2015 general election

Wednesday

15 Apr 2015

The real winners (and losers) of the Tory right-to-buy scheme

Much dust was kicked up by the Conservative pledge to widen right-to-buy to housing association tenants. How dare the Tories offer six-figure discounts on homes that don’t belong to them? Or so the housing chiefs thundered, amid threats to mire the idea in a costly court battle. But as the dust settles, how much of that anger is justified? Will the idea seriously harm the landlords to most of the nation’s social housing tenants? The first thing to note is that much of the initial anger was poorly directed. Housing chiefs were caught somewhat off-guard by a surprise pledge to compensate them for the six-figure discounts. This financial twist – not extended to local authorities – undermined

Isabel Hardman

The Ukip pledge that other parties may well adopt

One of the Ukip manifesto pledges that’s making certain types a bit grumpy today is a pledge to abolish the Department for Energy and Climate Change. Unite has said that this ‘beyond barmy and would create chaos’. Unite is a union and is naturally keen to support the jobs of those who work for DECC and in industries covered by the department. But this particular Ukip policy might be one that a party of government ends up adopting. Nigel Farage’s party’s manifesto said today that DECC should be abolished because its ‘essential powers and functions can be merged into other departments’. Influential Tories agree with this: in 2013, the Free

Isabel Hardman

The Tories may have a strong message but do they have any momentum yet?

The Tories have another election broadcast out tonight that builds on the message of their manifesto: that they are for hardworking blue-collar people and that if you want sunshine, vote Tory. To that end, every outside shot in the film is bathed in sunlight, and everyone is in a pretty good mood: laughing as they work, smiling fondly at a newborn baby, grinning as they climb up the stairs (a child). Most of the attacks on Labour are framed as positives: that the Tories are freeing people from ‘mountains of debt’ and that businesses ‘aren’t held back’. But there is a direct reference to Labour, which is in the section

Sebastian Payne

Ukip attempts a professional manifesto launch in Thurrock

There was one star of Ukip’s manifesto launch today: Suzanne Evans. For once Nigel Farage didn’t steal the show, it was the party’s deputy chairman — and the brains behind its ‘Believe in Britain’ manifesto — who came across as professional and reasoned. Over 100 people turned up at the Thurrock Hotel in Essex to see the release of the manifesto booklet. While it is a slick offering, and full of glossy pictures of its senior figures, it revealed nothing particularly new. The two main messages in Ukip’s manifesto were already briefed out in the Telegraph and Daily Express this morning: a pledge to increase defence spending beyond the 2 per cent Nato

James Forsyth

Clegg’s offer to voters: I’ll be the Tories’ heart and Labour’s brain

The Lib Dem manifesto launch was typically Liberal Democrat. Nick Clegg offered a robust defence of the coalition declaring simply that it ‘worked’. He argued that it had proved the superiority of multi-party government and said that in any future coalition the Lib Dems would be the Tories’ heart and Labour’s brain. This was a rather more pointed version of his refrain that the Liberal Democrats will be the Tories’ heart and Labour’s head. listen to ‘Nick Clegg launches the Liberal Democrat election manifesto – full speech’ on audioBoom

Toby Young

If level-headed Oxford graduates are voting Green, what hope is there?

I’m disappointed that Ed Balls’s suggestion that the Office of Budget Responsibility should audit the parties’ manifestos was never taken up, not least because we will never know what Robert Chote thinks of the Green party’s claim that all its proposals are ‘fully costed’. Believe it or not, this includes the commitment to spend £45 billion on loft insulation in the next parliament. It’s quite something, the Greens’ manifesto. No doubt you’ll have already read about some of their more reasonable measures — such as the ‘complete ban on cages for hens and rabbits’ and the insistence that ‘UK taxpayers’ money is not used for bullfighting’. But the sheer scale

Sebastian Payne

Campaign kick-off: 22 days to go

Three manifestos down, two more to go. Yesterday, the Conservatives launched their plan for government and promised to be ‘the party of the working people’ while the Green Party promised to end the ‘disastrous policy of austerity’ and increasing government spending by £170 billion a year. Today, Ukip and the Liberal Democrats take their turns to explain what they’d like to do. To help guide you through the melée of stories and spin, here is a summary of today’s main election stories. 1. Believe in more spending Ukip is returning to Thurrock for the second time this week to launch its 2015 manifesto. Aside from the usual promises we’ve come to expect — leaving the

