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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Cameron accepts TV debate in April: Politics Live blog

David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown debating in 2010.
David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown debating in 2010. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Afternoon summary

  • Theresa May, the home secretary, has told MPs thatshe wants people giving evidence to the child abuse inquiry to be given immunity against prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. (See 3.55pm.)

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

UPDATE: My colleague John Plunkett has just sent me this on the latest from the broadcasters.

The offer of a single TV debate, to be broadcast by ITV on 2 April, is understood to have split the coalition of broadcasters, which includes the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky, who until now have managed to maintain a united front.

“With hindsight we might have acted differently but the most important thing was that the broadcasters were seen to be acting together,” said one source with knowledge of the negotiations.

Another put it more succinctly: “It’s a bit crap, isn’t it?” describing it as a “worst case scenario”.

Broadcasters’ determination to hold firm to their proposals to hold two seven way debates on BBC1 and ITV, and a single head to head between David Cameron and Ed Miliband jointly hosted by Channel 4 and Sky News, is said to have crumbled as the proposed dates for the debates - and the prospect of “empty chairing” the prime minister - drew near.

Cameron’s willingness to take part in a single TV debate, described by Downing Street earlier this month as its “final offer”, made it even more difficult for broadcasters to stage a debate without the prime minister.

“The broadcasters seem to have been split but not until the final few weeks,” said one industry executive. “The strategy has always been to avoid any confrontation with Cameron.”

The source added: “They have reached agreement but not without dissenting voices. This is not a great outcome.”

ITV was so confident about securing the seven way leaders debate that it is said to have already started building the set for the broadcast, which will be hosted by ITV News presenter Julie Etchingham.

There was still no official response from broadcasters by 6pm on Tuesday.

Updated

Sturgeon says Cameron should attend all proposed debates

Here’s Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, on the latest proposal.

While it is welcome that David Cameron has accepted his position was indefensible and agreed to debate during the campaign period - abandoning his arrogant ‘final offer’ - he should sign up to the full programme of debates that is on the table.

I will debate David Cameron any time, anywhere, and on any number of occasions - but a Tory prime minister simply cannot be allowed to dictate terms to everyone else.

Here are two blogs on the latest debate developments worth reading.

Frankly if this new format goes ahead it will be a setback for Ed Miliband – the optics of the seven-on-seven debate will favour the Prime Minister against his opponents. (“To every question, all you would have to do is say ‘Look? This is the chaos that’s on offer’” one Tory mused recently.) And the new alternative to the one-on-one gives the Labour leader all of the disadvantages of being directly compared to David Cameron without the opportunity to take him on.

What appears to have happened is that the broadcasters, faced with the unappetising prospect of an hour of also-rans or a duel between Miliband and an empty chair, have blinked first. Cameron has avoided his two nightmare scenarios – a four-way debate with Nigel Farage and a one-on-one with Miliband. And with the Liberal Democrats appearing to accede to the new format, it looks as if Team Miliband’s dream of the head-to-head clash between their man and David Cameron simply won’t happen.

It is easy to see why this set-up appeals to Downing Street. There is just one seven-way debate—and one in which Miliband will have to fend off the Greens and the SNP. Ukip also don’t get a great deal out of this arrangement, being confined to the one seven-way and the challengers’ debate. It also removes the risk of Cameron being empty-chaired and the debate about the debates distracting from the Tories’ main message.

Here’s more from my colleague Patrick Wintour.

Lib Dems welcome new debate proposals

The Lib Dems have put out a second statement welcoming the new proposals.

It’s good news that we are finally making progress towards a sensible solution on the TV debates.The latest proposals from the broadcasters are welcomed by the Liberal Democrats and Nick Clegg will take part in the events that he’s been invited to.

This is much more positive than the statement they put out earlier. (See 4.59pm.) As James Forsyth says, it means the two coalition parties are backing the new plan, while Labour isn’t.

Earlier I said Nick Clegg would be included in the leaders’ interviews programme proposed for 26 March. (See 5.16pm.) That was wrong. It would just be David Cameron and Ed Miliband. I’ve corrected that post.

Updated

But, according to the Spectator’s James Forsyth, the Lib Dems prefer the idea of the four debate/interview programmes proposal to the three debates proposal.

Ukip are also backing the Labour line about the broadcasters still, as far as they’re aware, being committed to the three debates proposal.

Updated

Ukip accuses Cameron of 'surrender' over TV debates

Here is what Ukip’s Patrick O’Flynn is saying about David Cameron’s latest offer.

Updated

Cameron challenges other parties to accept the latest offer

David Cameron has just done a clip for the broadcasters about the latest proposal. He challenged the other party leaders to accept.

