It’s all about tactics now

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest (Party) of them all?

The Mirror Crack’d

So we’re down into the home straight with the chequered flag in sight. The party leaders are certainly all putting on a last-gasp sprint to the finish but it’s now time for the tacticians to make their play. Indeed, taking a leaf out of the Steven ‘don’t-let-THEM-win’ Gerrard tactical handbook, Labour’s Ed Balls today urged the electorate to use their vote primarily to stop Manchester United the Tories, and vote Lib Dem where necessary. Even The Mirror, which prides itself on being a near Soviet-style slavish Labour propaganda outlet, splashed today with a helpful guide to anti-Conservative tactical voting.

With The Mirror having cracked, the question now is how many years of opposition are there in store for Labour, and who will lead them? Gordon Brown’s position will not have been helped by the Labour candidate for North West Norfolk, Manish Sood, describing Brown as “the worst prime minister we have had in this country”, and adding “At the end of the day if he can't do the job properly, he should give it to someone else…it is as simple as that.”

It came as no surprise that The Observer came out for the Liberal Democrats over the weekend, with The Guardian following suit yesterday. The boost is likely to have little impact so late in the day but, even though he has not been able to sustain the poll boost from the first television debate, it demonstrates that the Liberal Democrats have a serious role to play.


QUOTE OF THE DAY

“My son holds his own views but I'm very angry about this and very angry with him”

– Manish Sood’s mum, a Labour councillor in Leicester, is going to send him to bed without any dinner


THE GREASY POLLLab 28, Con 35, LibDem 27 (Channel4 News Poll of Polls)

A vote for The Hung Parliament Party is a wasted vote

“Vote Labour. Because Jack Bauer says so.” Could this be the next Labour Party broadcast?

Stop all this hung parliament nonsense

Politicians of all shades and complexions have been complaining in the media that all this talk (also in the media) of a hung parliament is preventing the real substance around policy being debated. Stop focusing on personalities, they say. Stop harping on about coalitions. And for goodness sake stop this talk of hung parliaments.

But we say NO, we shall not submit to this blatant attempt to stifle our freedom! Particularly since the Conservative Party used its slot last night for a broadcast by the fictional ‘Hung Parliament Party’ to lampoon the Liberal Democrats and pointing out the apparent problems a hung parliament would cause. It’s almost as if they couldn’t think of anything nice to say about themselves...

Continuing on the theme of rigorous in-depth policy analysis, news arrives that the Labour Party has appointed the director of 24, Stephen Hopkins, to direct its new election broadcast. He should have all the right credentials as 24 is long past its heyday and sees the leader (is it Jack Brown or Gordon Bauer?) regularly on the brink of full-scale catastrophic disaster...


QUOTE OF THE DAY

“If you spend all your time talking about hung parliaments, don’t be surprised if people think that’s the inevitable outcome”

– John Prescott a few days ago, quoted in today’s Guardian

THE GREASY POLL
Lab 28, Con 33, LibDem 30 (Guardian/ICM)

At least the eggs can still fly

Flight chaos is hanging over this election like a…well, a volcanic ash cloud.

Flights of fancy

With the Liberal Democrats still flying high in the polls, there have been calls from some quarters (a Mr G Brown was promoting the idea in today’s Independent) for a progressive Lab-Lib coalition. Regardless of whether one considers this progressive or a disaster, today was a prime demonstration of why coalition government is singularly ill-suited for this country.

Having lambasted Labour for its “big government” philosophy, the Conservatives today took to the airwaves to insist on an immediate public inquiry into why the Government hadn’t got flights going sooner. Despite having previously and sensibly acknowledged that a volcano exploding in Iceland was not actually the Government’s fault, the Conservatives now seem to be suggesting the Government should have overruled the CAA and made planes fly regardless of the regulator’s concerns over safety. Petty party politics (what did Cameron once say about “Punch and Judy” politics?) wins again!

There was, however, some good news however today, for it seems the party leaders are finally connecting with the public. David Cameron connected with an egg hurled at him by a student in Cornwall (perhaps on behalf of The Mirror’s chicken which was ‘decapitated’ by Cameron yesterday), and Gordon Brown had to deal with awkward questions about why he had not visited Wales earlier in the campaign.

On policy issues, the day has been dominated by the IMF’s proposals for not one, but two taxes on banks and financial institutions. Cue the shadow Chancellors falling over themselves to say it had been their idea first…


QUOTE OF THE DAY

“OMG Osborne's hair now has a side-parting. Big, big error. Makes him look even younger..like Little Lord Fauntleroy.”

– Ben Brogan of the Daily Telegraph is not impressed


THE GREASY POLL
Lab 27, Con 33, LibDem 30 (BBC Poll of Polls)

And the debate begins

Well satisfied

The morning after

So that was that then. How was it for you?

An estimated 9.4 million people tuned in to the first-ever live televised leaders’ debate on ITV last night, with viewing figures reaching as high as 9.9 million at one point, suggesting all this talk of apathy towards politics is – oh look, a cloud shaped like a duck!

Nick Clegg emerged almost unanimously as the winner, according to various polls and pundits, with Cameron slightly edging Brown. Some have even gone so far as to suggest there is a real prospect of a three-horse race, which leaves Labour and Tory strategists in a quandary: do they approach the Liberal Democrats as potential partners and try to woo them (most plausibly with offers of party funding reform and moves toward proportional representation) or do they put extra effort and resource into targeting LibDem voters?

Perhaps in an attempt to distract from their debate performances, the Conservatives and Labour today stepped up the celeb war with Gary Barlow of Take That fame taking to the stage at a Nantwich school to endorse the Tories’ proposals on music in schools. Labour meanwhile wheeled out Eddie Izzard who insisted the Tories are ‘talking Britain down’.


QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Long after the United States, and even after Iran, Afghanistan and Mongolia, politics in Britain is moving into the television age."

– The NY Times verdict on the debate


THE GREASY POLL
Lab 31, Con 37, LibDem 22 (YouGov)

You are cordially invited…

“Psst, have you received your invitation yet, Gordon?”

Manifesto edition #2: Look chaps, let’s just call this thing off

David Cameron today launched the Conservative Party manifesto in confident style at Battersea Power Station. In fact, so confident is he that he appears to believe the election should actually be called off and the Conservative Party should simply invite people to form a Government. But in describing the manifesto as an “invitation to join the government of Britain”, has Cameron not overlooked something? What if Messrs Brown, Darling, and indeed the Labour Party en masse decide to accept the invitation? Assuming this doesn’t happen however, the Conservative manifesto – like Labour’s yesterday – contains very little that is new, with perhaps the commitment to at least consult on a ‘fair fuel stabiliser’, a tax levied on energy firms to reduce fuel duty at times of high prices and vice versa, being the notable exception.

Cameron himself was on excellent form though (the same cannot be said of George Osborne) and will probably get a good write-up in tomorrow’s papers. If he makes it in, that is, for today also saw the launch not only of the UK Independence Party manifesto, but of Plaid Cymru’s too. The former, with 12 MEPs, is hoping to secure its first Westminster MP and the Welsh Nationalists’ (currently with 3 MPs) key policy is £300 million more for, er, Wales. Typical.


QUOTE OF THE DAY

"After my 3rd canvassing session so far today I am SO glad in invested in a pair of really comfortable shoes."

- so tweets Sarah McCarthy-Fry, Labour incumbent in Portsmouth North. See, they are like us really.


THE GREASY POLL

Lab 33, Con 39, LibDem 20 (YouGov)