Ed miliband

Thursday

Sebastian Payne

Three new polls put Labour ahead

Three new polls out today have put Labour ahead of the Tories. At a time when the Conservatives are firing all guns at the opposition, Labour appear to be gaining some momentum. According to a new Survation/Daily Mirror poll, Labour is four points ahead on 35 per cent, compared to the Tories on 31 per cent, Ukip on 15, the Lib Dems on nine and the SNP and Greens both on four. Panelbase has conducted an online poll, which suggests Labour has a six-point lead at 37 per cent and the Conservatives are on 31 per cent. TNS has also released a poll which puts Labour ahead by three points on 33 per cent, compared to 30 per cent for the Tories.

Steerpike

Coffee Shots: More election yellow lines for Labour

Forget the red lines in this election, it's the yellow lines that Labour are having a daily struggle with. Yesterday it was there campaign bus, today it's Ed Miliband's motorcade. The vehicle was snapped flouting the law in Victoria this morning: [caption id="attachment_9069422" align="alignnone" width="510"] Photo: Chris Pollard[/caption] A gas guzzling Range Rover for his security detail? Whatever happened to the Energy and Climate Change Secretary who made a commitment, back in 2009, to cut our emissions by a third by 2020?

Steerpike

Labour accuse Lynton Crosby of ‘going nuclear’ to distract from non-dom row

Despite their leader playing the pious 'not angry, but disappointed' shtick at his press conference this morning, it's not all po-faces over in Labour land after the Tories' latest attack on Ed Miliband. 'Lynton Crosby has literally had to go nuclear to distract from non-doms,' chuckles a chirpy Labour source. Tory sources back this up, saying it was Crosby's personal idea to re-open the 'stab in the back' narrative. Strikingly, Philip Hammond refused to repeat this language on the television today. 'But it's a perfectly reasonable attack line,' says a disgruntled Labour source. 'In the Labour leadership campaign, Ed was attacked for stabbing his brother in the back.

Isabel Hardman

There’s no need for the Tories to descend into the gutter

You might be forgiven for expecting that a Defence Secretary giving a speech on defence during an election campaign would involve an announcement about his party’s defence policy. And Michael Fallon did ‘announce’ something today, which is that the Tories would commit to four nuclear submarines, updated missiles and warheads in a renewal of the Trident continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent. This was an announcement in the sense that the Defence Secretary said it in a speech with a party-branded board behind him, but it wasn’t a surprise.

Steerpike

Did Owen Jones once describe an ‘anti-Semitic trope’ as ‘eloquent’ during a book talk?

Today Owen Jones has criticised Michael Fallon for using the term 'stabbed in the back' to describe what he thinks Ed Miliband would do to Britain over Trident. The Guardian columnist has gone so far as to say that the phrase is 'anti-Semitic'. Michael Fallon’s “stabbed in the back” metaphor is deeply sinister. It is a classic anti-Semitic trope — Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) April 9, 2015 However, Mr S understands that Jones may not have always been so averse to the term. In 2011, Jones gave a Bookmarks Bookshop talk about his book  Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class as part of the annual Trades Union Congress.

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: what if Ed wins, the madness of Scottish politics and Catholic wars

Ed Miliband could still win the general election, but what would happen next? On the latest View from 22 podcast, The Telegraph’s Dan Hodges discusses this week's Spectator cover feature on what to expect from a Miliband premiership with George Eaton of the New Statesman. Would Miliband manage to take his lofty ideas about reshaping capitalism into No.10? Or would he be more pragmatic in power? Like his mentor Gordon Brown, could Miliband's indecisiveness turn out to be a fatal flaw? James Forsyth and Alex Massie also discuss the current madness of Scottish politics.

Dan Hodges

Ed dawn

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/edcouldstillwin/media.mp3" title="Dan Hodges and George Eaton discuss what will happen if Ed wins" startat=40] Listen [/audioplayer]What if Ed Miliband wins? His victory is still seen, especially by those on the right, as a near-impossibility — an event so improbable as to defy the laws of political gravity. But then again, we’re three weeks away from the general election and still the Conservatives still haven’t managed to establish a convincing lead. He might yet defy the bookies. And what then? Imagine it’s the morning of Friday 8 May. Prime Minister Miliband has just crossed the threshold of Downing Street, the famous door swinging shut behind him. What happens next? One thing happens immediately.

