Uk politics

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

As the polls open, a topsy-turvy campaign closes

Now's the time, dear CoffeeHouser. After nearly three years in Number Ten, Gordon Brown is finally subjecting himself to the wishes of the British public. And, signs are, he won't like what they've got to say. Putting the strong possibility of a hung parliament aside, last night's opinion polls had Labour on or around Michael Foot levels of support. A few folk, like Marbury, have observed that it's almost like the campaign didn't happen. And they're right: there is a peculiar symmetry to the electoral calculus. After all the mood shifts of the past four weeks, we're back broadly where we started: with the Tories looking to gain either a small majority, or be the largest party in a hung parliament. But it's worth remarking on some of the changes which have stuck.

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

Two more polls point towards a hung parliament

Is this it? A couple more polls have been released, and – like all the others tonight – they point towards a hung parliament. An ICM poll for the Guardian has the Tories on 36 percent (up three points), Labour on 28 percent (no change), and the Lib Dems on 26 (down 2).  And a ComRes effort for the Independent and ITV has the parties on 37, 28 and 28, respectively. Most Tories I've spoken with this evening are, they say, mildly pleased with the opinion polls.  Not overjoyed, of course – but they feel their party's greater firepower in the marginals means that numbers like those above will translate to a small majority.  Either way, things are certainly very close.

Peter Hoskin

And now YouGov…

You want more numbers? Well, the YouGov figures for the Sun have just come in, and they are: the Tories on 35 percent (no change), Labour on 28 percent (down two), and the Lib Dems on 28 percent (up 4). So far tonight, all the polls have been in hung parliament territory (on an uniform national swing). And most have Labour and the Lib Dems more or less on level-pegging. More polls here and here.  There's a good handful still to come, so keep your seat calculators to hand. UPDATE: YouGov also conducted some marginals polling.

Peter Hoskin

Let the games begin

Make no mistake: tomorrow's election is just so many beginnings. The beginning of a fiscal footslog for the next government. The beginning of the Lib Dems' struggle to maintain attention and support. The beginning, perhaps, of backroom negotiations to determine who gets to govern our country. But, of all these beginnings, there's one which threatens to be more violent and compulsive than all the rest: a Labour leadership contest. Over at Spectator Live, we polled CoffeeHousers on who will emerge victorious from the bloodbath, and the results are now in. David Miliband came out on top with 46 percent of the vote. Next came "other" on 16 percent (who did you have in mind? Jon Cruddas?). And then Alan Johnson (11 percent) and Peter Mandelson (9 percent).

Peter Hoskin

The first opinion poll of the evening is in…

...and it's from the Daily Express/Opinium. They have the Tories on 35 percent (up 2), Labour on 27 percent (up 1) and the Lib Dems on 26 percent (down 1). So, an 8 point lead for the Tories. I know plenty of CoffeeHousers have had their fill of opinion polls. But, obviously, the shifts and percentages take on an extra piquancy tonight. Tune back later for more.

James Forsyth

Translating polls into seats

There’s an odd disconnect at the moment. Pretty much everyone I’ve spoken to predicts that the Tories will win 300 seats plus (the one exception was someone on the Union side who thought that they could hold the Tories to 280) but the polls show them winning significantly less than that.   Now, this is partly because nobody is sure how you translate votes into seats in a three-way contest. People are also factoring in that the Tory vote is more certain to turn out and that the Tory operation is more confident that it knows where its voters are than the other parties. But it is a testament to how good people think the Tory field operation is that everyone has them getting more seats out of their voters than uniform national swing would suggest they would.

David Blackburn

Government in waiting?

I’m sceptical of the value of newspaper endorsements. Readers are often irritated by being told which way to jump - if you’ve read the letters page of the Times recently you’ll know what I mean. However, the weight of Fleet Street support for the Tories is significant. In addition to the usual suspects, the Sun, the Times, the Financial Times and the Economist have all defected from New Labour since 2005. Today, the Evening Standard joins them, endorsing the Conservatives in a general election for the first time since 1997.

Fraser Nelson

Niall Ferguson: Britain should call the IMF now

Should David Cameron just call the IMF immediately? Like, on Monday? This argument has been doing the rounds in Tory circles and tomorrow's Spectator has an important contribution from Niall Ferguson. He advises that Cameron takes a two-pronged approach. Prong one is to 'axe ruthlessly' and prong two is to call the IMF. He says: 'There is a very real danger that [things] could now spiral, Greek style, out of all control if foreign confidence in sterling slumps and long-term interest rates rise. Mr Cameron needs to do two things right away. He must instruct George Osborne to wield the axe ruthlessly with the aim of returning to a balanced budget over a credible eight- to ten-year timeframe.

Peter Hoskin

The shape of public sentiment

Silver medal in the Graph of the Day contest (we'll have the gold medallist up on Coffee House later) goes to this effort from YouGov.  It's just been published, with details, over at PoliticsHome, and tracks public "buzz" about the three party leaders during the course of the campaign.  I'm not sure how much to read into it, but the peaks and troughs do follow the contours of the election - so Clegg's support rises after the first TV debate, Brown's plummets after the Gillian Duffy incident, and Cameron pretty much flatlines it.  One striking feature is how much ground Brown has caught up since last week: the last few days really have been his best for some time.  Not that any of this will really matter after tomorrow.

Peter Hoskin

Brown’s survival instincts

Alas, and most reluctantly, you've got to hand it to Brown: he's a scrapper. Just watching coverage of his speech in Bradford now, and he seems to be on punchy form.  The message is stridently negative, of course.  And he has entrenched himself, as David noted earlier, back behind the old "investment vs cuts" line (although now he calls it "selfish individiualism over public investment").  But this is clearly where the PM is happiest and at his most comfortable.  Aggressive clunk is simply what he does best. The question hanging over the dying stages of the campaign is this: will the negativity cut through?

