Evening summary
Scotland’s role as a key battleground couldn’t have been in sharper focus today as the Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems, Scottish National Party and Ukip all scrapped over the celtic nation’s role in determining the next government. Ed Miliband repeatedly refused to rule out a post-election deal with the SNP, as David Cameron sought to ramp up fears about higher borrowing and taxes if Nicola Sturgeon props up a Labour government. Former SNP leader Alex Salmond stuck his oar in, insisting that a Labour-SNP deal on a vote-by-vote basis was ‘probable’, while Nick Clegg urged Scots to vote tactically to keep Salmond out of Westminster.
Miliband insisted his message to Nicola Sturgeon was “thanks, but no thanks”, and the pressure Scotland’s First Minister was placing on Labour in Scotland became brutally clear. A new constituency poll from Lord Ashcroft brought a blow to Labour as it showed Jim Murphy the party’s Scottish leader and Douglas Alexanderon track for heavy defeats.
Murphy is now nine points behind, while Mr Alexander is losing by 11 points. And the sun continued to shine on Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP as the findings suggest seven SNP gains across Scotland.
The big picture
When Ed Miliband wasn’t taking questions on his designs for a Labour-SNP deal in the next government, he was outlining plans to ban companies from offering unpaid work experience for more than four weeks.
His announcement coincided with new YouGov polling data released by Intern Aware showing that Labour’s four week legal limit would not lead to a reduction in internships. In a speech in Lincoln to unveil Labour’s Manifesto for Young People, A Better Future for Young People, he said:
Britain’s future depends on the energy and creativity of its young people. All your ambition, all your dreams. It is our duty to support every single one of you to be the best they can be.
What happened today
- David Cameron went on the attack following the clash between Ed Miliband and Nicola Sturgeon during the opposition leaders’ TV debate, claiming the Labour leader would be in hock to Scottish nationalists if he was allowed to form a minority government.
- Jim Murphy launched his party’s Scottish manifesto on Friday with a powerful speech drawing heavily on traditional Labour language of working class solidarity, and a challenge to the SNP to say which of its pledges on redistribution they would support.
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Scottish Labour’s leader and the party’s general election coordinator are set to lose their seats to the Scottish National party, a poll by the Tory peer Lord Ashcroft suggests. Jim Murphy is behind by nine points in East Renfrewshire, and Douglas Alexander trails by 11 points in Paisley and Renfrewshire South. Murphy was only one point behind in an Ashcroft poll in January.
- Britain’s unemployment rate has dropped to its lowest level since 2008 but earnings growth has slowed, according to the final official labour market figures before the election. The Conservatives welcomed news of the drop in the jobless rate to 5.6% as well as the number of people in work hitting a record of more than 31m.
- The prime minister attacked Labour’s record in Wales in his speech in Powys this afternoon (see 16.29pm), calling for Welsh supporters to reject the notion that their country will almost always back Labour.
- Leanne Wood was still reeling from Ed Miliband’s flat out rejection for her proposal for an emergency budget to reverse Tory cuts during her appearance on the BBC Leader Interviews series. (see 19.59pm) “I asked the leader of the opposition to put forward an emergency budget. He is closing the door. It is very irresponsible.”
- Labour refused to give a commitment to maintain the Nato defence spending target at 2% of GDP, if it comes to power after the general election. The party’s defence spokesman, Vernon Coaker, said a strategic defence review would be held to establish priorities and that he would press the Treasury for the funds to meet as many of them as possible, but he could not give an undertaking that he could achieve all of them.
Quote of the day
Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, on Iain Duncan Smith’s suggestion that zero-hours contracts should be renamed. (See 11.45am.) She said:
If you put lipstick on a pig, it is still a pig. But as ‘zero-hours contracts’ is a bit of a mouthful, perhaps we could call them ‘IDS jobs’ in the future.
Laugh of the day
Boris Johnson offered some light relief from the back and forth mud-slinging between Cameron and Miliband over the SNP with some of his trademark calamity.
The Mayor of London and Tory candidate for Uxbridge and Ruislip was cheered on by supporters at a sign-making business - who spelt his name wrong.
Staff at Signcraft, in West Acton, chanted Johnson’s name as he visited an Islamic centre opposite, waving a banner that read: “We love you Borris.”
"We love you Borris" - the fans speak #GE2015 pic.twitter.com/vMvlZhlYWP
— Richard Wheeler (@richard_kaputt) April 17, 2015
Tomorrow’s agenda
Here’s some of tomorrow’s front pages with election-related headlines:
Saturday's Times front page: Revealed: Miliband’s plan for power in Downing St #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/IL6w4Xoy5P
— Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) April 17, 2015
Saturday's Scottish Daily Mail: Murphy faces losing his seat #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers #scotpapers pic.twitter.com/Pdypic2wQA
— Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) April 17, 2015
Saturday's Telegraph front page: Gove rules out Ukip deal #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers #GE2015 pic.twitter.com/D6ryrJ8RnT
— Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) April 17, 2015
That’s it from us for today. Join the Guardian’s election team tomorrow morning, as we bring you the latest news, reaction, analysis, pictures, video, and jokes from the campaign trail. We will continue to do this every day until the UK goes to the polls on 7 May. It’s been a pleasure, may the force be with you.
More from political editor Patrick Wintour. He reports that Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish National party leader, has pressed Ed Miliband to accept the legitimacy of a large elected SNP team at Westminster, saying it would be unacceptable for unionist politicians who asked Scots to stay inside the UK on the basis that their voice mattered would then refuse to accept their legitimacy.
Sturgeon is quoted in the piece as saying:
During the referendum campaign last year, we were told repeatedly by politicians that wanted us to vote no that Scotland was an integral part of the UK, that our voice mattered and our voice will be heard, so it strikes me as completely unacceptable for those politicians to turn round now and when Scotland choose to make its voice be heard by voting SNP to say your voice cannot be heard.
Tories 'increasingly panic-stricken', says Ed Miliband adviser
In a Guardian exclusive, Labour election guru David Axelrod tells my colleague Patrick Wintour that an overconfident Tory campaign has lost its energy and momentum.
He writes:
David Axelrod, a former campaign strategist for Barack Obama and now Labour’s hired hand, said the Tories “keep pushing buttons that are not working”, which is leading them to “lurch from tactic to tactic”.
In an interview with the Guardian, Axelrod said Labour’s principal opponents had entered the year with “a kind of cocksuredness predicated on the belief they could caricature Miliband and caricature the Labour party” and “their failure to do so had left them “increasingly panic stricken”.
Updated
The Guardian is working with the pollsters BritainThinks to conduct focus groups throughout the election with 60 voters in five key marginals. Each has an app to feedback what they are noticing in the campaign in real time. Here’s their reaction to the campaigns, at the end of the week:
Updated
From observing cattle at a livestock auction to perusing portraits of party leaders – here are some of the highlights from the various campaign trails today:
Leanne Wood: Let’s strengthen case for an independent Wales
Rhys Roberts asks Wood when Wales will become an independent country.
That’s a matter for the Welsh people. When people can see that our economic situation is feasible. Now, I would say - even to those who don’t support Wales becoming an independent country - they can support us getting to that point where we could have a proper debate like they had in Scotland.
Updated
Leanne Wood is still reeling from Ed Miliband’s flat out rejection for her proposal for an emergency budget to reverse Tory cuts.
She tells the BBC:
I asked the leader of the opposition to put forward an emergency budget. He is closing the door. It is very irresponsible.
Rhys Roberts puts it to the Plaid Cymru leader that she will never be at the “top table”. “I don’t accept that,” she says.
Updated
I’m not morally uncomfortable with rich people, says Leanne Wood
Rhys Roberts asks Wood if, as a socialist, she is ‘morally uncomfortable’ with rich people.
I’m not morally uncomfortable with rich people at all.
Wood says Wales needs rich people as they would contribute more in taxes to the country.
I want more in Wales because I want more people to help create jobs. But I also want to invest in firms that invest their profits back into their companies.
Updated
Leanne Wood is interviewed on BBC Wales
Just going to draw focus away from Scotland for a moment, as Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood is on BBC Wales for the Leaders Interviews series.
