Isabel Hardman

Will we learn anything from any of the parties in this election campaign? And will the polls tell us anything either? Yesterday Labour was excited that it had a four-point lead over the Tories in a YouGov poll. Today the Tories are excited that they’re four points ahead in a ComRes poll. The polls are certainly moving, but only like a pendulum, swinging back and forth, at present. Meanwhile Labour’s frontbenchers are struggling to explain how they’d cut the deficit, the Tories don’t want to explain how they’d cut £12bn from welfare, and the Lib Dems are still explaining why they do/don’t want a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, depending on which way you look at it. It all sounds rather repetitive.

More crying in the Commons. More applause. John Bercow didn’t try to hide his tears as it became apparent that the government had lost its vote that would have fatally undermined him. The motion to re-elect the Speaker by secret ballot after the general election failed by 202 ayes to 228 noes. It looks as though Charles Walker’s emotional speech shifted a few votes at the last minute, too. The mistake here was not the idea of a secret ballot, which many would have supported for the reasons outlined by William Hague. It was the way the vote was sprung on the Commons at the last minute without any consultation even of key figures such as Walker and in a way that was designed to get as many Tory MPs through the lobbies and as few Labour MPs as possible.

Perhaps there’s nothing wrong with negative campaigning (though surely there’s something a bit wrong about being inaccurate). But when parties pontificate about crafting messages of hope and avoiding smears and falsehood, before plumping for the latter, can they really be surprised that overall voters are a bit cheesed off with mainstream politics? All the parties negatively campaign against negative campaigning, accusing the others of doing something that they too are doing, and hoping that no-one notices. Well, voters do seem to notice. They’re also not particularly thrilled with any of the parties.

How has George Osborne’s Budget gone down with his party? The Tory MPs I’ve spoken to in the past 24 hours or so since the Budget seem reasonably content with it. They’re not skipping through the corridors singing, but they’re equally not furious or despairing. Most seem to have sympathy with the lack of a rabbit in the Chancellor’s speech, even though they’re a bit disappointed that the Chancellor gave enough signals for them to think he was keeping a rabbit in his hat, only for a hamster to come scuttling out in the form of his Help to Buy ISAs. One senior Tory backbencher says: ‘The judgement that he’s called has probably been right.

If George Osborne's Budget is going to end up in a mess, it hasn't done so yet. The worst criticism that the front pages of even hostile newspapers can come up with is that the Chancellor has produced a very political Budget which is hardly a surprise. Most splash on the retail offers in the Budget and the good economic news.    Some of the front pages have rather creative approaches to the Budget. Even front pages such as the i, which foregrounds the politics behind the Budget, still refer to the tax cuts for first-time buyers and savers. And the most critical front pages, from the Guardian and the Mirror, naturally, are below. Even the Guardian carries a quite positive 'at a glance' list of the offers that Osborne made to voters.

So both Labour and the Lib Dems have responded to the TV debates with caution and enthusiasm respectively. A Labour spokesman said ‘based on the broadcasters’ proposals we have accepted and plan to attend all three debates on April 2nd, 16th and the 30th. If the Tories have confirmed they are to attend one of these debates then that is progress. It is one down, two to go. But no-one should be fooled: David Cameron is running scared of a head-to-head televised debate with Ed Miliband’. The Lib Dems have also welcomed the move as 'progress', with a spokesman saying: ' 'It's good news that we are finally making progress towards a sensible solution on the TV debates.