100 days war starts here as PM pledges welfare cuts

With 100 days to go to the general election, and with the Tories and Labour still neck-and-neck in the polls, David Cameron and Ed Miliband have set out their stalls. And the divide between the two parties is clear.

Cameron has pledged to cut the welfare cap per family from £26,000 to £23,000, to raise the threshold at which the 40p tax rate becomes payable, and to remove housing benefits from jobless 18 to 21-year-olds.

"The choice at the next general election is competence with the Conservatives or chaos with the others," was the PM’s message as he toured the broadcasting studios this morning.

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Ed Miliband was due in Manchester today to launch a new pledge to improve the NHS. According to The Guardian, he will promise 36,000 more staff and the repeal of privatisation laws. His speech comes as a Populus poll shows the NHS is seen by the majority of the electorate as more important than the state of the economy.

Nevertheless, Cameron’s pledges brought a big pat on the back from the Daily Mail this morning.

“As the election campaign enters its final 100 days, David Cameron comes out fighting at last like a Tory,” the paper said in an editorial.

“Inevitably, his enemies on the Left will proclaim the return of the ‘nasty party’, as he pledges to cap benefits further and raise the threshold for the 40p tax rate.

“But quite apart from pressing economic necessity, there’s a powerful moral case for ending the misery of welfare dependency and rewarding hard work.”

• Countdown to 7 May: check The Week's daily election round-up

The Mail concluded: “If Mr Cameron can keep this up for 100 days, he may yet overcome voters’ disaffection with the political class and get the chance to prove what he can achieve without the Lib Dems to tie him down.”

Cameron also appears to have relented on the issue of the televised leader debates.

He indicated this morning that he would take part – but with two caveats: he wants the Democratic Ulster Unionists invited too, and he wants the debates to take place before the “short campaign” - as the strategists call it – gets going three to four weeks before 7 May.

The PM has been dragging his heels to avoid boosting Nigel Farage with a free platform. But with the broadcasters now inviting seven party leaders – and with that number rising to eight if they agree to invite the Ulster Unionists – the Ukip leader will find it much harder to make an impact.

Asked on Radio 4’s BBC Today programme if he wanted the TV debates to go ahead, Cameron responded: “Yes - I want that to happen.”

Whether the debates will be watchable with so many participants or whether The Guardian’s Nick Watt is correct in prophesying a “democratic bore-athon”, we shall see. The Mole has his money on the latter – which, of course, will suit Cameron very nicely.