Election 2015: Nick Robinson, one man who’d welcome a second election

Labour 'must do more for gifted children'

Posted at 11.00, Tues 3 March 2015

A Labour government should challenge its traditional taboos and do more to stretch the most gifted schoolchildren, shadow education secretary Tristam Hunt has told The Guardian.

If Labour win on 7 May, Hunt plans to set up a Gifted and Talented Fund, initially with £15m at its disposal, which will advise teachers on how to encourage exceptionally talented children.

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Speaking in terms that would shock some old-time Labour activists, Hunt said: “Schools should use all the tools at their disposal, including streaming in English and maths where that is necessary.

“There is nothing wrong in recognising that people are born with different skills and talents. We need to develop all talents, but it is right to recognise that some talents can be stretched further.”

Read The Guardian article in full

Polling suggests modest Tory breakthrough

Posted at 10.45, Tues 3 March 2015

The Tories lead Labour in two out of three polls released in the past 24 hours. Ashcroft and YouGov both give David Cameron a three-point lead: Populus still has Ed Miliband’s party in front by two points.

Perhaps more significant, Don Brind writes, is that the monthly average for February, as calculated by Political Betting, shows the Tories ahead of Labour. The margin is miniscule - 0.4 percentage points - but it's their first lead in the monthly averages since January 2012.

Read Don Brind's column in full

Cameron 'defiant' on immigration cap

Posted at 10.45, Tues 3 March 2015

Despite a chorus of senior Tories telling him not to fall into the same trap again, David Cameron - with the backing of Theresa May and precious few other Cabinet members - is insisting the Tory manifesto includes an immigration cap target, The Mole writes.

Even though his April 2011 pledge to get net immigration down to "tens of thousands … no ifs, no buts” has caused nothing but headaches, and been exploited to the full by Ukip, the PM wants to renew his pledge.

How will the vow be worded? We don't yet know. Will he be able to deliver his promise this time? Unlikely, while Britain remains in the EU.

Read The Mole's column in full

Can new Saatchi ad boost Tory chances?

Posted at 10.45, Tues 3 March 2015

The Tories launched a new Saatchi ad yesterday, hoping it will give them the sort of boost the famous ‘Labour Isn’t Working’ poster gave Margaret Thatcher in 1979, Jack Bremer writes.

The new ad, depicting a wrecking ball, claims Britain is enjoying a “recovering economy” and urges the electorate not to let Labour wreck it. "Just like the 1979 poster," writes Bremer, "it’s punchy and it puts the emphasis on the ‘risk’ of voting Labour rather than the ‘gain’ of voting Conservative."

Read Jack Bremer’s article in full

Cybernats target BBC man over cancer op

Posted at 11.41, Mon 2 March 2015

BBC political editor Nick Robinson has been subjected to “despicable” online abuse by Scottish Nationalist supporters – so-called ‘cybernats’ - since it was announced at the weekend that he is taking time off work to have a bronchial carcinoid tumour removed from his lung.

News that the BBC’s ‘Mr Election’ would be missing from our TV screens at the peak of the campaign – though he hopes to be back before polling day – brought messages of sympathy from fellow journalists and politicians, including the Prime Minister.

But it also brought several abusive tweets from ‘cybernats’, the Daily Telegraph reports. Robinson has been been targeted before by these people, after he gave the then SNP leader Alex Salmond a hard time during a referendum press conference last autumn.

Tweets this time included: “A bit of chemotherapy would do the biased beeb man good.” A Tory spokesman called the abuse “despicable” while some Twitter users have called on the SNP to throw out any party members involved.

Read the Daily Telegraph article in full

Eight Ukip policies to chew over

Posted at 11.15, Mon 2 March 2015

Ukip leader Nigel Farage told the BBC yesterday he won’t reveal his party manifesto until “as late as practically possible” before the election – because voters are already fed up with the campaign and will want to see something “fresh, new and positive” from his party.

But as Jack Bremer writes, it was possible to gather some of the party's key policies by listening to speakers at Ukip’s spring conference at the weekend. Eight policies identified this way include a definitive NO to the HS2 project and the fact that Ukip, were it to run the country, would not have a minister for women.

Read Jack Bremer’s article in full

Tory frustration at polling standstill

Posted at 11.15, Mon 2 March 2015

Tory supporters are getting increasingly frustrated at the party’s inability to get the public onside, Don Brind writes. Electoral Calculus says that if the opinion polls don’t change from the current average, Labour will be the largest party at Westminster on 8 May with 301 seats to the Tories’ 265. The SNP, with a predicted 46 seats, will hold the balance of power.