The broadcasters, led by the BBC, have come forward with a new offer of television programmes for the general election, including a televised debate, and I accepted that deal on Saturday and it’s now for other parties to make clear what they’re going to do in respect of this deal that has been put forward and that I have accepted.

An offer’s been made, a deal’s been accepted, now the other parties must make clear that they accept this deal too, otherwise they will have to bear the responsibility [for the events not going ahead].

Cameron was asked if he was “jumping the gun”, given that some people are claiming the broadcasters have not put together a final offer. He rejected that.

There was a formal offer of a set of television programmes, including a televised debate, put together by the broadcasters, led by the BBC, put to me, as prime minister. I accepted that deal in full. The other parties have now got to make clear their position.

David Cameron on a visit to Crossrail earlier today.
David Cameron on a visit to Crossrail earlier today. Photograph: W3PA Pool/Getty Images

Labour claim broadcasters have not dropped plans for three debates

Labour are saying that, as far as they are concerned, the broadcasters have not dropped their proposal for three separate debates. This is from a senior party source.

There is no formal proposal from the broadcasters for anything other than three TV debates. We have accepted all three and we plan to go ahead and have all three TV debates whether or not Cameron decides to attend. We have made it clear that back-to-back interviews are not a substitute for debates. The clue is in the title.

The source also described the plan for four debate or interview programmes (see 5.16pm) as “a Conservative proposal to help Cameron wriggle off the hook”.

Number 10 says the broadcasters came to them with a new four-programme package, as an alternative to their proposed three debates. (See 5.16am.)

But Channel 4 News’s Michael Crick says he is not sure this is right.

My colleague Patrick Wintour has a good point.

The broadcasters' offer - Full details

According to Number 10, the broadcasters came to them at the end of last week with what Number 10 describes as a new offer for four debate, and debate-related broadcasts.

1) Leaders’ interviews on 26 March. David Cameron and Ed Miliband would be interviewed one after another by Jeremy Paxman, in front of a studio audience. This would be a Sky/Channel 4 broadcast.

2) The seven-way debate on 2 April, screened by ITV.

3) A “challenger” parties debate on 16 April, involving the SNP, Ukip, Plaid Cymru, the Greens and the DUP, screened by the BBC

4) A Question Time on 30 April, with Cameron, Miliband and Clegg taking questions from a Question Time offer, one after the other, with David Dimbleby presenting.

Downing Street say it is wrong to claim that Cameron has accepted one of the three proposed debates, but not the other two, as I suggested earlier. (See 4.46pm.) They say that that is an entirely new offer and that Cameron accepted it on Saturday. Although it involved a modest shift in Cameron’s position (because he would be taking part in a debate at the start of April, not the end of March), they say that it was “reasonable” for Cameron to make this compromise.

Number 10 says it is now Labour that is stopping this four-part package of programmes going ahead.

UPDATE AT 5.58PM: Earlier I said Nick Clegg would be included in the leaders’ interviews on 26 March. That was wrong. It would just be David Cameron and Ed Miliband.

Updated

Here is the start of the Press Association’s story on David Cameron’s debate offer.

David Cameron has agreed to take part in a single televised debate with other party leaders during the general election campaign.

Conservative sources said that the proposal for a single debate hosted by ITV and featuring seven leaders was put forward by the broadcasters and accepted by Mr Cameron over the weekend.

They claimed that Labour was trying to veto the proposal, which would replace earlier plans for three debates including a one-on-one showdown between Mr Cameron and Ed Miliband a week before the May 7 general election.

But a senior Labour source dismissed the allegation as “preposterous” and said the party had not received any information about plans for a single seven-way debate. Labour understood that the existing proposal for three debates, which it has accepted, remains on the table.

A senior Conservative source said: “The prime minister accepts the broadcasters’ offer of one seven-way debate at the very beginning of April. It now appears that Labour are trying to veto that deal. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.”

Lib Dems welcome Cameron's shift on TV debate

The Lib Dems have welcomed David Cameron’s shift. This is from a party spokesman.

It’s welcome news that the Conservatives have finally agreed to taking part in at least one TV debate. As we’ve always said, we will be there and are pleased that they are joining us. We look forward to hearing proposals from the broadcasters about how we move forward from here.

My colleague Patrick Wintour says the Tories are suggesting the broadcaster have abandoned plans for three debates.

Cameron's debate offer - Labour reaction

Here is more from a Labour source on David Cameron’s latest offer.

