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

NHS a 'toxic' issue for Tories

Posted at 09.22, Wed 14 Jan 2015

The NHS is a “toxic” issue for the Tories, according to their former party treasurer turned pollster Lord Ashcroft, who has used an article for The Guardian to share the results of a special research project on public attitudes to the health service, writes Don Brind.

Using a huge sample of 20,000 voters, Ashcroft’s polling found 47 per cent of respondents believed Labour had the best approach to the NHS: only 29 per cent trusted the Tories. Andy Burnham, Labour’s health spokesman, was more trusted to tell the truth about the NHS than either David Cameron or Jeremy Hunt, the current Tory Health Secretary.

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The fact that Ashcroft had the NHS polling up his sleeve helps explain his scepticism about his own national poll released on Monday which showed a surprising six per cent Tory lead. Ashcroft cautioned: “It is important to keep results like this in perspective, and to look at the overall trend rather than any individual poll.”

In his Guardian article, Ashcroft sets out the Tory NHS problem in stark terms. Although many respondents knew the last Labour government had itself encouraged the use of more private providers, they thought the Conservatives had “an ideological preference for privatisation and would pursue the policy irrespective of whether it was good for patients (possibly even because Tories would have ties to people who stood to profit from private contracts with the NHS).”

The NHS changes sought by the Tories’ last Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, were seen more as “part of a plan to privatise the NHS” than to cut bureaucracy or give more choice and control to patients.

Ashcroft puts these public perceptions down to the fact that “the decontamination of the party brand was never completed. Its modernisation will be complete when it is trusted to sustain and reform the NHS: the matter does not have to be the Tories’ perpetual political millstone.”

Read Lord Ashcroft's NHS findings in full

TV debates: pressure on PM mounts

Posted at 09.20, Wed 14 Jan 2015

Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage are ganging up on the Prime Minister, saying it would be "unacceptable" for him to refuse to appear in televised leaders’ debates before the general election, writes The Mole. But have they got the right target?

Cameron is using Ofcom’s decision not to invite the Green Party as his excuse for not taking part, but it ls hardly a secret that he’s trying to avoid debating with Farage on Europe and immigration on the advice of his strategist Lynton Crosby.

In identical letters, the three leaders party leaders write: "It would be unacceptable if the political self-interest of one party leader were to deny the public the opportunity to see their leaders debate in public."

A ComRes poll suggests Farage and Co have the public’s support: 55 per cent believed the PM was being cowardly. But 50 per cent said the Green Party should be involved.

The Greens have only one MP - but while Ukip have two, current projections suggest they could end up on 8 May with only one. If Farage is allowed to take part in the TV debates, then so too should Natalie Bennett, leader of the Greens.

Read The Mole's column in full

Is Labour energy freeze ‘in chaos’?

Posted at 09.20, Wed 14 Jan 2015

Has Labour’s flagship policy of an energy price freeze hit the rocks as inflation falls and the power companies begin to cut bills in the wake of falling wholesale oil and gas prices?

The Daily Mail reports a “senior source” within Labour admitting that Ed Miliband’s big idea, central to the party’s cost-of-living argument, might have to be “rebranded” to make it clear that domestic prices will not be frozen at a high level if tariffs are dropping.

“The freeze was announced at a time when energy prices were rising inexorably – nobody was talking about prices coming down, or even thinking about it,” the Labour source said. “Obviously, if bills are coming down at the election there may have to be a bit of rebranding to make it clear it will operate as a price cap instead.”

According to the Mail, without Miliband’s high-profile pledge of an energy price freeze – delivered at the 2013 Labour conference – domestic bills might have been reduced earlier. The fear of a future freeze has led power companies to keep prices artificially high, the paper claims.

James Lansdale, the BBC’s deputy political editor, was less alarmist: he told Radio 4’s Today programme that falling inflation merely made Labour’s cost of living argument “more difficult to make”.

Last word: bland politics is good news

Posted at 09.20, Wed 14 Jan 2015

We should not be depressed by the “intellectual staleness” of this election campaign – because it is a sign of Britain’s relative success and stability, argues Janan Ganesh in the Financial Times.

The stale ideas are coming equally from the Tories and Labour. He points to the Conservative proposals to cut inheritance tax and tighten the rules on trade union strikes. “Whatever there is to be said for these ideas, the first was conceived eight years ago and the second could be a stray from the party’s 1983 election manifesto.”

