Labour party

Tuesday

Steerpike

Revealed: How Labour's election broadcast star supported Arthur Scargill's Socialist party

Tonight Martin Freeman will take on a starring role in the latest Labour election broadcast. In the short film, the Sherlock actor says that for him ‘there’s only once choice’ and that’s Labour. Alas for Labour, that hasn’t always strictly been the case. Mr S recalls the 2001 general election during which Freeman voted not for Labour, but instead for Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour party. At the time, Scargill’s party pledged to leave the EU, create a four-day working week, abolish the monarchy and axe the House of Lords if they took power. Then in 2005, Freeman said he would rather abstain from voting than vote for Tony Blair’s Labour in the general election: ‘I don’t know that

Monday

Sebastian Payne

Two more polls suggest Ed Miliband’s 'Paxo bounce' is sliding away

Ed Miliband’s so-called ‘Paxo bounce’ in the opinion polls is ebbing away. The polls out this evening have the Conservatives either level pegging with Labour or slightly ahead. Tonight’s latest from YouGov/The Sun has both parties neck and neck, with the Conservatives and Labour on 35 per cent — a three point rise for the Tories on Sunday — while Ukip is on 12 per cent, the Lib Dems on eight and the Greens on five. In his weekly national poll, Lord Ashcroft has the Tories two points ahead on 36 per cent, up three points from last week. The Tory pollster has Labour on 34 per cent, Ukip on ten, the Lib Dems

Sebastian Payne

Watch: new party political broadcasts from the Tories and Labour

Lucky viewers of BBC One this evening will have seen the Conservative party’s brand new political broadcast. Entitled ‘Securing a better future for your family’ — watch above — the saccharine video is designed to soften the hearts of even the most ardent Tory haters. Loaded with messages about abolishing the deficit, cutting income tax, investing in the NHS, creating millions of apprenticeships and extending Help to Buy, the PPB is targeted at one demographic: families. The Tories are often accused of purely concentrating on the ‘grey vote’, with messages and policies designed to appeal to pensioners, who are much more likely to actually vote. But this broadcast features young

Isabel Hardman

Were the Tories' dodgy figures designed to provoke Labour into making a statement?

Why are the Tories peddling what the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has described as ‘at best unhelpful’, which is the claim that households would be hit with a £3,000 tax bombshell if Ed Miliband becomes Prime Minister? The IFS’ analysis came out earlier today, but this evening George Osborne repeated the claim, saying: ‘Well it’s based on what the Labour party has voted for and what Ed Miliband has said he will do… I am confident that that is based on what the Labour party has voted for in Parliament.’ listen to ‘George Osborne stands by £3,000 Labour tax rise claim’ on audioBoom

Hugo Rifkind

Labour's most shameful mug? It has to be Diane Abbott

This is an extract from Hugo Rifkind’s column in the next issue of The Spectator, out on Thursday: The Labour party has put its five core election pledges on mugs. No, I don’t know why. Presumably the idea is that you buy all five, and then, when your friends come around for tea, you each drink yours out of the one featuring your favourite. Yeah, I know. As if the sort of people who’d buy these mugs would have friends. There’s an odd fuss, though, about mug four, which says CONTROLS ON IMMIGRATION on it. Quite widely, this has been perceived as a gaffe, a betrayal, a slump into Faragism,

Melanie McDonagh

Why is Labour making merit out of not backing an EU referendum?

Fair play to Ed Miliband for launching Labour’s business manifesto today in Bloomberg, not perhaps the party’s natural stamping ground, at least not since the prawn cocktail initiative in 1997. And it was gutsy of it too to take out a full page advertisement in the FT – they don’t come cheap – to broadcast the party’s opposition to an EU referendum. ‘The biggest risk to British business is the threat of an EU exit. Labour will put the national interest first. We will deliver reform, not exit’, it says. Granted most British businesses, especially big ones and foreign-based ones, don’t want out of the EU. But doesn’t it seem

Sunday

Sebastian Payne

Podcast special: eve of the general election campaign + SNP spring conference

The general election campaign kicks off tomorrow and Labour appears to have the ‘Big Mo’. In this View from 22 podcast special,  Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and I discuss the state of the polls — and the new YouGov/Sunday Times poll which suggests Labour are four points ahead — and whether Ed Miliband’s ‘win’ in the TV Q&A this week has put the Tories on the back foot. What can we expect to happen in the first week of the campaign? We also discuss the SNP’s spring conference in Glasgow and why the Nats are trying to reach out to the rest of the United Kingdom, You can subscribe to the View from 22 through iTunes and

James Forsyth

Stakes raised ahead of Thursday night's debate

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

Saturday

James Forsyth

David Cameron: 'This is a high stakes, high risk election'

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

Friday

Sebastian Payne

Miliband’s performance last night vindicates the Tories’ strategy of no head-to-head debates

David Cameron and Ed Miliband both ‘won’ last night’s TV Q&A session. The Prime Minister put in a decent performance and came out ahead in the snap poll. But Miliband exceeded expectations, albeit ones which were pretty low. It was a given that Cameron would be fluent and deal ably with the casual conversations in the audience Q&A. But some expected a faux pas from Miliband and it never came. Miliband did not put in a game changing performance, and we haven’t seen yet how large last night’s audience was by the time Miliband came on at quarter to ten. But it has given Labour some momentum ahead of its campaign launch today in East London. On

