Yesterday Labour lost the support of The Economist (to the Conservatives). Today Labour has lost the endorsement of The Guardian. The Guardian has endorsed the Liberal Democrats: "The Liberal Democrats were green before the other parties and remain so. Their commitment to education is bred in the bone. So is their comfort with a European […]
The police have been urged to investigate allegations of election postal vote corruption involving London Labour Councillors. The claims are related to multiple postal vote applications in several properties, and involve a Labour councillor, a former Labour councillor and a Labour council candidate. No fewer than 18 applications were linked to one of the properties […]
Labour has just launched some new posters – posters that won't appear on any sites because the party doesn't have any money. The Birmingham launch of these posters was overshadowed by four refuse collectors who passed by in their truck and decided to shout abuse at Mr Brown, Lord Mandelson, Harriet Harman and Labour's other […]
Here's the story from the Jewish Chronicle: A Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate in Yorkshire told a hustings meeting that “the power of the Jewish lobbies in Washington and Britain” are the reason a full arms embargo has not been imposed on Israel. Madeleine Kirk, standing for the party in the new seat of York Outer, […]
Last month I introduced you to Daniel Zeichner, the Labour candidate for Cambridge, who gave a Nazi salute at the Cambridge Union as he smeared Conservative allies in Europe. Now the Old Holborn blog has exposed that Zeichner entered the fray over Gordon Brown's attack on 65-year-old Gillian Duffy yesterday by defending the Prime Minister's […]
Today's front pages are every bit the disaster for Gordon Brown and Labour that you would expect the day after he was found to have described a 65-year-old Labour-voting widow as "bigoted". And this morning it seems appropriate to reflect briefly on a speech Gordon Brown made just seven weeks ago – about the choice […]
The story is in today's Derby Telegraph: "Allegations of postal vote fraud are being investigated by police in Derby. A complaint has been sent by the Conservative party to Derbyshire police about suspected fraud in the Sinfin ward in the Derby City Council local elections – which will be held on May 6, the same […]
The rolling news media are not going to drop the story about Gordon Brown calling a Rochdale voter, Gillian Duffy, "bigoted", and the front pages tomorrow are liable to be devastating for Labour. Here are my thoughts on the incident and what it tells us about the man seeking to be elected Prime Minister by […]
Gordon Brown has met precious few real voters during the course of the campaign – as David Cameron has been saying, the PM has been going from "safe house to safe house", only meeting Labour Party activists. And today we got a glimpse of what happens when he does meet a real person who deigns […]
I've only just clocked this story from the Birmingham Post earlier in the campaign – about the retiring Labour MP who is backing the hard-Left Respect at the general election. Lynne Jones was MP for Birmingham Selly Oak from 1992 until her retirement at this election. She lives in the redrawn Birmingham Hall Green constituency […]
Remember when David Steel told the Liberals in 1981 to "go back to your constituencies and prepare for government"? Well I wonder whether Nick Clegg might yet come to regret his interview with this morning's Times when it comes to letting blind ambition overtake reality. He says: “I think the Lib Dems have a brilliant, […]
Last week the Liberal Democrats in Wales got a researcher who had never been a nurse to dress up as a nurse for an election leaflet. Today we learn that the photo of their Welsh leader – talking to a policeman – is also fake. The BBC has the report.
Do you remember the furore in 2001 when then Conservative MP John Townend (pictured left) accused Labour ministers of wanting to turn the British into a "mongrel race"? Townend withdrew his extremely ill-judged words and apologised, but the then Lib Dem leader, Charles Kennedy, among others, accused William Hague of showing an "abysmal failure of […]
Was the man who asked an anti-Pope question during last week's election debate a civil servant? I ask because of today's exciting news about Whitehall plans to get Pope Benedict to open an abortion ward during his visit to Britain later this year. The story set me thinking about Nick Clegg's answer, which impressed me. He […]
In what could potentially turn out to be one of the most important utterances of the campaign, Nick Clegg has given an interview to this morning's Sunday Times in which he says that he would not prop up a lame-duck Brown government in the event of a hung parliament. Here are the key excerpts from […]