United Kingdom

In the last few minutes, Gordon Brown MP announced that he was going to Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen to accept his resignation as Prime Minister. To applause from the Downing Street and Labour staff, he joined his wife Sarah and for the first time in front of the cameras, his two small children, for the journey to Buckingham Palace. He said that Labour had left the UK ‘more prosperous and just’. He added that he had strived ‘to serve, to do my best’. In an emotional passage, he praised tribute to the UK’s armed forces, saying ‘I always admire the courage I have seen in our armed services.’ He confirmed that his resignation as Leader of the Labour Party was immediate. His final words at Downing Street were ‘thank you and goodbye’. David Cameron MP will be the Prime Minister within the next hour. It is speculated on Sky News that Nick Clegg will be Deputy Prime Minister.

Polling Day – at last.  It’s been a somewhat un-British general election campaign in parts, dominated by three soundbite led TV debates which ripped apart the traditional two party system.

It has also been followed by a huge amount of opinion polling, with the latest still pointing to a hung Parliament.

The chatter amongst the political media paints a different picture – there is a feeling that the Conservatives may sneak a small majority. The main difference between the polls and reality is the importance of the marginals – if the Conservatives do well, then they are home – just.

Today, all parties will be mobilising their troops to the telephone banks, doorsteps and campaign centres. The leaders have done their bit, it is their supporters who have to get out the vote.

Which brings us to that most traditionally British part of proceedings – and one which will never change. The weather. It’s the one thing that could make or break weeks of campaiging.

So here’s the last word: rain in Wales for most of the day (very bad for Labour), moving to South West England just as people arrive back from work (bad for the Liberal Democrats), with light showers over Lincolnshire (n/a).

With the polls going down to the wire, will it be the weather ‘wot won it’ for Cameron?

Final polls:

Populus/Times – Con 37, Lab 28, LDem 27: Con Lead +9

ComRes/ITV/Independent – Con 37, Lab 28, LDem 28: Con Lead +9

Opinium/Daily Express – Con 35, Lab 27, LDem 26: Con Lead +8

ICM/Guardian – Con 36, Lab 28, LDem 26: Con Lead +8

YouGov/Sun – Con 35, Lab 28, LDem 28: Con Lead +7

Angus Reid/Political Betting – Con 36, Lab 24, LDem 29: Con Lead +7

Harris/Metro – Con 35 Lab 29, LDem 27: Con Lead +6

TNS BMRB – Con 33, Lab 27, LDem 29: Con Lead +4

Poll analysis:

The averages of today’s polls (36/28/27), on a universal national swing would produce results of CON 297, LAB 245, LDEM 76.  This is a Hung Parliament, with the Conservatives close to the 326 seats needed for a majority.  There has been much talk in the media about what would happen if a result akin to this was produced, with many speculating that Gordon Brown would find his position as the incumbent PM untenable.  However, by constitutional convention, Mr Brown does retain the first opportunity to form a Government, and will surely try to tempt the Lib Dems in with him.  Mr Cameron has hinted that he will not accept this situation, and may mount a campaign for power to be handed over if his party is clearly the largest.  However, we will have to wait and see what the result is, and how the parties react.  Most pollsters’ predictions show the Conservatives ranging between 300-315 seats, Labour 190-240 seats and Lib Dems 80-120. 

The prediction above does not take into account regional variations, such as the static polls in Scotland which show no Conservative wins, and the marginal polls which show the Conservatives doing better in the seats they need to win from Labour in England.  Another variable is the Liberal Democrat surge, and how much it will impact on the Conservative vote in key Lib/Con marginals.  Furthermore, the result could be more unpredictable due to the high proportion of voters who may change their mind (pollsters yesterday reported this figure to be around 40%) and turnout.  Journalists have this morning reported the busiest polling stations they can remember, and weather permitting, some have been predicting that 70% of voters may vote compared to just over 61% in 2005. 

Campaign activity:

• Polls for the General Election and local elections in England opened at 7am and will close at 10pm;
• The party leaders are voting this morning;
• Exit polls will be released just after 10pm;
• The first results are expected between 11pm and 12pm;
• The majority of results will arrive between 2am and 5am tomorrow;
• Twenty seats count tomorrow morning;
• Thirsk and Malton will not go to the polls until 27 May due to the death the UKIP candidate;
• UKIP candidate for Buckingham Nigel Farage has been injured in a light plane crash after his UKIP banner was caught in the engine.  Mr Farage’s injuries are not serious. 

