2015 general election

Tuesday

Mark Gettleson

Predicting the unpredictable: 12 things to expect on election night

In the ‘most unpredictable election in a generation’, it’s a fool’s errand to make specific calls. However, it is possible to outline what the political landscape might look like on Friday morning.  Throughout election night, there will be an obsession with whether the Conservatives or Labour end up as the largest party, far beyond its actual importance to forming the next government. If we’re at that stage of the discussion, it is Ed Miliband who will eventually end up in Downing Street, even if a minority Conservative administration has to be be formed and fall first. Labour will take dozens of seats in England, including almost all their targets from the

Monday

Sebastian Payne

New Sheffield Hallam poll raises questions about Lord Ashcroft’s methodology

If Nick Clegg loses in Sheffield Hallam, it would be the Portillo moment of the 2015 election. After several tight polls, a new survey from ICM this evening suggests that the Lib Dem leader might be safe after all. When the names of candidates are prompted, ICM puts Clegg on 42 per cent — seven points ahead of the Labour candidate Oliver Coppard on 35 per cent. Without promoting by candidate name, ICM has Labour taking the seat, narrowly ahead by two points on 34 per cent. This is a rather different outlook to the one painted by Lord Ashcroft, who reported in his most recent marginal poll that Labour was on 37 per cent and the

Steerpike Steerpike

The Bow Group stand divided over Ukip

Given that the Bow Group are the oldest Conservative think tank and count Michael Howard, Norman Lamont and Peter Lilley among their former chairmen, it’s safe to presume that the Tories would have thought that they could rely on their endorsement for the election. However, the Telegraph reported earlier today that the think tank, led by its colourful chairman Ben Harris-Quinney, have urged Conservatives to vote for Ukip in seats where the Tories can’t win. In fact Harris-Quinney appeared to go one step further by urging voters to opt for Ukip’s Mark Reckless in Rochester and Stroud. This is bizarre given that the Tories are hoping to win this seat back in the election. Stranger still,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Can David Cameron square the 1922 Committee on another coalition?

As well as trying to prepare voters for what may happen after 8 May, David Cameron needs to make sure he has his party on board for the ride after the election, too. The 1922 Committee will need to approve a second coalition, but the hope in the Cameron camp is that this will be made easier by making the approval a show of hands from Tory MPs, rather than the secret ballot 1922 Committee chair Graham Brady wants. Two interesting points that loyalists advance is that the Lib Dems approved the 2010 Coalition with a show of hands and that many prominent 1922 Committee Executive members were against the

Sean Kemp

A beginner’s guide to pulling off a political stunt

It’s an important discipline when watching elections to remind yourself that political parties are staffed by smart, hardworking people and not – despite occasional impressions to the contrary – complete buffoons. One of those moments came on Sunday, as Ed Miliband stood next to a gaggle of glum-looking supporters in a Hastings car park and unveiled a huge limestone slab with his six election pledges carved onto it. You can always tell when a political stunt has gone wrong; it’s the moment when party spokespeople tell you that ‘at least it has cut through’ or ‘well, it got people talking about it’. The problem is that you don’t want people

Steerpike Steerpike

It’s a Tory! Girls called ‘Charlotte’ are the most likely to vote Conservative

Ed Miliband may have Russell Brand’s endorsement today, but David Cameron has got the royal baby’s. Okay, she’s a little young to vote – but we can read the signs. YouGov research drew a list of 130 names and voting habits and the conclusion? Girls called Charlotte are most likely to vote Tory: There were all sorts of conspiracy theories circulating online when the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were dressed in yellow and blue on Saturday when they introduced their new child to the world’s media. Mr S is sure the coalition colour scheme was purely coincidental, but this? Perhaps a bit more subtle than simply naming her Princess Tori… And mothers who

Ed West Ed West

Three reasons why Labour might not actually want to govern

There’s an episode of The New Statesman in which geologists discover that there’s no more oil in the North Sea and the British economy is about to crash; as a result all the parties try their best to lose the election so as not to carry the can for the next five years. Alan B’Stard, put in charge of the Tory campaign because they think him a liability, appears in the election video with Page 3 girls offering free bingo to the voters. Unfortunately, this proves a huge hit with the electorate. A conspiracy theorist might think this is actually happening today, judging by the inertia of the major parties.

