Sebastian Payne

Voting Ukip is a state of mind, according to Nigel Farage. At his first major speech of 2015, and the campaign, in Canvey Island, Essex, Farage set out his stall for the election with the slogan ‘Believe in Britain’ — following on from his article in today's Telegraph. He hit out at the ‘endlessly negative’ and ‘boring’ campaigns from the other political parties and promised to do things differently — especially now that he believes Labour and the Conservatives live in ‘fear’ of Ukip.

Have the Tories benefited from Labour’s week of misery? In Lord Ashcroft’s latest national poll, the Conservatives are now three points ahead of Labour — up from 30 per cent in last week’s poll. The Green Party are down to six per cent, the Lib Dems are up slightly to nine per cent and Ukip are down one point to 14 per cent. See the chart above for how the voting preferences have changed in Ashcroft’s polls this year. David Cameron personally continues to do well: nearly 60 per cent would prefer him as Prime Minister to Ed Miliband.

Is Ed Miliband ready to be Prime Minister? His personal poll ratings suggest not and many in his party remain sceptical. But Labour remains toe-to-toe with the Conservatives in the polls, making a Miliband premiership a real possibility after 7 May. The FT’s George Parker and Jim Pickard have interviewed the Labour leader (£) today to find out why Miliband is still confident he can lead the country, despite the negativity surrounding his leadership. One of the fascinating nuggets in the piece is the claim that two of the most influential figures in New Labour plotted to remove him as leader: ‘Miliband’s Labour critics do not share his confidence.

How much is the SNP going to harm Labour in the general election? Labour is already braced for a battering but a new set of polling from Lord Ashcroft shows just how great the SNP threat is. The Tory peer has polled 16,000 Scots in 14 Labour-SNP target seats and two Lib Dem seats — all areas that Ashcroft said voted yes for independence or the result was close. His snapshot reveals that the SNP is ahead in 13 of the 14 Labour targets and ahead in both of the Lib Dem targets. This represents a 25 per cent swing in the Labour targets. If you want to see the results for each seat, use the dropdown box on this interactive chart (above for Labour, below for the Lib Dems) to look at how the vote has changed since the 2010 election.

Labour may be level with the Conservatives in the polls but it is still not trusted by the public. Lord Ashcroft’s latest national poll has the two main parties on 31 per cent of the vote — both down one point from last week. 59 per cent say they have already made up their minds about they'll vote on 7 May. There aren’t many positive views in this poll about the Labour Party. Although roughly half think the policies of the last few years have failed, a majority don’t think Labour has the answers. According to Ashcroft’s poll, 58 per cent think Labour has ‘not yet learned the right lessons from what went wrong during their time in government, and cannot yet be trusted to run the country again.

January has been 30 days of chaos for Labour, according to Grant Shapps — but what about the Tories' bad headlines? In a press conference this morning, Shapps outlined all of the negative press Labour has received in 2015 so far (pdf of the document here). But he ended up having to defend his party over the defection of Ukip MEP Amjad Bashir. ‘I welcome anybody, regardless of where they’ve been in the past —with the exception of extreme parties,’ Shapps said in response to a question about Bashir's alleged membership of the Respect party. He contended that he's more concerned about people’s ‘ideas’ and ‘how they see this country developing’ instead of their past lives.

What do the British public want from their government after 2015? Well, unless things are really going to shift in British politics in the next few weeks, they still want the impossible: a Labour majority government led by David Cameron. According to a poll from ComRes/ITV News out this evening, 55 per cent said their favoured scenario is for David Cameron to remain Prime Minister, compared to 45 per cent for Ed Miliband. But 51 per cent would prefer Labour winning a majority of MPs — two points ahead of those who'd like to see a Tory majority. This contradiction is not new. Cameron has always polled ahead of his party — one of the reasons rumoured leadership coups never amounted to anything — while the Labour brand remains more popular than Miliband.

Do the Green Party's policies stack up? Although its membership and prominence have rocketed in recent weeks, little focus has been put on what the party campaigns for. Green leader Natalie Bennett was subjected to a dissection of her party’s principles on the Sunday Politics today (watch above) and demonstrated why most of its proposals are pipe dreams. Bennett said her party wants to ensure ‘nobody is living in fear’ but exactly how they would pay for that remains unanswered. One of its policies would be a ‘Citizens’ Income’, ensuring everyone has a minimum weekly income of £72.

Ukip MEP Amjad Bashir has defected to the Conservative Party this evening, following an internal party investigation. Tomorrow’s Sunday Telegraph reports that Bashir, who was the party’s communities spokesman, says Ukip are a ‘party of ruthless self-interest’ as well as ‘pretty amateur’. He also says Ukip has a ‘ridiculous’ lack of policies. David Cameron has declared himself 'absolutely delighted'. Just before news of his defection broke, Ukip released a statement announcing Bashir had been suspended pending an investigation into ‘extremely serious’ issues: ‘The UK Independence Party has a zero-tolerance policy and takes the matters at hand extremely seriously.

Leon Brittan, a former home secretary under Margaret Thatcher, has died aged 75 following a long battle with cancer. He first entered Parliament in 1974 as the MP for Cleveland and Whitby before representing Richmond until 1988. After serving as home secretary from 1983-1985, Brittan had a brief spell as the secretary for trade and industry before resigning over the Westland affair. He also served as vice president of the European Commission, where he discovered a young Nick Clegg. After returning from Brussels, he entered the House of Lords in 2000 and was most recently appointed a trade adviser to the coalition government. In a statement today, his family said: 'It is with great regret that we announce the death of Leon Brittan.