Labour party

At first glance Mr S thought that he might be watching Labour’s latest class-war party election broadcast: rich kids at Oxford University trashing restaurants, tussling with the law and generally playing silly buggers in evening wear. Sound familiar? This is, however, the trailer for The Riot Club: the silver screen’s answer to ‘the Buller’, which will bear little or no resemblance to the drinking society beloved by Boris, Dave and George during their time at the university. Labour bods will be rubbing their hands with glee at the timing of the film’s release.

The Bank of England’s inflation report will be published later this morning, which will reveal how strong the bank believes the recovery to be. All eyes will be on its estimate of the remaining ‘slack’ in the economy, which will govern policy on interest rates. The bank’s Monetary Policy Committee has already said that the bank may have to raise rates earlier than expected if strong growth is creating inflationary pressure. City analysts appear to be working on the basis that rates will increase in the first quarter of next year; but there are rumours that the decision might have to be brought forward to the last quarter of this year, such is the speed of growth.

'Utter fucking bollocks'. In case that's not clear enough for you, the suggestion that Alistair Darling is being replaced as the head of the Better Together campaign is, as one insider puts it, 'absolute horseshit'. Douglas Alexander, the man replacing Darling according to the Daily Mail, was at the Better Together HQ in Glasgow earlier today and, I understand, mildly surprised to learn of his elevation. Then again, the Mail only reports that there will be 'no formal announcement of a change' merely a 'secret agreement' that Alexander should effectively supplant Darling. So secret, however, that no-one involved appears to have heard of it.

Labour is failing to make up any ground on Ukip ahead of next week’s European elections. A new poll from Sky News and YouGov today says that Labour’s support has dropped to 25 per cent, while Ukip remain comfortably in first place with 31 per cent of the vote: [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.uk/LbUDH/index.html"] Interestingly, Ukip has not pushed further ahead since the last YouGov poll I wrote up, but they are now clear of the margin of error — two/three per cent depending on the sample size. It appears that, combined with Ukip's higher likeliness to vote, Labour is ever more certain to come second on 22 May. The Tories, who have long accepted they will come third, will be pleased they are slowly eroding Labour’s vote share.

David Axelrod jets into London this week for the first time since signing up to help Labour in 2015. Axelrod, who friends admit is no expert on UK politics, will have two days to try and get his head round the shape of the next election campaign. This trip will mark the first time that Axelrod and Miliband have met face to face. Up to now, they have only spoken on the telephone. Axelrod will also address a specially convened meeting of the shadow Cabinet. There’s no doubt that having the man who helped Obama get to the White House in town will be a boost to Labour morale. But the scale of the task facing Axelrod is demonstrated by the events of the last week.

What a funny, contradictory week it has been for Labour's campaign machine. First Ed Miliband told the Evening Standard that he had greater intellectual self-confidence than the Prime Minister - and won praise in the Spectator's leading article for being someone who does indeed have the courage of their political convictions these days. Then he seemed so confident of his policies that he chose to needle David Cameron with one of them at Prime Minister's Questions. But then he seemed to have a crisis of confidence and decided to produce a party-political broadcast that, er, didn't mention anything Labour is up to at all. When I blogged about this latest offering from Labour on Wednesday, I said it was an example of class war with wit and panache.

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_8_May_2014_v4.mp3" title="James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman look forward to the general election next year" startat=766] Listen [/audioplayer]In almost a decade as Conservative leader, David Cameron has tended to avoid talking about his political philosophy. He has presented himself as a pragmatist, suspicious of anything ending in ‘-ism’ — and the very opposite of a swivel-eyed ideologue. There is something to be said for this, but it raises the great question: what is a Conservative government for? There was no clear answer at the last election and so no clear result from that election. Voters had turned away from Labour, but were not quite sure how their lives would be better under the Conservatives.

One of the striking things about the next election is how what is going on at the macro level looks so different from what is happening at a micro level. On the macro front, things seem to be moving the Tories' way. The economy is growing at a good clip and that is set to continue until polling day and David Cameron has a considerable advantage on the question of who would make the best Prime Minister. But to return to the micro, it is easier to see seats where Labour might gain from the Tories rather than the other way round. Ask even the most optimistic Tories what constituencies they might win to give them a double-digit majority, and they come up short. The crucial question is whether these marginals are a lagging indicator or not.

Why do the Tories have a problem with black and ethnic minority voters, daddy? It is, with all due respect to Isabel and Paul Goodman, the British political question that is easiest to answer. We all know the answer too, even those of us on the right. Race might not be the Conservative party's original sin; it's still a pretty high-ranking sin. And, look, it's not ancient history either. It's not a Different times, different attitudes but, please, can we move on now? kind of thing. Nor did it die with Enoch either. (Poor old Enoch, so brilliant but a touch troubled too, don't you think?

How the Tory party will react if, as excepted, Ukip pushes the party into third place in the European elections is one of the most discussed topics in UK politics. But overlooked in all this is how Labour will react if Farage’s party beats them on May 22nd. If Ukip come top in the European Elections, as the polls indicate they have a very good chance of doing, Labour will be thrown into a panic. No opposition has ever triumphed at a general election having not won the previous European Elections. A failure in the European Elections would be a big blow to the idea that Ed Miliband is going to be the next Prime Minister. Already, influential members of the shadow Cabinet are grumbling about how the leadership hasn’t taken these elections seriously enough.