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

A ‘hellish’ Sunday for Ed Miliband

Posted at 12.15, Sun 1 Feb 2015

Labour leader Ed Miliband is having to endure a "hellish day" at the hands of the Sunday papers, as the BBC's Andrew Marr put it this morning, writes Jack Bremer.

Labour’s biggest private donor, John Mills, has criticised the party’s NHS plans and the mansion tax, according to the Mail on Sunday; the editor of the leftish New Statesman, writing for the Mail, has described Miliband as "isolated" and "haunted"; and Stefano Pessina, the boss of Boots the Chemists, has told the Sunday Telegraph that a Labour victory would be a "catastrophe" for business.

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These attacks follow a Guardian essay on Saturday by David Hare in which the playwright suggested that Ed Miliband is faring even worse than Neil Kinnock in 1992 in his effort to provide a winning “narrative” for Labour.

Read Jack Bremer's report in full

Tory chairman rules out pact with Ukip

Posted at 12.56, Fri 20 Jan 2015

Tory party chairman Grant Shapps today ruled out David Cameron doing any "pacts and deals" with Ukip if the Conservatives find themselves the largest party in a hung parliament on 8 May.

His assurance, reported by the Daily Telegraph, comes on the day that both The Independent and the Daily Mail carry warnings that by trying to keep up with Ukip on immigration control, the Tories risk losing immigrant votes in the election.

Four million foreign-born people – about a tenth of the electorate - will be eligible to vote on 7 May, many of them in tight marginal seats where their votes could make the difference.

The warning is based on a report published by Manchester University and the Migrants’ Rights Network which says there are as many potential overseas-born electors as there are Ukip voters. It warns that they are being alienated by mainstream political leaders’ attempts to claw back support from Nigel Farage’s party.

The report adds that immigrants do not vote as a bloc, but historically they tend to favour parties with positive attitudes to race and immigration. According to the Runnymede Trust, an anti-racism organisation, 68 per cent of these voters backed Labour in the 2010 election while 16 per cent voted Tory and 14 per cent backed the Lib Dems.

Little wonder some Labour supporters are anxious about a new leaflet, signed off by Ed Miliband, which promises Labour will employ a “tough new approach to immigration”. David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham, reacted by urging his party not to seek to “out-kip Ukip”.

Is this the end for Nick Clegg?

Posted at 09.45, Fri 30 Jan 2015

Nick Clegg’s survival as leader of the Lib Dems could depend on his party’s ability to hold on to 45 of their current 57 seats on 7 May, according to an anonymous party insider who has talked to the Evening Standard. Trouble is, based on current polling, the Lib Dems don’t look like getting anything like 45 seats.

The mystery Lib Demmer’s argument that Clegg will have to “fall on his sword” is based not so much on the embarrassment of losing a lot of seats – but on the practicalities of being part of a coalition government, whether Labour or Tory.

He/she told the Standard: “We really need 45 MPs to go into another coalition… You have to fill Cabinet positions, junior ministerial positions, select committee chairs — things like that – while also having places for MPs sulking or who don’t want to sit in government.

“It’s also about balance. You can’t have one massive party and one tiny party with little or no say.”

The threat to Clegg came on the same the day the Daily Telegraph mocked him for appearing to suggest that he alone was responsible for saving Britain from a Greek-style economic crisis.

He made no mention of the Conservatives or David Cameron as he boasted on Radio 4’s Today programme: “I’m proud of creating a stable government without which we couldn’t have had an economic recovery now.”

The latest YouGov poll has the Lib Dems on only six per cent – one point behind the Greens and eight behind Ukip. Labour and the Tories are tied on 34 per cent.

Newsnight gives Burnham another bloody nose

Posted at 09.40, Fri 30 Jan, 2015

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham has received a second going-over from BBC Newsnight in a week, writes The Mole. After a "car crash" interview with Kirsty Wark on Wednesday, political editor Allegra Stratton presented a segment last night which tore into Labour's plans to reduce private sector involvement in health care.

Stratton interviewed Lord Darzi, a respected surgeon and former Labour health minister in Gordon Brown’s government, and Julian Le Grand, a former adviser to Tony Blair. Both men attacked Labour for its plan to return "preferred provider" status to the NHS and reduce the chances of private companies conducting routine ops for NHS patients.

Darzi said it was irrelevant whether NHS care is delivered by the private or the public sector: the NHS should prefer providers who deliver the highest quality care - whether they are "public, private or not-for-profit".

