Uk politics

Though his Conservative colleagues have largely been very supportive of Grant Shapps during the latest row about his alter ego Michael Green, there is a contingent in the party who aren’t massive fans of the Tory chairman and who have pushed at previous reshuffles to have him removed. As I predicted yesterday, those opponents of Shapps certainly aren’t planning any trouble this side of an election. But that doesn’t mean they’ll leave him alone permanently. One critic whispers: ‘We’re keeping quiet as there is an election imminent. But the knives will be out after that. He lied on radio - and a Cabinet Minister who does that should be toast. And he will be.

Another week, another set of polls that put Labour and the Tories on an almost level footing. In his weekly national poll, Lord Ashcroft has the Conservatives two points ahead on 31 per cent — down three points from last week — while Labour are on 29 per cent. Today’s Guardian/ICM poll also has the Conservatives slightly ahead, by one point, while Labour has jumped three points to 35 per cent. But the latest The Sun/YouGov’s poll tonight shows the opposite: this poll has Labour two points ahead of the Tories, who are down to 32 per cent. Another poll from Populus yesterday put the two main parties on 34 per cent each. Two weeks to go until the election campaign properly begins and there is still no clear frontrunner.

The Liberal Democrats sense an opportunity in all this speculation about who the Tories and Labour would do deals with in the event of a hung parliament. They believe that they can position themselves as the responsible party that will keep the country in the centre ground in contrast to the other smaller parties. Today, in his speech to the party’s spring conference, Clegg ruled out joining any coalition that involved the SNP or Ukip. He also tried to use the moment to reinforce voters’ worries about either main party governing on their own. He argued that the Tories would cut needlessly—‘Cows moo. Dogs bark. And Tories cut.

Later today, Vince Cable will launch his traditional conference attack on the Tories. He’ll denounce them for their positions on Europe and immigration. But his pre-conference interview in The Guardian will have, for once, delighted the Tories. For in it, Cable rules out a deal with the SNP. Now, this is a turn-around from Cable. Just last month, he said "We're perfectly happy to work with the SNP. There's no taboo on the SNP.

If general elections were won on how swanky a campaign office is, the Greens would beat the Lib Dems hands down in Bristol West. Their candidate Darren Hall works out of a smart, airy office overlooking the harbour in one of the most expensive commercial parts of the city. It’s all thanks to Vivienne Westwood, who has funded the office as part of her support for the Greens, and given Hall was until recently keeping most of his campaign materials in a garage, it’s quite a step up. Indeed, it puts him in far more glamorous quarters than the Lib Dems, who are working in a garage, albeit a converted one with windows and heaters, in much cheaper Bishopston.

When Ed Miliband ran for the Labour leadership in 2010, his supporters boasted that he spoke human. Tonight, in a question time session with a group of young people broadcast on BBC3, Miliband showed flashes of his ability to connect with an audience. But, overall, it was a patchy performance. Miliband was very good on some subjects and dealt neatly with some left-field questions. However, he still doesn’t have the right answer to the question of whether he would do a deal with the SNP after the election in the event of a hung parliament. He dismissed the ideas as ‘a piece of nonsense from the Tories’. But, in contrast to a grand coalition with the Tories, he didn’t actually rule it out. Predictably, Miliband got asked about drugs.