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‘Would you like a glass of pink champagne?’ asks Alex Salmond at 3.30 p.m., sounding very much like a man settling down for the afternoon. It’s Monday and Scotland’s former first minister has cause to celebrate. He spent the previous day musing on television about the price he’d demand for the SNP supporting Ed Miliband in the Commons, and his thoughts dominate the front pages. There’s plenty of outrage at the idea of the SNP toying with England, and outrage is just what he wanted. So champagne it is. He has found himself an unlikely star of the Tory election campaign; the party this week released a cartoon showing him

Will the SNP eviscerate Scottish Labour? A new poll from the Guardian/ICM today suggests once again that the SNP is on course to do very well in the upcoming general election — and is currently on course to take 29 seats from Labour. As with Lord Ashcroft’s polling earlier this month, the numbers suggest that the swing from Labour to the SNP shows no signs of ebbing away. The SNP is currently on 43 per cent, the same as the last ICM poll in December, while Labour are 16 points behind on 27 per cent. The Scottish Tories are up one point to 14 per cent while the Lib Dems are languishing

After months of negotiations, a final deal on debates has now been reached. There will be no head to head debate between Cameron and Miliband. Instead, there will be one seven way debate on April 2nd broadcast on ITV. There will also be an opposition leaders’ debate on the 16th of April on the BBC featuring Labour, the SNP, UKIP, the Greens and Plaid Cymru. On top of these debates, David Cameron and Ed Miliband will both do separate interviews, taking questions from a studio audience on Thursday for a Channel 4 / Sky programme. Then, on 3oth of April, Cameron, Miliband and Nick Clegg will appear separately on a

Keith O’Brien, former Cardinal Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, was today stripped of the rank of cardinal by Pope Francis. Technically he has resigned. But the statement above leaves us in little doubt that O’Brien has had the red hat forcibly removed from him. He’s the first cardinal to lose his title since Louis Billot, a French Jesuit who resigned as cardinal in 1927 in protest at the Church’s condemnation of the far-Right anti-Semitic Action Française movement. Billot was the only cardinal to resign in the 20th century. [Update: see discussion in the thread over O’Brien’s title. This he has not lost, de jure, but de facto he is no longer

The Tories have pushed ahead of Labour again after George Osborne’s successful Budget. In tonight’s poll from YouGov/The Sun, the Conservatives are ahead by two points on 35 per cent while Labour are on 33 per cent. The Lib Dems have seen no shift, remaining steady on eight per cent, while Ukip is on 13 per cent and the Greens on six per cent. Budgets always tend to produce an immediate polling bounce for the incumbent party — assuming the Budget isn’t badly received. The Tories, though, will be pleased that they are back in the lead after falling behind Labour in the past week. As with all the recent

Downing Street has agreed to an offer from the broadcasters for one seven-way election debate on 2 April. The Tories felt that it was close enough to their final offer of one multi-party debate in the week starting 23 March to be acceptable. However, Labour has yet to agree. A Labour source said, ‘We’ve accepted the proposal from the broadcasters for three debates. There is no other proposal from the broadcasters.’ As well as this one seven-way debate, there would also be several election specials involving the various party leaders under this scheme. On 26 March, Cameron and Miliband would be interviewed by Jeremy Paxman and then questioned by a studio audience in

Labour has decreed today it won’t go into a formal coalition with the SNP, but this won’t stop the Tories from attacking Ed Miliband over the possibility. Despite Miliband’s proclamation that ‘Labour will not go into coalition government with the SNP’ and ‘there will be no SNP ministers in any government I lead’, a Tory source says ‘we’ll continue to campaign on this’. So expect more stunts and adverts highlighting the dangers of any union between Labour and the SNP. Conservative HQ has upped the ante of its Labour/SNP attacks recently, running the Saatchi pocket ad (above) in The Guardian, Independent or New Statesman during Labour’s Manchester conference this weekend, while dressing up Conservative activists in Alex Salmond masks holding Soleros lollies

The Liberal Democrats sense an opportunity in all this speculation about who the Tories and Labour would do deals with in the event of a hung parliament. They believe that they can position themselves as the responsible party that will keep the country in the centre ground in contrast to the other smaller parties. Today, in his speech to the party’s spring conference, Clegg ruled out joining any coalition that involved the SNP or Ukip. He also tried to use the moment to reinforce voters’ worries about either main party governing on their own. He argued that the Tories would cut needlessly—‘Cows moo. Dogs bark. And Tories cut. It’s in

Later today, Vince Cable will launch his traditional conference attack on the Tories. He’ll denounce them for their positions on Europe and immigration. But his pre-conference interview in The Guardian will have, for once, delighted the Tories. For in it, Cable rules out a deal with the SNP. Now, this is a turn-around from Cable. Just last month, he said “We’re perfectly happy to work with the SNP. There’s no taboo on the SNP. ” But Cable’s decision to rule it out on the grounds that ‘It’s virtually inconceivable that you can have a coalition with a party that is committed to breaking up your country’ will please the Tories

If mainstream politicians are a bit confused and downbeat at the moment, Scottish Labour MPs are the most miserable of the lot, facing a savaging in constituencies they never thought would slip out of their party’s hands. But last night Ed Miliband gave them reason to be a bit less miserable, just for a little while anyway. On Free Speech, the Labour leader came much closer to ruling out a Labour-SNP coalition than he has before, saying ‘I am saying it’s nonsense. I absolutely am saying it’s nonsense. It’ not gonna… you know… you just said it’. He also pointed out that the SNP had ruled out a coalition with

When Ed Miliband ran for the Labour leadership in 2010, his supporters boasted that he spoke human. Tonight, in a question time session with a group of young people broadcast on BBC3, Miliband showed flashes of his ability to connect with an audience. But, overall, it was a patchy performance. Miliband was very good on some subjects and dealt neatly with some left-field questions. However, he still doesn’t have the right answer to the question of whether he would do a deal with the SNP after the election in the event of a hung parliament. He dismissed the ideas as ‘a piece of nonsense from the Tories’. But, in contrast

That, pictured above, is what the Scottish government wants you to remember about the latest GERS (Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland) figures released today. It’s not, at least according to these calculations, an untruth. Per capita revenues from Scotland are indeed higher than per capita revenues for the UK as a whole once – importantly – a geographical share of North Sea revenues are assigned to Scotland. Hurrah! Winning! Except, of course, these are Revenue and Expenditure figures. And the latter confirm that, once again, per capita spending in Scotland is significantly higher than in the UK as a whole. Some £1,200 per head higher. 1200 is a larger number than 400.