Based on the broadcasters’ proposals, we have accepted and plan to attend all three debates on April 2nd, 16th and the 30th. If the Tories have confirmed they are to attend to one of these debates, then that is progress. It is one down, two to to go. But no one is fooled. David Cameron is still running scared of a head-to-head televised debate with Ed Miliband.

TV debates - What we know and what we don't know

Here’s what we know.

  • Number 10 has said David Cameron would attend a seven-party debate on 2 April. This would be the first of the three debates proposed by the broadcasters. They want another seven-party one later in April, and a final one with just Cameron and Ed Miliband.
  • Labour have welcomed this, but say they still want all three to go ahead. Miliband is very keen to have a direct head-to-head with Cameron (which Cameron has said he will not do.)

And here is what we do not yet know.

  • Will the broadcasters definitely agree to drop plans for the final two debates, which they said they were willing to go ahead with without Cameron?
  • Will Labour accept the one seven-party debate if the other two - including the head-to-head, which would have been an extended interview with Miliband if Cameron stayed away - do not go ahead?

UPDATE AT 5.18AM: According to Number 10 sources, it is wrong to say that Cameron is accepting the first of three debates they proposed. Number 10 says the broadcasters came to them at the end of last week with an entirely new offer, which Cameron has accepted. See 5.16pm.

Updated

The Tories are accusing Labour now of trying to block the proposal.

But Labour are saying this is progress.

This is from the former BBC head of TV news, Roger Mosey.

Here’s some more on what Number 10 is proposing.

David Cameron has blinked, at least a bit. In a letter to the broadcasters earlier this month, Craig Oliver, his director of communications, proposed “one 90-minute debate between seven party leaders before the short campaign”, in the week beginning 23 March.

“This is our final offer,” Oliver wrote.

Now Number 10 is proposing an alternative timetable.

You can read the full letter here.

The debate would be on April 2, Sky says.

Cameron accepts single TV debate during election campaign

Number 10 has already said David Cameron would do one debate. But that was before the election campaign. What is significant about this is that he has agreed to one during the election campaign proper.

Tim Loughton, a Conservative, goes next.

Q: How many people applied to be members of the child abuse inquiry panel?

May says a number of people applied. She does not put a figure on it.

She says all the evidence suggests that Goddard and her panel have the confidence of survivors.

Vaz says he feels 'very let down' by May not revealing Goddard's salary

Q: What is Justice Lowell Goddard’s salary?

May says she cannot say that now.

Q: But this should be open.

May says the information will be published in due course.

Q: But she is a public official. She has been examined by this committee.

May says this information will be published in due course.

Q: When? Parliament is dissolved on 30 March.

May says it will be published, alongside other information, such as Goddard’s letter about potential conflicts of interest.

  • Keith Vaz says he feels “very let down” by that answer. Will the government provide Goddard with accommodation.

May says there will be issues around salary and accommodation. Most of those issues have been finalised.

Vaz tells May he feels “very let down” by May’s refusal to reveal how much Justice Lowell Goddard is being paid.

Q: Will she be full time?

May says her understanding is yes?

Q: So will she be?

Yes, says May.

Updated

Julian Huppert, the Lib Dem MP, goes next.

Q: The intelligence and security committee in its recent report said the capabilities of the security services in terms of surveillance should be set out. Do you accept that?

May says the law should set out what powers the security services need.

Q: But will you accept this recommendation, YY in the report (on page 118 - pdf)?

May says she wants to say what David Anderson, the independent reviewer of terrorist legislation, recommends.

May defends government’s decision not to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir

Q: What is happening with the Jenkins report into the Muslim Brotherhood?

May says work on this is continuing. There was a written statement about this yesterday.

Q: Why have you not done anything about Hizb ut-Tahrir?

May says organisations are looked at all the time.

Q: But David Cameron said before the election that it should be banned.

May says there is a process to go through. A group looks at these organisations, and then sees if the legal test for a ban is met.

Q: Why did Cameron and Chris Grayling say it would be banned, then, if that work had not been done.

May says there is a difference between being in opposition and being in government.

Q: Cameron told me as prime minister he wanted it banned.

May says Cameron wanted it to be banned. That is correct. But that is not enough. The home secretary has to take a decision, based on legal criteria.

Saying you want something banned is not the same as saying it would be legal.

She says it is obvious from Austen’s protests that he thinks the prime minister should just be allowed to ban organisations.

Ian Austen
Ian Austen Photograph: Parliament TV

Q: Is it your personal view that you would like it banned?

May says she has to take a decision based on legal advice. It would be wrong for her to express a personal view. That would led to any decision being challenged.

But Hizb ut-Tahrir is kept under review, she says.