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Carol Ann Duffy won’t write a poem for the royal baby, so I have

Our wonderful bisexual poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, has decided once again not to write any of her doggerel to commemorate the latest royal birth. I suppose this is a mercy, really. However, here is what she might have written, if she could have been arsed to do so. I can’t abide the Royals, They bring me out in hives, And I would hate to celebrate, Their parasitic lives. You see – I am a leftie, It’s those CUTS that make me sob, So you might cry – “I wonder why, “She took the bloody job?”

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Comedian Brand u-turns and urges people to vote

There’ll be satisfaction in the Labour leader’s office today as Russell Brand has done a reverse-ferret and urged his voters to vote and vote Labour. Or, to be more precise, to vote Labour in England—with the exception of Brighton where he wants them to vote Green. He seems to be implicitly urging a vote for the SNP in Scotland. To win Brand over, Miliband channelled his former US grassroots adviser Arnie Graf and talked about community politics and how the idea of a living wage came not from a policy seminar but activists in the US talking to low-paid workers. But Brand’s endorsement is of limited value given that it

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Ed Miliband still isn’t being honest about debt. And yes, that matters

The Guardian’s superb live blog was even better than usual this morning when it covered Twitter’s reaction to the Ed Miliband interview: eight tweets, of which five came from Spectator staff. That’s what I call balance: opinion from the full spectrum of opinion in 22 Old Queen St. We were challenging Miliband’s claim when he said the debt was “lower than what we inherited” – it was about £200bn higher. I can’t imagine these tweets went down too well with Guardian readers, because an update emerged later saying that the debt/GDP ratio fell. So was Ed speaking the truth after all? I’m rather keen on this topic. We journalists do the public a great disservice if we

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Parties turn attention to crafting post-election narrative

Ed Miliband spent a lot of his Today programme interview refusing to answer questions about how a minority Labour government would work because he is focusing both on the ‘big issues’ and on ‘winning a majority’. Both are good things to focus on when the polling stations haven’t yet opened, though of course how a government would pass laws is generally a big issue too. But what’s interesting is that behind the scenes some Labour figures do still sincerely think they could win a majority. One senior Labour MP told me in the past few days to remember that in 1992 the polls didn’t move until the very last minute

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

A Labour-SNP alliance will be a political remake of Stephen King’s ‘Misery’

On the radio this morning, Ed Miliband spoke as if he could get a Queen’s Speech passed without speaking to the SNP. This struck some as implausible, but it sounds right to me. Here’s the transcript:- Q: Well let’s just be absolutely clear… neither you nor any of your colleagues will have any conversations with anybody from the SNP at any point after the election. A: We’re not going to negotiate about a Queen’s Speech, no. We’re not going to negotiate with the Scottish National…(Interrupted) Q: Well you’re refining my question a little bit aren’t you. A: I don’t think I am John. You’re asking me whether we’re going to negotiate about

Sebastian Payne

Ed Miliband: the stone ‘got people talking’ — and refuses to apologise for borrowing too much (again)

Ed Miliband began the first 15 minutes of his NHS day talking about trust and the deficit. In a feisty interview on the Today programme, the Labour leader again did not apologise for borrowing too much when his party was in government. Instead, he argued it was a failure of banking regulation that lead to Britain’s financial problems: ‘Yesterday George Osborne’s permanent secretary at the Treasury Nicholas Macpherson published an article, in which he said that 2008 was a banking crisis pure and simple. And he reflected my judgment which is what happened in the country is that we had a dramatic crisis in banks which lead to high deficit.’ When he was

