Liberal democrats

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Brown’s leadership back under the spotlight

Things have clearly moved on since I wrote this back in March.  From Rachel Sylvester’s column today: “…those close to Mr Clegg have made it clear to senior Labour figures that it would be difficult for the Liberal Democrats to do a deal with a Labour Party led by Mr Brown. ‘The whole notion of change is so important to Clegg and Gordon doesn’t represent change,’ says one Labour strategist. ‘It’s hard to see how they could prop up Brown in a hung Parliament.’ With Cabinet ministers openly discussing the prospect of coalition, the question of the Labour leadership is back on the agenda. David Miliband is seen as the

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Is Nick Clegg really Robert Redford?

And not in a Cleggover* or Rentoul-bait sense either. No, you remember The Candidate? Of course you do for you enjoy political movies as much as we do. Which means you’ll also remember the movie’s strapline: Too Handsome. Too Young. Too Liberal. Doesn’t have a chance. He’s PERFECT! And you’ll also recall the movie’s final line, delivered after Redford’s character wins an unlikely victory: What do we do now? It was never clear that Redford had an answer to this and nor, frankly, is it obvious that Nick Clegg does either. Again and at the risk of repeating myself, how can Clegg be the “Agent of Change” if, once the

Monday

James Forsyth

The growing sense that the worst is behind the Tories

These have been a grim few days for the Conservative party. But there is a sense, just a sense mind, that the worst might be behind them. Today’s ICM poll shows the Lib Dems still surging, up 3 to 30, but Tory support is only down one from Sunday’s ICM poll to 33. Labour is in third on 28, down one. Obviously, these polls numbers would have been considered pretty darn awful a week ago and no one would pretend that they are what the Tories would like to see right now. But they are not as bad as some feared they might be and as Julian Glover writes, “the

David Blackburn

Where will Clegg meet his Waterloo?

The FT’s Jim Pickard writes: ‘Cameron will be cursing the order of the debates. He’d much prefer to be attacking Nick Clegg on domestic issues than foreign affairs on Thursday.’ I’m not so sure. Foreign Policy is the arena where the Tories are concrete, populist and accessible. The same is not true for the Lib Dems. Along with Iain Martin and John Rentoul, Pete noted that Ed Davey is vague on the Lib Dem Trident replacement policy. Davey’s vague with good reason: the policy is hopelessly confused. The manifesto says: ‘Rule out the like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system. At a cost of £100 billion over a lifetime

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Towards a Tory-Lib Dem Future?

I don’t really know if the Tories “Vote Clegg, get Brown” argument will work but if I had to bet on it I’d guess that it won’t. There’s a large enough constituency out there that doesn’t want either the Tories or Labour. Nevertheless, the post-election environment now becomes very interesting. Suppose, just for now, that Labour come third in the popular vote but actually win the most seats. What happens then? And this could happen. Consider this scenario: Tories 33%, Labour 28%, Lib Dems 29% – according to Electoral Calculus and, admittedly, on a crude national and uniform swing, this could produce a result something like Tories 258, Labour 265,

Martin Bright

Labour Cheery About Lib Dem Surge

Labour’s press conference this morning was a surprisingly cheery affair. Peter Mandelson was very much in control of proceedings and the media mob was clearly feeling benevolent on a lovely spring morning. I’m not sure it was entirely wise to run a spoof post-election news broadcast on the double-dip recession caused by Tory economic policy. It felt too much like the Labour high command has already accepted the inevitable. However, the focus wasn’t really on the Tories but the Lib Dem surge. The Labour Party has the right strategy on this: hug them close and emphasise how much common ground there is. They know the Tories stand to lose most from