David Blackburn

EU revises British economic forecasts up

Faisal Islam has the story that the EU has revised Britain’s economic prospects up to 1.2 percent in 2010 from 0.9 percent. Next year, the EU predict to 2.1 percent, the highest of major European nations. Is this a crumb of comfort for Brown? Well yes, but the EU’s predictions are still someway off Alistair Darling’s forecasts. His growth prediction for 2010 is in the region of 1 percent to 1.5 percent, which is closer than his predictions for 2011, when he expects GDP to increase by 3 percent to 3.5 percent. In any event, the upgraded figures are probably too small to shift the polls at this stage.

David Blackburn

The Tories would have to rely on the DUP in the event of a hung parliament

Reg Empey may yet oust the DUP’s William McCrea in South Antrim, but the indications are that the UUP and Tory alliance will not win a seat. The Tories will have to rely on co-operation with the DUP. In truth, competition between three Unionist parties has left the Unionist cause divided. The TUV’s Jim Allister is giving the DUP’s Ian Paisley Jr a close race in North Antrim. Robinson’s DUP will emerge the largest Unionist party in Ulster, but with a point to prove to voters who are keen to protect Northern Ireland’s bloated public sector and generous funding. Conservative he may be, but Robinson is an Ulsterman first and foremost and has the most to gain by securing what's best for Northern Ireland.

David Blackburn

Deceitful Brown returns to the old dividing line

Labour’s campaign becomes ever more like The Prisoner. Every time the plot seems decided, it veers-off in the contrary direction. The Prime Minister was interviewed by The Times yesterday and I feel for those who conducted it, stuck in the vortex of what Gordon will say next. If you cast into the recesses of memory, you’ll recall that yesterday morning was tactical voting morning. They were all at it – Balls, Brown, Alexander and Hain. If you’re yellow threatened by blue, vote red; if you’re red threatened by blue, vote yellow. It was so confusing I half expected them to endorse blue if you’re red threatened by yellow. That was yesterday morning. By mid-afternoon Brown did what he does best. He changed his mind.

Tuesday

Daniel Korski

An economic coalition makes political sense

If you believe, as most people probably do, that Robert Chote of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Mervin King of the Bank of England should be listened to, then two conclusion emerge: one, that a new government’s budget-slashing will be far, far worse than anything the main parties have hitherto acknowledged; and that after a parliament of deficit-busting, the party in charge will be severely punished by the voters. It stands to reason, therefore, that it would be better to spread the pain, even if one party has a near-majority or an outright majority.

Peter Hoskin

The campaign money game

Here's a minor turn-up for the political anoraks' scrapbooks: donations to Labour outstripped those going to the Tory party in the third week of the campaign. Brown & Co. were handed £1,416,863 against the Tories' £645,250. Which is no sign of an effective campaign - after all, almost all of Labour's publicity has been heavily negative. But it is a turnaround from the first week, when the Tories received £1,455,812 to Labour's £783,159. Another thing to note is the downturn in Lib Dem donations. They jumped up to £120,000 in the second week, but have now sunk back to £64,000.  The Tories, in particular, will be hoping that that represents a slowing of the Nick Clegg bandwagon.

Peter Hoskin

The Tories’ final onslaught

"Where's the popcorn?" I thought, as I joined a bunch of journos to watch the Tories' final broadcast of the election campaign. It was a good nine minutes long, and might as well have been titled The Downfall of New Labour. The opening shots were of Blair and Brown in 97: "a new dawn," and all that. But Blair's image soon faded to black-and-white, and we were bombarded with a montage of headlines, quotes and images which highlighted the failures of the Labour years. 10p tax. Falling education standards. MRSA. The misdemeanours of Peter Mandelson. Defence spending. Purnell's resignation. Gillian Duffy. Even Manish Sood's comments today. Depending on your disposition, it was all gorily nostalgic stuff. Negative, yes. But quite powerful nonetheless.

Daniel Korski

The G-men or the Granola Army

In the last stretch of political campaigns, things tend to get ugly as the real cost of winning and losing becomes clear. This one is no different, with its suggestions of tactical voting and disagreements about tactical weapons. The latter has become particularly viscious with a former spymaster, an ex-general and a former CT chief calling into question the securty and defence policies Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. In their defence, the Lib Dems have positioned their biggest weapon, Paddy Ashdown, who fired a volley against Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, saying that "things had changed since he supplied intelligence to Tony Blair about Iraq and WMD". Bull's eye! But who is right - Britain's G-men or the Granola Army?

James Forsyth

How is it strange that only British citizens can vote in British elections?

Michael Crick has just blogged about a ‘strange quirk in the British political system.’ Writing about a Lib Dem councillor he says ‘interestingly, because she is a Danish citizen, double-councillor Lockington isn't just disqualified from standing as a candidate in the coming general election, she can't even vote in it.’ But what seems strange to me is the idea that people who aren’t British citizens should be able to vote in a British general election. PS I should, of course, point out that Irish citizens can vote in UK elections because of a reciprocal agreement made at the time of the foundation of the Irish Republic, which the Irish then reneged on. Commonwealth citizens resident in the UK can also vote.

Peter Hoskin

Osborne backs Crossrail

George Osborne sounds a more confident note than most of his Tory bandmates in interview with the Standard today.  On top of the obligatory Ready for Government noises, he rattles off a list of London marginals which are winnable for the Tories, and adds that an overall majority is "within our grasp".  Pretty direct stuff for a politician, given all the uncertainty clogging the air in Westminster. To my eyes, though, the most significant passage could be this: "He gave a commitment to keep London's £16 billion Crossrail scheme, although he confirmed he will look for savings. 'I think Londoners would expect me to get good value for their money.