Gordon is Leaving the Building

YESTERDAY
Labour wheels out an Elvis impersonator as its "big celebrity" endorsement", who, as Gordon Brown arrives at the event sings "When no one else can understand me, when everything I do is wrong".

TODAY
Labour demands broadcasters concentrate on policy discussion.

You couldn't make it up.

Their campaign really has become the biggest joke in modern electoral history. They're making Michael Foot's 1983 campaign look professional. Indeed, if Mark Pack is to be believed (and sometimes he is!), Labour is heading for a result worse tham Foot achieved.

Brown's Latest Brownie

In a campaign speech just now, Gordon Brown called the Disability Discrimination Act as "one of my greatest achievements".

FACT: The Disability Discrimination Act was brought in by William Hague during the Major Government. It was amended and updated in 2005, but the original achievement was under a Conservative government. What a shame Brown failed to acknowledge the Act's creator.

So, Brown tells another Brownie. Perhaps at some stage he might like to acknowledge his mistake. Fat chance.

This remark was made, I gather, during yet another Brown speech to a small group of Labour activists. Does he actually ever meet ordinary voters? Meanwhile, David Cameron was speaking to an open audience in the North East. The contrast is stark.

Harman Will Get Way With Massive Gaffe

One thing I forgot to mention in the earlier post about Harriet Harman's interview with Stephen Nolan is that she guaranteed that over the lifetime of a Parliament no public sector worker would get a pay cut. To me this is the biggest gaffe of the election campaign so far. She has no power to do that, it wasn't in the Labour Party manifesto and Alistair Darling will be absolutely fizzing with fury.

Will the Conservatives take Harman to task over this? Probably not, because they know that they will then be accused of wanting to cut public sector pay themselves.

So Harman will get away with it.

Coalition Talk Increases

It's coaltion time in all the Sunday papers, who all seem to assume that a hung parliament is now almost inevitable. I have to say I don't. But there are three developments which deserve comment.

In the Sunday Times, Nick Clegg makes clear he would not prop up Gordon Brown if Labour got a low vote share but still got the most seats...

The Liberal Democrat leader is ready to tear up the rulebook and oust the prime minister if there is no decisive result on May 6. In a Sunday Times interview he warned that Brown’s position would be untenable if Labour got a low share of the popular vote but still ended up as the biggest party in the Commons.

“I think it’s a complete nonsense. I mean, how on earth? You can’t have Gordon Brown squatting in No 10 just because of the irrational idiosyncrasies of our electoral system,” Clegg said.

So far so good. He then says this...

The Lib Dem leader revealed that he would support the Tories if they won the largest number of seats and largest share of the votes. This would defy the constitutional convention which would give Brown first call on attempting to form a government.

“I tie my hands in the following sense: that the party that has more votes and seats, but doesn’t get an absolute majority — I support them,” Clegg said.

That seems to me to be a reasonable position. But would that extend to actually forming a coalition? According to Paddy Ashdown, no. In The People, he says that Clegg would not go into a coalition with the Conservatives. "It wouldn't work." This is interesting because Ashdown has been craeful to stay in the background in recent years and hasn't been very active in LibDem politics. It's a warning shot to Clegg.

But I wonder if the LibDems are in danger of overreaching themselves. This paragraph in the Sunday Times article stuck out like a sore thumb to me...

Senior Lib Dem sources have revealed that if the party secures a high share of the vote in the election, it will demand equal status in any coalition. Regardless of the number of seats it wins, it will open negotiations with a demand for half the seats in cabinet. “If more and more people support the Liberal Democrats, clearly that gives us a really powerful legitimacy to push for the things we want,” Clegg said.

Really? Clegg will have to deal with the parliamentary system we have, not the one he might like. I can see no way that Cameron would concede half the seats in a Cabinet to a party which might have only a fifth of the number of seats the Conservatives would have.

If there is not an overall Tory majority, the most likely outcome seems to be that Cameron would have to govern as a minority administration.

Senior Tory insiders say that if Cameron is in a strong position in a hung parliament on May 7, he will ask Clegg to support him on a “confidence and supply” basis — meaning the Lib Dems would back his Queen’s speech and support him in votes of confidence, but retain their independence to vote against legislation.

That would almost guarantee a second election before the end of the year.

