The big picture
I’m going literal today, with an actual picture. But what a gift for political headline writers and omen-spotters. Will Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP be facing a similar balancing act on 8 May?
The pearl-clutching of the Westminster parties around the issue of the SNP – Theresa May’s melodramatic warning that a Labour/SNP deal would be the worst constitutional crisis since the abdication ensured she had a weekend of ridicule – has been tackled by Nigel Dodds, leader of the Democratic Unionists in Westminster, who says the Conservatives risk losing the support of his party over its attitude to Scotland, as well as its promotion of English votes on English issues. Writing in the Guardian, Dodds says:
Take the ‘right’ of SNP MPs to vote in the Commons, or the supposed lack of legitimacy that stems from it. No one who purports to be a unionist can question it. They have the right.
That’s why we fought and won the referendum: to enshrine the rights of Scots to go on sending representatives, fully equal to every other, to Westminster. Glib and lazy talk about SNP MPs somehow not being as entitled to vote in every division in the Commons as any other British MP simply fuels nationalist paranoia.
But David Cameron was generally thought to have had a decent day yesterday, injecting some passion into a campaign to which many thought he had so far failed to rise. Even my colleague Andrew Sparrow thought Sunday’s appearance “one of the best stump speeches I’ve seen him deliver”, and he doesn’t dish those out lightly.
In a speech in Yeovil, Cameron told supporters:
If you want political excitement, go to Greece. If you want more showbiz in this election, go to Hollywood.
Here and now in the UK I’m focused on something real. A stronger economy – something that excites millions more: more jobs, more homes, more business, more childcare, more security in retirement.
Perhaps he was roused by a tweet from Rupert Murdoch – who might not be a voter in the election, but certainly has an opinion or two – that a Miliband win would signal the end of Cameron’s leadership of his party.
UK. Failure to win majority against either Brown in crisis or Miliband would mean chop for Cameron. Open talk today in party and press.
— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) April 26, 2015
Ed Miliband came in for some flak after saying Labour would peg private rent rises to the rate of inflation, but will stick to the housing theme today with a speech on stamp duty – more on that below. But Miliband did another of his confounding-the-critics tricks on Sunday, with a spirited take-down of London mayor, would-be MP and potential Cameron replacement Boris Johnson on the BBC’s Marr show.
Miliband was forced, once again, to confirm he would be distancing his party from any cosy terms with the SNP after 7 May, this time ruling out a “confidence and supply” deal. Which bring us full circle – back to the SNP and its balancing role in the post-election landscape:
Our model takes in all published constituency-level polls, UK-wide polls and polling conducted in the nations, and projects the result in each of the 650 Westminster constituencies using an adjusted average.
Diary
Two big speeches today as Labour pushes its housing policies and the Tories hammer home their message on the economy:
- 10am: David Cameron makes a speech in central London.
- 11am” Ed Miliband makes a speech on housing in Stockport.
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Nick Clegg is off to Dorset and Hampshire on his Lib Dem battle bus.
- At 8.20am: Nicola Sturgeon is interviewed on the Today programme, before campaigning in Kilmarnock.
- At 10.45am Ed Balls and Jim Murphy are making speeches in Glasgow.
- Green party leader Natalie Bennett is on BBC Breakfast and later announces her own rent cap policy in London, at noon.
- And Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood appears on ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
The big issue
Labour is stomping into Tory territory today, brandishing its ideas as the party for the property-owning classes. In what my colleague Nicholas Watt calls
one of the boldest policy announcements of the election campaign, designed to steal David Cameron’s thunder
Miliband will today say that Labour would abolish stamp duty for all first-time buyers purchasing homes worth up to £300,000, as well as a new initiative that would ensure first-time buyers had first dibs on up to half of the homes being built in their area. The stamp duty tax break could be worth up to £5,000, the party says.
Housing could be a key issue for many voters. Conservative efforts to grab the reins with an extension of right-to-buy to housing association tenants met with widespread opposition, with theInstitute of Fiscal Studies saying it could lead to “a further depletion of the social housing stock”.
Having knocked Labour’s weekend proposals for rent caps, however, the Tories will no doubt be focusing on credibility again today, with a new Cameron speech on the economy (likely theme: keep on keeping on) and a fresh letter in the Telegraph, this time from 5,000 small business owners saying life is better with the Conservatives:
We run small businesses right across the country. We work hard, make sacrifices and invest our own money to help our businesses grow and succeed. It was tough during the recession, but we kept going.
This Conservative-led government has been genuinely committed to making sure Britain is open for business. They’ve managed to get the economy moving again by tackling the deficit, helping to keep interest rates low and inflation down.
We’ve been helped by their steps to lower taxes, reduce red tape, simplify employment law and get the banks lending. The good news is that businesses like ours have helped to create 1,000 jobs a day since 2010.
We would like to see David Cameron and George Osborne given the chance to finish what they have started. A change now would be far too risky and would undo all the good work of the last five years.
You can see the full list of signatories here. You’ll forgive me for not having compiled a dossier on them all for the dawn of this live blog (though do point out any interesting signatories below the line). But last time the Telegraph obligingly hosted such a letter – from 100 business chiefs – my Guardian colleagues discovered a large number were party donors (along with a few tax avoiders).
Read these
- In the Telegraph, Boris Johnson draws parallels between Miliband’s Labour and communist Vietnam and says rent controls are worse than napalm. (Just imagine the hyperbolic heights we will reach in election week itself.)
- In the Times, Libby Purves laments this “overlong election campaign” and wonders what issues really matter to voters:
The immorality of homes becoming sterile investments takes us straight to the other big fault line: rising inequality and stalled social mobility. The two are linked, because if you must cling precariously to the home base you have — rented or mortgaged, council or private — it reduces your ability to move, change, re-educate yourself and leave a dead-end job and rock the financial boat with a small enterprise.
- In the Scotsman, David Torrance explores Miliband’s hardening attitude towards the SNP, saying a better than expected campaign has boosted Labour confidence.
- And in the Guardian, Matthew D’Ancona writes that victory for Cameron is within reach:
Cameron is right to hold his nerve. He does not need every single beneficiary of the recovery to vote for him. He just requires a sufficiency of pencils to hover for long enough in the polling booth, as voters decide, at the only moment that matters, that this is no time for a change.
Why panic when such an outcome remains possible – plausible, even?
The day in a tweet
As if we weren’t exhausted enough:
If today were a romcom, it would be…
How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days. Though Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw gave it one star, so you’ve been warned.
The key story you’re missing when you’re election-obsessed
Rescue efforts continue in Nepal, where the death toll has exceeded 3,200 after the weekend’s devastating earthquake.
