The big picture
Consider today one very long warm-up session for tonight’s debates (more on that further down this briefing).
Elsewhere, the row over the Telegraph letter from 100 business leaders rumbles on:
One story, two angles #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/mcpl3DXAJY
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) April 1, 2015
For that Labour letter, and its supporters, see here. The Telegraph’s latest salvo is here.
Should you want to know more about these 100 Telegraph signatories – whether any of them have had issues with tax avoidance, say, or given sizeable sums to the Conservatives – do take a look at our full guide here.
Other things to note:
- David Cameron, in an Easter message, has confessed he is “hardly a model church-going, God-fearing Christian” but vows he is not “devoid of morality”.
- Labour says a further 1,000 SureStart children’s centres could close under a future Tory government.
- Nick Clegg has scoffed at suggestions – predicted in polling by Lord Ashcroft – that he is on course to lose his own seat in Sheffield Hallam.
- And the day’s big news: Boris Johnson has joined Twitter. This isn’t the official @MayorofLondon account, but a personal one, which he might even compose himself:
Good evening Twittersphere. This is Boris, communicating to you live and direct. Watch this space for my updates from the campaign trail...
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) April 1, 2015
Nadia Khomami’s roundup of Wednesday’s main action is here.
And here’s a look at how the parties stand before tonight’s showdown:
Diary
- At 8.10am, Nigel Farage is interviewed on the Today programme.
- At 9am Nick Clegg hosts his regular LBC Call Clegg phone-in, and the Lib Dem battlebus roars up to Cheadle.
- At noon, Nicola Sturgeon faces first minister’s questions at Holyrood.
- This afternoon, on a visit to Yorkshire, George Osborne will make a speech to accuse Ed Balls of putting growth in the north at risk by “tearing up” plans for HS2.
- At 3pm the Green party leader, Natalie Bennett, meets supporters in Manchester.
- From 8pm to 10pm, it’s the leaders’ debate on ITV, live from studios in Salford and chaired by ITV News’s Julie Etchingham.
- Straight after the debate, there will be four separate snap polls, including one by ICM for the Guardian. We’ll have them on the live blog, naturally.
- Gordon Brown is also making a speech tonight, in Kirkcaldy, where he’s expected to say that SNP policies would “break the hearts of the poor”.
The big issue
It’s the TV debate. And obviously the TV debate is just a TV debate. It’s 7 May that counts blah etc. But it would be hard to argue that how the seven party leaders (my colleague Rowena Mason has profiled them all here) perform tonight will have no bearing on how they’re viewed by voters – and by the media – in the coming days and weeks. It is the only time that the prime minister will go head-to-head with any of his opponents.
So, what to expect?
A Times poll of viewers says David Cameron is likely to win the debate; Nigel Farage is also predictably expected to come out of it well. But striking is the climb in expectations for Ed Miliband since last week’s encounter with Jeremy Paxman:
On Wednesday, Samantha Cameron exclusively revealed that her husband “doesn’t seem too nervous”. His tactic, we learn, will be to step back, let the others dive into a cacophony and give a shrug to the viewers: see, this is what happens when you don’t vote for a majority Tory government.
Farage, on the other hand, had his “I’m too cool to revise; I’m just going to wing it” schoolboy pose dented by his Ukip colleague Patrick O’Flynn, who told reporters the party leader was preparing in a “rigorous” way by studying briefing documents and figures.
Ed Miliband – typically written off as too awkward for media showiness – is certainly becoming more polished. My colleague Andrew Sparrow was impressed by his speech on Wednesday. It looks as if Operation Let Ed be Ed is taking off: witness his interview with Absolute Radio’s Geoff Lloyd, below. Some lighthearted questions, sure, but convincingly free of the crib-sheeted popular culture references that often dot these encounters. For example:
I definitely don’t have time to have an opinion on Top Gear … you should talk about what you know about.
(What he knows about turns out to be baseball, Manic Miner, Geoffrey Boycott – plus there’s some policy thrown in, too. Well worth a watch if you have 15 minutes spare.)
Nick Clegg probably isn’t feeling too rusty: it might be a long time since “I agree with Nick”, but he had a runout/runin with Farage last year ahead of the European elections, and despite losing (the TV polls and the election itself), insisted he was “delighted” to have taken part: “I don’t feel bruised at all.”
The London-based party leaders ought to be worrying about Nicola Sturgeon (though don’t expect many “I agree with Nicks” from her). The Scottish first minister isn’t standing for Westminster, of course – nor is another of tonight’s participants, Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood – but Sturgeon’s SNP party will be central to arguments this evening. Presumably, Cameron and Miliband will have to tone down references to Alex Salmond in the presence of the actual party leader, but who knows?
We’re told Sturgeon is set to attack Cameron on his government’s record on welfare. Let’s hope the prime minister has come up with a better answer on food banks than he produced last week.
Green leader Natalie Bennett will speak first, a rare chance to dangle her party’s key pledges in front of several million viewers. Cameron gets to wrap up the debate. And in between we see them answer four questions. Immigration, economy and the NHS feel like good bets to me. I’m hoping the last isn’t an “and finally” funny. I can’t imagine any of us will be in the mood by that point.
Read these
- It’s a topic unlikely to come up in tonight’s debate, but Michael Gove is writing in the Spectator “in defence of Christianity”:
One of the saddest moments during my time as education secretary was the day I took a call from a wonderfully generous philanthropist who had devoted limitless time and money to helping educate disadvantaged children in some of the most challenging areas of Britain but who now felt he had no option but to step away from his commitments because his evangelical Christianity meant that he, and his generosity, were under constant attack.
- In the Guardian, Suzanne Moore is in Thanet, Farage’s target seat:
What is clear is that Farage needs Thanet more than Thanet needs him. Many locals are incensed at the publicity surrounding him, as it paints their part of the country as inherently small-minded and racist. It’s all a lot more complicated than that … Their feeling of abandonment is not conjured out of thin air, and it is no good to just say their emotions are imaginary.
-
Jenni Russell, in the Times (paywall), says the TV encounters show that David Cameron is not used to being challenged on detail:
He is surrounded by people whose job is to say yes to whatever he wants. He couldn’t take decisions and keep to his policies if he had to argue their merits at every count … A Lib Dem says that the constant opposition Cameron has faced from his coalition partners doesn’t give him the insights that arguing with a trusted insider might do. ‘He doesn’t budge in what he thinks even if he has to give way – he just gets irritable.’ Cameron sees their opposition as a problem to be handled, not as an occasion to stand in another’s shoes.
- Stephen Bush, in the New Statesman, wonders who else among the Lib Dem top team could be threatened with redundancy come 8 May:
Forget being unable to negotiate a second coalition with the Conservatives – assembling a team capable of negotiating and selling any deal with anyone to the rest of the party may be a bridge too far for whatever remains of the Liberal Democrats.
The day in a tweet
A reminder for those who haven’t committed it all to memory:
The order of speaking in the leaders debate #GE2015 (source: http://t.co/MA4oGWThUY) pic.twitter.com/DqHyDzRJnK
— george arnett (@grbarnett) March 31, 2015
If today were a song, it would be…
Continuing the Harry Nilsson theme commendably started in Wednesday’s live blog: Everybody’s Talkin. Probably all at the same time.
The key story you’re missing when you’re election-obsessed
A UN report says the number of foreign fighters joining Isis and other terrorist groups has reached more than 25,000 from more than 100 countries.
