Uk politics

If voters pick up party manifestos, chances are they might not make it all the way through the 80-150 page tomes the people pitching for government have produced. But they might leaf through and look at some of the bullet points, graphics and the pictures. Here are some of the best (or perhaps the oddest) manifesto pictures from the three main parties: This woman is just so thrilled to be buying some sweets, which were only made thanks to the Tories' long-term economic plan. This kid is definitely hiding something behind his back, and it's not the detail of George Osborne's £12bn welfare cuts. This student is hoping the Tory photographer will leave her alone to understand the clotting cascade in peace.

The Conservatives have sent out a campaign email from David Cameron this evening promoting their key manifesto pledges. You'd expect that: now's the time to galvanise activists' support. But there is one line in there that jars: 'Everyone earning the Minimum Wage lifted out of income tax altogether.' This isn't true. Cameron was quite careful in his speech today to say that the Tories will make sure 'no-one on the Minimum Wage who works 30 hours a week pays any income tax on their wages'. If you're working 40 hours a week on minimum wage pay, you will continue to pay income tax. So when the email says ‘no one’, it only means those who work part-time on the minimum wage (which the government defines as 30 or fewer hours per week).

Tomorrow’s Tory manifesto will contain the boldest policy proposal of this campaign so far. The party will promise to extend the right to buy to 1.3 million families living in housing association properties. This policy has the potential to create a new group of homeowners and to start the reversal of the decline in home ownership; even critics of the plan think that more than 150,000 families might take advantage of it. It helps to keep alive the idea of a property owning democracy which has been so crucial to the success of the centre-right in this country.

Towards the end of last week, the Tories were looking a bit miserable. Their slow response to Labour’s non-coms announcement, coupled with a ‘dead cat’ response from Michael Fallon which made the party look rattled and unpleasant had left the Conservative campaign looking unusually disorganised and slow-witted. But ministers have tried to pick things up, and some of their announcements in particular have left Labour in a similar mess. The story that David Cameron’s party will meet the £8bn demand for health funding from NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens has left Labour hopping around looking a bit cross and awkward.

If the election in England is the political equivalent of trench warfare with Labour and the Tories inching forwards and then back, what’s going on in Scotland is a rout with the SNP driving all before it. What is remarkable is how the Nationalists are even in with a chance of winning seats such as Edinburgh South West that voted No by a more than twenty point margin. At the moment, everything their opponents throw at it seems to bounce off the SNP. The so-called Sturgeon memo, which claimed that she had told the French Ambassador that—contrary to all her public protestations—she would prefer Cameron to Miliband as Prime Minister, was the big story this time last week. But now, it is an irrelevance.

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.

One of the most striking things about Scotland is how the referendum still dominates politics here. I’ve seen more Yes posters and stickers than I’ve seen posters for any political party. The referendum also goes a long way to explaining the SNP surge. In Edinburgh East, for instance, 17 thousand people voted Labour in 2010, giving the party a nine thousand majority. Considering that the seat has been Labour since 1935, you’d expect that to be enough for the party to hold on easily. But as the SNP candidate for the seat Tommy Sheppard pointed out to me, 27 thousand people in this seat voted Yes last autumn. If he can get two thirds of them to turn out and vote SNP, then he’ll win.

Tonight’s Scottish debate isn’t going to fundamentally alter the dynamics of this general election campaign in Scotland. But it will reverberate through the UK-wide general election campaign. Both Ed Miliband and David Cameron have been left with questions to answer by their Scottish leaders while Nicola Sturgeon has made clear the price she intends to try and extract for supporting a Labour government. In heated exchanges with Sturgeon about the economy, Jim Murphy pointed out that the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that Labour would not need to cut further after 2016. Now, the Labour leadership in London has studiously avoided endorsing this idea. But Miliband and Ed Balls can now expect to be put on the spot about it after Murphy’s comments.

In a close campaign, you would normally expect the smaller parties to get squeezed as voters decided that is really a choice between Labour and the Tories. But this time, thing might be different. Why, because the general expectation is that there will be another hung parliament and the coverage of the campaign is being reflected through that prism. This emphasis on the likelihood of a hung parliament could change how people actually vote. As I write in the current issue of the magazine, the British Election Study shows that among voters who expect another hung parliament support for both Labour and the Tories is radically lower with the minor parties doing that much better. Among those who expect one party to win outright, Labour and the Tories poll at 39 and 38 percent respectively.