Of course all this talk about coalitions leads to increased chatter about whether the Conservatives could support any change to the electoral system in order to lure the LibDems into a coalition.

I'll be writing further about that over the next 48 hours.

Harman Eviscerated in 5 Live Interview

Last night Stephen Nolan interviewed Harriet Harman on his 5 Live phone in programme. I listened to it on my way home from doing the BBC paper review. At times I was laughing so much I had tears running down my face. OK, that's a slight exaggeration, but it really was that bad. Nolan completely eviscerated Harman to the extent that by the end of it she was a jibbering wreck. It really is worth listening to the whole thing (it lasts half an hour). The calls which followed the interview were a joy to listen to.

He starts by questioning her about unemployment, moves on to the deficit and finally the Labour scare leaflets. She comes a cropper on all subjects.

If you want to listen, and I really hope you do, click HERE and scroll in 1 hour 46 mins. At the beginning Nolan asks her about unemployment

The Big Story: Labour Could Come Third

Having decided that it was a good idea to launch Elvis into their campaign, Labour is now intending to make Gordon Brown meet real voters, rather than small groups of commited Labour Party supporters.

A bit late, I would have thought, and probably rather counterproductive if he keeps reproducing those awful grins at inappropriate moments.

When is the media going to cotton on that Labour are in third place in virtually every poll, and now run a real risk of coming third in the popular vote. Isn't that a BIG STORY?

Let me repeat that. Isn't that a BIG STORY?

The even bigger story is that Labour comes third but Gordon Brown still clings to the Premiership. And I'm not talking football.

If that happened I can foresee marches on Downing Street. And I'll happily be at the front!

The Daley Dozen: Saturday

1. Benedict White reports on a councillor who has defected to the Conservatives from the LibDems.
2. Iain Martin on the Labour strategy meeting which decided to use Elvis.
3. Glen Oglaza on how the Tories can win a majority.
4. James Forsyth uncovers the latest Vince Cable flip flop.
5. Blue Nation on how Ed Balls is about to become a eunuch.
6. Tory Outcast wonders if Nigel Farage may fight a second seat.
7. Skipper accuses Labour of giving up in Chester.
8. Though Cowards Flinch is horrified by the prospect of a hung parliament.
9. Ben Brogan asks what effect the debates have had on parliament.
10. Quaequam blog has a suggestion as to where Polly Toynbee can stick her clothespeg...
11. Ellee Seymour thinks Nick Hillman is winning the Cambridge student vote.
12. Hopi Sen reviews Conservative plans for compulsory elections.

Not Got a Clue... And Nor Has Anyone Else

It's been a great day so far. Lovely sunshine, a fantastic morning's campaigning in Dagenham & Rainham, West Ham winning at home and more or less saving themselves from relegation, now a couple of hours at the City Inn catching up, before doing the BBC News Channel paper review at 11.20pm. Every day should be like this!

Of course, the first thing I have done is look at the polls. And boy are there a lot of them. Here are how the three main parties fare...

CONSERVATIVES
BPIX (Mail on S) 34
YouGov (S Times) 35
ICM (Sun Telele) 35
OnePoll (People) 32
IPSOS MORI (Now) 36
ComRes (Indy oS) 34

LABOUR
BPIX (Mail on S) 26
YouGov (S Times) 27
ICM (Sun Telele) 26
OnePoll (People) 23
IPSOS MORI (Now) 30
ComRes (Indy oS) 28

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
BPIX (Mail on S) 30
YouGov (S Times) 28
ICM (Sun Telele) 31
OnePoll (People) 32
IPSOS MORI (Now) 23
ComRes (Indy oS) 29

Now, if you average those out you get

Conservative 34.8
Labour 27.4
Liberal Democrat 28.0

So with only ten days to go the LibDems seem to be slightly dropping but not by much. But the one more or less consistent thing in these polls is that Labour is in third place in the popular vote (in 5 out of six of the polls).

The other consistent thing in these polls is that they virtually all point to a hung parliament with the Conservatives the largest party. However, and this is what should spur on every Tory activist, the party is only two or three per centage points from where it needs to be to get a majority. And if it is true that much of the LibDem surge is coming in the North and among the youth vote in university towns, the swing needed for the Conservatives to get an overall majority may be less than some people think.