Peter Hoskin

And so to Brown…

Haven’t we been here before?  Investment versus cuts, I mean.  Because that appears to be the main message of Labour’s press conference this moring.  Gordon Brown set about the Tories’ Big Society, claiming that it “means big cuts in public services”.  Hm. It’s certainly a punchier, if similar, message to the “agenda of abandonment” one that Labour roadtested last week.  But will voters listen?  Well, amid all the excitement about Clegg and the Lib Dems, it’s easy to forget that Labour are now polling third – with a vote share which recalls the days of Michael Foot’s leadership.  They seem to be in a pretty desperate position themselves. This may

Peter Hoskin

Cameron’s two-pronged counterattack

A freewheeling, shirt-sleeve kind of speech from Cameron in Kennington this morning. But not one that was without substance. His main purpose was, as he put it, to “redouble the positive” – which meant more about the Big Society. Cameron has fashioned a persuasive narrative out of this, but question marks still remain over whether it will mean much to voters who just want CHANGE, without the nuance and jargon. As I suggested earlier, this is perhaps the biggest question hanging over the election campaign right now. The other part to Cameron’s speech was a warning about a hung parliament. Or as he put it: “If we get any other

Peter Hoskin

Can the Tories turn things from personality to policy?

If the Lib Dem surge shows anything, then it’s the growing power of personality politics in this country.  A few days ago, they’re languishing in third place with around 20 percent of the vote.  One dose of TV razzmatazz later, and they’re topping the polls on over 30 percent.  Yes, even though I admire much of what Nick Clegg has done with his party, there’s little doubt that all this has been catalysed by simply putting him in front of the cameras.  Like someone with an okay singing voice reaching the X-Factor final, the Lib Dem leader triumphed in what was essentially a clash of personalities. Further evidence for this

Sunday

Alex Massie

So, Britain, What the Hell is Going On?

As Sunder Katwala tweeted* this evening, years from now children will ask: Daddy what were you doing the weekend the Liberal Democrats were winning the election? Tonight’s Yougov poll reports that the Liberals are in the lead on 33%, a point ahead of the Conservatives with Labour languishing on 26%. If the election actually produced these results on a uniform swing (which it won’t) we’d have a ticket to Crisisville as the Tories would win 251 seats, Labour 230 and the Liberal Democrats 137. Hello electoral reform! So what the hell is going on? Obviously the exposure on the national stage – and the opportunity to look an equal player

Peter Hoskin

YouGov have the Lib Dems on top

Tonight’s YouGov tracker has the Lib Dems on 33 percent (up 4), the Tories on 32 percent (down 1) and Labour on 26 percent (down 4).  So the topsy-turviness continues – but for how long?

Daniel Korski

Overseas aid could be a Tory winner in Con-Lib fights

As the Conservatives start looking at areas where the Liberal Democrats are weak, or where differences can be drawn between the parties, they are honing in on international development. In the Independent on Sunday, David Cameron and anti-poverty star Jeffrey Sachs lay out the party’s plans if they win power. It includes a commitment to spending 0.7 of GDP on overseas aid, an emphasis “on greater transparency, ensuring the money reaches the people who need it most” and “action on women” as a conduit to development. The op-ed is clearly inspired by the work of Tory aid spokesman, Andrew Mitchell, who has written a piece for ConservativeHome this evening. The

James Forsyth James Forsyth

How Cameron can stem the Lib Dem tide

If the Tories are to beat back this Lib Dem surge, there are three things they need to do. First, they need to establish Cameron as the insurgent, anti-establishment candidate. It might seem odd to urge the leader of the Conservative party to be the anti-establishment cadidate, but the establishment in this country is now essentially soft-left. Just look at how senior police chiefs are threatenting to resign over Cameron’s plans for elected police commissioners who would be accountable to the public and set the priorities of the local force (another transformative Tory policy that Cameron didn’t mention during the debate) Cameron needs to run against these people. He should

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Cameron has a policy agenda to change Britain – he should tell us about it

Cameron has not, alas, broken free of the never-ending opinion poll bungee jump which is the story of his leadership of the Conservative Party. Cleggmania is a bubble – but the thing about bubbles is that one can never quite tell when they will burst. The Tories, who have lost the most votes due to this bubble, will have their needles out. But in my News of the World column today I suggest they focus on policy because they do have hard ideas that could radically change Britain. Cameron missed a trick by failing to mention his single best policy, Gove’s school reform, last week.  On immigration, his plan for reducing it

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Is* the Mail on Sunday Nick Clegg’s Recruiting Sergeant?