  • May defends government’s decision not to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Updated

Ian Austen, the Labour MP, goes next.

Q: What support was offered to Bethnal Green academy after the first schoolgirl from there went to Syria?

May says the police were involved with the school, and the school was involved in the Prevent programme?

Q: But what did the Home Office do?

May says the school was engaged in the Prevent programme.

Q: If the answer is none, just say none.

May says she will write to the committee with more detail.

May says immunity from secrecy law prosecution should be offered to abuse witnesses

May says she has made it clear that people giving evidence to the child abuse inquiry should not be silenced by the Official Secrets Act.

She says in Northern Ireland the judge dealing with the Kincora boys’ home inquiry has said that no one will be prosecuted for giving evidence to it. The attorney general has given an undertaking that people will not be prosecuted .

May says she has written to Justice Lowell Goddard, who is conducting the main inquiry for England and Wales, suggesting that she makes a similar declaration.

Q: Is it your wish and expectation that no one should be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act if they are giving evidence to the Goddard inquiry?

May says that is her hope and expectation.

Q: But it is not just a matter of the inquiry. What about people who want to speak out outside the inquiry?

May says people should be protected if giving evidence to the police, or to the Goddard inquiry.

  • May says she wants people giving evidence to the child abuse inquiry to be given immunity against prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.

May says new police have used passport-seizing powers 5 times

May says the police have used the new powers they have to remove passports from people suspected of travelling abroad to fight for Islamic State five times in recent weeks.

  • May says police have used their new passport-seizing powers five times in recent weeks.

Theresa May's evidence to the home affairs committee

Keith Vaz, the chair of the home affairs committee, opens the session.

He says this will be Theresa May’s 16th and final appearance before the committee this parliament.

This afternoon he wants to cover four themes, he says: counter-terrorism; child abuse; policing and immigration.

Q: The Labour MP Rushanara Ali asked you to contact your opposite number in Turkey about the missing schoolgirls. Why didn’t you do that?

May says she was advised that the Turkish authorities were cooperating well with the police.

Q: But, if you want to get the confidence of communities, you need to show them you are acting to protect their children. Why was a simple telephone call not made?

Because the cooperation was there already, says May.

She says the police were getting good cooperation from the Turkish authorities. She wanted to leave it to the police.

Q: Why don’t we find people in the Muslim communities to warn against travelling to Syria?

May says people in Muslim communities are speaking out on issues like this. But the Met need to take a stance too.

Q: The Met commissioner said last week that the three girls would not be charged. Yet the young men who returned at the end of last week were arrested, but not charged. Has a view been taken not to charge people?

May says the prosecuting authorities will take a decision on a case by case basis.

This is well worth watching. It’s a bit ghastly, but it’s well worth watching.

It’s a 10-minute video on a day in the life of David Cameron, produced by the Sun for its new election website.

The best thing about it are the behind-the-scenes pictures.

David Cameron having breakfast
David Cameron having breakfast Photograph: The Sun
Cabinet meeting
Cabinet meeting Photograph: The Sun

As for the revelations, they are a bit thin on the ground. Cameron admires the Queen, he’s a stickler for punctuality, he follows himself on Facebook and he thinks it is a good idea to read up on a subject before you attend a meeting on it; that’s about it. But the Sun has managed to spin it out into a “30 incredible details you may have missed”.

Perhaps the really telling revelation is that Cameron was prepared to stick a camcorder on his head to please the Sun.

Here’s the video.

Jack Monroe has been tweeting about her decision.

And this is from Amelia Womack, one of the Green party’s deputy leaders.

Updated

Labour activists would prefer minority government to coalition, poll suggests

Yesterday Ed Miliband said he would not form a coalition after the election with the SNP. One poll out today suggests that Labour activists will welcome that, because they do not want a coalition anyway.

The Labour History Research Unit at Anglia Ruskin University has surveyed 222 Labour councillors in marginal constituencies in recent days. Asked what kind of government they would favour if Ed Miliband was in power but did not have a majority, 73% said they would like to see a minority government.

There was limited support for coalition options. Respondents were allowed to choose more than one answer, and 43% said they favoured coalition with the SNP, 39% with the Greens, 35% with the SDLP, 25% with Plaid Cymru and 23% with the Lib Dems.

The survey also found that 71% of the councillors expect Labour to be the largest party in a hung parliament and another 10% of them expect an absolute Labour majority.

Douglas Alexander was making a universal point when he spoke about Facebook and social media at the LabourList event (see 10.29am), but this may be a particular issue in Scotland. In his book about the independence campaign, The People’s Referendum, Peter Geoghegan tells an anecdote about a yes campaigner he met a few weeks after the vote that is very revealing about nationalist lack of trust in the mainstream media.

