…and Labour and the Conservatives are neck and neck according to a poll by ComRes for ITV News and the Daily Mail.
The poll of over 1,000 potential voters on 27 and 28 April saw Labour given a three percentage point boost, to 35 per cent, and the Tories falling by one point to 35 per cent.
With the polls so close much will be depend on those who have not decided yet or may still change their minds – 40 per cent of those polled by ComRes fall into this category.
David Cameron will make a play for the youth vote later on Thursday, insisting that more young people will get a “first chance” under a Conservative government.
The prime minister will unveil a “Five Point Guarantee”, saying: “If you’re young, want to work hard and want to get on, the Conservative Party is the party for you.”
The five promises are:
His move to woo young voters is timely. A new poll suggests that as many as 60 per cent of 16-24 year olds are certain to vote in the General Election.
The age group made up a third of a surge in voter applications the day before registrations closed. This will be welcomed by Labour who have considerably more support amongst the young – polling 34 per cent compared to the Tories’ 23 per cent according to YouGov.
On Wednesday night Jon Snow presented a lively debate with 150 young people and members of the main political parties.
Watch the debate below:
The gloves are off between the coalition partners as the Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander “lifts the lid” on Conservative proposals for an extra £8bn of welfare cuts – which the Liberal Democrats vetoed.
Mr Alexander accused the Conservatives of being bent on “slashing support for families” and said he was revealing the plans because the Conservatives are “trying to con the British people by keeping their planned cuts secret”.
The Conservative proposals that Mr Alexander says the Liberal Democrats vetoed are:
– Limiting child benefit to two children, at a cost of £3,500 for a family of three.
– Removing higher rate child benefit for a first child at an average cut of £360 for every family.
– Means-testing child benefit – cutting £1,750 for a two-child middle income family.
– Removing child benefit from 16-19 year olds, a cut of over 1,000 for parents of a single child.
Mr Alexander said: “The Tories have turned their backs on the plan delivered in coalition government. Instead they want to cut £1,500 for 8 million households, singling out middle and low income families to bear the burden – and asking nothing from the best off.
“It’s clear from our time in government that the Tories’ target will be slashing support for families. I’m lifting the lid on this now because the Conservatives are trying to con the British people by keeping their planned cuts secret until after the election.”
However,the Conservatives have disowned the proposals, saying they “don’t recognise” any of them.
“This is desperate stuff from Liberal Democrats who are now willing to say anything to try and get attention,” a Tory spokesperson said.
Chancellor George Osborne says another £12bn savings would be found by a Conservative government but has repeatedly declined to specify where the majority of these savings would come from.
Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Rachel Reeves said: “This evidence confirms the Tories’ secret plan to cut family budgets.
“As well as planning a £3.8bn raid on families’ tax credits, this shows they want to make deep cuts to child benefit too.”
“Stop SNP running the county” urges then Sun on its front page.
“It’s time to vote SNP”, the Sun also opines.
No, this is not a case of major indecision. The former is the front page of Rupert Murdoch’s flagship UK title south of the border – the latter is the Sun’s sister title, the Scottish Sun, north of the border.
The Sun officially came out in support of the Conservatives on Thursday (though this may not come as a surprise – yesterday’s front page headline read “Monster Raving Labour Party”, for example.
The Sun also backed the Conservatives at the last election, having supported Labour in the previous three.
The Scottish Sun did not back either said in last year’s referendum debate, but supported the SNP in the 2011 Scottish parliament election.
Ed Miliband,has responded to the Lib Dem claims that the Conservatives had ‘secret plans’ to cut child benefit. Speaking ahead of an event in Yorkshire, said:
“Today we’ve learnt that child benefit and tax credits are on the ballot paper next week.
“The Tories have drawn up plans to take thousands of pounds away from millions of families.
“The Tories’ secret plan has been revealed.
“And they will put it into practice in just seven days’ time if they get the chance.
“It’s the final proof that working families can’t afford five years of the Tories.”
After John Major’s surprise general election victory in 1992, the Sun headline blared: “It’s the Sun wot won it”.
Today, Britain’s best selling newspaper announced that it was again backing the Tories, stating that it was imperative to “keep the economy on track” and “stop the SNP running the country “.
Unless that is you live in Scotland where the Scottish Sun urges readers to back Nicola Surgeon and the SNP.
But with falling circulation and the rise of online news and social media do the Red Tops still have the power to influence the outcome of a general election?
The day before the 1992 results millions of British Sun readers woke up to the headline: “If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights”.
At the time it was decided, not least by The Sun itself, that the inflammatory image of Neil Kinnock staring out of the lightbulb helped secure a fourth consecutive term. However. In recent years experts have said polls forecasting a Labour victory were simply wrong and the Tories were going to win it all along.