Newspaper Headlines:

The Daily Mirror – ‘Our Prime Minister? Really?’

The Sun – ‘Our only hope’

Daily Express – ‘D-Day’

The Independent – ‘The people’s election’

The Guardian – ‘Cameron eyes the prize’

The Daily Telegraph – ‘Day of destiny’

The Times – ‘The fate of the nation’

Reaction:

The Times – “As an exercise in democracy, this election has already risen to the occasion. That is a triumph in itself, whatever the result. A month ago, conventional wisdom held that the election would be dominated by apathy and indifference.”

The Daily Telegraph – “All general elections are important, but few have been as critical as today’s. Our national fortunes have seldom sunk so low; the task of reconstruction facing the next government is immense. As we argued yesterday, the Conservatives are the party best equipped to undertake this task. The struggle ahead will be fierce, and will be made immeasurably easier if the new administration is able to command real authority in the new House of Commons.”

Ian Dale, political blogger – “Have you noticed how virtually none of our highly paid political columnists or pundits have been brave enough to make any predictions about this election? Cowards, the lot of them. It’s easy to understand why, because frankly no one knows what will happen over the next 36 hours. But those of us who make at least part of our living by punditry owe it to our readers to share our views. Even if it proves dreadfully embarrassing afterwards.”

The Guardian – “If, using British Electoral Facts, by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, you check the pattern of election day weather since 1918, a tentative conclusion could be that good weather today might benefit David Cameron. On the seven election days since 1945 where the people threw the government out, five took place in fair or good weather.  The Conservatives won on good weather days in 1951 (light fog and frost first thing, but generally fair), 1955, 1959 (”a dry autumn day”), 1970 (”fine everywhere”), 1979 (”fair”) and 1992. Labour came home in sunshine in 1945 (though many votes were cast then by servicemen in uncharted weather abroad), 1966 (”a mild day”) and 1997 (”sunny and dry”). Some may deduce that this has something to do with the laws of meteorology; others, that it rather reflects the laws of coincidence.”

Independent – “This election has generated a national conversation. But if those young first-timers who have been galvanised to vote – by The X Factor, by “Cleggmania”, or whatever – are to be convinced that their vote will count, not just now, but next time and the time after that, the system has to be reformed. Which is why this is not only a contest to savour, but also an opportunity to seize.”

Michael Portillo, former Conservative Cabinet Minister – “I would regard Balls as my worthy successor, for a Portillo moment should lead to national jubilation unmatched since the relief of Mafeking, and I stand ready to light tonight’s first bonfire and launch the first rocket. In my case, my defeat was later voted by Channel 4 viewers and Observer readers their third favourite moment of the 20th century. I am proud to have nudged the assassination of President Ceausescu into fourth place.”

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Staff are being moved out of campaign HQs and onto the streets to canvass as election day looms. It is going to the wire, with polls narrowing and both Labour and the Conservatives gaining at the expense of the Liberal Democrats. Helping Gordon Brown has been some widely positive media reactions to his speech at the weekend in the ‘unofficial’ fourth TV debate at Westminster Central Methodist Church.  Brown seemed in his element in this environment discussing some of Labour’s weightier achievements, including the minimum wage.  

Sky’s Poll of Polls predict Labour are still on course to be the largest Party in a hung Parliament, on 270 seats. This would give the Conservatives 269 seats, the Liberal Democrats 79 and others 32.  Very close, but it does not take into account the polling in the marginal seats where the Tories lead. Furthermore, a ComRes poll for ITN last night said four out of 10 voters might still change their mind.

The closing pitches for that 40% follow typical themes which have nonetheless been refined by the election campaign – and most notably the TV debates. Brown said yesterday: ‘We are the party with the serious policies; you are not electing a TV personality’. Cameron has asked the voters to decide on ‘a clean break’. Nick Clegg has the same theme, but includes the Conservatives in his analysis: ‘kick the two-party norm into touch and force real change’.