Since the referendum he had, he said, stopped watching UK television. Now he and his wife and most of their friends got their news from Russia Today. There may not be too many Scots flicking on Kremlin-funded satellite channels but the breakdown in trust with the media among a large swathe of society is real. This should be a genuine cause for concern. As long as audiences continue to flee what is left of the Scottish media, its capacity to act as a democratic watchdog will further recede.

There are lots of insights like this in The People’s Referendum. It’s not a political history of the campaign; rather, it’s a collection of travel essays exploring how the Scots felt about issues like nationhood in 2014. As state-of-the-nation reportage, it’s excellent.

Today's Guardian seat projection - Tories 277, Labour 269

Here is today’s Guardian seat projection.

Today's Guardian seat projection
Today’s Guardian seat projection

Updated

Lunchtime summary

  • Douglas Alexander, chair of Labour’s general election strategy, has said it is getting harder for politicians to campaign because voters were more exposed to false information on social media sites like Facebook. (See 10.29am.)
  • The court of appeal has decided that the former Conservative party co-treasurer Peter Cruddas corruptly offered access to David Cameron and other leading members of the Government in exchange for donations. As the Press Association reports, three judges reduced a £180,000 libel award made to the 61-year-old businessman against Times Newspapers in July 2013 to £50,000, and ordered him to repay the £130,000 plus interest by the end of the month. Cruddas had brought the claim against the group and two members of the Sunday Times’s Insight team, masquerading as potential donors, over three articles which appeared in March 2012. Today, Lord Justice Jackson said that the trial judge, Mr Justice Tugendhat got it wrong in one of his findings in relation to the truth of the meanings of the articles. The appeal judge said:

On a proper reading of the transcript of a meeting on March 15 2012, the following is clear. Mr Cruddas was effectively saying to the journalists that if they donated large sums to the Conservative Party, they would have an opportunity to influence government policy and to gain unfair commercial advantage through confidential meetings with the Prime Minister and other senior ministers. That was unacceptable, inappropriate and wrong. Therefore meaning one was substantially true. The defendants are not liable for libel or malicious falsehood in respect of meaning one.

  • The head of the National Audit Office has accused Whitehall officials of inflicint deep public spending cuts without fully understanding their impact on services. Auditor general Sir Amyas Morse said that “radical surgery” had been carried out as part of the Government’s austerity programme without officials knowing “where the heart was”. The National Audit Office chief suggested that an “optimism bias” within David Cameron’s administration had led to ministers pressing ahead with reforms to services like the NHS with limited discussion of the potential risks. Morse told the Financial Times:

If you’re going to do radical surgery, it would be nice if you knew where the heart was. You’re slightly more likely not to stick a knife in it by mistake.

  • The Conservative backbencher Bob Blackman has backed down from a confrontation with the Commons expenses watchdog by repaying more than £1,000 in mileage costs.

Douglas Alexander and Chuka Umunna at LabourList conference - Summary

Here are the key points from the two opening sessions of the conference.

  • Douglas Alexander, head of Labour’s election strategy, said it was getting harder for politicians to campaign because voters were more exposed to false information on social media sites like Facebook. To illustrate his point, he recalled a conversation with someone in a supermarket in his constituency. She was “an intelligent woman”, a senior social worker. But she told him that she did not believe the results of the independence referendum, and that she thought there had been a conspiracy. She also thought the oil companies were involved in a global conspiracy to keep oil prices low, he said.

I said, ‘Do you mind if I ask where you get your news?’ And she said, ‘I get if off Facebook every night’. Now, we are used to a politics where we share facts, but diverge on opinion. We are confronting increasingly, because of the rise of social media, a politics where people’s social media feeds can be an echo chamber for, at best their own opinions and at worst their own prejudices. And that’s a tough challenge for all democratic politicians in every party of the UK, and more broadly. How do we engage in a very rapidly changing media landscape in which facts are not common, actually people have their own facts?

  • He said Labour was “winning the ground game” in the election. In target seats it was achieving more contacts with voters than the Conservatives, and it was already ahead of its target for achieving the 4m conversations with voters that Ed Miliband promised. The Tories simply did not have enough activists to compete, he claimed.

The most precious commodity in a low trust environment is a trusted conversation. That is why the fact that, despite the fact that the Tories have millions more pounds than we do, I’m confident we are already winning the ground game in the early weeks of this year because in large parts of the country the Tories literally are a virtual party. The average age of the Labour party now is 46. The average age of the Tory party is 69 ... They just don’t have people that they can put on the doorsteps, in the high streets and in communities.