So did the Sun’s backing really get results? Tony Blair thought so, spending much of the nineties courting the press in general and Rupert Murdoch in particular. And it worked: The Murdoch papers switched allegiance to New Labour, and Tony Blair won three elections in a row.
A copy of The Sun newspaper lies on the floor after Unite Union Joint General Secretary Tony Woodley tore it in two on stage at the Labour Party Conference in 2009
But times have moved on.
Luckily Ed Miliband, who does not enjoy the same support from the mainstream press as Tony Blair, doesn’t think the papers are as powerful as they once were.
Now that people get much of their news from the internet, newspapers landing on doormats are less powerful and there has never been much evidence that people paper choice has much impact on their vote anyway.
This theory appears to be born out in this election, with the polls largely tied despite four years of negative press portrayals of Mr Miliband. My hunch is that the Sun’s endorsement probably won’t change that.
George Osborne looks round at Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander
George Osborne has said that the Lib Dem claims that the Conservatives were planning to slash child benefit as part of future cuts was actually part of a report commissioned by the Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander himself.
Mr Osborne speaking to the BBC London from an event a Croydon, said: This is a three-year-old document of policy options that was commissioned by the Chief Secretary himself. We haven’t put into practice any of these options, we don’t support them. We didn’t support them then and we don’t support them in the future.
Commentators are split over Mr Alexanders choice to leak the document. Some say that it is part of a Liberal Democrat strategy to ensure that much of the £12 billion of planned welfare cuts would be ditched as part of a new deal with the Lib Dems.
Others are confused that the Lib Dem would leak it now, when he may have to rely on friendly Tories lending him their vote in Inverness to keep him in and the SNP candidate out.
He’s won over one person though:
We all love Larry, Downing Street’s Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office. Famously standoffish, David Cameron said he took a shine to President Obama on an official visit.
His ongoing battle with George Osborne’s Freya has also been well documented by the media, but Larry is just one in a long line of Chief Mousers – the Military Mutual website have made a handy crib sheet of Downing Street cats through the ages.
Nigel Farage on the campaign trail last week
Nigel Farage has been speaking to LBC’s Nick Ferrari about what he sees as an inherent bias in the BBC’s coverage against Ukip.
He takes particular exception to comments made on last week’s episode of Have I Got News For You when the Sunday Times’ Camilla Long said he had only been out campaigning a few times in South Thanet, a suggestion Ukip deny.
He said: “I believe they are guilty of blatant prejudice. I think they’ve been prejudicial on the European issue, prejudicial on the immigration issue.
“I think deep within their DNA, is a north London metropolitan mindset that just doesn’t see what Ukip believes to be acceptable. I think it’s as simple as that.
“We have complained like hell. We’ve written a number of letters to them.
“We were less than impressed by the audience they produced for the Challengers’ Debate, where there was an openly hostile audience.
“Time and again, we see the BBC treating us in a way that is really quite extraordinary.
“Even through to a programme on Have I Got News For You last week where comments were made about an individual in a constituency, namely me, that I just don’t think would have been said about any other candidate in the country.”
In his green parka and floppy hair you could be forgiven for thinking a wayward student had wondered in to Downing Street.
In fact this is our very own Jon Snow awaiting Margaret Thatcher’s arrival at No. 10 after her 1979 victory.
Nigel Farage campaigns in Aylesbury today
Ukip has complained to the police over comments about leader Nigel Farage on last week’s episode of BBC One’s news quiz Have I Got News For You.
On Friday’s show, journalist Camilla Long claimed that she had visited South Thanet, where Mr Farage is standing for election, more times than the Ukip leader himself.
UKIP said that broke a law that bans false statements about candidates.
The BBC said the show often made jokes at the expense of politicians and Kent Police said it would not take action.
So the English Sun goes one way and the Scottish Sun the other in backing the SNP as Star Wars characters and telling its readers to vote for them.
In Govan, Glasgow I ask ScotLab leader which papers are supporting his party in Scotland and he laughs:
“Well we are starting with Channel 4 then we will work out from there.”
Laughing is what Jim Murphy does a lot of at the moment. The worse the ambient sound gets for his party from the polls, the more Sunny Jim’s mood improves.
I am not alone in noticing that the final ScotLab poster is the wrong way round.
The Labour way is pointing backwards – the SNP way is looking forwards.
Dear oh dear – who’s idea was that?
Photo: Matthew Moore
The worse the weather the sunnier Jim gets.
He introduces Caroline Lucas as “the real deal and Greenham Common and campaign for nuclear disarmament and a legitimate person who cares as well as being a decent human being”, bet she would like that intro on other shows.