They’ve played all their cards. Now it is up to their party faithful to go out onto the street and get the vote out. There was much talk  before the election that this would be the first digital campaign and certainly, some stories have been prolonged by the blogs. But more so than any other campaign in recent times, this one is going to be decided by the numbers of activists who turn up in the marginal seats and who can sustain their campaigning up until polls close tomorrow at 10pm.  This election campaign could well be decided by only a few thousand voters.

Today’s polls:

• ComRes/ITV/Independent: CON 37%(nc), LAB 29%(nc), LDEM 26%(nc)
• YouGov/Sun: CON 35%(nc), LAB 30%(+2), LDEM 24%(-4)
• Harris/Metro: CON 36% (+4), LDEM 28% (-2), Lab 26% (+1)

Campaign activity:

• Gordon Brown has given an interview in the Times, urging people to vote Labour in all cases;
• Rory Stewart, Conservative candidate for Penrith and the Border is interviewed in the Times about his time in Afghanistan and his political views;
• In an interview with the Financial Times, George Osborne claims that if the Conservatives win, they will have a ‘mandate for cuts’ and that there would be no Greek-style social unrest;
• In an interview with City AM, Ken Clarke has again warned against a hung Parliament, saying the markets would find it ridiculous;
• In its leader article, the Daily Telegraph has endorsed the Conservatives;
• In its leader article, the Independent calls for voters to vote Lib Dem where they can win, and to vote tactically elsewhere to keep the Conservatives out;
• Vince Cable will deliver a speech in Camden on small businesses, accompanied by Ed Fordham, the Lib Dem candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn;
• Today’s BBC Daily Politics debate at 2:15pm will be on political reform, and will feature Harriet Harman (Lab), Sir George Young (Con), Lynne Featherstone (Lib Dem) and Adam Price (PC);
• Nick Clegg will take part in a Q&A session with students at the University of Durham; 
• David Cameron will end his 24-hour campaign session with a rally in Bristol; 
• Nick Clegg’s campaign tour will end with a rally in Sheffield;
• Gordon Brown will be interviewed on Sky News at 7pm, in ‘Randall and Boulton unleashed’.

Newspaper Headlines:

The Daily Mirror – ‘Eton Rifles’

The Sun – ‘Britain’s got…to change’

Daily Mail – ‘Vote Decisively to stop Britain walking blindly into disaster’

City A.M – ‘Ken Clarke: Voters need to get serious’

Daily Express – ‘Only Cameron can save Britain’

The Independent – ‘Britain now has a historic opportunity to end out undair and discredited voting system for ever’

The Guardian – ‘Blair: don’t vote tactically, back the party you believe in’

The Daily Telegraph – ‘Ulster pact could seal victory for Cameron’

The Times – ‘Brown to voters: the best tactic is to back Labour’

Reaction:

The Guardian – “Tactical voting will unquestionably leave its mark on Thursday, just as it has in all recent general elections. Some estimates suggest that nearly one vote in 10 will be cast tactically; several MPs and plenty of re-elected ones may owe their victory to it. Hopefully the net effect will be positive. Yet while tactical voting – casting one’s vote for a second-choice candidate with a better chance of winning than one’s first choice – can be both logical and desirable in plenty of ways, it is itself a second-best use of the right vote”

The Daily Telegraph – “The sense that the 2010 campaign marks the ending of an era was captured perfectly by two of Gordon Brown’s closest allies, Ed Balls and Peter Hain. Both urged the public to vote not for Labour but for the Liberal Democrats if it would help to keep the Conservatives out. It is entirely in character for Labour, staring defeat in the face, to resort to such cynical tactics’

Ian Dale, political blogger – “And let’s all agree that Ed Balls and Peter Hain have only jumped on this particular bandwagon because of the parlous state of the Labour campaign. I mean just when you think it can’t get any more shambolic, you get a Labour candidate telling us Gordon Brown is the worst Prime Minister ever and two Labour candidates advise Labour voters to vote for another party.”

Ben Brogan, Daily Telegraph – “The Tories were seething with the way the broadcasters ran the complacency line yesterday. Today they must be happy to see Labour tied in knots on tactical voting, and having to hose down attacks from one its own candidates. For the final days, as he rushes about, David Cameron will be trying to remind us that there is only one way to vote if we want rid of Gordon Brown.”

