James Forsyth

One of the most remarkable things about this parliament is how the Liberal Democrats have continued to hold their nerve in the face of truly dire poll ratings. Now, partly this is because the Lib Dems are a cussed lot and don’t want to give the media the satisfaction of seeing them squeal. But it is also because their own extensive seat polling, they’ve spent £350 thousand on it in the last couple of years, makes them confident that they will do better than anyone thinks they will. Party figures familiar with the polling, present numbers that show them to be competitive in, for example, Cardiff Central; a seat that most people think they have no chance of holding on to.

No party knows how to break out of the war of attrition that is British politics at the moment. Neither the Tories nor Labour are expecting to hit 40 percent in May. Instead, they are both trying to work out how to win with a vote share in the 30s. The Good Right, Tim Montgomerie and Stefan Shakespeare’s latest political project, is an attempt to craft a Conservatism which can appeal far beyond the party’s current limits. They want a Conservatism that is focused as much on providing the best social ambulance service possible as it is on social mobility. In their mini-manifesto, they propose a higher minimum wage, state supported house building and higher council tax bands for expensive properties to reduce council tax on more modest homes.

Last week was Labour’s best of the campaign so far and the Tories’ worst. The row over tax avoidance and Lord Fink’s comments reinforced the damaging perception that the Tories are the party of the rich. It also raised Labour morale, frontbenchers who used to be pessimistic about the party’s electoral prospects are now bullish. But there is a danger that this tactical victory could turn into a strategic defeat. For Miliband by denouncing tax avoidance—which is legal—and setting himself up as a moral arbiter on the issue, has made his tax affairs and those of his shadow Cabinet, MPs and donors a legitimate subject of public interest. They no longer just have to be legal and fully declared, they also have to pass the higher Miliband bar.

Who ends up governing Britain after the election may well be determined by what happens in the Scottish seats. If the SNP take a slew of seats from Labour, it becomes far more likely that the Tories will be the largest party nationally. Add to that the fact that Cameron is the incumbent Prime Minister and he would, in these circumstances, probably be able to put together a deal that sees him carry on as Prime Minister. Labour is acutely aware of this and is busy warning Scots ‘Vote SNP, Get Tory.’ But in this anti-politics era, these squeeze messages don’t work as well as they used to—as the Tories are finding out with their ‘Vote Ukip, Get Miliband’ warnings.

This morning, there was much Westminster chatter about whether Ed Miliband would repeat his accusation made at PMQs yesterday about the ‘tax avoidance activities of Lord Fink’. But shortly before Miliband spoke, Fink himself gave an interview to The Standard in which he said, ‘I didn’t object to his use of the word "tax avoidance". Because you are right: tax avoidance, everyone does it.' Instead, Fink claimed that his objection was to the implication that he was one of the ‘dodgy donors’ that Miliband was talking about. Now, Fink’s letter of complaint to Miliband yesterday didn’t mention the word ‘dodgy’. After his speech today, Miliband tellingly refused to call Fink ‘dodgy’.

With less than three months to go to the election, politics is pretty partisan at Westminster at the moment as PMQs today demonstrated. But there is one area where there is, despite the proximity of polling day, a bi-partisan consensus emerging: civil service reform. This morning, both Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, and his opposite number Lucy Powell, who is also in day to day charge of the Labour campaign, appeared at the conference of Govern Up, a new think tank on civil service reform headed up by the former Tory Minister Nick Herbert and the ex-Labour frontbencher John Healey.

After the Scottish referendum campaign, the Union could probably have done with a period of calm. But it is not going to get it. Who gets to form a government at Westminster after the next election could turn on what happens in Scotland and how many seats the SNP wins. This fact is making both Labour and the Tories behave in ways that are damaging to the Union. Jim Murphy, the new leader of Scottish Labour, has decided to try and show that he is prepared to pick fights with London too, in the hope that will take some of the wind out of the Nationalists’ sales. Hence his deliberately provocative boast that via the mansion tax Labour would ‘tax houses in London and the South East to pay for 1,000 new nurses in the Scottish NHS. It’s a real win-win for Scotland.

With every week that goes by, the more likely it is that the next election could result in a stalemate with neither Labour nor the Tories able to put together a deal that gives them a majority in the Commons. One Downing Street source, who has crunched the numbers, predicted to me last week that, because of what is going on in Scotland, the Tories will be the largest party on 280-odd seats. But if the Tories have only 280-odd seats, even deals with both the Liberal Democrats and the Democratic Unionists wouldn’t give them a majority. But Labour wouldn’t be able to stich one together either. For, as I report in the Mail on Sunday, the Lib Dem leadership would not put Ed Miliband into Downing Street if he came second in terms of seats and votes.

Andy Burnham’s interview in The Times today lays down several markers. He praises Len McCluskey, declares that trade union funding is best for Labour, slates Alan Milburn, criticises Peter Mandelson for being relaxed about people getting filthy rich and distances himself from the Blairite mantra that ‘what matters is what works.’ It will, to put it mildly, do nothing to discourage speculation that he is preparing to run for the leadership on a left-wing ticket if Labour loses the election. To be fair, Burnham is frank in this interview that he has changed his mind on various subjects. As he puts it, 'There was a period in the 80s and 90s and the first decade of this century when people said the market has the answer to everything and I honestly don’t think it has .

Patrick Wintour has a fascinating piece in The Guardian on Labour’s dilemma on tuition fees. Particularly striking is that Ed Balls is deeply concerned about how Peter Mandelson might react to any new policy. Wintour writes: ‘Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, also knows there are serious figures in the party, including the former business secretary Lord Mandelson, who will voice their concerns if a half-baked policy emerges that might damage the status of UK’s world-class universities. Mandelson made a technical criticism of the plans for a mansion tax, but supported the concept of a wealth tax. He will be less restrained if he thinks the revised tuition fees policy damages the skills base of the UK economy.’ Now, all parties have their internal coalitions to manage.