  • He said the Conservatives were not doing as well as Lynton Crosby, their election strategist, promised them they would be at this stage of the campaign.

Lynton Crosby is lauded for the discipline of his campaign. But I know that he’s been telling Conservatives that crossover is going to happen in the autumn, then he said it would happen in January, then he said it would happen in February, then he said it would happen in March, and he is now saying it will happen after Easter. I would rather be in our position than the Conservatives’ position .... The Conservative campaign is not yielding the results that they themselves have been told by their campaign team that it was going to deliver.

  • He said Labour’s election manifesto was not ready. Asked if it was ready, he replied: “It’s getting there.” His tone suggested he would like Labour to be getting there more quickly.
  • He said that the Scottish referendum had had a “seismic” effect because it had exploded two negative myths about politics.

The Scottish referendum was a seismic event in Scottish public life ... It exploded two myths; one, that all politicians are the same, because transparently politicians in Scotland were taking very different views on the best future for Scotland. And it exploded the myth that somehow voting didn’t matter. And if you liberate politics from those two imprisoning myths, then you end up with an 85% turnout.

  • Chuka Umunna, the shadow business secretary, said it would be a mistake for Labour to opposing decentralising control over health spending. He did not directly contradict what Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, has said about Manchester getting control of health spending, but he sounded much more positive about this initiative than his colleague.

You can see what [the government is] doing in Manchester vis a vis the NHS. We cannot be setting ourselves against the principle of more local decision making, for example in healthcare. I don’t see how else we achieve the integrated care we want if not at that level.

  • Umunna said he wanted business leaders to defend the need for more spending on infrastructure. It was hard for politicians to argue for this if business leaders did not defend them, he said, because they would just be criticised for advocating higher spending.

I’ve got to head off to HQ now for a meeting, but you can follow the rest of the proceedings here on the LabourList blog. I will be posting again here at around about lunchtime.

UPDATE AT 10.37AM: Re Douglas Alexander’s point about Facebook, BuzzFeed’s Jim Waterson reminds me of this.

Updated

Q: If you were looking at this as an outsider, what would you say is the best thing about how the Tories are running their campaign.

Alexander says the big difference between the parties is that, when they get to Number 10, they think they own it. When Labour gets in, they think they rent it.

So he would credit the Tories with confidence.

One of the most revealing answers David Cameron ever gave was when, asked why he wanted to be prime minister, he said because he would be good at it.

But that confidence is misplaced, he says. The Tories never thought they would start the short campaign in this position.

Updated

Q: [From Val Shawcross, a member of the London assembly] Under Blair people shifted jobs too often. Would there be more stability in a Miliband government?

Alexander says it is up to Miliband. But it is a fair point, he says.

Alexander says he knows for a fact that Lynton Crosby originally told the Tories that crossover (the moment where the Tories overtook Labour in the polls) would happen in the autumn. Then he said it would happen in January, then he said February, then he said March, and now he is saying after Easter.

He says, in key seats, Labour are making more contact with voters than the Tories.

  • Labour are winning the ground war, says Alexander.

Updated

Alexander says, when he talks about the anti-politics mood, he is not talking about apathy.

Most people do not see party politics as a vehicle, either for their anger, or for their hopes and dreams.

Labour has to get people to invest their hopes in the party.

In a low-trust environment, the most trusted commodity is a trusted conversation, he says.

He thinks Labour are winning in this regard. The Conservatives just do not have the people on the ground to achieve this, he says. The average age of their members is 69. The average age of Labour members is 46.

He says Michael Ignatieff wrote a book, based on his experience as a politician in Canada, saying that politicians had to be literate in local issues to have permission to talk on national issues. He agrees.

Updated

Q: Would 35% be a good result? If not, what would be a good result?

Alexander says he is going for a majority Labour government.

Profound changes are happening to our politics, he says, bigger than people recognised five years ago.

Issues like identity politics have transformed the environment.

Ed Miliband has recognised some of these changes. For instance, he picked up quickly that there was something wrong with an economy where people could work 40 hours a week and still be in poverty.

Richards opens the session up to questions from the audience.

Q: How do you beat Ukip in northern seats?

Alexander says Labour has found using Nigel Farage’s own words, on issues like the NHS, to be very effective.

Q: Will people feel that it is safe to vote SNP in Scotland because devolution protects them from some of the effects of a Tory government in the UK?

Alexander says there are different views in Scotland.

He describes a conversation with a woman in a supermarket in his constituency last weekend. She was a senior social worker. She said she was not voting Labour again, and she did not believe the result of the referendum. She thought it was a conspiracy. Everyone she knew had voted yes, she says.