Will Straw, Left Foot Forward blogger – “Although the next parliament will see an exceptionally large number of new MPs, we currently know relatively little about the ‘class of 2010’. To fill this gap ippr conducted an online poll of Prospective Parliamentary Candidates (PPCs) in winnable seats from across the different parties. This excluded sitting MPs and only focused on those who had a serious chance of winning – either in safe seats for their party or in marginal contests.

The most significant set of findings concern the ideological position of the PPCs from the different parties. The survey found that Labour and Lib Dem PPCs have much more in common with each other than either set of candidates do with the Conservatives. This confirms that a left of centre coalition between Labour and the Lib Dems would be much easier to hold together politically than an arrangement between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives.”

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So now we have the defining image of the election campaign: Brown, head in hands, sinking into his seat. It was taken half an hour after he insulted a lifelong Labour voter, and presumably minutes after he realised he had a mild PR crisis on his hands. It is not exactly the image of a dynamic leader, full of energy and ambition, ready to take the country through the recovery.

The scale of this gaffe is unprecedented. Fortunately for Brown, he has a chance tonight to attempt to make amends. The third and final TV debate is his only hope to be able to draw a line under the Duffy affair. It is unlikely he will have much of a chance to tackle it directly, due to the strict rules, but he will have to go on a charm offensive nonetheless. The trouble for Brown is that at the moment, he is more offensive than charming.

The campaign carried on as normal yesterday, though neither Cameron or Clegg need have bothered. They received barely any media, with the entire 24 hour news operation concentrating on Brown, Mrs Duffy and ‘Sue’ – Brown’s loyal aide of two decades, Sue Nye, who Brown initially blames for the ‘disaster’.

With his microphone back on, he has been putting on a brave face at a visit in Halesowen, where he said: ‘yesterday was yesterday, today I want to talk about the economy’.

He’ll be lucky, because the Duffy affair is not likely to simmer down for days, regardless of his best attempts tonight.

For Cameron, this has been a gift. He has had a good week, his campaigners focusing on the problems the country could face under a hung Parliament and offering his party as the only way to avoid political and economic paralysis.  Nick Clegg has probably benefitted, too, finally getting the chance to take stock of the last few weeks and take a break from the increased scrutiny that he was facing on hung Parliament pacts.

There is talk that the Duffy incident will put immigration back on the political map – it is a possibility and may well come up in the debate tonight. However, the issue is not as much at the forefront in the minds of the electorate as it was in 2005, not least because so many economic migrants returned home when the jobs dried up in the UK.  But it will be interesting to see how this changes things for Margaret Hodge, fighting a strong BNP challenge in Barking.

So tonight will see the final throw of the dice for all Leaders, one week before the country goes to the polls. But only one will have to fight for his actual reputation. Brown has been chewed up by a media age that some modern leaders such as Tony Blair and Bill Clinton understood and were at ease in, even if they did not enjoy it.  Meanwhile, the picture of him sinking into his seat was up on some websites and blogs before he had even left the radio studio. As Ben Brogan in the Daily Telegraph wonderfully puts it today: ‘Gladstone never had to put up with this’.

Today’s polls:

• ComRes/ITV/Independent: CON 36%(+3), LAB 29%(nc), LDEM 26%(-3)
• YouGov/Sun: ON 34%(+1), LAB 27%(-2), LDEM 31%(+3)
• Harris/Metro: CON 32% (-2), LAB 25% (-1), LDEM 30% (+1)
• ICM/Guardian poll of top 42 Lib Dem marginal seats (showing changes from 2005 election): CON 35%(-1), LAB 18%(-5), LDEM 39%(+4)

Campaign activity:

• The third and final Prime Ministerial debate will take place at 8:30pm tonight on BBC1, the focus will be on the economy;
• A group of former civil servants and politicians have written a letter to the Financial Times outlining how the next Prime Minister should approach governing the country;
• Nick Clegg will take part in a Q&A session with students at a college in Birmingham, and will be taking a country walk ahead of tonight’s debate;
• The Lib Dems will be outlining their policies for older people
• UKIP leader Lord Pearson will campaign with Eurosceptic Labour candidate David Drew in Stroud;
• Alex Salmond will hold a press conference on the economy;
• Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell and Shadow Planning Minister Bob Neill will take party in an LSE debate on the future of cities;
• Gordon Brown and David Cameron are both campaigning in the Midlands ahead of tonight’s debate;
• David Cameron will be outlining his party’s policies on cancer drugs;

Newspaper Headlines:

The Daily Mail – ‘Demonised: The Granny who dared to utter the I-word’

Daily Express – ‘A hypocrite who shames Britain’

The Sun – ‘Gillian only popped out for a loaf. She came back with Brown Toast’

The Independent – ‘Poll latest: Labour loses one voter’

The Daily Telegraph – ‘Day of Distaster’

The Financial Times – ‘Brown: That was a disaster’

The Times – ‘Trouble in Rochdale’

The Guardian – ‘Brown ‘penitent’ after bigot gaffe torpedoes campaign’

Daily Mirror – ‘My Gord’s So Sorry’

Reaction:

The Times – “The debates will strongly influence any post-election political deals. Electoral math’s suggests there is an outside chance that Labour could come third and yet still win the most number of seats. With Gordon Brown’s position untenable, would the British public allow an outsider, someone who did not even appear in the debates, to become Prime Minister? If not, just three weeks after their debut, the debates will have effectively become a form of constitutional change.”

The Guardian – “Yesterday was not a good day for the Labour campaign. But it was not a good day for politics either. It was a revealing moment, a snapshot which captures much that is wrong with the whole political environment. And yes, it was a disaster for Gordon Brown”

The Financial Times – “All the parties have programs for shunting investment into favored sectors. Only Labour has come closest to articulating an industrial policy which is nevertheless too static. The Lib Dems and Tories need to explain their own ambitions for the state; otherwise voters will cast their ballots without being told what economic choices they have.”

The Daily Telegraph – “There is intense anger among large parts of the electorate at what is happening to this country, and in Mrs Duffy that discontent found its voice. In her encounter with Gordon Brown, she raised the two issues – the deficit and immigration – that have until now hardly featured in the campaign, even though they are of overwhelming concern to millions of voters. Rarely has the gulf between the political elite at Westminster and the people they are supposed to represent been more graphically illustrated.”

The Independent – “Mr. Brown’s unguarded remarks have the potential to cause particular electoral damage. First, because they chime with the Prime Minister’s reputation for being rude and short-tempered. Second, because they reinforce a widespread view of politicians as contemptuous of those whose votes they must periodically solicit. And, third, because they demonstrate the extent to which campaigning has become stage-managed. Mr. Brown took it for granted that he should have been protected from awkward customers. If there were more encounters between party leaders and “ordinary” voters, perhaps both sides would be better able to take the less-than-perfect ones in their stride.”

Nick Robinson, BBC political editor – “There are at least three reasons that this will have caused Gordon Brown and his advisers such dismay. It highlights a huge gap between the prime minister’s public and his private demeanours. It catapults the issue of immigration to the top of the political agenda. Mrs Duffy had expressed concerns to him about the high level of East European immigration and her feeling that her home town was becoming like “a third world country”.  Finally, the leader of the Labour Party has insulted one of the very type of voter it’s so vital for his party to hang on to – older, white and traditionally Labour.”

Ian Dale, political blogger – “I don’t know what the fallout from ‘bigotgate’ will be, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it resulted in a rise in support from the BNP. And I don’t say that lightly. But look at it this way. Brown has not only insulted Mrs Duffy, he has effectively branded everyone in this country who is concerned about immigration a bigot too. Brown and Labour already have a problem with the white working class vote in areas like Dagenham, Barking, Burnley and West Yorkshire. It is those areas where the BNP is already reaping electoral benefit.”

Guido Fawkes, Political blogger – “Gordon was angry because he is a malevolent weirdo, unable to relate people like a normal human being, unable to interpret the emotional signals and body language that we all do instinctively.  He is a bonkers, not like an eccentric old aunt, but like a dangerously paranoid political psychopath. Privately aides were grateful yesterday that he hadn’t launched into a foul mouthed tirade or hit anything other than the car “it could have been worse” they were saying yesterday.”