Labour wants to intervene in prices and wages – and is advocating a new Living Standards Index to challenge the old GDP. “When a politician proposes a new metric, he is letting you know the intellectual cupboard is bare.”

Ganesh suggests the lack of innovative thinking might be explained by the narrowness of our politicians’ backgrounds — the same educations, the same apprenticeships as government advisers. “They are book-smart but unimaginative. They know their way around policy but cannot think outside the Whitehall orthodoxies in which they were reared like young Jesuits.”

But there’s a positive way of looking at this. “Politicians are not struggling to come up with big new ideas because of writer’s block but because, in a highly evolved country that gets most things right, there are not many big new ideas to be had.”

Read Janan Ganesh’s column in full

Giant leap for Tories - but is poll accurate?

Posted at 09.20, Tues 13 Jan 2015

The Tories and Labour are neck and neck in the polls – probably. That’s still true despite two “shock” polls released yesterday showing opposite results, writes Don Brind.

First up was Populus with a Miliband morale-booster: it put Labour on 37 per cent with a five-point lead over the Tories - the kind of numbers they hadn’t enjoyed for six months or more. Then came the first Ashcroft national poll of the new year and it showed the Tories with a stunning six-point lead – up four points to 34 per cent with Labour down three at 28 per cent.

Even Lord Ashcroft sounded surprised, cautioning: “It is important to keep results like this in perspective, and to look at the overall trend rather than any individual poll.”

As in all polls with samples of around 1,000 voters there is a margin of error of three per cent on the figures for each of the parties. That means, said Ashcroft, that “the Conservative share could be low enough, and the Labour score high enough, for the parties to be tied on 31 per cent.”

That is equally true of the Populus poll: given the margin of error, the two parties could still be tied.

The opposing polls prompted Anthony Wells at UK Polling Report to quote one of the wise old men of market research, Tony Twyman. Twyman’s Law states: “Any figure that looks interesting or different is usually wrong”.

Says Wells: “Taken alone and in isolation, it does mean an individual voting intention poll isn’t that useful… which is why you shouldn’t look at them alone and in isolation – watch the trend.”

One reason for the drop in Labour support in the Ashcroft poll is that the number of Lib Dem to Labour switchers has halved, according to a persuasive analysis by the New Statesman. The new poll shows only 15 per cent of 2010 Lib Dem voters switching to Labour: in Ashcroft’s previous poll the figure was 28 per cent, in line with other polls.

Whether Ashcroft’s new poll proves to be an “outlier” – an anomaly – or the first hint of both coalition partners, the Tories and the Lib Dems, gaining support, here’s a sobering thought for David Cameron: even with a six-point lead he would be losing MPs on 7 May. In 2010 the Tories beat Labour by seven percentage points – and, as well all know, that was not enough to secure a Commons majority.

By contrast the Populus 37-32 split in Labour’s favour would, according to an Electoral Calculus projection, give Ed Miliband a small overall majority even if Labour suffers a wipeout in Scotland at the hands of the SNP.

In the meantime, we await next week’s Ashcroft and Populus polls to see if either can show a trend developing – or whether YouGov has it right with its new poll today. It shows the two main parties still neck and neck – Labour just ahead of the Tories, 33 to 32 per cent.

Labour v Tory: an IFS warning

Posted at 09.15, Tues 13 Jan 2015

The Institute of Fiscal Studies, an independent think tank, is warning today that a victory for Labour on 7 May would mean £50 billon-a-year more borrowing by 2020, writes The Mole. But the IFS also has a warning for those who would put the Tories back in power: their austerity plans as set out before Christmas in the Autumn Statement will require spending cuts of more than £50 billion after 2015-16.

IFS director Paul Johnson told Radio 4’s Today programme: “If we follow the Conservative route, we have got some really big spending cuts to come… the effect would be less good public services, and some risks to the delivery of public services.”

In short, voters face a stark choice: a future of higher borrowing and debt under Labour or cuts that will damage public services under the Tories.

Read The Mole's column in full

Miliband's dinner with the Clooneys

Posted at 09.15, Tues 13 Jan 2015

Does Ed Miliband lead a rather more exotic private life than the press normally gives him credit for? The Daily Telegraph reports that the Labour leader is considering a proposal to seek a ban on a group of Russian judges, police officers and tax officials from entering Britain after being "briefed" on the issue at a starry private dinner party.

Ed’s host was the human rights barrister Geoffrey Robertson QC, and his fellow diners/briefers were the actor George Clooney and his wife Amal Clooney, the latter a barrister at Robertson's Doughty Street chambers.