She tells Bethan Rhys Roberts her party would slash the deficit to 2% of GDP “by making cuts and raising taxes from people who can afford to pay them”.
This seems vague, so Rhys Roberts pushes her.
We could raise £10bn by changing national income contributions, we could raise billions by scrapping Trident.
Updated
The Lib Dem leader visited Gordon, where the former first minister is hoping to win on May 7 to warn that Mr Salmond wanted to “pocket” votes in order to “strut his stuff” in Westminster.
Mr Clegg said only his party is capable of preventing the former SNP leader returning to the Commons where he could potentially keep a “hapless” minority Labour administration on “life support” in a vote-by-vote deal.
He urged voters across Scotland to put aside traditional party allegiances to support his colleagues in seats where the Lib Dems are facing an SNP challenge.
Updated
Survation trend chart including their latest with CON lead pic.twitter.com/CtBrHBYt9Y
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) April 17, 2015
Survation poll: Tory 1 point lead
A Survation poll for Daily Mirror shows Conservatives ahead with a narrow lead and up four points from last week to 34%, while Labour slide two points to 33%. Here’s a link to a PDF of the full results.
NEW: Survation/@DailyMirror (chg vs 09/04) CON 34% (+4); LAB 33% (-2); UKIP 17% (+1); LD 7% (-1); SNP 4% (NC); GRE 3% (-1); AP 1% (NC)
— Survation. (@Survation) April 17, 2015
Updated
Salmond says an SNP deal with Labour is “probable”
Former SNP leader Alex Salmond, the astute politician that he is, could not resist wading into the “will they, won’t they” debate over a possible SNP-Labour coalition.
In an interview with ITV News, Salmond, who is running for parliament in the Gordon constituency in Aberdeenshire, suggested an SNP deal with a minority Labour government is “probable” on a case-by-case basis.
He said a vote-by-vote arrangement with Labour’s Ed Miliband would be much more likely than any other agreement.
A vote by vote is much, much more likely than any other arrangement. What I’ve said and what Nicola has said, more importantly, confidence and supply is possible, but vote by vote is probable. I think that’s a good way to express it.
Updated
Labour likens Ukip to the British National Party as the South Thanet election fight gets bitter, Rowena Mason reports, writing that the party will target up to 16,000 voters in South Thanet. It is the constituency Nigel Farage the Ukip leader is hoping to win.
Labour will say in the letter: “The one thing that the BNP [in Barking] had in common with Ukip was the way in which they denigrated the area and the people living there.”
Mason writes:
The letter is part of Labour’s strategy of trying to get “soft” Tory supporters to vote tactically for their candidate to keep out Farage, because the Conservative choice, Craig Mackinlay, is a former Ukip leader.
She adds residents of the Kent constituency are invited to meet Margaret Hodge, the senior Labour MP, who helped see off the BNP in her seat of Barking and Dagenham.
Staying north of the border, my colleague Frances Perraudin has been on the Liberal Democrat battle bus in Aberdeenshire.
Nick Clegg was asked whether it was appropriate that he went to the pub in his Sheffield Hallam constituency, instead of watching the BBC opposition leaders debate.
The question didn’t go down too well.
What? You are not seriously suggesting that whether or not there is a Liberal Democrat-Labour coalition depends on whether I spent an hour and a half listening to that shower yesterday? Come on. Give me a break. What a ridiculous thing to say. Why would that have any bearing on how a government is composed or functions after the election?
From what I’ve seen this morning, it’s delivered no surprises whatsoever; none whatsoever. I didn’t see it, I admit. I was talking to constituents in my constituency, because I want to get re-elected. That is more important to me frankly than listening to Nigel Farage with his loopy, loopy stuff at one extreme and Ed Miliband dithering about how not to balance the books, and three other politicians saying can we wave a magic wand and borrow lots of money we don’t have. My use of time was spent much productively.
Updated
Scottish Labour react to dismal Lord Ashcroft polls
Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy and shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander are on track for heavy defeats to the SNP at the General Election, according to new polls from Lord Ashcroft.
Scottish Labour have warned that if the polls are repeated on election day, two things will happen - “the SNP will have more MPs and David Cameron will walk back into Downing Street again”.
A Scottish Labour spokesman said:
A vote for anyone other than Labour means the Tories will be the largest party across the UK. That would be a disaster for Scotland.
Labour is the only anti-austerity party in Scotland. The Tories will impose another five years of their failed austerity, and the SNP’s plan to cut Scotland off from UK-wide taxes would mean extra cuts of £7.6bn. The only way to get a Labour Government is to vote Labour.
Updated
My colleagues Rowena Mason and Libby Brooks have taken a look at the Lord Ashcroft constituency polls that have brought great woe for just about everyone but the SNP.
Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy, who according to the results is on course for a humiliating defeat on May 7, was asked about the his party’s consistently poor polling at his manifesto launch.
He said:
These offers can reconnect us with voters all across this great city and all across Scotland. Now we have to go out and argue for it.”
Here’s photographer Stefan Rousseau’s picture of the day:
ELECTION Photo du Jour: Ed Miliband hosts Q&A at Bishop Grosseteste University in Lincoln. By Stefan Rousseau/PA pic.twitter.com/DyQ06Z4mhS
— Stefan Rousseau (@StefanRousseau) April 17, 2015
As tension mounts over a possible Labour-SNP coalition, our data editor Alberto Nardelli says at the halfway point in the election campaign, it’s advantage Miliband-Sturgeon.
He writes:
The magic number to keep in mind here is 326 - the number which gives any government a majority of MPs in parliament.
And as things stand, Miliband holds the better cards.
The “anti-Tory” votes - the sum of those parties that would vote a Conservative government down - add up to 333. While piling up all possible supporters, Cameron’s tally comes to 311.
Before Lord Ashcroft took the wind out of Jim Murphy’s sails with those devastating polling results (see 16.52), the Scottish Labour leader was delivering a rousing speech in Glasgow’s East End. My colleague Libby Brooks has written it up.
She says:
Jim Murphy launched his party’s Scottish manifesto on Friday with a powerful speech drawing heavily on traditional Labour language of working class solidarity, and a challenge to the SNP to say which of its pledges on redistribution they would support.
Here are reactions from the commentariat on Twitter to the latest Ashcroft poll and what it means for the parties:
Just seen the latest Ashcroft Scotland poll. I mean. There are no words. That’s BAD, capital letters fully justified
— Mark Ferguson (@Markfergusonuk) April 17, 2015
If #Labour win, Douglas Alexander could be Foreign Secretary in 3 weeks. Or #Labour could win & Mr Alexander will not even be an MP @theSNP
— Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) April 17, 2015
Extraordinary Ashcroft polling. Can Jim Murphy carry on as Labour leader if he loses East Ren?
— Jason Allardyce (@SundayTimesSco) April 17, 2015
I wonder what price you can get from the bookies for the SNP to win every seat in Scotland? See the latest @LordAshcroft poll in 8 seats.
— Iain Dale (@IainDale) April 17, 2015
I shouldn't be surprised but, WOW. Latest Ashcroft suggesting wipeout of the Scottish establishment at Westminster. http://t.co/ZQnnuLWDk7
— John McDermott (@johnpmcdermott) April 17, 2015
Summary: all your favourite Scottish politicians aren't going to be there in three weeks, probably http://t.co/fLqY5PTSYA
— Alex Wickham (@WikiGuido) April 17, 2015
Before last night I'd have said those Ashcroft polls in Scotland were insane.
— Dan Hodges (@DPJHodges) April 17, 2015
Updated
Tories look set to lose Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale to the SNP but could scrape a gain in Berwickshire, Roxborough and Selkirk, taking the seat formerly held by Lib Dem Sir Alan Beith.
