David Blackburn

Fresh from a turbulent plane journey, David Cameron is stalking around Bolton. As Pete notes, Warburtons is Bolton's family owned bakery and its endorsement may prove significant in a region of marginals. The party that wins Bolton North East wins the election – that has been the case in every election since 1950 except in 1979. Ruth Kelly’s old haunt, Bolton West, is no Labour stronghold either: her replacement, Julie Hilling, is defending a nominal majority of 2,064. These two seats come 115 and 114 respectively on the Tories’ target list. To the north lies Rossendale and Darwen, where boundary changes have benefitted the Tories for once; it is 77th on the list.

Freeing Manchester United from the Glazers is not what I envisaged when Ed Miliband promised ‘a radical manifesto’. But the Guardian reports that a fourth Labour government will legislate so that football fans can buy their beloved clubs. Clearly Brown's granite is plastic to the touch. I’ll reserve judgement until the manifestos are published, but, as Alex notes, the feeling is that New Labour's zeal is exhausted. Budget initiatives on stamp duty and the retirement age originated in Tory press releases and the Queen’s Speech regurgitated policies dating back to the 2007-08 sitting. I suspect the manifesto will offer the same gristle. We should be thankful for small mercies because so few bills have made it onto the statute book.

The Tories have weathered Chris Grayling’s gay gaffe. The story could only gain momentum if the papers had gone to town on it. They have not. The Times gives it a couple of paragraphs at the bottom of an inner page and even the Independent and the Guardian relegate it to the interior. The news agenda has gone into election over-drive, but I doubt this story would have had legs anyway, even before his denial. Grayling is no homophobe and whilst he voted for the Equality bill he is right that it should be applied with a soft-touch where the boundary between public and private space is blurred. The State should not dictate how you use your property unless you contravene criminal law by doing so.

Euroscepticism is David Cameron and Gene Hunt's sole shared attribute. But, bequeathed a poisoned chalice at home, the EU is not a future Tory government's immediate priority. Set-piece battles over rebates, defence procurement and the CAP can be avoided for a time, but skirmishes will be a regular occurrence. And some of these will be bloodbaths. The first test comes in June, when EU finance ministers will consider hedge fund and private-equity firm regulation. There is no more contentious a topic. Recent European regulatory initiatives have impeded British financial services to the extent that even Brown and Miliband have taken note.

Michael Crick reports that the Sunday Mirror will splash the news that 100 members of the Surrey East Tory association have signed a petition to urge David Cameron to de-select Sam Gyimah. The original selection process was controversial – members complained that the shortlist excluded straight white men. That dissent has never subsided. On Tuesday, Crick reported that dissent was turning to revolt. Private Eye’s allegations about Gyimah’s failing business interests, which were apparently suppressed during hustings, were the tipping point.   In reality, the infamous A-list has struck again.

There it is. The Tories' premier weapon emblazoned across the front pages of the Guardian and the Telegraph: Brown could stay on as PM in a hung parliament, even if the Tories win more seats. To be fair to Brown, the headlines are misleading. It is his duty to remain in office until it is clear that David Cameron or another politician commands the confidence of the House, which may take weeks in current circumstances. Mandarins are drawing up radical contingency plans to ensure that some modicum of economic stability is maintained during that period. These measures include temporarily proroguing parliament for 18 days after the election (rather than the usual 6) and allowing the Chancellor to remain in office for that period even if he has lost his seat.

James Macintyre asked yesterday, in response to a speech Davis made at the Bristol Chambers of Commerce. The question should enter John Rentoul’s entertaining list of questions to which the answer is No. Macintyre takes Davis’ comments out of context: ‘First, he [Davis] praises the post-war Labour Prime Minister Clement Atlee, who is credited with creating the NHS and the Welfare State, and effectively compares him to Margaret Thatcher: “Attlee created the modern Welfare State at a time when the country was bankrupt after the war. Mrs Thatcher transformed the country after 1979 when it was at its lowest ebb.”’ What Davis actually said was: “When times are tough, that is when we as a nation do the most extraordinary things.

Defence minister Kevan Jones was extremely foolish to re-open the Gurkhas’ residency issue at the electoral cycle’s eleventh hour. Accusing Joanna Lumley of maintaining a “deathly silence” over the campaign was a temptation too many for fate.   She’s silent no longer. She convened a press conference and immediately gained the moral, and strategic, high-ground, saying: “(There is) a sense of regret that it has come to this, almost clearing our name in public. “We want to call on the prime minister to confirm that the policy is one that he still completely supports, to affirm from the prime minister that the MoD is still behind what it said it was behind.

I’m at a loss. How can a government that will raise the national debt to £1.4 trillion be trusted to run the economy? The Daily Politics/Com Res poll shows that Labour is more trusted on the economy than the Tories; it indicts George Osborne’s political performance. As Fraser noted, Osborne blew an unprecedented opportunity on yesterday's Today programme. The danger inherent in a £1.4 trillion national debt is not a difficult argument to make. Tax hikes, inflation and soaring interest rates will be the progeny of Brown’s continued borrowing binge. Yet Osborne confined his attack to valid but esoteric points about credit ratings and a list of acronyms. Ken Clarke would not have made such an elementary political mistake.

Yesterday, Alistair Darling pledged £4 billion for the MoD, earmarked for Afghanistan. He did not specify what the cash would buy, presumably because the Defence Spending Review will take place after the election. But a day is a long time in politics and the forthcoming spending review no longer seems to be so decisive: BAE and the MoD have signed a £127million four-year contract to design the proposed Type 26 frigate. This is welcome in principle: the Type 22 and 23 frigates need to be replaced eventually and British companies and their employees will prosper. But this contract should have fallen under the spending review – defence procurement remains unreformed and the nation can ill-afford a £127million design contract.

There is barely a cigarette paper between Ben Bradshaw’s and Jeremy Hunt’s approaches to arts funding: it will almost certainly be cut. The Tories intend to plug the shortfall with National Lottery cash and Ben Bradshaw will fight to preserve his ‘miniscule’ budget but can give no guarantees. The arts are integral to Britain. Their importance extends beyond the cultural sphere. The Treasury receives £5 for every £1 that it invests in the arts. And it isn’t only a competitive tax regime that attracts business to these shores; Deutsche Bank relocated to London specifically because it’s an almost unrivalled cultural and artistic hub.