But having said that, I may as well have not written that paragraph, because like any other political commentator at the moment I am floundering around, grasping at straw, because the fact is that none of us have any idea what is going on. And if we make a prediction which comes true, it is certainly more luck than judgement.

The 'Hideously White' LibDem Candidates

Remember when Greg Dyke caused a bit of a hullabaloo when he called the BBC @hideously white'? The same thing could be said of one of our political parties.

Imagine if the Conservatives hadn't selected any Black or Ethnic Minority candidates to replace retiring MPs, or that none of their top 25 target seat candidates were BME. There would be all sorts of media stories about how the Tories were subliminally racist or behind the times, and were still the same old "nasty" Tory Party.

Of course, no one can say that about the Conservatives as they have selected at least half a dozen BME candidates in safe seats and plenty more in winnable seats. There are likely to be 15-20 BME Tory MPs on May 7th.

Sadly the same is not true of the LibDems, who are light years behind. Seven LibDem MPs are retiring, yet every one of the candidates replacing them is white. And you have to go down to seat number 29 in the LibDem target list to find an Asian candidate (former MP Parmjit Gill in Leicester South).

So the LibDems would have to have 92 MPs before they get an MP who isn't white.

I'm well aware that ten or twenty years ago that used to be the case in the Tory Party. It isn't now because over the last decade huge steps forward have been taken by successive Tory leaders and party chairmen to ensure that change happened.

For those who reckon the LibDems are more progressive than the Tories, perhaps this should give them pause for thought.

Joseph Harker from the Guardian agrees. He fears that white LibDem candidates will push out black Labour ones. A slightly odd perspective maybe, but the rest of his article makes some valid points...

Only four minority candidates are fighting for the Lib Dems in the party's top 100 target seats.

Henry Bonsu, co-founder of Colourful Radio, said: "In terms of the selection and promotion of minority candidates, for all their niceness, the Lib Dems are nowhere near good enough."

Dean McCastree was a Lib Dem councillor in the 1990s and is now standing as an independent in the Brent Central constituency — where the combined black and Asian population is over 50%.

He said: "We have to have representatives who reflect the society we have. By effectively pushing Dawn Butler out in this constituency, they're saying to minorities: 'You don't need representation, we can do it for you.'

"When I was in the party, I tried to press them on equality but they didn't want to know. There's a lot of window dressing but most minority candidates are in unwinnable seats."

David Cameron made highly publicised gestures to show that the Conservative party had changed and, before the Lib Dems' surge, had 15 black and Asian candidates either defending majorities or, based on opinion polls, likely to gain seats.

Simon Woolley of Operation Black Vote, which next Wednesday hosts what is expected to be the largest ever black British political rally, said of Clegg: "He inherited a party resistant to change, and although he has made good progress, he still needs to convince a black electorate that transforming the party's racial make-up is a priority."

* LibDems get very angry with me when I write about this subject, yet if you talk to them privately they acknowledge they have had a real issue in this area. They are belatedly taking steps to address it, but it should have been done a long time ago. They would lose nothing by admitting it.

Crick Needs an Economics Lesson

Quite an astonishing assertion by Michael Crick on Newsnight. He thought David Cameron had made a huge mistake by criticising the size of the public sector in parts of the UK. Cameron mentioned Northern Ireland and the North East, where the public sector accounts for 68% and 63% of the economy. The point Cameron was eloquently making was that it was the role of government to create the conditions whereby the private sector is encouraged to grow. And that needs to be done in regions like the North East.

Crick interpreted it as Cameron wanting to take an axe to public spending in the North East. It's clear why he's not Newsnight's Economics Correspondent. If you increase the size of the private sector, the proportionate size of the public sector is thereby reduced. It does not imply massive cuts.

Having said that, Northern Ireland and the North East will have to share the burden of reductions in public spending along with the rest of the country. But they knew that anyway.

Absolutely brazen Leftist bias by Michael Crick on Newsnight tonight. He (in all seriousness) claimed that Cameron had made a big mistake in his interview with Jeremy Paxman by defending the assertion that attempts ought to be made to facilitate the growth of the private sector in areas of the UK (such as Northern Ireland and N-E England) where there is an unhealthy economic dominance by the State.

Only somebody well to the Left of Brown could think that such a claim was a big mistake.