Tories face a tough fight to hold Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale & Tweeddale: pic.twitter.com/9eCUsRWfH3
— Lord Ashcroft (@LordAshcroft) April 17, 2015
But could there be an unexpected gain in Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk? pic.twitter.com/kvDWU38PpR
— Lord Ashcroft (@LordAshcroft) April 17, 2015
Every time you think the SNP figures couldn’t go up further, Lord Ashcroft releases a new batch of polls:
Voting intentions from my latest round of Scottish constituency polling. More on @ConHome, 4pm pic.twitter.com/TPkMerUybZ
— Lord Ashcroft (@LordAshcroft) April 17, 2015
The latest figures show Sturgeon’s party leading by nine points in Jim Murphy’s East Renfrewshire seat. Back in February Labour held a one-point lead. The SNP have extended their lead in Glasgow South West to 21 points, and in Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Douglas Alexander’s seat) to 11 points.
The SNP now also lead in the Tory-held seat of Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale. However, the Conservatives are marginally ahead in Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, which is shaping up to be a three-horse race: the Tories are on 30%, the SNP on 29% and the Lib Dems on 28%.
The Guardian’s latest projection now shows the SNP winning 55 of Scotland’s 59 seats:
Lord Ashcroft’s polling also brought grim figures for the Liberal Democrats, with former leader Charles Kennedy 15 points behind in the race for Ross, Skye and Lochaber and Jo Swinson, the Business Minister, 11 points down in East Dunbartonshire.
And Charles Kennedy further behind in Ross, Skye & Lochaber: pic.twitter.com/uoUlRL79dM
— Lord Ashcroft (@LordAshcroft) April 17, 2015
Lord Ashcroft polls show leading Scottish Labour figures losing seat
Shifting the focus back to Scotland again, Lord Ashcroft has released his latest constituency polling results, this time focusing on wards north of the border.
The Tory peer’s findings bring a devastating blow to Labour with the party’s Scottish leader Jim Murphy and shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander on track for heavy defeats.
Murphy is nine points behind, while Mr Alexander is losing by 11 points, according to the polls.
And the sun continues to shine on Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP as the findings suggest seven SNP gains across Scotland.
Could tactical Tory votes save Jim Murphy? pic.twitter.com/ZOFtxVrcE7
— Lord Ashcroft (@LordAshcroft) April 17, 2015
Douglas Alexander further behind in Paisley & Renfrewshire South: pic.twitter.com/clygNnVSE7
— Lord Ashcroft (@LordAshcroft) April 17, 2015
Updated
David Cameron launches Welsh Tories’ manifesto - summary
The prime minister attacked Labour’s record in Wales in his speech in Powys this afternoon, calling for Welsh supporters to reject the notion that their country will almost always back Labour - something I’m sure Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood would have something to say about too.
Seriously: where is it written that Wales votes Labour?
Cameron kicked off with a Welsh welcome - “Prynhawn da” - before hailing his Welsh team, Welsh secretary Stephen Crabb and Welsh minister Alun Cairns.
The prime minister said in 2010 Labour’s belief in Wales had “hit zero – there was no vision for its future” before claiming Tory successes in the celtic nation - including hosting NATO and being the first PM to visit the Royal Welsh Show.
In these past 5 years we haven’t just cleared up the mess in Wales we’ve demonstrated our belief in the potential of this great nation.
Cameron says Government plans in last five years helped get 52,000 more people into work, cut income taxes of 1.2 million people in the country and lifted the State Pension by £950.
He also reiterated Tory pledge to increase amount earned before tax to £12,500 from £10,600.
When you’re bringing up children, when family budgets are a strain, you want to keep more of the money you earn.
But he soon set his sights on Labour, warning they will increase debt, borrowing, spending and taxes before alluding to the NHS’s performance in the country - well-worn Tory attack ground.
The people of Wales already know more than most the damage Labour can do. Cutting health spending and “taking their eye off the ball” on education. This is the way Labour treats the nation of Nye Bevan and Dylan Thomas.
Cameron closed his speech by claiming the Tories are the only party that “really believes in Wales”
The dragon on our flag may be red, but our country will always be better off blue.
Updated
If the back and forth mud-slinging between Cameron and Miliband over the SNP is getting a little tedious, you can always rely on Boris Johnson to lift the mood with some of his trademark calamity.
The Mayor of London and Tory candidate for Uxbridge and Ruislip was cheered on by supporters at a sign-making business - who spelt his name wrong.
Staff at Signcraft, in West Acton, chanted Johnson’s name as he visited an Islamic centre opposite, waving a banner that read: “We love you Borris.”
PA’s Richard Wheeler captured the moment on video.
"We love you Borris" - the fans speak #GE2015 pic.twitter.com/vMvlZhlYWP
— Richard Wheeler (@richard_kaputt) April 17, 2015
David Cameron launches Welsh Tory manifesto
The prime minister has for the moment shifted focus from Scottish politics to another celtic nation - Wales - as he appeared in Powys to launch the Welsh Tories manifesto.
Attacking Labour’s record in Wales with a nod to the NHS’s performance, Cameron asked: “Seriously: where is it written that Wales votes Labour?”
The people of Wales already know more than most the damage Labour can do.
Cutting health spending and “taking their eye off the ball” on education.
I’ll take a look at his full speech and post a summary shortly.
Updated
Here’s our video of Natalie Bennett, the leader of the green party, who reacts to last night’s challengers’ election debate and says she is pleased with her performance. Bennett says she was happy there was a gender balance on the panel, which she says may inspire more women to enter politics.
The prime minister has continued to fan the flames in his row with Ed Miliband over how much power the SNP would be given in a potential coalition with Labour.
In another dig at the Labour leader, he’s posted this video on Twitter of SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon asking “Is Ed Miliband really saying he would stand back and say I’m not going to work with the SNP I’m just going to watch David Cameron get back into Downing Street?”
The one thing Nicola Sturgeon and I agree on - Ed Miliband must answer this simple question: https://t.co/ysTlIp8qK4
— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) April 17, 2015
As Cameron and Miliband trade blows over the spectre of a Scottish Nationalist-influenced coalition, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg is campaigning in former SNP leader Alex Salmond’s backyard, Aberdeenshire.
He’s currently visiting a diving gear firm, which has been captured wonderfully by PA’s David Hughes.
Clegg watching a diver demonstrating breathing equipment. pic.twitter.com/o0PNeyvF4m
— David Hughes (@DavidHughesPA) April 17, 2015
Clegg inspecting diving helmets. pic.twitter.com/AMZJRKZWN1
— David Hughes (@DavidHughesPA) April 17, 2015
Clegg meeting Bob the diver, fresh from the tank. pic.twitter.com/VqI9pnaVyu
— David Hughes (@DavidHughesPA) April 17, 2015
Sink or swim, Nick? Sink or swim?
Updated
Good afternoon, Jamie Grierson here. I have the privilege of taking on the blog from Andrew this afternoon and carrying it forth into the evening. I’ve spent most of this sunny day pretending I’m too cool to care about the new Star Wars trailer - now it’s time to turn my mind to the political machinations of the day. If you want to get in touch about all things political, Tweet me - @jamiegrierson
Leanne Wood, the Plaid Cymru leader, has criticised Ed Miliband today for not being more radical in the debate last night.
It was disappointing to hear the leader of the opposition refuse to commit to an emergency budget that would reverse Tory cuts. It was also a big shame that he didn’t commit to sorting out Wales’ funding anomaly. We deserve parity with Scotland, which is worth £1.2bn to the Welsh block grant. Having that money will enable us in a very practical sense to end austerity in Wales.
And he didn’t take the opportunity to work with progressive parties like ours to end a Tory government - in fact he has left the door open for that. Opposition that promises more of the same is no opposition at all.
The electorate have an alternative - and in Wales only Plaid Cymru is offering the chance to rebalance power and wealth throughout these islands, away from the powerful few.
That’s all from me, Andrew Sparrow, for today. My colleague Jamie Grierson is now taking over for the rest of the day.
Updated
The Guardian has an editorial today urging people to sign up to register to vote.
The editorial implies you need a national insurance number to register. Actually, you don’t. Carmen Fishwick has the details here, where she explains what happens if you need to register and you don’t have your NI number.
Updated
It is not just Nick Clegg’s picture that is disappearing from Lib Dem campaign material (see 12.10pm), according to this tweet from the Evening Standard’s Joe Murphy.