Is the Mail on Sunday’s back-bench trying to persuade voters to think about endorsing the Liberal Democrats? I assume so, otherwise you’d have to wonder what they meant by writing this headline for the dead tree edition of this story: “His wife is Spanish, his mother Dutch, his father half-Russian and his spin doctor German. Is there ANYTHING British about Lib Dem leader?” I mean, my explanation is the only one that makes sense, right? *No. But it might as well be with this kind of tripe.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brown’s mindset on full display

Labour high command will be very satisfied with Brown’s performance on Marr this morning. There was far less of the tetchiness that we usually see from Brown in interviews and by being invited to talk about the ash cloud and the government’s response to it at the beginning, Brown was able to assume some of the aura of his office as Prime Minister. The interview saw the debut of Brown’s latest rewriting of history. Apparently he has always been for bringing in the liberals (exact quote to follow when the BBC release the transcript) and a ‘progressive consensus’. This will come as a shock to anyone who has read Paddy

Peter Hoskin

Mandelson contra Cameron

So far as the Tories are concerned, Peter Mandelson is the political equivalent of an itch that you can’t scratch: irritating, elusive and impossible to ignore.  And he’s at it again today, with an article in the Independent on Sunday chiding the Tories’ over their Big Society agenda.   It’s not the “agenda of abandoment” attack that Mandelson made a few days ago.  But, rather, a return to the “cross-dressing” territory of last year.  As Mandelson puts it, “[Cameron’s] tightly knit group of associates has simply pinched a few ideas from our campaign manual, rather than fundamentally reforming the party to make it fit for office.”  And he even tries

Saturday

Alex Massie

The Enthusiasm Gap

As James says, we’re going to need to wait a few days before we can be sure if the Lib Dem surge has legs but, yes, right now something is happening. The headline figures for the three polls we’ve seen since Clegg’s coming-out party are: ComRes: Con: 31 (-4) Lab: 27 (-2) Lib: 29 (+8) ICM: Con: 34 (-3) Lab: 29 (-2) Lib: 27 (+7) YouGov: Con: 33 (-4) Lab: 28 (-3) Lib: 30 (+8) That’s all striking enough but so too is this finding from the Independent on Sunday’s ComRes poll: Only 53% of self-proclaimed Labour voters say their preferred election outcome is a Labour majority. By contrast 67%

David Blackburn

The impediment to a Lib-Lab coalition

Certainly, the Lib Dems’ current joy will prove transient; but for the first time since 1983 this is a three party race. As Pete notes, Labour see Nick Clegg as the surest means to keep the Tories out of office. Even before the debate, the normally cerebral Andrew Adonis was penning passionate articles appealing to Lib Dem support. Since the debate, the love-bombing campaign has become indiscriminate .   Love isn’t all you need. Labour will need nous to make the most of the opportunity Clegg has presented. Over at Spectator Live, Will Straw argues that Labour should ‘play the long game’ by being obsequious whilst airing the few differences

Daniel Korski

Nick Clegg: the Hans-Dietrich Genscher of Britain

Nick Clegg has always said that if no party can command a majority in parliament, he will support the party voters have been seen to support. It was assumed that if the Tories were the biggest party – but a few members short of an outright majority – he would back them. But if the YouGov poll comes true, on a uniform swing Labour will be the largest party and the Liberal Democrats still the third largest party in parliament but with 90-odd seats. With Labour out front, Clegg’s logic would suggest he would back a Labour-led government. But Clegg’s poor relationship with Gordon Brown is well known and with