Read The Mole's column in full

Wages slump ‘proves our point’ - Labour

Posted at 09.30, Fri 30 Jan 2015

Men and young people have been the biggest victims of Britain’s slump in wages since the 2008 crash, according to new research from the Institute of Fiscal Studies – which has been seized on by Labour as proof that they are right to keep plugging away at the “cost of living crisis”.

The IFS report shows that British workers earn less today in real terms than in 2001. Women, on the whole, have fared better because of the high number employed in the public sector, where, says The Guardian, wages fell less rapidly during the early years after the crash.

Women’s average hourly pay has fallen by 2.5 per cent in real terms between 2008 and 2014, the IFS found, while men’s pay has dropped by 7.3 per cent.

Rachel Reeves, Labour’s work and pensions spokesman, said: “This report shows David Cameron has overseen falling wages and rising insecurity in the labour market. Only Labour has a plan to tackle low pay and to earn our way to rising living standards for all.”

The Conservatives, says The Guardian, hope that signs of momentum in wage growth will gather pace and stir up the necessary feelgood factor before 7 May.

Read The Guardian report in full

Could Tories face collapse in England?

Posted at 09.40, Fri 30 Jan 2015

While so much attention is focused on how badly Labour might fare in Scotland at the hands of the SNP, are we ignoring a possible Tory collapse in England, asks Don Brind.

The most recent Ashcroft national poll has Tories and Labour tied on 32 per cent across Britain. But look at the national breakdown and you find Labour leading the Conservatives by 35 to 31 per cent in England. “That is a hugely significant swing to Labour since 2010 when David Cameron’s Tories swept all before them, leading Labour by 39 per cent to 28 per cent.”

Read Don Brind’s column in full

TV debates: broadcasters won’t back down

Posted at 09.40, Fri 30 Jan 2015

Nick Clegg accused David Cameron yesterday of “ducking and weaving” in his efforts to get a “smorgasbord” of political leaders invited to join the televised leader debates in order to dilute the impact of Nigel Farage. The deputy PM said Cameron would be asking for the “tea lady” to be invited next.

Clegg’s mockery of the PM, reported by The Guardian, follows news that both the BBC and ITV have written to Peter Robinson, leader of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionists, refusing his demand to be included – in effect, turning down Cameron’s most recent demand.

Cameron’s other request – that the broadcasts be pulled forward from April to March - was also refused yesterday by both broadcasters. They have scheduled the debates for 2, 16 and 30 April.

Earlier this week, it looked like Cameron might finally be ready to join the debates. Today, there is a greater prospect of the PM being “empty chaired”.

Read The Guardian report in full

Ashcroft hints at Scots massacre

Posted at 14.15, Thurs 29 Jan 2015

Pollster Lord Ashcroft has told Sky News in a rare interview that the surge in support for the SNP in Scotland "is real". Ashcroft has been polling Scottish seats for the first time and poll-watchers are eagerly awaiting the results which are expected any day, writes Don Brind.

Will Ashcroft’s findings prove as dramatic as a Sky News projection released earlier this week? Ashcroft is surely hinting that he’s sitting on something very similar.

The Sky News projection found that the SNP could win as many 53 seats north of the border on 7 May – a staggering rise from the six the party currently holds. It could mean Labour losing all but four of their 41 seats in Scotland – and it is very likely the SNP will hold the balance of power in a hung parliament on 8 May.

The Nationalists have made it clear they will not enter any sort of pact with the Conservatives – but that an arrangement with Labour would be possible if Miliband’s party will back them on scrapping the replacement of the Trident nuclear deterrent.

Bremner tackles Bercow over MPs' gym cost

Posted at 13.10, Thurs 29 Jan 2015

The week before his Coalition Report is broadcast by BBC TV, impressionist Rory Bremner last night tackled the Commons Speaker, John Bercow, over the spiralling cost of the renovations to the MPs' gym in Westminster, reported to have risen from £250,000 to £1 million.

The two men found themselves co-presenting a prize at the Paddy Power Political Book Awards. "Have you come from the new gym," Bremner asked the Speaker.

“I have, I was there earlier, I didn’t see you there," Bercow answered.

Was it true, Bremner went on, that a spinning room at the gym had been named in Bercow’s honour?

Bercow: “It’s not called the spinning room, you must always be accurate. It’s called the John Bercow room but it wasn’t chosen by me, it was chosen by others.” Ho-hum.