Spot the Difference! Before, "Simon Hughes & the Liberal Democrats". After, just Simon Hughes. pic.twitter.com/dWMDZPLcWu
— Joe Murphy (@JoeMurphyLondon) April 17, 2015
Lunchtime summary
- Ed Miliband has dismissed suggestions that the SNP would have a key influence over a minority Labour government. Speaking shortly after David Cameron claimed that last night’s debate illustrated the “coalition of chaos” that would be running Britain if the Conservatives did not win the election (see 11.17am), Miliband said that he would never compromise on matters like fiscal responsibility, or security, and that the SNP would not be writing Labour’s budget. He reaffirmed his opposition to a coalition with the SNP, but he did not rule out some looser form of Labour/SNP deal, saying if the SNP wanted to support a Labour Queen’s Speech, that was up to them. (See 1.13pm.)
- Cameron has ducked Miliband’s latest challenge to a head-to-head debate. (See 11.17am.) Miliband said that Cameron did not have the “guts” to take him on in a debate, and that “parties that try and hide away, and don’t really want to face the people, are parties that tend to lose elections”. (See 1.13pm.)
-
Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative work and pensions secretary, has dismissed the idea of introducing further means-testing into child benefit by including it in the new universal credit. Asked about this on the World at One, he replied:
That’s not on the books now. Of course, a future government may well want to look at that once universal credit is out. But I personally have not looked at that and am not planning to look at that. I want to stay with what we’ve got.
He also said he was not in favour of means-testing disability benefits.
- Labour has criticised Duncan Smith for suggesting that zero-hours contracts should be renamed. (See 11.45am.)
- The BBC has revealed that up to 15% of the population saw at least some of last night’s election debate. (See 11.22am.)
-
Cameron has described Britain as “the jobs factory of Europe” following the publication of figures showing that the unemployment rate has dropped to its lowest level since 2008. (See 11.17am.)
Updated
Here’s a Guardian video showing Nigel Farage complaining about the debate audience last night being ridiculously leftwing.
Here’s what Margaret Curran, the shadow Scottish secretary, had to say about Nicola Sturgeon’s claim to want to work with Labour in last night’s debate.
I did an about take when I listened to that debate last night because I’ve seen Nicola Sturgeon all of a sudden claiming that she’s got some kind of joint interest with Labour.
I’ve worked in Scottish politics for a long time and I’ve never heard Nicola Sturgeon make any positive remarks about Labour. She’s argued against Labour all her political life.
I can respect her argument because she believes fundamentally in independence, she has not ever shown any interest in Labour.
Updated
Boris Johnson, the Conservative mayor of London, has been campaigning in North Greenwich today. He ruled out taking a cabinet job that would involve running a department while still mayor of London.
I don’t know what the rules say, in fact I don’t think there are any rules, but the job of mayor of London is effectively like running a big department of state. There’s a £16bn budget or whatever, there’s lots of executive stuff. What you can do is be an MP, just as you can be an MP and run a big department but I think to do another big budget-wielding department would be pretty tricky.
But Johnson’s reference to running a “big department” suggests he might have his eyes on a cabinet job that does not involve running a big department if the Conservatives win. As the Sunday Times reported last week (paywall), David Cameron has not ruled out putting Johnson straight in cabinet as minister without portfolio if the Tories return to power.
Here is Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, on Iain Duncan Smith’s suggestion that zero-hours contracts should be renamed. (See 11.45am.)
Whatever you call a zero-hours contract, it is still a recipe for insecurity and exploitation, where the boss holds all the power. Nothing sums up what is wrong with this government’s approach to work and how out of touch they are with the way most people live their lives than this celebration of the zero-hours contract.
If you put lipstick on a pig, it is still a pig. But as ‘zero-hours contracts’ is a bit of a mouthful, perhaps we could call them ‘IDS jobs’ in the future.
Unionist unity candidate in the border constituency of Fermanagh/South Tyrone Tom Elliott has stated today that he will not take the Democratic Unionist whip if elected to Westminster.
The former Ulster Unionist party leader sounded a slightly discordant note by revealing he will not necessarily vote with the DUP - the largest unionist force - in the House of Commons after the election.
The DUP has drawn up a “Northern Ireland Plan” which is tantamount to a shopping list of demands either David Cameron or Ed Miliband would have to meet before the unionist bloc in the next parliament would support them as the next prime minister.
All this of course hinges on whether Elliott can unseat the sitting MP Sinn Féin’s Michelle Gildernew, who along with her four colleagues boycotts Westminster. Although Gildernew is still favourite to win in this most tribally contested constituency anywhere in the UK the margins are tight. In the last election she won by four votes although in other recent elections the Sinn Féin vote has increased in the constituency.
So even though the DUP has been out canvassing for Elliott the UUP man is adamant he will not jump when the biggest unionist party cracks the whip when the votes are counted and if he is the new MP for the area.
Elliott said: “I am still my own man. Obviously I am a member of the Ulster Unionist party so I would be doing what we see as best for the Ulster Unionist party. That would be my primary position and if Nigel Dodds got elected in North Belfast I am sure that is what he will be doing for his party.”
Updated
Miliband's Q&A - Summary
Here are the key points from Ed Miliband’s Q&A.
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Miliband strongly rejected suggestions that the SNP would have a decisive influence over a minority Labour government. Asked what he would say to voters worried by this prospect, he replied:
It is not going to happen. And let me explain why. I ask people to judge me on what I said last night. I will never compromise our national security, I will never compromise our commitment to fiscal responsibility, I will never compromise on the nature of our United Kingdom. And, you know, frankly, the first budget of a Labour government is going to be written by the Labour government. It is not going to be written by Nicola Sturgeon or Alex Salmond or anyone else in the SNP, and I could not be clearer than that.
He reaffirmed his opposition to a coalition with the SNP, but did not rule out some looser form of Labour/SNP deal. Asked why he could not rule this out, he replied:
I couldn’t have been clearer about this. We are not going to have a coalition. How other parties end up voting on a Labour Queen’s speech is frankly going to be a matter for them.
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He accused Cameron of not having the “guts” to debate with him.
[Cameron] wont’t come and debate me. He wants to duck, weave and dive his way back into Downing Street. If he had guts, he would come out and accept my challenge to debate me one on one, head to head. I made the challenge yesterday. Month after month, week after week, the Conservative party say they want an election about leadership. Well, I’m offering him a debate about leadership.
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Miliband suggested the Tories were on course to lose the election because they were not willing to debate the issues.
I think something very interesting is happening in this campaign. Because I think it is the Labour party that is showing in this campaign that we will take on all-comers, as I did last night, that we will put forward an agenda for the future, and you’ve got David Cameron just hiding away. Now my general experience of general elections is that parties that try and hide away, and don’t really want to face the people, are parties that tend to lose elections.
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He suggested that the SNP wanted another Conservative government. Sturgeon wanted a second referendum on independence, he said, and had not ruled out calling one. Having the Tories in power in Westminster would make it easier for them to win, he suggested.
I think there is nothing that would suit the SNP more than the return of a Tory government.
Updated
With a powerful speech borrowing heavily from traditional Labour language of redistribution and solidarity, Jim Murphy has launched the Scottish Labour manifesto in Glasgow. Murphy told activists:
With our manifesto I am proud to say that the party of Donald Dewar and John Smith is back on business.
With 160 separate commitments ranging from breakfast clubs for the poorest children to an extra £1bn investment in Scotland’s NHS, Murphy insisted: “No one can ever again say they’ve got no idea what the Scottish Labour Party stands for.”
Asked about Nicola Sturgeon’s offer to Ed Miliband in last night’s television debate, Murphy said: “I want to beat the Tories at the ballot box, not in some shoddy backroom deal.”
Attacking the SNP Holyrood government’s record on redistribution and progressive policy he added: “I will take no lessons in boldness and radicalism from the SNP.”
With a central message that “Scotland succeeds when working-class Scots succeed”, Murphy’s speech returned to pre-referendum arguments about the need for solidarity across the UK, while dismissing the SNP’s argument that having more of their MPs in Westminster would mean standing up for Scotland as a “simplification”.
Standing up for Scotland means standing up for working-class Scots. It also means making common cause with working-class people across the UK. We believe in that old trade union idea that an injury to one is an injury to all. We believe in the Labour idea of redistribution. This election is not an extension of the referendum. It is about how all of Britain is run for the next five years.