David Cameron will hope for a boost from his announcement today that the Tories will build 200,000 starter homes, available at a discount to young couples, if they are elected. But will targeting Generation Rent make enough of a difference, asks The Mole, or will Tory hopes all come down to George Osborne’s Budget in two weeks’ time?

Read Don Brind’s column in full

Read The Mole’s column in full

Electoral bribery leaves a sour taste

Posted at 11.15, Mon 2 March 2015

Both Labour and the Conservatives are shamelessly bribing the electorate to vote for them: Ed Miliband is chasing young voters with his promised cut in tuition fees, while David Cameron is waving “wads of cash” at pensioners. The danger, says Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer, is that in making politics “so explicitly and crudely transactional… the overall impact could be to make an already disenchanted electorate even more cynical and sour”.

The Tory pitch to older voters includes an extension to the pensioner bonds – “so close to being a straightforward cash bribe to vote Tory that it might have been more efficient for the Treasury simply to stuff the money in brown envelopes and mail it out with Conservative campaign literature.”

The tuition fee cut was apparently tested on focus groups of younger people and proved wildly popular – and yet the greatest beneficiaries will be the highest earning graduates. “Who knew that the Labour leader came into politics to redistribute money to future bankers?”

Miliband and Cameron risk making those voters who aren’t being offered bribes feel resentful, says Rawnsley, while the favoured groups may end up feeling cheapened by this descent into cash-and-carry politics.

Read Andrew Rawnsley’s article in full

Poll shows big jump for Scots Nats

Posted at 11.48, Fri 27 Feb 2015

TNS, the pollster that previously painted a rosier picture than most for Labour north of the border, has moved closer to other polling companies who have been predicting a wipeout for Labour at the hands of the SNP.

The new TNS poll has the Scottish Nationalists on 46 per cent, a clear 16 points ahead of Labour (30 per cent), which marks a six-point jump for the SNP since the last TNS poll. As Political Betting puts it, the poll points to a “shellacking” on 7 May for Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy. (Other parties: Con 14, Greens 4, Ukip 3, Lib Dems 3.)

Labour is still hoping it can avoid having to enter a electoral pact with the SNP, however. The Guardian reports that on a visit to Edinburgh yesterday, Ed Balls said the collapse in support for the Lib Dems since 2010 had made the idea of any new coalition “very unpopular” at Westminster - and “that’s why we’re fighting to get a majority.”

Recent polling showing Conservative support slumping in England (see Don Brind's Tuesday column) gives Labour hope that they might make up for the predicted SNP wipeout by gaining 40 or more seats south of the border.

Tuition fees: Miliband’s big gamble

Posted at 11.30, Fri 27 Feb 2015

Labour leader Ed Miliband is taking a huge gamble by reducing tax relief for higher-rate pensioners to pay for a cut in annual student tuition fees from £9,000 to £6,000, The Mole writes.

Many will agree with Miliband’s sentiment that young people today face a very time avoiding debt. But the Labour leader’s solution risks losing him a lot more voters than he’s likely to gain by pleasing school-leavers and students. Some are too young to vote – others too apathetic.

Read The Mole’s column in full

Wind farms: just another divorce issue

Posted at 11.30, Fri 27 Feb 2015

More evidence that a divorce between the Tories and the Lib Dems will be welcomed on both sides…

Ed Davey, the Lib Deb Energy and Climate Change Secretary, yesterday approved 15 new onshore wind farms, contracts for which will be signed before the election. Yet David Cameron has pledged that a future Conservative government will stop subsidising onshore win farms.

The Times says Conservative MPs are demanding that Cameron cancels the contracts before it’s too late. If the Tories win the general election, they would face “a huge battle to unpick the legally binding agreements to power 1.4 million homes”.

Tory MP Chris Heaton-Harris, a vociferous opponent of the “blight” of wind farms, said subsidising onshore wind farms “is not green — you need gas-powered turbines — and it solves none of our renewable or green issues. It’s just a big white elephant.”

Poll boost for Farage in South Thanet

Posted at 11.30, Fri 27 Feb 2015

A new Survation poll conducted for Ukip shows Nigel Farage set to win the Kent seat of South Thanet. It puts him on 39 per cent – 11 points ahead of his Labour rival and 12 points ahead of the Tory, writes Don Brind.

It will give a boost to Ukippers meeting for their spring conference at the Winter Gardens in Margate – or, at least, those Ukippers who want Farage to continue to lead the party. Previous polls had shown Farage falling behind Labour candidate Will Scobie. Without a seat at Westminster, Farage would be expected to give up the party leadership.

Read Don Brind’s column in full