Thursday

Toby Young

How (and why) we lie to ourselves about opinion polls

A strange ritual takes place on Twitter most evenings at around 10.30 p.m. Hundreds of political anoraks start tweeting the results of the YouGov daily tracker poll due to be published in the following day’s Sun. Some of them are neutrals, but the majority are politically aligned and will only tweet those results that show their party in front. I often wonder what the point of this is, even though I’m guilty of it myself. It’s not as if anyone is going to see the tweet and say, ‘Ooh, I wasn’t going to vote Conservative, but now that YouGov has them two points ahead I’ve changed my mind.’ I can think

Carola Binney

Voters want visions, and powerful posters deliver them – not Twitter

If no-one was very excited about the launch of the Lib Dem’s election poster this morning, it wasn’t just because of the rain. According to The Times, political posters are on their way out. Political parties are spending 50 per cent less on outdoor posters this year than they did in 2010, and unofficial reports have suggested that the Conservatives’ spending on outdoor ads is yet to hit seven figures. By the end of March 2010, the Tories had already splashed out over £3 million. No doubt the barrenness of Britain’s billboards is partly the result of a lack of funds, but it’s also a conscious choice based on the

Fraser Nelson

Alex Salmond sets out his terms for Ed Miliband

‘Would you like a glass of pink champagne?’ asks Alex Salmond at 3.30 p.m., sounding very much like a man settling down for the afternoon. It’s Monday and Scotland’s former first minister has cause to celebrate. He spent the previous day musing on television about the price he’d demand for the SNP supporting Ed Miliband in the Commons, and his thoughts dominate the front pages. There’s plenty of outrage at the idea of the SNP toying with England, and outrage is just what he wanted. So champagne it is. He has found himself an unlikely star of the Tory election campaign; the party this week released a cartoon showing him

Wednesday

Steerpike

David Cameron's VAT pledge spells disaster for Labour's new poster campaign

Ed Miliband had a disastrous PMQs today after the Labour leader claimed the Tories would raise VAT, only to have David Cameron deny that he would increase the tax. Besides leaving Miliband lost for words, Cameron’s pledge has also left a massive hole in Labour’s election campaign. It was only yesterday that Ed Balls unveiled a snazzy new poster, which contained a big ‘VAT’ swinging into a warning about the Tories’ plans. With their key line now discredited, will someone find a landfill stuffed with Labour posters in a few days time?

Ross Clark

Is it really surprising that people think Ed Miliband is more of a toff than David Cameron?

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

Fraser Nelson

Exclusive: Alex Salmond says SNP will back Labour unconditionally

“Would you like a glass of pink champagne?” asks Alex Salmond at 3.30pm, sounding very much like a man settling down for the afternoon. It’s Monday and Scotland’s former First Minister has cause to celebrate. He spent the previous day musing on television about the price he’d demand for the SNP supporting Ed Miliband in the House of Commons, and his thoughts dominate the front pages of the newspapers. There’s plenty of outrage at the idea of the SNP toying with England, and outrage is exactly what Salmond wanted. So champagne it is. Salmond has found himself an unlikely star of the Tory election campaign; the party this week released

Monday

Sebastian Payne

Still no lead: Tories and Labour tied in two new polls

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

Steerpike

Revealed: Labour candidate's joke about Oscar Pistorius shooting

David Cameron is facing calls from Labour to discipline a local council candidate after they dressed as Oscar Pistorius for a costume party. Gregg Peers – who is standing for the Conservatives in a Cumbria County Council by-election – posted photos of himself in the fancy dress on his Facebook page. Labour’s Liz Kendall has said the Prime Minister must ‘show he takes violence against women seriously by taking immediate action against his candidate’. The MP for Leicester West adds that ‘the Conservatives must explain why they promoted him to senior positions in their party’. But isn’t it time for the Labour party to also show that they take violence against women seriously?

Steerpike

Ed Miliband's brother bother is back

Miliband finally got some good media coverage this weekend. Alas, it was David rather than Ed who was on the receiving end. The Labour leader’s brother was branded ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ in a glowing profile in the Sunday Times. According to well sourced ‘friends’, the former Foreign Secretary turned Labour leadership loser has conquered America and is ready to ride back as a white knight. ‘David wants Ed to be prime minister. End of story’, says a spokesman. Yet reading between the lines, things are obviously still a little bit tense. On Budget Day, David failed to mention his sibling once despite tweeting all the way through his brother’s scatty response to Osborne’s budget.

Sunday

James Forsyth

When will voters really tune into the election campaign?

With just over six weeks to go to polling day, the mood of the parties is now largely determined by the opinion polls. This morning’s crop are a mixed bunch. Survation for the Mail on Sunday has a 4 point Labour lead, YouGov has Labour two ahead but Opinium has the Tories on 36% and ahead by three. What seems clear is that the Budget hasn’t had a decisive impact on the polls. Yet most Tory MPs, including those who’ve been highly critical of Osborne in the past, are happy with it. One senior backbencher told me, ‘Burnishing a reputation for responsibility is more valuable than anything else. Glitzy giveaways