Finally the Scottish Labour manifesto has arrived. Still no Jim Murphy #GE2015 pic.twitter.com/OkZXmtRLBy
— Libby Brooks (@libby_brooks) April 17, 2015
Updated
Q: What do you think about the decision not to prosecute Lord Janner over the child abuse allegations?
Miliband says these are matters for the CPS.
He is shocked by the allegations, and his heart goes out to the victims. It is incredibly important that the victims speak to the child abuse inquiry, so that at least they get the chance to have their say.
What do the real voters think? We have 60 in five key seats giving their view throughout the campaign as part of our polling project with BritainThinks. They each have an app and are telling us what matters to them as issues crop up.
Here are some of their first thoughts on last night’s BBC election debate, without David Cameron:
David Prescott, John Prescott’s son, is standing for Labour in Gainsborough, where Sir Edward Leigh, the Conservative, had a majority of more than 10,000 in 2010. Prescott told the Daily Mirror he was hoping for a “Portillo moment”.
When someone says to me that it’s a safe Tory seat - it’s only unwinnable because it’s not been won yet.
If you knock on doors and talk to people you can turn them round. I’ve knocked on doors since December and I can tell you people have never seen candidate knocking on doors around here.
Q: What do you say to people who fear the SNP would have a decisive influence over a Labour government?
Miliband says it is not going to happen. He is not going to compromise on national security or the future of the UK. Labour’s budget will be written by Labour, not by the SNP.
Q: If the SNP offered to support you on a vote by vote basis, would you not owe it to Labour supporters to accept that?
Miliband says he is working for a majority Labour government.
He says Labour is facing the arguments, while the Tories are trying to hide away. His experience is that parties that try to hide from the issues in a campaign lose.
Q: Would you prefer to see David Cameron as prime minister than do a deal with the SNP?
Miliband says his message is simple; if you want a Labour government, vote Labour.
He says he has spent his life fighting the Tories. Nicola Sturgeon has spent her life fighting Labour.
He says she wants a second referendum. Nothing would suit her more than having another Tory government.
Miliband is now taking media questions.
Q: Why can’t you rule out any form of deal with the SNP, however loose.
Miliband says anyone who watched the debate will have seen fundamental differences between him and Nicola Sturgeon on the deficit, on national security and on the future of the UK. But how other parties vote on a Labour Queen’s speech is a matter for them.
He says David Cameron wants to “duck, weave and dive” his way back into Downing Street. He should debate with Miliband. The Tories say the election is about leadership. Let’s have a debate about leadership, Miliband says.
Updated
Miliband is taking a question from Vice News. He does not seem to have heard of it.
Q: You’ve only done one walkabout. Don’t you think this stage-managed bullshit is alienating young people?
Miliband tells the questioner that he is obviously not stage-managed.
He says he tries to engage as much as possible. He thinks he is doing more of these events than Cameron. He did a walkabout yesterday, but it became “a bit of a scrum”.
Updated
Farage says he is opposed to raising minimum wage because it would encourage immigration
On Radio 5 Live this morning Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, said he was opposed to raising the minimum wage because it would make Britain more attractive to migrants. It was already “nine times what it is in Romania”, he said.
The answer is to have a labour market in which employers actually have to pay a bit more [by restricting supply] ...
Yes we do have some of our youth who are lazy and hopeless. But equally I go round this country and meet lots of young people who want work and can’t get it.
Updated
At his Q&A, Ed Miliband says Labour would keep the national citizen service, the volunteering initiative introduced by the coalition. It is a good idea, he says.
Labour says it cannot commit to spending 2% of GDP on defence
In a speech to the Royal United Services Institute this morning Vernon Coaker, the shadow defence secretary, said Labour could not commit to maintaining the Nato target for defence spending. He said future defence spending levels would be determined in a strategic defence and security review to be carried out alongside the comprehensive spending review. The need to tackle the deficit meant the party could not promise to keep defence spending at 2% of GDP, he said. “At this stage we cannot sign up,” he said.
Updated
Election Leaflets, a group monitoring election leaflets supported by Unlock Democracy, has published an analysis of 1,000 election leaflets it has seen.
It shows that only 5% of Lib Dem leaflets include a picture of Nick Clegg. By contrast, 71% of SNP leaflets have a picture of Nicola Sturgeon on them.
Here is the chart with full figures.
Miliband says he will not be the kind of leader like David Cameron, who puts a wind turbine on his roof before an election, and then brings in a moratorium on wind turbines afterwards.
Updated
Miliband's Q&A
Miliband is now taking questions.
He says he will start with questions from young people in the audience, before taking questions from the media near the end.
Q: What will you do to support students in colleges?
Miliband says he did not like the way the educational maintenance allowance was abolished. But Labour has not been able to find a way of bringing it back.
Q: What will you do to help students with English degrees who have been told they do not have the right degree?
Miliband says creative subjects are “incredibly important” to the future of our country.
Q: Will you have a dedicated minister for young people?
Milband says he will look at this.
Updated
Miliband has just reaffirmed Labour’s commitment to ban unpaid internships lasting more than four weeks. Labour released details overnight, and my colleague Patrick Wintour has written the story up here.
Ed Miliband's speech at the launch of Labour's manifesto for young people
Ed Miliband is speaking at the launch of Labour’s manifesto for young people.
He has just repeated the point that Rachel Reeves made about Iain Duncan Smith wanting to rename zero-hours contracts. (See 11.45am.)
Updated
The Guardian’s data editor Alberto Nardelli has produced this video to explain why he thinks David Cameron is running out of time to hold on to the keys to No 10.
With polls pointing persistently to no single party commanding a majority, it’s looking increasingly likely that Labour will only be able to govern in partnership with a Scottish National party intent on wiping it out north of the border. Meanwhile if the Conservatives are to stay in government, they can’t simply take seats only from the Lib Dems.
Updated
Labour condemns Duncan Smith for suggesting zero-hours contracts should be renamed
On Sky News this morning Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative work and pensions secretary, said that zero-hours contracts should be renamed.
Zero-hour contract is badly named - I don’t know whoever came up with that idea. It should be named the flexible hours contract because the people that actually use that contract are, for the most part, people who have caring responsibilities, students, people who can’t guarantee hours, fixed hours, over a series of weeks, but who are able therefore to flex their work and take the work as necessary.
Rachel Reeves, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said this showed how “completely out of touch” the Conservatives were.
We don’t need to rename exploitative zero-hours contracts, we need to ban them.
For too many people zero-hours contracts leave people without a regular income and not knowing from one day to the next how much work will be coming in. It’s insecurity dressed up as flexibility.
David Cameron said he couldn’t live on a zero-hours contract but the Tories are happy for working people to be stuck in low paid zero-hour contract jobs.
Updated
YouGov poll says Labour and Tories tied on 34%
Here are today’s YouGov polling figures.
Update: Cons & Lab tied - Latest YouGov/The Sun results 16th Apr - Con 34%, Lab 34%, LD 7%, UKIP 14%, GRN 5%; APP -15 http://t.co/twWqP3WixN
— YouGov (@YouGov) April 17, 2015
8.8m people watched at least some of the BBC debate
The average audience for last night’s BBC debate was 4.6m, according to BBC News’ head of communications, James Hardy.
Average audience for BBC Election Debate 2015 was 4.6m across all channels. #GE2015
— James Hardy (@jameshardy61) April 17, 2015
But 8.8m people - 15% of the population - watched at least some of it.
Estimated total 8.8million – 15% of population – watched at least some of the debate on BBC One, BBC News Channel and Sky News. #GE2015
— James Hardy (@jameshardy61) April 17, 2015
Updated
Cameron's speech and Q&A - Summary
Here are the main points from David Cameron’s speech and Q&A.
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Cameron said that last night’s debate illustrated the “coalition of chaos” that would be running Britain if the Conservatives did not win the election. Labour would be dependent on the SNP, he said. And he said Labour and its allies wanted to raise taxes.
The other parties, reflected in that debate last night, they all seemed to agree about one thing. There’s one cut they want to make. Because they’re going to put up taxes, they are going to reach into your pay packet and cut your pay. That would be the consequences of the coalition of chaos that we saw on the television last night.
