The big picture
So, this time next week we’ll know who the country has elected to lead its government – won’t we? Last night’s BBC event was the last chance for the main party leaders to make their pitch to voters from a prime-time stage, and – as with many of these TV set-pieces – there was no knockout blow. But there were some clear trends and talking points.
This prompted the SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, at a later Q&A broadcast only in Scotland, to say:
I heard Ed Miliband and he sounded awfully like he was saying – and I hope I’m wrong about this because I think people across Scotland and the rest of the UK would be appalled if I’m right, he sounded as if he was saying that he would rather see David Cameron and the Conservatives back in government than actually work with the SNP.
Now, if he means that then I don’t think people in Scotland will ever forgive Labour for allowing the Conservatives back into office. But if he is a minority government, then he will not be able to get policies through without winning support from other parties.
As Jonathan Freedland points out in his sharp analysis of how the three leaders fared, perhaps Miliband’s true achilles heel in this election is not the SNP, but his failure to debunk the narrative that Labour’s profligacy was the reason for the “no money left” note.
The most lethal missile of the night came from the man who asked whether Miliband would admit that the last Labour government had overspent. When the Labour leader said no, a lowing sound could be heard, the noise of an audience uniting in sceptical rejection of the man before them – a reminder that one of Miliband’s greatest errors since 2010 was his failure to debunk the narrative that blames Labour profligacy for the country’s fiscal troubles.
David Cameron was firmly in Passionate Pumped-Up Cameron mode. He probably did not win anyone over, but he sounded more engaged than he has of late, and he held up well under tough questioning. As Gaby Hinsliff wrote in her snap verdict on the PM:
For Tory waverers-to-Ukip, there was a renewed vow to make a referendum on Europe a red line, effectively ruling out another Liberal Democrat coalition (though since most of those Lib Dems likely to survive are if anything even less keen, that’s perhaps not as significant as it once was). And it felt as if the heat is going out of immigration a little; Question Time audiences are usually obsessed with it but newer anxieties are perhaps crowding it out.
But they don’t trust him. In fairness, many voters probably don’t trust any of them. And yet the wariness, the unwillingness to give him the benefit of the doubt as many did in 2010, is palpable and should worry Tory HQ as it heads down the final straight.
In other news overnight:
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A snap ICM poll for the Guardian found that David Cameron was judged to have performed best in the debate, with 44% of people saying Cameron won, 38% Miliband, and Clegg on 19%.
- In a later Ask Farage programme on the BBC, the Ukip leader Nigel Farage said the rise of SNP shows Ukip could thrive even if Britain voted to stay in EU.
- In a fairly anodyne STV Q&A, Nicola Sturgeon was pressed heavily on the prospects of holding a second independence referendum in Scotland in the next 10 years, which she refused to rule out.
- Ed Miliband was seen to stumble off the stage slightly, which became a thing on Twitter and a gift for the rightwing press’s metaphor-mongers …
The big winner
After weeks of griping about the alleged bias of the BBC’s political audiences – from all parties, but especially from Nigel Farage – there was near-unanimous praise for last night’s Question Time audience in Leeds.
Today’s diary
- 7.10am: Labour’s Douglas Alexander is on the Today programme
- 8.10am: Ukip’s Nigel Farage is Today’s main interviewee
- 10am: David Cameron hosts a PM Direct event in west Yorkshire
- 10am: Nick Clegg visits the Manchester Withington constituency
- 11am: Scottish Labour leader, Jim Murphy, talks to car showroom workers in Paisley
- 11am: Willie Rennie, the Scottish Lib Dem leader, visits a mental health pet therapy centre in Edinburgh
- 12noon: Ed Miliband and Rachel Reeves host a Labour speech and Q&A
- 1pm onwards: Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, tours the Borders, speaking in Melrose and Galashiels
- 1.30pm: Clegg is in Solihull
- 3.30pm: The Greens launch their LGBTIQ-manifesto
- Various times: Nicola Sturgeon tours Scotland in her liveried SNP helicopter, visiting towns in key seats such as Musselburgh, Dundee and St Andrews
- Early evening: Ed Miliband speech in Glasgow rounding up his May Day campaign tour of the UK
Your reading list
Philip Collins in the Times says a Miliband government without popular consensus will face a backlash (£).
The question of legitimacy will linger after this election. A prime minister will take office on a low share of a low turnout. A Tory-led coalition will lack legitimacy in Scotland but will at least have the argument that it is lef by the party that won most seats and votes. A Labour-led coalition will lack legitimacy in England and, if it is governing from a clear second-place, it might be better to seek a second election than to first walk into power and then into oblivion.
Matthew Engel in the FT says the night was “a massacre” for all the party leaders (£), thanks to the plain-spoken Yorkshire spirit of the audience:
Someone decided this event would take place in Leeds, largest city in Yorkshire, where things work differently. You never have to ask Yorkshire people their opinion because they will give it you soon enough. And, ba gum, they gave it to the party leaders. Supposedly the audience was divided into four equal groups of voters: Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem and others. But it was 100 per cent Yorkie, and it showed.
Cameron now has the answer off smooth to all the hard questions. Food banks hold no terror for him any more. And when he is prepped, pumped up and ready to go he is the best there is among the current crop of politicians. He doesn’t deploy humour or change of mood and change of pace in the way that Tony Blair could. But it was impressive. Not only were his answers practised, polished and still seeming fresh, but many of them were more persuasive than anyone in the audience expected.
If today were a song …
… it would be Catatonia’s I am the Mob – in honour of the rottweiler-like Question Time audience in Leeds.
Don’t try and tell me it’s not one for the money / Two for the money / Three for the money … Come on.
But which party leader will end up sleeping with the fishes?