Sam Waley-Cohen

Grand National Notebook

‘How’s your shoulder?’ someone asked recently, and it was only then I realised, for the first time in a while, that my shoulder felt good again. In last year’s Grand National — you might recall if you watched it on television — I had a heavy fall when going well on Long Run, the wonderful horse on whom I won the Gold Cup. I landed on my shoulder and had to hobble off the course. Those famously intimidating Grand National fences may have been made a bit more forgiving in recent years — thank God! — but they are still huge, and when you fall going over one it hurts. Not that I’m put off. The Grand National continues to excite me as much as any horse-racing romantic. The National crams every human emotion into about eight minutes.

Wednesday

Ross Clark

Ruth Davidson, Scotland’s Iron Lady, could be just what the Tories need

Nicola Sturgeon has been described as a rock star politician. In Tuesday’s STV debate she looked like one who is suffering from second album syndrome. Having impressed a UK-wide audience in the seven-leader ITV debate last week, her reception at the Scottish version was far more muted, with some instant polls suggesting a narrow victory for Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy. A dispassionate observer might place Sturgeon third, behind Murphy and an impressively plucky Ruth Davidson. It takes something to stand before a Scottish audience, where the Tory brand isn’t just toxic but radioactive, and earn applause for making the case to reintroduce prescription charges.

Toby Young

Ed Miliband couldn’t care less about education reform

The editor of The Spectator isn’t the only person thinking about the prospect of Ed Miliband becoming the next Prime Minister. Eighty educationalists have signed a letter in the Daily Mail today warning about the danger of a future Labour government curtailing academy freedoms. They’re concerned about Ed Miliband’s pledge that Labour would reintroduce 'a proper local authority framework for all schools' – which sounds a lot like placing all taxpayer-funded schools back under local authority control. The letter-writers flag up two freedoms they are particularly concerned about: the freedom that academies and free schools have to set their own pay and conditions and the freedom they have over the curriculum. They’re right to be worried.

Steerpike

Labour’s non-dom millionaire donor stays silent over Ed’s proposals

Today Ed Miliband has announced with all guns blazing that the Labour party will abolish non-dom status if they are elected in May. The party has labelled the current non-dom tax rules as 'ridiculous'. However, according to an interview Ed Balls gave earlier this year, cutting it would 'cost Britain money'. Even if this is the case Labour doesn't appear too rattled, seeing this as a moral point rather than just a financial one. Still, Mr S couldn't help but recall the £5.1 million Labour accepted from the non-dom donor Lakshmi Mittal. The steel tycoon multi-millionaire is a British citizen with non-dom status as his company ArcelorMittal is largely based in Luxembourg.

Sebastian Payne

Campaign kick-off: 29 days to go

Finally, we have a policy to debate. Ed Miliband has set the agenda for the campaign today with a pledge that Labour would scrap the ‘non-dom’ tax status. After weeks of personal attacks, Miliband has shaken things up a little — but is the announcement already falling apart? To help guide you through the melée of stories and spin, here is a summary of today's main stories. 1. No more non-doms In a speech at Warwick University today, Ed Miliband will say ‘there are now 116,000 non-doms, costing hundreds of millions of pounds to our country, it can no longer be justified.’ In short, having non-dom tax status is a way for very wealthy people to avoid paying tax.

Matthew Sinclair

Ed Miliband is deliberately misleading ‘you and me’ on the non-dom rules

When he announced Labour Party proposals for changes to the non-dom rules, Ed Miliband tried very hard to be as misleading as possible without lying. He seems to have failed. He said that non-doms 'aren’t required to pay taxes like you and me'. They are. Non-doms are required to pay the same UK taxes as the rest of us on their UK income and foreign income remitted to the UK. Most of us don’t have any non-UK income, let alone non-UK income which we do not wish to remit to the UK (regardless of the tax treatment, it would mean we couldn’t spend it here) and therefore we do not pay tax on unremitted non-UK income either. Clarity on the current rules is really important for what could be a question worth billions to the UK exchequer: will this measure raise revenue?