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He refused to accept Miliband’s challenge for a head-to-head debate. Asked about this, he replied:
We’ve had 146 debates at prime minister’s questions and I think people have seen a lot of those to get the measure of us.
- He said that he did not attend last night’s debate because he was not invited. (This is technically true, but disingenuous; Cameron was not invited because he made it clear in advance that he would not attend the party debate originally planned for last night.)
- He claimed Labour would put 1m jobs at risk. (See 10.44pm.)
- He rejected ‘untrue and spurious’ claims about the Tories’ job creation record. (See 10.42am.)
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He said Britain was now “the jobs factory of Europe”. (See 10.36am.)
Updated
Cameron’s Q&A is over.
I’ll post a summary soon.
Q: If your record is so good, why aren’t you doing better in the polls?
Cameron says we need to continue with the plan. The other parties want to cut pay. That would be the consequence of the “coalition of chaos” we saw last night. There is a contrast between their call for more spending last night, and the economic success we’ve seen in today’s jobs figures.
Q: Ed Miliband is challenging you to a head-to-head debate. Will you accept that?
Cameron says he has had 146 debates with Miliband at PMQs. He says two facts stood out from the debate: Labour is facing a wipeout in Scotland; and the Lib Dems are facing a wipeout everywhere. Only a majority Conservative government can provide stability. Otherwise we will have the “calamity” of a Labour government dependent on the SNP.
Updated
Q: If your message is so strong, why did you duck the opportunity to sell it last night to the public?
Cameron says last night’s debate was a challengers’ debate. That was an idea from the broadcasters. He was not invited.
He watched some of it, he says. He says the red party, the green party, the purple party and the yellow party from Scotland, but they were all saying the same thing. We saw a hint of the “chaos” you would get from having Ed Miliband backed by the SNP. You can only stop that by having a majority Conservative government.
Updated
Cameron's Q&A
Cameron is now taking questions. He is at a Fujitsu plant, and the first is from a Fujitsu employee who says it is a human-centric company. He asks about technology. Cameron says we need to do more to explain what the “internet of things” actually means.
Updated
Cameron says Labour would put 1m jobs at risk
Labour are threatening big tax hikes on businesses. More regulation.
Undermining our economy with more borrowing and more debt.
This is the sure-fire way to destroy jobs, not create them.
And the facts bear that out.
Under the first five years of this Conservative government, unemployment has fallen by 400 people a day.
Under the last five years of Labour, unemployment went up by 600 people a day.
So if Ed Miliband repeated the economic mistakes of the last Labour government – that he was a part of – he risks a million more people joining the dole queues.
Updated
Cameron says he gets “really angry” when people say the Tories are the party of the rich.
Excuse me?
This is the party that’s taken 3 million of the lowest-paid workers out of income tax altogether.
Updated
Cameron rejects 'unture and spurious' claims about Tories' job creation record
Cameron says he wants to demolish some false claims about the new jobs being created.
The opponents of our plan are saying completely untrue and spurious things about these jobs that are being created.
They’re saying: “These jobs are mainly part-time.”
Wrong – in the last year, 80% of the rise in employment has been people working full-time.
They say they’re all zero-hours …
… they’re not, just one job in 50 is zero-hours.
They say: “All these jobs are being created in the south-east.”
Again, it’s just not true.
Over 70% of the rise in private sector employment was outside London.
And the largest increase in employment? Is it London? Is it the south-east?
No – it’s the north-west.
Then there are those who say: “Most of the new jobs are going to foreigners…”
… No – over the past year, British people have made up two-thirds of the jobs growth we have seen.
Updated
Cameron says he is publishing a jobs manifesto today.
Among its pages are the guarantee that we will keep the Employment Allowance through to 2020 ...
… freeing businesses from at least the first £2,000 of National Insurance Contributions – helping them take new people on.
Cameron says the jobs miracle goes to the core of his political beliefs.
I’m a Conservative.
I believe the most important thing is to help people achieve security in every stage of their lives, so they can get on and make something of themselves.
Cameron says we are living through “a jobs miracle”.
Here are some other things you need to know:
More women are working in our country than at any time in history.
In the past year we’ve created work here faster than in any G7 country – faster than the States, faster than Germany, faster than Japan.
And today alone, over 5,000 new jobs are being announced across the country, including 750 opportunities at Fujitsu.
We are living through a jobs miracle – brought to you by a Conservative government that has backed business, reformed welfare and rewarded work.
Updated
Cameron says UK is 'the jobs factory of Europe'
David Cameron is speaking now. He says the Conservatives are the party of working people. And today’s employment figures bear this out. Britain has created more than 2m jobs over the last five years.
We are officially the jobs factory of Europe.
Today’s figures are remarkable, he says. There are more people in work than ever before. And the claimant count is at its lowest level since 1975. He can barely remember 1975, he says.
David Cameron's speech
David Cameron is about to give a speech in the West Midlands.
There is live coverage on the BBC Parliament channel.
Farage renews his claim that studio audience for last night's debate was biased
Good morning. I’m taking over from Mark now.
Nigel Farage has been giving interviews this morning, and he has defended his decision to complain about the composition of the audience for last night’s debate. He said his protest was sparked by the hostile audience reaction to his argument that high levels of immigration were increasing pressure on the housing market, something he said would be accepted by “most rational people”.
This is not the first time I’ve seen this. The night of the byelection that Douglas Carswell won in Clacton with a landslide, there was a Ukip representative - Patrick O’Flynn - on Question Time in Clacton and the audience were deeply hostile to him ...
Sometimes these things go wrong, sometimes you get groups who apply to be on programmes who perhaps aren’t as truthful on their applications as they could be. In this case, the BBC gave the job to a polling company called ICM who are famous for getting everything about Ukip wrong and that I think was the mistake.
Am I going to make a complaint? I’ve got an election to fight. What matters isn’t the 200 people in the room, what really matters are the millions of people watching on television.
He also rejected claims he lost his temper.
I was very calm about it. I didn’t lose my rag.
Updated
Following on from last night’s supremely popular piece about the most popular Google search terms during the debate, Alberto Nardelli has been given exclusive updated data showing what people were searching by the end of the night.
- What is Trident?
- What is austerity?
- Why is David Cameron not at the debate?
- Who should I vote for?
- What is Nato?
- What is right to buy?
- Where is Natalie Bennett from?
- What does Plaid Cymru mean?
- What is a brownfield site?
- How old is Nicola Sturgeon?
Well, Googlers. Let the Guardian answer your top query right here – written by our defence and intelligence correspondent, Ewen MacAskill, no less.
What is Trident?
Trident is a sea-based nuclear weapons system based in the river Clyde in Scotland. Introduced in the 1990s, it was acquired by the Thatcher government to replace the submarine-based Polaris system, which had been in use from 1968.
The UK’s current fleet of four Trident submarines are due to retire in the late 2020s. There are three parts to Trident – the submarines, missiles and warheads – with the submarines alone taking up to 17 years to develop.
Updated
Video highlights of the BBC debate
If you still haven’t managed to catch up on the key moments from the challengers’ debate and you need to put some scenes to flesh out what you’re reading, our video team have put together a five-minute highlight package. (This is in addition to the much shorter clips of specific questions that we launched last night).
One of this blog’s commenters, Stuart Wilson, has made a strong point below the line about “rightwingaudience-gate”, that is well worth reading. I perhaps did not frame my earlier post about BuzzFeed’s audience interviews (see 8.55) with enough analytical cynicism, and I think this comment nicely sums up the electoral reality that may have led to Farage’s outburst.
Updated
Liz Truss defends Cameron’s debate no-show
I’ve just had my attention drawn to a Sunny Hundal tweet from the spin room last night, in which the Tory environment secretary is forced to defend her boss’s decision not to take part.
Audio is a little indistinct, but a reporter quips: “Do you think we saw the real David Cameron tonight?”
Truss replies: “This was the challengers’ debate, that was the whole premise of it, he wasn’t invited.”
