Labour party

Labour seems pretty keen to prolong its row with Boots chief Stefano Pessina. We're on day three now. After Boris Johnson weighed in on this on his LBC show, Chuka Umunna said ‘the Mayor of London is right to set himself apart from the Prime Minister and make it clear he finds it disappointing when firms do not join the overwhelming majority of British businesses in making a fair contribution to the Exchequer’. Party sources point out that when a senior businessman claims a Labour government would be a ‘catastrophe’ for Britain, it would be odd if the party just shrugged its shoulders. That’s why Labour is defending itself so robustly.

Patrick Wintour has a fascinating piece in The Guardian on Labour’s dilemma on tuition fees. Particularly striking is that Ed Balls is deeply concerned about how Peter Mandelson might react to any new policy. Wintour writes: ‘Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, also knows there are serious figures in the party, including the former business secretary Lord Mandelson, who will voice their concerns if a half-baked policy emerges that might damage the status of UK’s world-class universities. Mandelson made a technical criticism of the plans for a mansion tax, but supported the concept of a wealth tax. He will be less restrained if he thinks the revised tuition fees policy damages the skills base of the UK economy.’ Now, all parties have their internal coalitions to manage.

With the opinion polls so tight at the moment, we’re having to look for other ways to try and work out what the general election result will be. One indicator worth watching is which party is spending more time thinking about the leadership contest that would follow an election. Now, there has been plenty of speculation about this on both the Tory and Labour benches in recent times. But in the last few weeks, I’ve picked up more of it from the Labour side. One Labour frontbencher calculates that the focus of ‘half the party is on what happens next’.

The papers are full of Blairite warnings to Ed Miliband and Andy Burnham about the way Labour is campaigning on the NHS at present. Alan Milburn’s World at One interview gets a great deal of coverage, and just to twist the knife a bit further, the former Cabinet minister joins John Hutton to write in the FT that ‘if Labour is to win in May, the two Eds need to set the record straight and reclaim ground foolishly bequeathed to their opponents’.

Today marks 100 days till the election — so how is the race looking? Still very close, according to the most recent opinion polls. In three polls released over the last 24 hours, the Tories are ahead by one point — according to YouGov, Survation and ComRes (notably, the first time they’ve put the Tories ahead since 2011). Only Lord Ashcroft has the Tories level pegging with Labour. As the chart above shows, the two main parties are neck and neck. The Tories will be hoping these small leads will grow over the next few weeks while Labour will be pleased their opponents have yet to gain much traction.

So the broadcasters have done what many thought they’d be too afraid to do and have threatened to empty chair David Cameron - or anyone else who refuses to take part - in the TV debates. In a statement released this afternoon, BBC, ITV, Sky and Channel 4 said ‘in the event that any of the invited party leaders decline to participate, debates will take place with the party leaders who accept the invitation’. They have also said the debates will all take place within the short campaign, which Cameron didn’t want either. Labour has said it will sign up to the debates, while others continue to grumble. But naturally David Cameron has said very little.

Liz Kendall is a real rising star in the Labour party. Few colleagues have a bad word to say about her, and indeed many have a great deal of good words. Tonight the House magazine publishes an interview with the Shadow Health Minister that contains a number of rather strong comments that she’s made about the party that she has a good chance of one day leading. The line that’ll get most attention is this: ‘You can’t be the moaning man in the pub. Actually the moaning man in the pub often has a real point underneath it all. But mostly you end up not listening.