Read The Week's report in full

Where did Give and Balls disappear to?

Posted at 09.45, Thurs 29 Jan 2015

Two of the countries most profile politicians – the Tories’ Michael Gove and Labour’s Ed Balls – have disappeared from the general election campaign. Why? Because each is considered by his party a liability.

Quentin Letts, the Daily Mail sketch writer, told the BBC’s Daily Politics yesterday that Gove, the Chief Whip, is being kept away from the election frontline because the Tories found he was unpopular with "mums" on the school run as a result of his tough policies when he was Education Secretary.

And don’t expect to see much of Ed Balls either, said Letts: the Labour party is well aware that he raises questions of trust when voters worry about the state of the economy.

Watch the Daily Politics clip here

The case for compulsory voting

Posted at 09.40, Thurs 29 Jan 2015

Would the introduction of compulsory voting in Britain be the best way to force politicians to pay more attention to the needs and aspirations of young people rather then concentrate on issues that affect older, richer citizens who are more likely to vote?

As Don Brind reports today, two Conservative commentators have suggested that some form of compulsory voting, however unpalatable it may sound, might be the solution.

A "halfway house" solution offered by the left-wing think tank IPPR suggests making voting compulsory for the first time only. After that it would be up to the voter whether to continue to play a part in the democratic process.

Read Don Brind's column in full

Let's not out-kip Ukip, says Labour's Lammy

Posted at 09.40, Thurs 29 Jan 2015

David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham and a London mayoral hopeful, has attacked his own party for putting out a campaign leaflet promising a "tough new approach" to immigration.

“Surprised this is a Labour flyer," he tweeted. "We're a pro-immigration party: let's not race to the bottom trying to out-kip UKIP.”

As The Mole reports, it shows how difficult things can get for Labour when they try to step beyond their core subject of the NHS. But Lord Ashcroft warns that Labour - and the Tories, too - ignore immigration at their peril.

The rise of Ukip, and the threat they pose in marginal seats, is a reaction to the "arrogance" displayed by Cameron and Miliband in failing to address one of the electorate's prime concerns, says Ashcroft.

Read The Mole's column in full

Greens are NOT the left-wing answer

Posted at 09.40, Thurs 29 Jan 2015

What are those of us who would like to vote for an unashamadly left-wing government supposed to do, asks The Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore. “As much as I would like to see a Ukip of the left, I am not convinced the Greens are it,” she writes.

“What is missing from the Greens is the actual thing I want from a progressive party. It’s the economy, stupid. A theory of class analysis, an understanding of the mechanics of redistribution and a sense of connection, not with plants but the very poorest.”

Yet, as we reported yesterday (see below), one of the Green’s big ideas – a so-called 'citizen’s income' of £72 a week for everyone, rich and poor, whether they work or not – falls to pieces when properly examined. Many of the poorest households would be worse off, research has shown.

“If we actually want a left-wing party in Britain then we may have to do something quite green. Grow our own.”

Read Suzanne Moore’s article in full

Greens policy will hit poorest families hardest

Posted at 09.37, Wed 28 Jan 2015

Will the Greens’ surge in the opinion polls take a knock from the revelation that the party’s flagship economic policy – a £72-a-week ‘citizen’s income’ available to all – would hit the poorest hardest?

Green leader Natalie Bennett had a hard time defending the policy when she was interviewed by Andrew Neil on the BBC’s Sunday Politics. Now The Guardian is reporting that the Citizen’s Income Trust (CIT), a charity that actually helped the Greens formulate the policy, says the way the party wants to run it is flawed.

Research by CIT has discovered that 35 per cent of households would end up worse off, “with many of the biggest losers among the poorest households”.

‘Citizen’s income’ is designed to replace personal tax allowances, and most means-tested benefits including jobseeker’s allowance, child benefit, the basic state pension and tax credits. Solving the problem highlighted by CIT would mean adding a means test but that would make the administration of the income much more complex.

Will it hit the Green poll ratings? Probably not as much as it should, says The Week's poll-watcher, Don Brind.

Three-quarters of voters are ignorant of Green policies other than the environment, according to YouGov polling a few days ago. “In seven out of nine of the policy areas polled, at least 74 per cent of British people ‘don’t know anything’ about what the Green party want to do.”