Isabel Hardman

Lib Dems launch their manifesto with fairy lights and funky music

The Lib Dems are launching their manifesto this morning. In keeping with their whole slightly bizarre national campaign, which has seen Nick Clegg touring the country apparently completing a Bucket List of fun things he’d like to do before a bruising election result, the launch appears more like a birthday party than stage-managed political event. There are multi-coloured disco lights, fairy lights and funky music. Nick Clegg will speak shortly, and will warn that the Lib Dems are the only sensible alternative to the ‘coalition of grievance’ offered by other minor parties. As with his appearance in the TV debate, the Lib Dem leader wants to pitch his party as

Ed West

The Green Party manifesto reads like a pamphlet for a religious sect

Of all the contradictory ideas in the Green Party’s manifesto, I love their plan to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14, while at the same time lowering the voting age to 16. So in just two years someone could go from not understanding the basic difference between right and wrong, to being able to decide who runs the country and sets its macroeconomic policy. That’s a steep learning curve to say the least. As I wrote before, the Green Party is an organisation living with extreme cognitive dissonance. They support secularism, environmentalism and population control policies, yet also open borders and pacifism, even though this would

Tuesday

14 Apr 2015

Isabel Hardman

Are the Conservatives being honest about their new minimum wage policy?

The Conservatives have sent out a campaign email from David Cameron this evening promoting their key manifesto pledges. You’d expect that: now’s the time to galvanise activists’ support. But there is one line in there that jars: ‘Everyone earning the Minimum Wage lifted out of income tax altogether.’ This isn’t true. Cameron was quite careful in his speech today to say that the Tories will make sure ‘no-one on the Minimum Wage who works 30 hours a week pays any income tax on their wages’. If you’re working 40 hours a week on minimum wage pay, you will continue to pay income tax. So when the email says ‘no one’,

James Forsyth

David Cameron reveals his hawkish side

Security is the watchword of this Tory election campaign. But today the Tories put just as much of an emphasis on national security as economic security. The message was, to put it crudely: it is a dangerous world out there with threats at home and abroad, so who do you want on that wall—Cameron or Miliband? This new emphasis began with Theresa May introducing David Cameron. She talked about the threat from Islamist extremism and how the Tories would combat it. Cameron continued this theme in his speech, declaring in some of the punchiest language of the campaign from him that: ‘We also need to assert the British values of democracy,

The Spectator

View from 22 podcast special: the Conservative manifesto

In a View from 22 podcast special, Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the implications of the Conservative manifesto, which was announced today. You can read the full manifesto here and Isabel’s snap reaction here. Will Tory promises on issues such as childcare, housing and income tax be enough to convince voters that they are still better off under a Conservative government? Is Cameron adopting a more hardline approach when it comes to Islamic State? And is it now time for Cameron to take to the streets to meet the real people of Britain? As Isabel says, it feels a lot like Ed Miliband is more eager to win this election right now. You can

Sean Kemp

Hacks are hacked off by how politicians treat them (but they only have themselves to blame)

About six years ago, when the Lib Dems were planning the 2010 election campaign, a lot of time went into the schedule of the daily morning press conference. A venue was booked, breakfast was ordered and a topic was picked for each event that we would wishfully imagine would dominate coverage (‘let’s make April 18th rural transport day!’). In the end those press conferences, like the ones organised by the other parties, didn’t make it beyond the first debate and the realisation that they were, frankly, far more trouble than they were worth. Why spend a huge amount of time and money so that a load of hacks can come

Sebastian Payne

Tories are consolidating while Labour are extending leads in key marginals

Lord Ashcroft has released his latest round of polling, looking at ten competitive Tory-Labour seats. In all of the constituencies, Ashcroft has reported swings to Labour, ranging from 0.5 per cent to seven per cent. At present, five of the seats are set to remain with the Conservatives: Cleethorpes, Dover, Dudley South, Harlow and North East Somerset. Some of the Tory leads are considerable: Rob Halfon in Harlow has a ten point lead, while Jacob Rees-Mogg in North East Somerset has a 16 point lead. Use the interactive chart above to see all the latest polls for each seat. Equally, the other half of the seats Ashcroft has polled are looking