He’s speaking to Natalie Bennett now about the NHS. Her voice is awful, a brutal bit of bad luck in the middle of an election campaign getting a sore throat like that. She says that there should be absolutely no private profit in the NHS and “draw a line under it”.
So far the Greens and Russell Brand agree on everything NHS, corporations, TTIP, arms dealing, grass roots activism. It’s not the most critical of interviews.
He says he sees Natalie Bennett at grassroots activist meetings that he goes to too, often he says it is them and 50 people.
Brand says politics should be something for every day not just twice a decade, Natalie Bennett says that politics should be something you do, not something you have done to you.
After a revolution, Russell Brand says, the Greens are the sort of people you want running things. Not a “psychopathic lunatic” like him.
He ends with: “People in Brighton Pavillion should definitely vote for you. Are you a person who lives in Brighton Pavillion? if you are you should definitely vote for this person Caroline Lucas.”
Well there you go then.
How, as ex-leader of the SNP do you react to the Sun endorsing your new leader Nicola Sturgeon was depicted as Princess Leia?
Pretend to be Yoda in a dramatic reading of the Tabloid story. Obviously.
It is fully, fully bizarre.
Jon Snow is on a visit to @BeechesSchool today ahead of the Channel 4 News immigration debate tonight.
The school has 600 kids with 29 nationalities and only 30 with English have English as a first language.
Some of the kids, who chatted to Jon Snow, told him that when they grow up they are planning to be Prime Minister.
The debate it tonight. Join in with #ImmigrationUK on twitter from 7pm.
The FT has said that a Conservative-led coalition would serve the United Kingdom best.
The paper wants a coaliton again. It says that David Cameron, tempered by Nick Clegg has shown the European-style cohabitation can work and proved the positives of having a “responsible partner in government”.
In fact it goes so far as to say: “In seats where the Lib Dems are the incumbent or the main challenger, we would vote tactically for them.”
If a coaltion is not possible the FT wants David Cameron alone, but it’s unhappy about his stance on Europe. The paper says his instincts on the economy and business are “broadly right” and that Ed Miliband would be a “brake on enterprise”.
Five years ago, the prospect of coalition government attracted dire predictions of instability in markets and gridlock at Westminster. Neither proved true. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has shown European-style cohabitation can work. Curiously, Mr Cameron has not trumpeted its successes. He has preferred to wage a campaign of fear. Labour, he argues, would prove untrustworthy on the economy; and a Labour government would be held hostage by a separatist Scottish Nationalist party. The risk of a cross-border leftist alliance is not negligible; but even some Tories worry that its invocation encourages English nationalism.
At this delicate moment, the best outcome would be a continuation of the 2010 coalition between the Conservatives and Lib Dems. Mr Clegg’s party has proved a responsible partner in government. Tough decisions, such as the reversal of his party’s stance on university tuition fees, will hurt the party. The Lib Dems would be more awkward in a second term coalition. It is also far from clear whether they will have enough seats to be kingmakers with either the Tories or Labour.
Voters must decide not just on the party but also on the combination which would have the best chance of forming a stable, reform-minded government. The country would benefit from the countervailing force of Lib Dem moderation at Westminster. In seats where the Lib Dems are the incumbent or the main challenger, we would vote tactically for them.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon boards a helicopter at Prestonfield House, Edinburgh, Scotland.
She appeared to have no problem with the image they showy, shiny helicopter would give out next to her anti-austerity message.
She said: “There’s now only one week to go until the election and the extent of the opportunity in Scotland’s grasp is becoming clearer by the day – and I’m looking forward to taking the SNP’s positive, anti-austerity message to communities in every corner of Scotland.”
People who described as “Green activists” have been filmed ripping out Ukip advertisements from a local Brighton newspaper.
Caroline Lucas, the party’s only MP, is seeking reelection in the city next week.
According to the Brighton and Hove Independent a pile of newspapers was standing on the paper’s reception desk awaiting delivery when three visitors “quickly and neatly” tore out every single Ukip advert from the paper.
If there is an “immigration faultline”, it runs right down the middle of Margate’s Ethelbert Road.
In one house, for example, a family of Slovakian Roma, who moved to the UK a few years ago, live next to a flat with a National Front sticker on the door.
A few doors down, a Ukip-supporting family proclaims: “Everyone’s fine down this street – everyone gets on with everyone.” Read more.
The real Jon Snow explains the election through the medium of Game of Thrones. He has done this great animated piece for Mashable.
Never again will we be able to use the phrase “you know nothing Jon Snow”, no matter how much David Cameron likes it.