Alexander asked her about the falling oil price. That was a conspiracy too, she told him. By who? By the oil companies. But why would they want prices low, he asked her.

Alexander says he asked her where she got her news. From Facebook, she told him.

He says in the past people used to have a shared body of fact, but diverge in their opinions. But social media is changing that.

Alexander says the sense of disconnect between politicians and voters is the same in the rest of the UK as it is in Scotland.

Q: What do you think is happening in Scotland?

The Scottish referendum was seismic, Alexander says. It drew a whole group of people into politics. It exploded the myth that politicians were the same, and it exploded the myth that politics does not matter. Once you liberate politics from that, you get an 85% turnout.

Amongst the 45% who voted yes, there is a sense of grief. And grief sometimes becomes anger.

Some people blame the BBC. Some people blame Scottish Labour.

Looking ahead, the question is what Scotland wants. It does not want a Conservative government.

The numbers are bad for Labour, he says. It is Labour’s job to catch up.

Q: Scottish MPs wanted Ed Miliband to rule out a coalition with the SNP. Were you one of them?

Alexander says he takes the view that private conversations should remain private.

He is not interested in the insider baseball of who said what to when.

Q: How you divide your time between running the UK election, and getting involved in Scotland?

Alexander says he puts in long hours.

He cannot remember any campaign since 1992 where the result has been so uncertain.

You cannot find a pollster who can tell you who will be in government in June.

Q: Is the manifesto ready?

It is getting there, says Alexander.

Alexander says Grant Shapps gave an interview to the Sunday Times recently where he said there were only about 20,000 or so votes who would decide the election. (That is based on looking at seats where, if another 20,000 people had voted in different ways in 2010, the Tories would have had a majority.)

Alexander says he did not know what to make of it. He thought, if Shapps really thought that, Labour would be delighted, because it would show how little they understood the election.

Douglas Alexander's interview

Steve Richards is interviewing Douglas Alexander.

Q: The Tories have a clear message on their long-term plan. What is Labour’s equivalent?

Alexander says it is that voters face a fundamental choice between that failing plan and Labour’s. The Tories believe in looking after those at the top; Labour believes the country works well when everyone succeeds.

Q: But that doesn’t excite people, does it?

Alexander says there are policies that illustrate this, like banning exploitative zero hours contracts. But it is not just a matter of lists of policies, he says.

Q: Where does housing fit into your plans? And will you give councils more powers to borrow to build?

Umunna says Labour has published the Lyons review. In London, 50,000 or 60,000 new homes are needed every year. But London is getting nowhere near this. That is because Boris Johnson, the mayor, is not interested, he says.

The Labour Treasury team has said that housebuilding will be a priority, he says.

Infrastructure spending has a great multiplier effect. You spend a pound, and you get much more in output.

Umunna says Vince Cable is right about this.

He says he was at a CBI dinner last night, and was asked about this. He told them they should make the argument for capital spending. The problem at the moment is that any mention of spending frightens the market. If he announced plans, the papers would say he was proposing more spending, and he would get attacked by the Tories. He says business leaders should do more to explain the difference between current spending and capital spending.

  • Umunna urges businesses to support more spending on infrastructure projects.

Q: [From Tim Bale, the academic and author of a new book about Labour under Ed Miliband] Do you think we will ever get back to the days when the main parties got 40% of the vote or more?

Umunna says the first past the post system will be tested like never before.

He believes in electoral reform, he says. He supported AV, even though that did not make him popular in his party.

Q: What role do universities have in your vision?

Umunna says they have a really important role to play. They can be at the centre of innovative clusters.

Q: [From Polly Toynbee] Labour is not trusted on business. How do you convey a sense of radicalism?

(Polly addressed this in her Guardian column today.)

What do you mean by radicalism, Umunna asks.

Q: Something memorable, for a start.

Umunna says he is not sure that is so important.

What was Labour offering in 1997? Modernisation, he says - effectively, what we got with the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony.

All people are asking for is for Labour to empower them, he says.

That is why Labour has placed so much emphasis on schools. “We want to tool you up and enable you to make it.”

Q: You say you would reform competition policy to include a public interest test. What would this mean?

Umunna says he has been looking at this for some time, before the Pfizer bid for AstraZeneca.

He would apply a public interest test to commercial transactions. Some apply already. But he would add another one, that would allow the government to intervene if a takeover would have a material impact on the country’s R&D base.

The government looked at this in a laissez faire. They thought they could boast about coming to AstraZeneca coming to the UK, even though it was just coming for tax reasons.