William Cook

The Good Life – how a 70s sitcom became a Tory lodestar

Hearing David Cameron’s many references to the ‘good life’ may puzzle younger voters who did not grow up with Richard Briers and Penelope Keith’s sitcom of the same name. The Prime Minister has a fond memory of popular culture of the 1970s: he recently announced his decision not to stand for a third term by quoting a Shreddies advert from the late 1970s (about three being two many) and says the only song he knows by heart is Benny Hill’s 1971 hit ‘Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West)’. So we ought not to be surprised about is talking about The Good Life, which ran from 1975 to 1978. When the writers John Esmonde and Bob Larbey

Alex Krasodomski

The General Election 2015 viral video chart

Last week, the Greens released ‘Change the Tune’, a party political broadcast on YouTube. It features actors playing Cameron, Clegg, Miliband and Farage all singing in harmony. All four men are indistinguishable from one another. Ukip and the Lib Dems are the same, went the message. Only the Greens are different. Met with wild adulation from Green supporters and bewildered scepticism from more-or-less everyone else, the video has been the most high profile video of the campaign so far. Buckle up – it’s time for viral politics. YouTube and other platforms hosting political videos side-by-side with popular culture will play a significant role in this election. This is not particularly controversial. Political videos are

Isabel Hardman

The Tories launch a smart, upbeat manifesto

David Cameron has just presented a smart Conservative manifesto with a solid speech. He didn’t quite have as much fire in his belly as Ed Miliband did yesterday, but what he did have was a clear sense of purpose, articulated well within the speech and the document. The document opens by telling any voters who might be reading that the Tories have ‘a plan for every stage of your life’. This might sound a tad menacing, but it is also an attempt to show purpose and present the Tories as a party interested in all voters at every stage of their lives. The key announcements today were on housing – extending the right-to-buy

Sebastian Payne

Nigel Farage throws red meat to Ukippers in Thurrock

Ukip held a campaign rally in a strip club yesterday evening. Well, that’s not entirely fair — it was an ‘entertainment centre’, as party officials were keen to point out, which had a gentlemen’s club on the top floor. The Circus Tavern hosted what was most likely the biggest in Thurrock’s history, featuring Nigel Farage and the party’s candidate for Thurrock Tim Aker. The 29-year-old MEP and local councillor, is fighting a tough three-way battle with the incumbent Tory Jackie Doyle-Price and former BBC journalist Polly Billington for Labour. It’s one of the top seats Ukip hopes to take from the Conservatives and judging by the positive attitude in Thurrock, the party is confident of

Ross Clark

If Cameron really wanted to encourage home-ownership, he would increase inheritance tax

‘The dream of a property-owning democracy is alive,’ David Cameron will say today as he launches the Conservative manifesto, promising to extend the right to buy to all 1.3 million housing association tenants. Why, then, if he wants to promote a property-owning democracy is he also proposing to raise allowances for inheritance tax, allowing people to inherit homes worth up to £1 million without paying a penny in tax? Inherited wealth is a huge factor in the concentration of property-wealth in ever fewer hands. This is what happens: middle-aged couple inherit large family home. They then sell it and reinvest the money in several buy-to-let properties, outbidding in the process

Steerpike

Has Lynton Crosby been taking ‘inspiration’ from the Australian Liberal Party again?

Earlier this year Lynton Crosby was accused of recycling a ten-year-old ‘attack ad’ the Liberal Party used in the 2004 Australian elections, to criticise Ed Miliband in the general election. At the time the advert was used in Australia, the Tory election strategist was helping to run the Liberal Party’s election campaign. Now it appears Crosby may have been ‘inspired’ once again by his former employer. Hugh Whitfeld, Europe Correspondent for the Australian Seven Network, has spotted a remarkable likeness between today’s Tory manifesto cover and one used by the Liberal Party of Australia as a cover to their policy book: Compared to: A Tory source denies they are in any way similar. At least there is

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