Ben Brogan, Daily Telegraph – “On the pressures of politics: We should acknowledge that we are in uncharted territory. Consider what we are witnessing. Under pressure Mr Brown says the kind of things that politicians say all the time. A microphone picks it up. It is replayed instantly. And now Mr Brown is forced to have the tape replayed to him while he is on the radio with Jeremy Vine but with cameras on him to record his reaction, head in hands. In under an hour, blunder to firestorm. Gladstone never had to put up with this. Blimey.”

Jonathan Isaby, ConservativeHome – “If this election is about character, Gordon Brown’s actions yesterday showed that he is doomed.”

Andrew Rawnsley, political commentator and author of ‘End of the Party’ – “Note that it happens because he stresses over the trivial and becomes infuriated by anything or anybody that disturbs his idea of himself as a man in iron control. Mrs Duffy was far from the most tricky customer ever to confront a politician. In fact, he dealt with the initial encounter reasonably well. She even said she was going to vote Labour. Calling it “a disaster” was an over-reaction to a fairly humdrum moment on the campaign trail. We see also a glimpse of Brown’s tendency to instantly assign fault for a setback to someone else. Brown’s problem is that this episode shows him acting not out of character, but entirely in it.”

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A flurry of polls this morning have shown some consensus: the Conservatives have slightly increased their lead, at the expense of the Liberal Democrats and Labour, who are more or less neck and neck. None of the polls point to a working majority for the Conservatives but show that their campaigning against a hung parliament may be having an effect.

Helping them is Nick Clegg, who is danger of seeing his reported views on who he would work with in a hung parliament spin out of control. Some reports today indicate he would work with Gordon Brown, after all. He needs to clarify and close the issue as a matter of priority. Brown and Clegg are turning into the Odd Couple of British politics, a remarkable achievement considering they are faced with some pretty stiff competition. One such coupling could be Cameron and the left-wing leader of the Scottish National Party, Alex Salmond. Reports today indicate that the Tories are courting the SNP and the Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru on a constitutional reform ticket which would see them getting further devolved powers in return for their support to a change in the electoral system which we predict would see a substantial reduction in the numbers of Westminster seats from the devolved nations. As you’d expect, the vast majority of Scottish MPs are Labour.

Cameron already has the support of the Ulster Unionists who did so much to keep John Major’s Government in business between 1992 and 1997.  Whilst that deal is certain, they are unlikely to get similar support from Lady Hermon, a former UUP member who is standing in this election as an Independent may not be as certain. During critical votes in the last Parliament, Lady Hermon would often abstain or even vote with the Government – critical when the majorities started dwindling away.  Cameron judges that these alliances could help him bat off any threat of a Lib/Lab coalition.

Campaigning took a more traditional turn yesterday – visits, meeting the public and speeches. Clegg gave an effective speech to the Royal College of Nurses, Gordon Brown visited a budget supermarket and David Cameron had a hairy moment when a member of the public berated him on a policy issue in front of the entirety of the UK’s media and, of course, live on Sky News. He handled himself well in these most precarious of campaigning moments.

Cameron also spoke yesterday on one of his favourite themes, ‘Broken Britain’, the idea appearing to be that society has broken down. If Labour had an operation, they might want to point out that it was only six days ago when Cameron repeatedly accused Gordon Brown of trying to ‘frighten’ the electorate into voting for him. Furthermore, many people don’t think their neighborhood or their street is broken.  It is a risky strategy for the Tories, but it is a testament to this lacklustre campaign that there are no almighty rows about it – none of the political parties seem to want to take each other on for fear of coming a cropper during the TV debates. 

The debates may have created talking points, but they have tamed the politicians. They are playing it safe. We see and hear more of them, but the irony is that they have less to say. It’s as though the threat of making a gaffe has gagged them.

With the deals which are having to be put together following the rise of the Liberal Democrats in this first TV debate era, politics at this stage of the campaign is more about what the politicians will promise to do for each other than what they will promise to do for you or me.