He says it was not a matter of AstraZeneca being American. He would have had the same objections to a British firm with the same plans.

Stern is now opening it up to questions from the audience.

Q: Do we talk about crisis too much? Shouldn’t we talk about opportunity?

Umunna says he would not accept that Labour has been too negative.

But most people do not connect with politics like people here.

Labour has to talk to people’s motivations and dreams, he says

Q: Some of this sounds like Labour in 2006. Regulation is a form of intervention isn’t it?

Umunna says he is not anti-regulation. Regulation can create jobs, as it has done with green homes.

If Labour made mistakes, it was too worried about taking a view on the structure of the economy. It allowed imbalances to continue, not least the trade deficit, which is higher than ever.

And Labour accepted too readily the neo-liberal consensus, and that deregulation was de rigueur.

Umunna says parties of the centre left face three challenges.

1) How do you pursue progressive values in a climate of austerity?

2) How do you adapt to technological change?

3) How do you pursue fairness in a climate of globalisation?

Umunna says France is not an example he would follow. But there are some lessons to be learnt. Francois Hollande came in with promises that spoke to a different era. But figures like Manuel Valls, the French prime minister, are using more interesting rhetoric now.

He says he is reluctant to use the word intervention to describe what the government should do. That suggests government “coming at you with a stick”.

It is more a case of government being a broker, he says.

Umunna says the hidden business voice should be heard in the election campaign. It should not be left to establishment figures to speak on behalf of business. The experience of people leading FTSE 100 companies is very different from the experience of those running medium-sized firms.

For example, firms like Asda refuse to have zero hours contracts. They put an effort into organising their rotas properly. Firms like Sports Direct seem to use zero hours contracts because they can’t be bothered to put the effort in to rota properly.

And Labour’s energy freeze plan is popular with many busineses.

Yet, because the energy firms are opposed, people think it is anti-business.

Umunna backs decentralisation of health spending

Q: If you read the 1964 manifesto, it feels very fresh, apart from references to the Soviet Union. It is about the need for long-term planning, and how boardrooms are out of touch. How important is regionalism for you?

Umunna says people do not trust the centre to sort out all its problems. Manchester is a good example of what can be achieved by a city that knows what it’s good at. Cities should have more power. All the research shows this makes sense.

Look at Manchester and healthcare. Labour should not be setting itself against that principle, he says. There are risks, and Andy Burnham has pointed that out. But Labour should not oppose this in principle.

(Umunna’s tone on this is very different from Burnham’s.)

  • Umunna says Labour should not opposed decentralisation of NHS spending in Manchester and elsewhere.

Updated

Q: So you are looking for a modern version of an industrial strategy?

Umunna says rightwingers hold the US up as a bastion of laissez faire. Yet America delivers industrial policy very effectively. It just does not talk about it.

As social democrats, we should be talking about how the state can be more innovative.

Umunna says a key factor at the election will be who owns the positive story.

In the Scottish election campaign, the yes side owned the positive story for much of the campaign. It was only when the no side found a positive story that they got the upper hand.

In the shadow cabinet office in the Norman Shaw building in parliament, Labour posters from 1945 are on display. They are all very positive, he says. There is no mention of the Tories. The same applied in 1964.

Chuka Umunna's interview

Stefan Stern is interviewing Chuka Umunna now.

Q: How do you respond to the claims Labour is anti-business?

Umunna says the attacks on Labour yesterday in relation to the Grant Shapps affair were absurd. If the Tories cannot see the difference between being anti-business, and criticising Shapps for not telling the truth, they are more out of touch than we thought.

But the real challenge it so create progressive ends in the modern world.

Government can only do that working with business, he says. It needs business to create wealth, to help take people out of poverty.

Q: You have been looking at this with your future jobs tour.

Umunna says his future jobs tour has been trying to give a picture of what the economy might look like in the future, and where the jobs will come from people’s children and grandchildren.

Updated

Here are today’s YouGov polling figures.

Good morning. Blogging is going to be slightly disrupted today.

I’m at the LabourList pre-election conference at Dartmouth House, and I will be covering Q&As with Douglas Alexander, Labour’s chair of general election strategy, and Chuka Umunna, the shadow business secretary. After that I’ve got to head into HQ for a meeting, but I will be blogging again from the Commons this afternoon, where Theresa May is giving evidence to the Commons home affairs committee.

Here’s the timetable.

8.15am: Chuka Umunna is interviewed by the FT’s Stefan Stern at the LabourList event.

9am: Douglas Alexander is interviewed by the Independent’s Steve Richards at the LabourList event.

3.30pm: Theresa May gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee.

If you want to follow me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow

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