The main story: Labour-SNP ‘threat’
An election campaign needs a core message and this week the Conservatives finally settled on theirs; not the long-term economic plan, or Ed Miliband’s supposed inadequacies, but fear of the Scottish National party. Conservative campaign headquarters kept pumping out ever-louder warnings about the implications of having a minority Labour government dependent on Scottish nationalists, in the belief this is one scare that is having an impact on certain floating voters. David Cameron, a Game of Thrones fan, was at times so alarmist about the SNP he could have been talking about the barbaric, north-of-the-wall Wildlings. But the parallels are not exact. The Wildlings come south to murder and pillage; Cameron’s case against the northern Britons is they would come south to vote against dualling the Cornish A30.
The secret (Tory) weapon: Major-Johnson duet
To ram the message home, the Conservatives wheeled out two big names, Boris Johnson and Sir John Major, who, unlike Cameron, have the advantage of having won elections. Johnson denounced the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon as both King Herod and Lady Macbeth on Monday, before staging a photocall with Cameron two days later (his own regicidal instincts being temporarily on hold). Major said a Labour-SNP deal would ultimately imperil the union, as the SNP exploited grievances, but did not explain how this was any less likely under a Tory government at Westminster.
The ticking off: from the IFS
The SNP launched its manifesto on Monday in a vast climbing centre in Edinburgh, but it suffered a setback when the Institute for Fiscal Studies declared that its anti-austerity claims were bogus and that the amount of Scotland’s block grant would actually fall under its plans, but not under those of Labour or the Lib Dems. The IFS criticised Labour and the Tories for not giving enough details about their plans, but the Lib Dems boasted about receiving a “tick” from the institute for their relative transparency. Given their poll ratings, that may be one of the few pencil marks anyone puts in the Lib Dem box.
The secret (Labour) weapon: milimania
Labour’s NHS announcements were overshadowed by the Conservatives’ Scot-scaremongering, but Ed Miliband had a relatively good week. In fact, he found his fan base expanding into very unexpected areas. Teenage girls discovered “milimania”, he was mobbed by a hen party and – most remarkable of all – he received a generous compliment from Peter Mandelson. “He’s exceeded most people’s expectations, I suppose in a sense, mine as well,” the high priest of Blairism declared.
The best punch line …
For Cameron, the week was rather less comfortable. He had an awkward interview with a Radio 1 Newsbeat audience, during which he could not say what the living wage was, and he faced questions about his commitment. “Spoke to major Tory donor tonight. ‘Tory campaign useless. Cameron’s heart not in it’,” the BBC’s Andrew Neil tweeted. But at least the prime minister showed he could manage a joke. After an interview on ITV’s This Morning, Cameron was still on the sofa when Phillip Schofield introduced the next item, about “a man who can pinch your watch without you noticing”. “Who’s that?” Cameron asked. “Alex Salmond?” It was the best line from the show.
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