Isabel Hardman is assistant editor of The Spectator and author of Why We Get the Wrong Politicians. She also presents Radio 4’s Week in Westminster.
Things have come to a pretty pass when the two party spokespeople who experience the worst drubbing in a debate are the current Defence Secretary and the Green party representative. In today’s Daily Politics defence debate Rebecca Johnson ended up, after some considerable flapping and obfuscation, disowning a section of the Green party’s website which
One constituency where the Tory attacks about a possible deal between Labour and the SNP work very well is Barrow and Furness, where Labour’s John Woodcock is standing for re-election. The seat includes shipyards where the new Trident submarines would be built, and so any suggestion that Labour might scale back its commitment to Trident
Are today’s GDP figures really a blow to George Osborne as some of his critics are claiming? The Office for National Statistics said today that GDP grew by just 0.3 per cent in the first quarter of this year, which is half what it was in the last three months of 2014. [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/oNkRJ/index.html”] What’s
David Cameron continues his anti-SNP campaign today, launching what the Times calls his ‘strongest attack so far’ on a Labour-SNP government. The Prime Minister tells the paper that there are ‘ten days to save the United Kingdom’, which is an echo of Tony Blair’s ‘24 hours to save the NHS’ and William Hague’s less successful
David Cameron is known as the ‘essay crisis’ Prime Minister, and today he did little to dispel that impression. With just 10 days to go until the election, Cameron produced a passionate, excited speech in which he insisted that he was ‘pumped’ about the election and about fighting Labour. Afterwards, when asked what he’d had
There’s nothing wrong with negative campaigning in an election. If you think your opponents would damage the country, then you should point it out. What’s wrong with negative campaigning is when it’s the only sort of campaigning you’re doing, or when the balance appears to be tipping in its favour in terms of your key
A friend of mine was notorious at university for photoshopping every single photo of her that went onto Facebook. Every snap in a nightclub or lounging on the beach went through the same changes in RGB levels so that her tan appeared better. And she did look good, at first glance. To those who knew
For someone who might be about to lose her seat, Jo Swinson seems very perky as she walks the streets of Bishopbriggs in her constituency. The Lib Dem, who is standing for re-election in East Dunbartonshire in Scotland, is busy trying to persuade people who have received their postal votes this week to back her.
With less than two weeks until polling day, it’s nice to see that Ed Miliband has discovered foreign policy as an important issue worth discussing. The Labour leader will attack the Tories today on a failure of post-conflict planning for Libya which has contributed to the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean. The Conservatives have decided
I’ve just witnessed an extraordinary moment on the campaign trail in Edinburgh. No, it’s not this, but a political party leader talking to a real voter. This is Ruth Davidson, Tory leader, talking to a random voter in Edinburgh. I know he was a random voter because I ran after him to check. You never
Jim Murphy held a street rally in Edinburgh today. Given many of the election events from the main parties have been behind closed doors, the Scottish Labour leader deserves credit for pitching up right outside the Scottish National Gallery and standing for about an hour in a space where real genuine members of the public
One of the main risks of wheeling Boris out this week was that he was never just going to be asked about this election in interviews. The Mayor and candidate for Uxbridge ended up saying ‘in the dim and distant future, it would be a wonderful thing to be thought to be in a position
This morning when George Osborne defended the way the Tories were fighting the election campaign, there was something slightly odd about what he said in response to John Humphrys’ first question: ‘We’re two weeks to go to this election and it’s coming down to a very clear choice on the economy, and on 8 May
Are the Tories having a bad campaign? It certainly doesn’t seem to be as slick and upbeat as some had expected. Many Tories had expected the polls to stay right where they are until polling day, but others had assumed that there would at least be some signs of a public panic about Ed Miliband
Complain all you like about the way the Tories are campaigning at the moment, but it’s getting the message across. The party has hit on the SNP, which is fascinating the media anyway, as the best line of attack to undermine Labour. Tory candidates report being pleasantly surprised by how much cut-through the Labour-SNP message is
So all the manifestos are now out for voters to pore over. Given the amount of fuss the parties have made about these documents, you’d think they might outsell Fifty Shades of Grey. Sadly the reality is that these verbose tomes are less bonkbuster and more borebuster: they’re not written for voters to read, only
The SNP launches its manifesto today in Edinburgh. Nicola Sturgeon will be arguing that the policies in the document are for the benefit of the whole of the United Kingdom, which is a way of reassuring former no-voters who might back the SNP, and also of appealing to the left wing faction of the Labour
Most politicians are having a miserable election, but not so Nicola Sturgeon. Her party is terrifying Labour in Scotland, she has put in very strong performances in the TV debates, and whoever is in government in Westminster from May will face trouble from Sturgeon. The forecasters now put the SNP on course to win between 40
On the subject of politicians using language effectively, the funniest quote of today has to go to Green leader Natalie Bennett, who told the World at One today that: ‘On occasion when I need to shift large quantities of goods around, I use the car club.’ listen to ‘Natalie Bennett on flying and using a
Into each day, outrage must fall. Today Iain Duncan Smith has performed the service of upsetting everyone by telling Sky News that zero-hours contracts should be rebranded ‘flexible-hours contracts’. The Work and Pensions Secretary said: ‘I think, with respect, the media and others have got this completely wrong, the flexible-hours contracts I’m talking about which are