What Robertson and the Clooneys want is the introduction of a so-called 'Magnitsky law' in Britain, similar to that now operating in the US.

Sergei Magnitsky was the Russian accountant who was arrested in 2008 after blowing the whistle on corrupt officials who had defrauded the Russian state. A year later he died aged 37 in Moscow's Butyarka prison after suffering months of beatings. In 2012 the US government adopted a Magnitsky Bill which banned 34 police chiefs, judges and tax officials involved in the accountant's prosecution and death from entering the country or using its banks.

While The Spectator could not resist asking whether bacon sandwiches were on the menu at Robertson's soiree, the Telegraph was oddly respectful. “Despite Tory portrayals of a ‘weak’ leader,” it reported, “Russian diplomats concede Mr Miliband would be no soft touch as Prime Minister, citing his battles with major UK energy companies as evidence that he could be willing to target Moscow's business interests in London.”

Read the report of the dinner in full

Tory quandary: NHS now voters’ top concern

Posted at 09.15, Tues 13 Jan 2015

The Tories’ decision to omit the NHS and immigration from the ‘six key themes’ of their election campaign, as delivered by David Cameron yesterday, may have been deliberate – but was it wise?

A new ComRes poll for ITV News reveals that the NHS is the top concern for the electorate since the pollster began tracking voters’ priorities last July, with immigration second.

An insight into Tory thinking behind the omissions is offered by Isabel Hardman at The Spectator: “The Tories want to talk about things where they think a debate will benefit them, no matter what the discussion.

“They cannot talk too much about immigration… because doing so tends to benefit Ukip, both by suggesting that Nigel Farage is right to talk about this issue quite so much, and because Ukip can promise far more than the Tories can promise or indeed want to promise.

“Similarly talking about the NHS tends to benefit the party that voters trust the most on the NHS: Labour.” Indeed, when ComRes asked who was responsible for the health service’s current woes, 35 per cent blamed the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government, while only 22 per cent blamed the last Labour government.

The Daily Mail begs to differ. “There is not a single problem in the [health] service that cannot be traced to catastrophic mismanagement by Labour,” it says in an editorial today, and Cameron should tackle the issue “head on” and encourage Tory candidates to do the same.

Read Isabel Hardman’s blog in full

Last word: is Sajid Javid the Tory future?

Posted at 09.15, Tues 13 Jan 2015

Looking ahead – possibly beyond Boris Johnson, Theresa May and George Osborne - one of the favourites to lead the Tory party is Sajid Javid, the first Muslim to be elected a Tory MP and currently the Culture Secretary.

Which makes his contribution to a pamphlet, The Party of Opportunity, in which 14 Tory MPs from working-class backgrounds share their life stories, all the more fascinating.

Javid’s father arrived in Britain from Pakistan in 1961, aged 23. “Disembarking at Heathrow with a £1 note in his pocket (which his father, touchingly but mistakenly, had said would see him through his first month in the UK), my father made his way up north and found a job in a Rochdale cotton mill.

“Happy to be employed, he nevertheless strived for more. He set his sights on working on a bus, only to be turned away time and again. But he didn’t give up. He persisted and was hired as a bus conductor, then a driver…”

As Hopi Sen says on the left-wing site Progress, “Javid’s article, which will surely form the basis of a leadership bid one day, should be required reading for those considering the future of the Conservative party.”

Read Sajid Javid’s article in full (go to page 18)

Cameron off to DC to meet his fave bro

Posted at 9.45, Mon 12 Jan 2015

Back from the 'Je Suis Charlie' march in Paris, David Cameron hits week two of the general election campaign with another 'world leader' moment in the offing - the prospect of a timely photo-op with President Barack Obama at the White House, writes The Mole.

Only last week Cameron let slip the fact that Obama likes to call him 'Bro'. Now the PM's off to Washington to enjoy a working dinner with Obama on Thursday night to be followed by a joint press conference on Friday.

Ostensibly, the two men will be discussing intelligence cooperation between the CIA and MI6 following the Charlie Hebdo killings, the Russian invasion of Crimea and its incursion into the east of Ukraine, economic growth and international trade.

But as everyone in Westminster knows, this is the sort of top-drawer PR opportunity only a serving Prime Minister can arrange. And given that Cameron needs to do everything he can to reinforce the lead he has over Ed Miliband in leadership polls - when his party is behind in voting intention polls - the timing is impeccable.