STOP PRESS:

Live on Sky, the Prime Minister in the last few minutes appeared to call a voter ‘bigoted’ and his morning’s campaign trip ‘a disaster’. This will set the agenda today and be a nice run-in for the TV debate tomorrow.  His comments were picked up by the microphone which he had had on during his visit and were made as he got in to his car. It is a highly embarrassing incident for the PM and his aides, whose job it is to ensure that these things do not happen.  Earlier in this note, we wondered if Labour had an operation; insulting the voters has come as rather unexpected answer.

Today’s polls:

• Populus/Times: CON 36%(+4), LAB 27%(-1), LDEM 28%(-3)
• YouGov/Sun: CON 33%(nc), LAB 29%(+1), LDEM 28%(-1)
• ComRes/ITV/Independent: CON 33%(+1), LAB 29%(+1), LDEM 29%(-2)

Campaign activity:

• Nick Clegg has been interviewed in the Times about his ambitions to lead the country;
• Labour have this morning set out their plans for safer communities;
• The Guardian carry an interview with Lib Dem Lembit Öpik, which follows him campaigning in his constituency;
• David Cameron is campaigning in Yorkshire;
• Vince Cable, George Osborne and Lord Mandelson will address the Institute of Directors;
• Alistair Darling will make a speech on the economy, in Edinburgh;
• Nick Clegg will take part in a Q&A session at Oxford Brookes University, the Lib Dems will also outline their plans to phase out tuition fees;
• Today’s BBC2 debate will feature the three health spokesman, at 2:15pm.  Andy Burnham (Lab), Andrew Lansley (Con), Norman Lamb (Lib Dem);
• Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg will attend an Operation Black Vote event in London;
• Gordon Brown will appear on BBC3 at 8pm to answer questions from first time voters;
• Sinn Fein will launch their manifesto;

Newspaper Headlines:

The Sun – ‘Pig Deserts sinking ship’

The Daily Mail – ‘Secret Tax bombshell’

The Independent – ‘Tell us the truth on our economy’

The Guardian – ‘Parties ‘dishonest on cuts’

The Daily Telegraph – ‘The story these men don’t want you to read’

The Times – ‘I want to be prime minister’

Reaction:

The Telegraph – “The Conservatives have been keen to present themselves as a government in waiting, and should therefore have spent the two years since the crash constructing a coherent program of spending cuts that played into the wider plans for reducing the size of the state. It is too late to do that now. The Lib Dems, meanwhile, have flip-flopped from last autumn’s “savage cuts” to their timid reluctance in this campaign to “put the recovery at risk”. It is, however, the Government that deserves the real opprobrium, not only for helping to get us into this mess in the first place, but also for cynically deferring a spending review until after polling day, while at the same time contaminating any prospect of real debate by fallaciously pitching Labour “investment” against Tory “cuts”.

The Guardian – “All three parties have failed to “come clean” on how they will reduce government borrowing, says the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies. In their presentations on the economic battleground yesterday morning, IFS researchers pointed out that the big debate on how to reduce the budget deficit was – so far – just so much hot air.”

Nick Robinson, BBC political editor – “It’s the unplanned moments in elections that can bring them alive. A punch, a heckle, or a slow handclap. “You guys are looking for someone to throw an egg,” the PM said to reporters who asked him whether he really intended to meet and greet more real people in this campaign.”

Guido Fawkes, Political blogger – “The backfiring Peppa photo-op is a metaphor for the Labour campaign; they can’t get traction on their new “Coalition for Cuts” dividing line because they themselves won’t credibly specify their own closet cuts agenda.  Peppa the Pig stood in for government spokesman on the Daily Politics and featured on Newsnight more than Yvette’s message.”

Ben Brogan, Daily Telegraph – “David Cameron is enjoying the daily evolution of the Nick Clegg position on PR and deals. His gag on the plane to Manchester was “Vote Clegg, get Balls”, which will make Labour folk laugh even more. There’s a rumour that Dave might turn up in Morley and Outwood shortly to see how the Education Secretary is getting on. As James Kirkup pointed out earlier, Dave made a big play of his admiration for Gladstone, to buff up that progressive conservative idea he’s on about, as well as Barack Obama and his “audacity of hope” line, saying he wanted a bit more audacity and optimism from his party for the next 10 days.”

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