The big issue: non-doms
It is unwise for a party to save up too much new policy for the election period, but a proper campaign does need something fresh and this week the most dramatic offering came from Labour, which announced on Wednesday that it would abolish non-dom status – or effectively abolish it, because there would be exemptions for visitors staying up to about three years. The revenue implications are uncertain, but the electoral politics are clear. Polls showed huge support, and the Conservatives were genuinely befuddled, effectively arguing that it was both a terrible idea, and something that they were doing in practice anyway. That’s never an effective rebuttal.
The mood music turned nasty
Labour’s hit may explain why, in an article in the Times on Wednesday night, Michael Fallon, the Conservative defence secretary, rather dramatically changed the subject with the week’s most lurid allegation. We learnt earlier that non-dom status can be inherited, but only through one’s father. Fallon seems to think that similar primogeniture rules apply to the Labour party leadership, and that Ed Miliband’s decision to challenge his elder brother for the job meant he was so duplicitous that he would “stab the UK in the back” by compromising with the SNP over Trident. Fallon was widely derided, not just from the left, but he halted the chatter about non-doms.
Policy point: Trident
Miliband insisted Trident was a non-issue because it’s one subject on which Labour and the Tories broadly agree. For a controversial foreign policy intervention, we had to rely on Tony Blair, who gave a speech on Tuesday saying that it was Conservative plans to hold an EU referendum, not Labour economic policies, that would trigger chaos. In a campaign bereft of quality speeches, this was a highlight. He even managed to sound genuinely enthusiastic about Miliband.
What do the polls say?
Overall the polls have been nudging up for Labour, but Scotland remains a probable disaster zone. Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister may, however, have given Labour an opening. There were two leaders debates in Scotland, and in the second she said SNP MPs would vote for full fiscal autonomy – or FFA, in devospeak – as soon as possible. By Friday Miliband and Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, were in Edinburgh delivering apocalyptic warnings endorsed by the Institute of Fiscal Studies about the £7.6bn black hole this would leave in Scotland’s budget.
The leaders went ape
It wasn’t all mud-slinging and austerity maths. Ukip’s Nigel Farage has been in the pub, of course, although he also made the news by not going to a pub one afternoon and so disappointing supporters who were expecting him. Nick Clegg took reporters on a Go Ape high-wire adventure playground. Cameron visited the Belfast set of his favourite TV show, Game of Thrones, and then he took his wife Samantha to Cornwall, saying she wanted to see where they filmed Poldark. Miliband’s wife Justine has given an interview saying that, when they first met, she found him hard going because he just wanted to talk about economics. Until recently that was also the experience of a large chunk of the British electorate, although recent polling shows Milibands’ ratings are definitely on the up.
Verdict on the week: we haven’t even started yet
For many people this is still an election campaign that has not quite yet taken off yet, and in this respect it was left to young Lucy Haworth to speak for the nation. Dragged into school for a holiday club and asked to read with the prime minister, she had what Twitter would call a “head/desk” moment. Some accounts suggest it was just shyness, but it is preferable to believe that she had just had enough.
