris is being careful with his dinner invitations

From our UK edition

One of the main risks of wheeling Boris out this week was that he was never just going to be asked about this election in interviews. The Mayor and candidate for Uxbridge ended up saying 'in the dim and distant future, it would be a wonderful thing to be thought to be in a position to be considered for such an honour’ when asked about becoming Tory leader. He knows as well as anyone else that the way this campaign is going, that this ‘wonderful thing’ might get underway within a month, or indeed in the more distant future. His allies in Parliament have been very careful to refrain from courting support during the campaign. Their mantra has long been ‘low key and loyal’.

Podcast: the passion of David Cameron and whether 2015 will be another 1992

From our UK edition

Should David Cameron be showing more passionate in this election campaign? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth discuss their interview with the Prime Minister in the magazine this week and whether Cameron is feeling optimistic about his reelection chances. Was the PM open about his apparent failure to sell the successes of this government to voters? Will Cameron convince the country that he really does want a second term? And with two weeks to go, is the election a done deal? Matthew Parris and Martin Vander Weyer also look back at the 1992 election campaign and whether the Tories can hope for a similar last minute leap in popularity in 2015. Was John Major a more likeable character than David Cameron?