Read The Guardian report in full

Alan Milburn risks sabotaging Labour

Posted at 09.35, Wed 28 Jan 2015

Alan Milburn, an arch-Blairite and former health secretary known for his radical reforms of the NHS, has attacked Ed Miliband for running a "pale imitation" of the doomed 1992 election campaign when Labour's Neil Kinnock defied the polls and lost to John Major.

Milburn says that by concentrating on the NHS, but throwing public money at it rather than reforming the way it's funded, Miiband is making a "fatal mistake".

Why is Milburn risking sabotaging Miliband's campaign for election victory, asks The Mole? "Partly because of ego - he wants to stop Miliband rubbishing the Blairite legacy – but it’s also his conviction that he is right."

Read The Mole's column in full

Milburn again – now on the economy

Posted at 09.35, Wed 28 Jan 2015

Alan Milburn isn’t only sticking his oar in (from Ed Miliband’s perspective) and behaving like a Tory collaborator (John Prescott's charge) on the future of the NHS: the former Labour Health Secretary is also criticising the current leadership for distancing itself from New Labour and failing to stand up for Blair and Brown’s economic record.

The Tory mantra that the last Labour government ruined the economy by letting public finances get out of control is based on a lie, says Milburn, in an article for the Financial Times co-authored with John Hutton, another former Labour Cabinet minister.

They say the Tories have been handed “a needless advantage” and that Ed Miliband and Ed Balls need to “set the record straight and reclaim ground foolishly bequeathed to their opponents”.

Public spending under Blair and Brown accounted for 37 per cent of GDP, say the authors. That compares with 40 per cent under Thatcher, 38 per cent under John Major and nearly 41 per cent under Cameron’s coalition government. “The last Labour government could be considered one of the most prudent in modern times."

Read Milburn and Hutton’s FT article in full

YouGov CEO's radical plan for Miliband

Posted at 11:00, Wed 28 Jan 2015

Two YouGov bosses have offered their advice to Labour and the Tories on how to achieve a majority on 7 May and avoid a messy search for coalition partners, writes Don Brind.

YouGov president Peter Kellner suggests Cameron should show he's prepared to stamp on bad behaviour by banks and business and also retreat from his "ill-judged bedroom tax on poor families”.

YouGov’s CEO, Stephan Shakespeare, has even more radical advice for Labour: it should be promoting a clear anti-austerity message, it should pledge to stay out of American wars, and it should stand up to big business even more than it has done so far.

What on earth would Alan Milburn, Blairite scourge of the current Labour leadership, say?

Read Don Brind's column in full

Clegg and Cameron ‘got too close’

Posted at 09.35, Wed 28 Jan 2015

Nick Clegg and David Cameron both made a crucial mistake when they agreed to take their parties into coalition in May 2010 – they got too close. That’s the view of the Lib Dems’ new president, Sal Brinton.

“I always say coalition is a contract not a marriage,” Brinton tells the New Statesman. "And the problem is that, in 2010, the wider public perceived it as a marriage. Actually we don't have to get on, what we have to do is deliver the contract, which was the Coalition Agreement.”

And whose fault is that? “I think it was Nick and David Cameron,” she replies, frankly. “[But] you have to go back a step to look at what the media was saying the day after the election: ‘If we don't have a coalition within three days, the money markets are going to collapse, it’s going to be a complete disaster’ . . . So of course [there was] relief for the two of them getting into the Rose Garden – ‘We've got an agreement we can work’. The problem came thereafter.”

If the Tories are the largest party on 8 May, and seek a second “marriage” with the Lib Dems, we can expect separate bedrooms this time. Says Brinton: “I suspect any coalition in the future is going to make the differentiation clear from the start.”

Read the New Statesman article in full

Why can’t Labour be led by Cameron?

Posted at 09.35, Wed 28 Jan 2015

What the electorate would really like to wake up to on 8 May, according to a new ComRes poll, is a Labour government led by David Cameron, writes Don Brind. The survey shows Cameron leading Ed Miliband by 55 to 45 on the question of who voters would like to be PM, while a small majority - 51 per cent over 49 per cent - favour a Labour government.

The apparent contradiction is not new, says Sebastian Payne in a blog for The Spectator. Cameron has always polled ahead of his party while the Labour “brand” remains more popular than Miliband. “These numbers explain the election strategies of both parties: the Tories want to make the campaign about how useless Miliband is. Labour on the other hand want to paint the Conservatives as bad, dangerous people for the country.”

Read The Spectator blog in full