Ashen faces all round

The weather forecast was another casualty of the ongoing volcanic ash crisis

No smoke without fire

With under three weeks to go, this election campaign is going well if the news is anything to go by. And also if the maxim ‘no news is good news’ is anything to go by. It is not, however, a maxim that politicians generally subscribe to, and they will have been none too pleased to discover pictures of them kissing babies had been dropped in favour of, er, ash.

Anyone tuning into the news today could have been forgiven for thinking the election had been called off to deal with the ongoing volcanic ash crisis. Today, for example, saw blanket media coverage of ash – the Prime Minister and senior Labour figures abandoning the campaign to hold an emergency COBRA meeting; and shots of HMS Albion which is going to pick up British soldiers returning from Afghanistan in northern Spain.

All this volcanic ash coverage will, however, have served as a handy smokescreen for both Labour – even their harshest critics can hardly pin responsibility for an Icelandic volcano eruption and the wind direction 10km up in the atmosphere – and the Conservatives who seem to be at something of a loss if they can’t blame the Government. That said, both will have had to rip up their media plans for the week and all the carefully timed photocalls will have gone out of the window.

One man who has well and truly vanished amongst all this volcanic ash is Nick Clegg. Having come out best in the leaders’ debate last week, the Liberal Democrats have been flying high in the polls, with The Sun even putting the party out in front.


QUOTE OF THE DAY

"So, is it true that the Icelandic authorities misread the government's note: ‘Send us all your cash’...?"

- Tom Harris, Labour incumbent Glasgow South gets in on the volcanic ash jokes on Twitter


THE GREASY POLL
Lab 26, Con 32, LibDem 33 (The Sun/YouGov)