As James Forsyth wrote in the Mail on Sunday: "Ed Miliband’s team are doing their best not to appear bothered, pointing out their man met Obama at the White House over the summer. But some in the Shadow Cabinet are more frank. One observes spikily: ‘It is quite close to the general election for these meetings to be taking place’, before expressing concern about the prospect of a ‘full-blooded love bombing’."

A statement issued by the White House said: “POTUS [the President of the United States] looks forward to beginning the new year by working with David Cameron and reaffirming enduring special relationship between the US and UK.”

Er yes, but did POTUS need to be quite so helpful? Or is it payback for Cameron's very helpful trip to the White House in March 2012? As Nicholas Watt of The Guardian explains, that visit “enabled Obama to show Republican voters before the presidential election later that year that he was close to a centre-right leader”.

Threat to Nick Clegg in Sheffield Hallam

Posted at 09.40, Mon 12 Jan 2015

Could a young Labour politician called Oliver Coppard drive Nick Clegg out of office – assuming the Lib Dem leader is wanted by either Cameron or Miliband on 8 May - by simply winning Sheffield Hallam at the general election?

The possibility of Clegg losing his seat was mooted by pollster Lord Ashcroft in November when he found that Clegg was only three points ahead of his Labour rival and therefore vulnerable to tactical voting.

Now the Guardian's northern editor, Helen Pidd, has gone walkabout with Clegg in his constituency and seen for herself what he's up against. Mentioning Clegg's name, she writes, got the following reactions: "tosser" (from a locksmith on Crookes Road), "Cameron's pet" (from a taekwondo instructor from Crosspool), "lying bastard" (from a pub barman in Crookes) and "unprincipled, power-grabbing charlatan" (from the owner of a secondhand book shop on the Eccleshall Road). Not encouraging.

Read Helen Pidd's article in full

TV debates: invite the Greens, says Grade

Posted at 09.40, Mon 12 Jan 2015

Pressure on the broadcasters and political leaders to resolve the issue of TV election debates is growing. With broadcasting watchdog Ofcom currently ruling out a Green invitation, and David Cameron refusing to take part unless the Greens are there, Lord Tebbit raised the temperature yesterday by accusing the PM of being "frit".

As the Mirror explained, this is likely to get under Cameron's skin because it is the same word Maggie Thatcher used to taunt Labour deputy leader Denis Healey before the 1983 general election.

But is it Cameron who needs to bend – or the other party leaders? Michael Grade, one-time CEO of Channel Four and chairman of the BBC, told Radio 4's Today programme this morning that it was Miliband, Clegg and Farage who should be insisting on the Greens being included.

Not because we are itching to hear what the Greens may have to say, but because without the involvement of the only two men likely to be the next prime minister – Cameron and Miliband – the whole thing is pointless. "Everything else is a sideshow," said Grade.

Six Tory themes - but where's immigration?

Posted at 09.40, Mon 12 Jan 2015

David Cameron will today set out six themes for the Tories' general election campaign, writes Don Brind, but even before his speech has been delivered he has run into flak both from Labour and from The Sun, one of the papers he's counting on to drive the Conservatives to victory.

That's because the six themes markedly fail to include the NHS (Labour's complaint) and immigration (the Sun's complaint). Instead the Tories will "focus" on dealing with the economic deficit, creating jobs, lowering taxes, improving education, tackling housing shortages and helping the retired.

Under the headline ‘Cam plan sham’, The Sun points to a poll it carried out before Christmas which found that 49 per cent of voters believe immigration is one of the biggest issues facing the country. "If he won’t address the issue of immigration, you have to wonder if he really wants to win." Ouch.

Read Don Brind's column in full

Last word: boring the voters into submission

Posted at 09.40, Mon 12 Jan 2015

The Conservatives and the Labour Party, both anxious about losing customers to "alternative" parties like Ukip, the Greens and the SNP, are trying to bore the electorate into submission, the former Sky TV political editor Adam Boulton argued in his Sunday Times column yesterday.

"With Ukip taking votes from both Conservatives and Labour, and the SNP and the Greens to the left of Labour, the last thing that Cameron and Miliband want is a debate on ideas, if that means letting in fresh thoughts from the populists," wrote Boulton.

The aim of 'Mission Bore' - as Boulton dubs it - is "to dull the voters to the point that they lack the energy for their eyes to wander towards the insurgent parties". But is it working? No, says Boulton. "Resentful of being shut out, voters could even turn to the alternatives in greater numbers."

Read Adam Boulton's article in full