Tory MP Liz Truss having to defend Cameron's non-show from journalists pic.twitter.com/HpTfrzC5TL
— Sunny Hundal (@sunny_hundal) April 16, 2015
Guardian poll projection has Labour three seats ahead of Tories
Here’s the latest from the Guardian’s polling (and Google search terms) guru, Alberto Nardelli:
With just 20 days to the election, the latest Guardian projection of polls has Labour on 272 seats, the Tories on 269, the SNP on 54, Lib Dems 29, Ukip four and the Greens on one.
With Miliband’s party and the Conservatives virtually tied in the polls the race for largest party is self-evidently close.
However, looking at the possible sources of support a Labour-led or a Tory-led government could count on, and the different paths Miliband and Cameron have to finding a majority, it’s clear that the Labour leader holds the better cards - and time is running out for Cameron to make up ground in the numbers game.
Updated
Farage takes questions on BBC Radio 5 Live
Nicky Campbell is moderating the discussion, with a live studio audience and callers.
I won’t be following the discussion minute by minute, but I’ll be monitoring it and will post updates on if Farage says anything interesting. He will be keen to move away from the slightly aggressive and marginal character he seemed to portray last night.
Updated
YouGov poll shows voters would prefer Lib Dems to hold balance of power
A YouGov poll for the Times out this morning will make good reading in Lib Dem HQ and reassure them that Nick Clegg’s “give Labour a brain and the Tories a heart” speech has hit the required spot.
Potential voters were asked to “imagine there is a hung parliament after the next election with neither Labour nor the Conservatives having a majority. Which of the smaller parties would you most like to see holding the balance of power?”
The results are as follows:
- Liberal Democrats - 37%
- Ukip - 26%
- Not sure - 20%
- SNP - 17%
Updated
Buzzfeed reporter Jamie Ross spoke to some of the audience members after last night’s debate, and the general view was that Nigel Farage may have had a point about the audience being packed with leftwing stooges.
Ross spoke to Inaya Shameyin, who asked one of the questions:
“It was a legitimate criticism,” she said of Farage’s outburst against the audience. “The crowd didn’t seem very balanced at all, it was so left wing.”
“As is always the case, those who shout the loudest get heard but there was a quiet group of us in there listening carefully to the arguments,” she continued. “The debate was actually a bit of a farce, there were four left wing leaders and Nigel Farage.”
“I don’t usually like UKIP at all but he was the only one who stood out and he made a completely fair point about the audience.”
Ukip MEP Patrick O’Flynn was keen to share this fact:
Interesting, even the audience at the BBC debate last night thought that the audience was skewed to the Left! http://t.co/Z2YBdS6ELt
— Patrick O'Flynn (@oflynnmep) April 17, 2015
Nigel Farage is about to take calls on Radio 5 Live. You can get involved using the info below:
Have you a question for @Nigel_Farage? The @UKIP leader takes your calls from 9am 0500 909 693 text 85058 #BBCDebate pic.twitter.com/WMv3jQcWEd
— BBC Radio 5 live (@bbc5live) April 17, 2015
Ann Treneman at the Times has explained (paywall) why the Tories chose to launch their election manifesto in Swindon. The answer? It’s a key marginal of course.
Why did the Tories launch in Swindon? My marginal(s) today http://t.co/UjN72U7jgO
— ann treneman (@anntreneman) April 17, 2015
And speaking of marginals, the Conservatives have also launched an extensive ground campaign in three East Sussex constituencies. They are defending marginals in Brighton Kemptown and Hove, and engaged in a three-way fight with the Greens and Labour in Brighton Pavilion, which gave the Green party its first House of Commons seat in 2010.
The prime minister issued an appeal in the Brighton Argus newspaper for voters to support Conservatives to “stop Labour wrecking our country again”, warning that a Labour-SNP deal would be “an alliance between the people who want to bankrupt Britain and the people who want to break up Britain - and it would be disastrous for every city, town and village in this country.”
A vote for anyone other than Conservatives could make Miliband prime minister. And the result would be clear: more taxes, more spending, more borrowing and more debt - all the things that got Britain into a mess in the first place.
Updated
Labour say BBC would be ‘delighted’ to host Miliband-Cameron debate
It seems Labour really do think the prime minister may give in and grant Ed Miliband a head-to-head debate. Either that or they just want to hammer home the message that he’s chicken. A Labour spokesperson says senior BBC sources would be “willing and delighted” to hold a debate between the two prime ministerial hopefuls. So all Cameron has to do is call …
Will the prime minister stick with the Lynton Crosby strategy of ducking a head-to-head, or will the ever so slight drift to Labour in the polls prompt a change of tack? Expect a lot more on this inside political baseball today.
Updated
Christine Lagarde praises coalition's management of the economy
The Tories and Lib Dems have received a boost this morning with some glowing praise of their handling of the UK’s economy. The Press Association has just run this story:
Ms Lagarde said the strategy pursued by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats is “clearly delivering results” when compared with the state of other European economies.
The Government demonstrated it was capable of adjusting to the economic reality and delivering spending cuts and revenue raising, in the order, proportion and pace that is right for the British economy, she said.
Recent GDP figures provided a boost to the coalition when they showed the economy grew by 2.8% over 2014, but Ms Lagarde’s intervention comes during the General Election campaign, a time of heightened political sensitivity.
Her comments come days after the IMF contradicted the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, saying the country would still face a budget deficit of 7 billion in 2020, rather than the surplus predicted by the UK body and Chancellor George Osborne.
Speaking at the IMF spring meeting in Washington DC, Ms Lagarde said: “Smart fiscal policy - what I meant by that this morning is a set of policies that are actually targeted and tailored to the state of the economy.
“And what clearly has been demonstrated in the past is that the UK authorities are capable of adjusting to the economic reality in order to provide the right balance of spending cuts, revenue raising and in the order, in the proportion and in the pace that is appropriate to the economy.
“I have no doubt that can continue to be the case in the future.
“But added to that it’s clearly also delivering results because when we look at the comparative growth rates delivered by various countries in Europe it’s obvious that what is happening in the UK has actually worked.”
At 9.15am Nicola Sturgeon is due to campaign on the NHS in her home town of Irvine, where she is likely to get a hero’s welcome after another successful TV debate. It’s worth pointing out a detail in the Survation poll for the Mirror: among Scottish viewers, Sturgeon was judged to have performed best by a massive margin of 68% to Miliband’s 17%, which bodes ill for Labour’s already thinning chances in its former heartlands.
Updated
PM says Labour-SNP pact would lead to 'more borrowing and taxes'
David Cameron may not have wanted to be in the debate last night, but he is having his say now. He has tweeted this morning to point out that Ed Miliband did not rule out a vote-by-vote deal with the SNP, which he warns would “mean more borrowing and more taxes and you would pay”.
Ed Miliband won't rule out a vote-by-vote deal with the SNP so he can be PM. It would mean more borrowing and more taxes and you would pay.
— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) April 17, 2015
Tories warn "every time Miliband wants to pass a bill he will have Nicola Sturgeon making a series of demands on him".
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) April 17, 2015
Updated
Jim Murphy, the Scottish Labour leader, is launching the party’s manifesto later this morning. The Guardian’s Scotland reporter Libby Brooks has this sneak preview of what he will be saying, including a pledge for an extra £1bn for the NHS in Scotland. She writes:
David Cameron described the prospect of Labour-SNP cooperation after the election as “a coalition of chaos” when he introduced the Scottish Conservatives’ manifesto in Glasgow on Thursday. In advance of his own manifesto launch, Murphy said that the prime minister has “turned himself into the SNP’s cheerleader in chief”.
“David Cameron is a panicking prime minister who is running away from debates, running away from his own record and running out of time,” says Murphy. “He’s pinning his hopes of staying in No 10 on the SNP, because he knows he can’t win seats in Scotland.”
While Ed Miliband on Monday sought to portray Labour as the party of fiscal responsibility, Murphy’s Scottish manifesto emphasises redistribution, with a backbone theme that “Scotland succeeds when working-class Scots succeed”.
Commitments include guarantees of a job and training for the long-term unemployed; abolishing zero-hours contracts and increasing the minimum wage to at least £8 an hour (both of which SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon matched in her conference speech last month); and establishing a £200m Mental Health Fund and a £200m Cancer Fund as part of £1bn extra investment in Scotland’s health service.