Kate Maltby Kate Maltby

Labour should be embarrassed about holding a sex-segregated rally

Labour MPs who spoke at Satruday’s sex-segregated rally in Birmingham don’t seem too keen on explaining themselves to The Spectator.  Siôn Simon, now a Labour MEP for the West Midlands, proudly tweeted a picture of a Labour rally in Hodge Hill, in which seven Labour representatives spoke at a packed Islamic community centre. Only problem? The picture clearly shows that men and women were seated separately in the audience, during what was supposed to be an event to encourage political engagement. And rather than defend this practice, none of the Labour candidates have been willing to comment on the subject. Jack Dromey, Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government, and husband of

Sunday

Steerpike

Labour stays silent over gender segregation at party rally

With polling day less than a week away, it was a case of no rest for the wicked this weekend as politicians took part in some last minute campaigning. While Ed Miliband dreamt about erecting an 8ft 6in stone in Number 10, other members of the Labour party attended a campaign event. Organised by councillor Ansar Ali Khan, Labour members including Tom Watson, Liam Byrne and Jack Dromey joined supporters in Birmingham for a rally: However, at the event women in the audience were segregated from men. This issue did not go unnoticed by the party’s critics, with many taking to Twitter to ask why Labour, which claims to be a party for equality, would support segregated audiences.

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Labour’s latest video might be enough to make me change my vote

I thought Ed Miliband did rather well in that last debate. Insofar as it matters. In both of the last two debates he’s come across significantly better than much of the press would have you believe, to my mind. Insofar as it matters, again. But then I suspect that almost everyone gleans what they want from these fatuous pantomimes. Not me, however; I think Miliband is calamitous. It’s sometimes the trivial things that matter. Miliband’s intention to criminalise something called ‘Islamophobia’ almost persuaded me to change my vote. You stupid, opportunist, bien-pensant. But the above video might be the thing which finally does it. I was sent it by the party

Sebastian Payne

Election podcast special: four days to go

In today’s election special podcast, James Forsyth, Isabel Hardman and I attempt to explain why Ed Miliband unveiled a stone engraved with Labour’s six pledges today. Will anyone notice what the pledges are or just discuss the fact they are appearing on a giant stone? We also look at how the stage is set for a last minute Tory surge and why a deal between Labour and the Liberal Democrats is looking increasingly unlikely. You can subscribe to the View from 22 through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer or iPhone every week, or you can use the player below:

Molly Guinness

Possible ways to neutralise the SNP

The prospect of government by short-term deals and extortion is so depressing that you can see why Ed Miliband has said he won’t go in for that kind of thing, and why David Cameron and Nick Clegg have finally started laying down some red lines. But there’s no getting away from the electoral mathematics, as Gladstone and Salisbury learnt 130 years ago. Before the 1885 election, the Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell worked out that he could hold the balance of power. If this should happen at the next election, he can enable the Conservatives to turn out the present Liberal Government, and then enable the Liberals to turn

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband turns garden designer with scary new sculpture for Downing Street garden

One of Britain’s great traditions is the open garden afternoon: an opportunity for folk revelling in being both middle-aged and nosy (like me) to wander around other people’s plots and peer at what they’ve planted while scoffing large slices of cake. The National Gardens Scheme and Open Squares are two of the most popular, and while they do allow people to see the true beauty of someone else’s well-maintained dahlia bed or snowdrop collection, they also help us indulge in that also very British tradition of pointing at the strange things people put in their back yards. Often these strange things aren’t weird planting combinations, but sculptures that have special

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Will there be a late surge to the Tories?

So, here we are. In 100 hours time, we’ll be half-way through election-day. But at the moment, the polls still remain deadlocked. Yet, there remains a sense that there’ll be some kind of late shift towards the Tories. Is there any grounds for this? Well, I argue in the Mail on Sunday that there are a few things that point towards this. David Cameron has finally hit his stride. His performances have improved markedly and the public appear to have concluded that he clearly won last Thursday’s Question Time, YouGov have the public giving it to him 42% to Miliband’s 26%. As Tim Shipman points out, Cameron’s lead as preferred