Vince Cable Comes a Cropper (Again)

Vince Cable came under some strong questioning on tonight's CAMPAIGN SHOW about the £2.4 million donation to the LibDems by convicted fraudster, Michael Brown. Enjoy how Vince squirms...

JS - If you want to be an honest party and stand above everyone else in the fray, shouldn’t you give that money back
VC - All the parties including ours have been damaged by dodgy donor. And that’s why we’re arguing the whole system has to be cleared up.
JS – so I asks you as specific question? Should that you give that money back?
VC - If we were asked to give the money back by the electoral commission, we would have given that money back,
JS - Take the moral lead?
VC – No.
JS – Why not?
VC – We accept the money in good faith
JS – interrupts
VC – What we are now arguing is the positive point and that all parties have accepted money from people that they shouldn’t have accepted money from. And we’ve to clean up the system.
JS – Let me make a distinction. You have said that if you were asked to pay the money back you would. Don’t you think you should have paid the money back? This is £2.5m where people have been defrauded. If you give that money back then maybe some of the people who have been ripped off by this guy would get their money back.
VC – We have accepted the money in completely good faith, not aware of any of that context. We have all been contaminated by this very very damaging system of party donation.
JS – (interrupts) in view of that context now, give the money back
VC - We want to clean that system up to ensure that people like this (interrupts) are not involved in donations again.
JS – But if you wanted to do that in a pre-emptive way you could say unilaterally… I you wanted to highbrow… we took this money in good faith, we did it all by the rules at the time, but clearly its wrong and we’re giving the money back.
VC – If we thought there was any culpability we would have taken that step. We want to clean the system up. Other parties have accepted vast sums of money from highly questionable people.
(interruption)
JS – Do you think you should pay the money back?
VC – No we don’t think we should give it back because we were in no way culpable morally or in any other way.

Whiter than white, these LibDems, eh?

The Daley Dozen: Friday

1. The Straight Choice on those Labour bus pass leaflets.
2. Online University Reviews on 10 writers who went to prison.
3. Claire Coatman on her education under New Labour.
4. Burning Our Money wishes you were here.
5. Paul Evans asks if Torybloggers are an asset to the abbey?
6. Blue Nation on Vince Cable's sleight of hand over Michael Brown's dodgy donation.
7. Tom Harris reviews Paul Flynn's autobiography.
8. Guido wants to know if you are a Tory chihuahua.
9. Glen O'Glaza is clearly still taking the pills. He asks if the LibDems could come first.
10. Alastair Campbell clings onto hope that Brown can stil do it.
11. Brian Barder on the rules for a hung parliament.
12. Cranmer on a parliament for England.

Appropriately Named Candidates: No 94

This is Mr Barry Allcock. No, really. That's his name. He's the UKIP candidate for Meriden.

Aren't there enough tossers in Parliament already, though?

Hattip: Anna Raccoon

How Others Have Suffered From LibDem Smears

If, like others, you have been taken in by the claims by Nick Clegg that his party is the honest party of British politics, then perhaps you ought to read THIS feature online by Andrew Gilligan which details the lies and smears promulgated by LibDem candidates in past elections. It follows up his column yesterday which shows how the LibDems smeared the Green Party candidate, Rupert Read, in last year's Norwich North by-election.

Let us start with the Green candidate in last year's Norwich North by-election, Rupert Read, who would like to show you a Lib Dem leaflet.

Headed "Residents shocked by Green Party candidate's terror views", it says: "Little is known about Rupert Read, but one thing is certain, local people have taken against his extreme views." Dr Read, said the flyer, believed that "Britain simply had the terrorist attacks on 7 July coming to us". One safely anonymous "local resident" was then quoted as saying: "What planet is he on?" Another, equally shy, "Norwich resident" opined: "I can't believe that anyone could think that."

The voters of Norwich would have been right not to believe it, since it was a wholesale distortion of something Dr Read had written, four years earlier, equating terrorism with acts such as the Iraq war, but very clearly condemning both and calling for an "ethic of non-violence", as practised by Martin Luther King and Gandhi.

"It had some quite unpleasant consequences for me," says Dr Read, a philosophy lecturer. "The whole Liberal Democrat campaign was sickening. I look now at Nick Clegg promising to clean up politics and I remember that he was specifically asked to criticise his party's tactics in Norwich, and he refused."