Updated
Morning briefing
Good morning, and welcome to your Friday round of the Guardian’s election live blog, which we’re running every day until polling day on 7 May – and very probably some days after that.
I’m Mark Smith and I’ll be bringing you up to speed on what’s happening today, as well as rounding up reaction to last night’s challengers’ debates (also known as the Where’s David Cameron? debate). I’ll be handing over to Andrew Sparrow later this morning. You can get in touch with us on @marksmith174 or @andrewsparrow. And we’ll be reading below the line too so please post, and post often.
The big picture
Last night’s challengers’ debate will become known as the moment that coalition flirtations broke out into the open – and in a very public forum. The Labour leader Ed Miliband rejected SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon’s offer to form a “progressive” coalition to lock the Tories out of Downing Street, in a scene slightly reminiscent of something from a high school prom.
We have profound differences. That’s why I’m not going to have a coalition with the SNP. I’m not going to put at risk the unity of the United Kingdom. It’s a no, I’m afraid.
Miliband also had some strong words for the absent prime minister:
David Cameron refused to come and debate tonight, but I have got a message for him. David, if you think this election is about leadership, then debate me one on one. I believe my ideas, my vision for the country are better for the working families of Britain. If you disagree, then prove it. Debate me and let the people decide.
Who won? For a full and measured analysis, read Andrew Sparrow’s verdict from last night’s blog. In a Survation/Mirror poll, the only snap verdict on the contest, Miliband was declared the winner with 35%; Sturgeon, 31%; the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, 27%; the Green party leader, Natalie Bennett, 5%; and Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood, 2%.
Who do you think “won” the debate? Survation for @DailyMirror pic.twitter.com/enDDIhTVwu
— Survation. (@Survation) April 16, 2015
Nigel Farage, all things considered, had a bad night – at one point even berating the BBC for compiling a lefty audience. Here’s Guardian columnist Hugh Muir’s verdict on the Ukip leader:
Within half an hour, the swagger had dissipated. His citation of immigration as root difficulty in housing and health failed to rouse the audience. He reacted by complaining that the event had been politically rigged, and was slapped down by David Dimbleby. My opponents are abusing me, he said, moments after he himself had abused the audience, and soon his contradictions seemed obvious to everyone in the vicinity. On a poor night, perhaps they were obvious to him. Still, he carried on regardless. “The real audience is sitting at home,” he said. Which was true enough. But Richard Desmond will want more for his bucks than this.
And it may be slightly naive to say so, but the most striking thing about the morning’s coverage of the challengers’ debate last night is just how brazenly partisan it is. If your reading is limited to the rightwing press, you will discover that the debate was the moment that Nicola Sturgeon had Ed Miliband for breakfast, revealing just how easily she can “drive him to the left” and uncovering the dynamic of a how a Labour-SNP coalition would work.
Friday's Times front page: Join me or you’ll pay, Sturgeon tells Labour #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers #BBCDebate pic.twitter.com/U1lIQYl8Ed
— Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) April 16, 2015
A near-demonic-looking Sturgeon is on the front page of the Telegraph and the Times, which will satisfy Craig Oliver and the rest of the No 10 press operation as it means their plan of holding their man back worked. But only up to a point, as Ed Miliband seems to be gaining strength and authority – he even joked around with the audience – with every TV appearance.
Speaking of the spin operation, if you only read one thing this morning, read Marina Hyde’s evisceration of last night’s spin room. It puts all this morning’s headlines in some perspective.
Today’s diary
- 8.10am: Margaret Curran, for Labour, and Marco Biagi, for the SNP, are on Radio 4’s Today programme
- 9am: Ukip leader Nigel Farage is taking part in a live phone-in on BBC Radio 5 Live
- 10.20am: David Cameron is making a business speech in the West Midlands
- 11am: Jim Murphy launches the Scottish Labour manifesto in Glasgow
- 11am: Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood is campaigning in Rhondda Cynon Taff
- 11.30am: Nick Clegg campaigns for the Lib Dems in Alex Salmond’s backyard, Aberdeenshire
- 2.40pm: Welsh Conservatives manifesto launch in Mid Wales
Your Friday reading list
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Philip Stephens has written an extremely measured piece in the FT on the five lessons that have emerged from the campaign so far. As well as stating “relatively speaking, Mr Miliband has had the better of the contest”, Stephens says that Labour and the Tories are “hopelessly unprepared” for the challenge of holding together a splintering UK.
Voters elsewhere may be equivocal, but the Scots have made up their minds. Having lost the independence referendum, the Scottish National party is on course for a stunning victory on May 7, largely at the expense of Labour. The SNP could well displace the Liberal Democrats as the third largest party at Westminster.
The last time an overtly separatist party won a majority of seats in one of the nations of the union was 1918, when Sinn Féin grabbed two-thirds of those in Ireland. The rest, as they say, was uncomfortable history. Hopefully, Britain has moved beyond civil wars, but the strains on the union are no less real.
What will be demanded of a new government is a constitutional settlement that at once meets Scottish aspirations for home rule, protects the essential fabric of the union and is fair to the other nations of the UK. Messrs Cameron and Miliband have been all but silent.
- There’s a whiff of sexism from Dan Hodges in the Telegraph, who says that Ed Miliband was forced onto the ropes by Nicola Sturgeon’s “mothering”:
[Miliband] was also undone by the careful co-ordination of Nicola Sturgeon and Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood. They subjected him to what can best be described as “tough love”. One of them would deliver a well-aimed dig to the Labour leader’s solar plexus. Miliband would try to fight back, only to find their colleague placing a comforting – but restraining – arm across his shoulders. “Join us”, Leanne Wood soothed, holding out the enticing prospect of an anti-Tory alliance.
Sturgeon also had another, deadly tactic, for dealing wih Ed Miliband. It was to mother him. The Tory attacks on him had been a disgrace. Poor Ed wasn’t strong enough to get rid of the Conservatives on his own. But together, with her love and care, they could run the Tories from office. Together, Ed and Nicola could make a difference. Ed was having none of it. “We’re very different”, he said brusquely.
- Lib Dem Stephen Tall argues on TotalPolitics that his party are now pinned into the political centre-ground by the reality of coalition politics – whether they like it or not:
For some activists, the Lib Dems’ policy flexibility is a betrayal. What is the point, they ask, of a liberal party which dilutes its liberalism for the sake of power? Which would be fair enough comment but for the inverted question it begs: what is the point of a party which cleaves to pure liberalism at the cost of ever exercising any power?
… The inescapable reality is that, for the forseeable future, there is only one way the Lib Dems will be able to put their policies into practice: in partnership with either the left-leaning Labour party, or the right-leaning Conservatives. We are pinned in the liberal centre whether we like it or not. A radical manifesto -- full of civil liberties and political reform and Trident cancellation -- may sound nice in theory, but that’s all it would ever be.
If today were a song …
… it would be 500 Miles, by the Proclaimers.
Nicola Sturgeon is prepared to walk somewhat less than 500 miles to help put Ed Miliband in Downing Street – but is he prepared to meet her half way?
Non-election news story of the moment
Stop making that trip to Pret or Nero, some shop-bought sandwiches are more calorific than burgers, apparently.
Updated
All this talk about the audience being skewed last night is ridiculous: Todays YouGov poll shows that at least 80% (probably more including Others/Undecided) support parties to the left of UKIP.
UKIP is, as ever, stuck in a fantasy land where the UK public is as xenophobic, intolerant, lacking in compassion, insular and narrow-minded as UKIP themselves. The happy truth is that support for UKIP's policies and way of thinking is, if anything, sliding back towards insignificance.
Of course, the fact that they enjoyed (and, for now, continue to enjoy) a certain level of 'popularity' points to both an underlying unease within the electorate about issues such as overseas aid, immigration etc., but mostly an indifference to what Lab/Con/Lib have to offer. That people have tended towards UKIP rather than the left is, I hope, a result of the economic woes of the last seven years rather than a more worrying long-term trend towards right-wing politics (by which I mean, to the right of compassionate conservatism - let's not throw out the baby with the bath water).