Whisper it quietly … but the election disappears from some front pages today, with the Guardian, Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror notable exceptions.
The Guardian leads with allegations that Tory party co-chairman Grant Shapps, “or someone acting on his behalf” edited his own Wikipedia page along with the entries of Tory rivals and political opponents.
The Daily Mirror also splashes with the Shapps allegations, the Tory chairman “accused of secretly editing Wikipedia to damage Cabinet rivals”. Its leader concludes:
There is no bigger joke in British politics than Grant Shapps.
The Daily Mail features a spread on Shapps, describing the claims as “extraordinary”.
On its front page, the Mail swivels its guns away from Scottish National party leader Nichola Sturgeon to retrain its sights on Labour leader Ed Miliband.
“Union’s sinister hold over Miliband,” says the splash. “More than half of Labour candidates in winnable seats are sponsored by just one hard-left trade union,” it tells readers, with a page-long profile of Unite’s Len McCluskey, “the bully with his boot on Red Ed’s throat”.
But the Mail has not entirely left Sturgeon behind. Far from it, with a double page spread picking up on former PM John Major’s speech with a double page spread headlined: “Ruthless Sturgeon wants to make merry hell says Major.”
Major’s speech gets plenty of coverage, with a Times leader declaring: “Sir John Major’s warnings about the influence of an SNP-dependent government are well founded and voters would be unwise to dismiss them.”
John Crace, in his Guardian sketch, said Major was “one of the few politicians who can make anger sound like very mild disappointment”.
The Daily Telegraph goes red. Not as shocking as it might sound, devoting a quarter of its front page to a picture of Nigella Lawson (who is wearing red and is back on BBC2).
Back to the election, a single column front page story in the Telegraph says David Cameron has warned people considering backing Ukip that they “have the power” to stop a “toxic tie-up” between Ed Milband and the SNP by voting Tory.
It was a theme picked up by the Sun, which said a third of Ukip voters might heed Cameron’s warning and switch to the Tories because theya re “so fearful of Ed Miliband sharing power with Nicola Sturgeon”. Will it be the Bluekippers wot won it for Cameron?
The most arresting election image of the day is Boris Johnson, the Tories’ “not so secret election weapon” according to the Guardian who is pictured, Churchill-style, at a wartime operations room in Uxbridge.
Johnson, out and about campaigning in Ramsgate, in Kent , was a sight that “may chill as many as it cheers” said the paper.
The Telegraph, which devoted only four paragraphs to the Shapps allegations, was cheered not chilled, telling readers: “Lipstick on his cheek, Boris takes election appeal into the heart of Farage country.”
Boris also makes it big in the Sun, mocked up as a comedy prize fighter alongside Unite leader Len McCluskey, as the “Tories and Labour unleash big beasts”.
“The Boris bandwagon rolled into Ramsgate yesterday - and even managed to get Ukip councillors on board,” said the paper’s commentary.
The Independent’s Andrew Grice, in an interview with Miliband, reveals the Labour leader’s worst moment of the campaign to date. The “dog lady” on the Wirral who asked him to hold her dog. Miliband politely refused. “We decided that holding the dog was a piece of spontaneity too far,” he tells the paper.
Miliband also said that Rupert Murdoch had ordered The Sun to step up attacks on Labour because he was “worried” they would win.