At the current and Euro elections, according to Dr Read, local Lib Dems have distributed leaflets printed in green, resembling Green Party literature, saying the Greens have no chance (actually, it is the main opposition party on the city council) and calling on their supporters to vote Lib Dem. In Tory areas, they have sent out leaflets printed in blue ink, saying the same about the Tories (who in fact hold the seat).

"People were telling me on the doorstep: 'I got your leaflet telling me to vote Lib Dem, so that's what I'm doing'," says Dr Read. "Anyone who's in politics knows that the Liberal Democrats are the dirtiest in their campaigning techniques, and I'm saying that as a former Lib Dem. It's one of the reasons I left."

I defended Nick Clegg yesterday against what looked like a concerted campaign to undermine him. What a pity Mr Clegg presides over a party which is quite happy to use deliberate smears against its opponents. The clean party of British politics? Don't make me laugh.

UPDATE: And today they're at it again! Click HERE to read how a LibDem staff member posed as a nurse in an election leaflet. Imagine for a moment their reaction if the Labour or Conservative Party had done this.

Three More Seats Change to Thursday Counts

I bring you glad tidings that a further three constituencies will now be counting overnight on Thursday - Henley, Oxford West and Wantage. The Returning Officer decided he didn't like to prospect of being held liable if the Electoral Commission didn't like his reasons for counting on Friday.

Perhaps Colin Bland, Returning Officer at Broadland District Council, might take note. He's refusing to shift the Broadland and Norwich North counts to Thursday.

He might live to regret it.

I think there are now only 21 seats counting on Friday.

Argyll & Bute
Berwick Upon Tweed
Blyth Valley
Broadland
Buckingham
Cheltenham
Copeland
Hexham
Huntingdon
Kenilworth & Southam
Lancaster & Fleetwood
Morecambe & Lunesdale
NE Hampshire
Norwich North
Penrith & the Border
Saffron Walden
Skipton & Ripon
St Ives
Torridge & West Devon
Wansbeck
Warwick & Leamington
Westmorland & Lonsdale

Should Clegg Apologise for "Nutters" Comment?

In the debate last night Nick Clegg just used the word "nutters" when talking about the Conservative Party's European partners. It is a use of language he may come to regret. All three party leaders have agreed with the charity Rethink not to use words or language that will increase stigma against people with mental health problems. See HERE. By using the word "nutter" Clegg has already breached this pledge.

It may be a small thing to some people - and a case of political correctness gone mad for others - and of course people say many things in the heat of the moment, but a word of regret from Mr Clegg may be in order here.

Gerechtigkeit Siegt

So, Sharon Shoesmith lost her appeal.

Good.

There is some justice in the world, after all.

That is all.

Gordon Brown's Lie Unravels Further

Click on image to enlarge

Last night Gordon Brown sought to infer that it was individual Labour candidates who were writing their own literature with claims about Tory cuts, and it was nothing to do with him , guv.

This is from page 2 of the Welsh Labour Party manifesto. A clear assertion that the Tories will cut prescriptions and bus passes.

Will they now withdraw this, or apologise?

Growth Figures Should Be Better

The 0.2% growth in GDP in the last quarter is certainly nothing to write home about. Indeed, it is rather depressing that after all the money the government has pumped in, this is the best they can do. Of course, these figures are constantly revised, and although in recent months the revision has always been upwards, it is entirely possible that the opposite could happen and that we could find out that we are embarking on a double dip recession.

Brown will no doubt use this as further evidence that no money should be taken out of the economy for fear of growth being further affected. His trouble is that no one really believes any longer that it isn't possible to save £1 out of every £100 the government spends.

Vote For Us, Because We're Not Them

Someone described this as the strangest twenty minutes on radio they had ever heard. Have a listen and make your own mind up. It's the moment when I became Nick Clegg, Lance Price became David Cameron and Lembit Opik transformed himself into Gordon Brown. I think I was a bit too convincing as Nick Clegg... I did think this bit was the highlight, though...

Lembit: I'm more concerned about a three way coalition, the way this is going...
Iain: I thought you liked three-ways, Lembit...
Lance: [collapses with laughter]
Richard Bacon: Excuse me, Excuse me...
Lembit: I heard that!

Click HERE and then scroll in to 1 hr 17 mins.