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband pledges to abolish non-dom tax status

Ed Miliband will tomorrow pledge to abolish the non-domicile rule which allows very wealthy people to avoid paying tax on much of their income. The Labour leader will say: 'There are people who live here in Britain like you and me, work here in Britain like you and me, are permanently settled here in Britain, like you and me, but aren’t required to pay taxes like you and me because they take advantage of what has become an increasingly arcane 200-year-old loophole. There are now 116,000 non-doms, costing hundreds of millions of pounds to our country, it can no longer be justified, and it makes Britain an offshore tax haven for a few.' The party isn't sure how much it would raise from this change, but that's not the point in any case.

Peter Robins

Where did Ed Miliband get ‘Happy Warrior’ from? (Clue: not Wordsworth)

William Wordsworth, sad to say, may not after all have a significant role in the 2015 election campaign. His name was taken in vain repeatedly this weekend, after someone passed the Sun Ed Miliband's preparatory notes for the seven-way election debate. Prominent in these were the words 'Happy Warrior', which every news source gleefully traced back to Wordsworth's 1806 poem Character of the Happy Warrior: Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he That every man in arms should wish to be? —It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought: Whose high endeavours are an inward light That makes the path before him always bright …and so on.

Robert Smith

Ed Miliband’s popularity is improving – and the Tories should worry

Ed Miliband has long been considered the Conservatives' main electoral asset. Certainly, Simon Danczuk touched a nerve when he described his party leader as a liability only a fortnight ago. But as the election nears, is the Labour leader beginning to turn his personal fortunes around? Polling from YouGov shows a fascinating trend. Voter approval of Miliband’s performance as Labour leader has improved from a dire state in late-November last year, at net -56%, to the most recent level of -26% last week. With the election campaign underway, a significant chunk of the electorate appear to have given the Labour leader a second look. Indeed, his net approval rating improved by 10 points after the "hell, yes!

James Forsyth

The Scottish TV debates offer Labour one final chance to hold back the SNP advance

Tonight’s Scottish leaders’ debate in Edinburgh is as important to the general election campaign as last week’s debate featuring Cameron, Miliband et al in Manchester. Both this debate and the second Scottish one tomorrow offer Labour a final opportunity to reverse the SNP advance. The polls indicate that the SNP are on course to take 28 Scottish seats off Labour in May. This would make it the largest Scottish party at Westminster. It would also make it impossible for Ed Miliband to win a majority. At the moment, nothing seems capable of halting the Nationalists’ momentum. The dramatic fall in the oil price, which has upset many of the calculations in the independence white paper, hasn’t dented their support.

Sebastian Payne

Campaign kick-off: 30 days to go

With the Easter break now over, the general election campaign will notch up a gear today as the political parties try to make the most of the last month of campaigning. To help guide you through the melée of stories and spin, we’ll be posting a summary every morning of the main events so you know what to expect from the day ahead. 1. Blair’s back — again After a series of cryptic interviews in which he appeared to complain about the direction of the Labour Party, Tony Blair has gone loyal for the campaign. The Guardian reports that the former Prime Minister will be speaking in his old Sedgefield constituency — alongside his wife Cherie — to warn of the ‘chaos’ David Cameron’s EU referendum would cause.

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

Chris Leslie confirms: Ed Miliband is planning more tax rises

There’s something Ed Miliband isn’t telling us. He’d spend more, he says, and tackle the deficit. But how? Almost every tax rise he has announced is intended to raise cash for still more spending – so how would he cope with the fact that the government still needs to borrow 12p for every £1 that it spends? The obvious answer is: tax rises. But Labour has taken great care to avoid being drawn onto that topic. Or had taken great care, until Chris Leslie’s outing on the TV shows today. Leslie, deputy to Ed Balls, is one of the better guys in politics, straight-talking and pretty honest. And today, he told it straight: Labour would indeed need to raise taxes.