Britain has changed in the last few years. It’s not that we have had more immigration, but now are finally allowed to talk about it. Although that conversation has been opened up in politics it’s essential controversy means it is still stilted, often reduced to soundbites.
What is fascinating about the discussion is that you can and should talk about immigration – but as one guest puts it the “stridency” needs to be taken out of the conversation.
For the people who are actually dealing with immigration pressures on the frontline the addition of extra people doesn’t have much to do with where they are from, just that wherever you hail from you’ll eventually need something from the state.
To the public sector workers in Margate the stymied conversation of the last decade meant that these pressures seem not to have been taken as seriously as it should have been.
Aisha Bashir, a GP, tells Channel 4 News that the diversity adds to the beauty of the city but the exponential increase puts services under pressure. It’s not the fault of people coming in, she says, it is about anticipation and the funding hasn’t matched the immigration we have had.
But crucially she says that we have not got the system in place to cope with the amount of people here already. And with budgets so squeezed already who is ready to promise that money to migrants who are getting such bad press?
This is is the big question. Even Labour, who lifted the restrictions in 2004, say they just didn’t know how many people would come, but come they have.
The headteacher of the local primary school says its also about the “shock of change” – so is the answer restrictions, that politicians of most main parties are happy to talk about, or more money, which no one will? And if we need more money where are we going to get it from?
A polish woman expresses the frustration of those thrown into the immigration debate as just another migrant: “We are coming here and want to be part of British society, if they don’t learn English they haven’t had the chance to learn it yet.
“They are not monsters coming here.”
The Liberal Democrats tell Channel 4 News they have a letter showing that it was David Cameron who commissioned a controversial review three years ago that floated the idea of cuts to child tax credits and benefits to help save £8bn from the government’s welfare bill.
Watch Michael Crick track down George Osborne to an event in Lowestoft:
The audience tonight, the BBC say, is made up of three lots of 25 per cent and the remaining 25 per cent are made up of those supporting other parties or who remain undecided.
David Cameron, unsurprisingly, is challenged on the claims from the Lib Dems today that there was research in 2012 indicating that he was thinking of cutting child credits. He’s asked to put them to bed. While he says that he isn’t going to cut them, and that he has raised them he also makes a point of saying he doesn’t want to put the rumours.
Why won’t you tell about the cuts as well as the giveaways?
An interesting question from a member of the audience that many voters are thinking about all the parties – he asks Mr Cameron that either he doesn’t know where the cuts are coming from or he does know and he is not telling the British public and that is a deceit.
The Conservatives have said they will cut £12 billion from welfare but have specified a very small amount of what these cuts will entail.
He says that getting people back to work will cut the welfare bill, he says he wants to stop young people feeling that they can leave school and never get a job.
He is not the only politician who has not told us where these cuts will come from. When it comes to detail they won’t be popular policies.
What we aren’t getting from him is specific policies that would do to get the big money for the tax cuts and other offers that the party has offered.
Instead Mr Cameron falls back on a favoured trick on this campaign trail – producing the note that Labour left in the treasury saying there is no money left. It’s a powerful argument and Liam Byrne must surely be regretting that leaving that light hearted missive now.
Pushed again on tax credits and child benefit he tells David Dimbleby that child tax credits are not going to fall. Child benefit is a key part of a family budget and that not what needs to be changed.
He says the change will come from universal credit, but again we are not hearing anything new about what specifics will give the £12 billion of savings.
“Ed Miliband will stand here and say lets go on with the budget deficit forever, I think we need to put money away for the rainy day,” is his key argument today.
A refreshing exchange with the Prime Minster there. He’s challenged on pouring more and more money into the NHS, which the questioner says is not working.
David Cameron says it’s dangerous to disagree with a member of the public in an election campaign, “but I disagree with you”.
“Well you’re wrong”, the audience member replies.
Interesting from Cameron on immigration targets there. He very clearly says that the reason that he set “that target” of immigration under 100,000 because of an unexpected increase in immigration since the controls were lifted in 2004.
We haven’t heard Mr Cameron or his ministers call it a target in recent months because they have simply missed it by so many tens of thousands – the latest figures show it was 243,000.
Although he says it is still a good “ambition” he made it clear it was a specific “target” of his Government earlier in his tenure.
Ed Miliband says that producing the Liam Byrne’s letter left in the treasury is David Cameron’s “regular prop”.
The note is haunting him in this debate though. He is asked why on earth people should trust a Labour minister who thought that leaving a note like that was a joke. She says that if someone in the corporate world sent that note they would be fired, so why should people trust Labour again?
He says Ed Balls takes getting the deficit down extremely seriously. It is on the front of Labour’s manifesto.
Asked about whether he accepts that the Labour government made mistakes on the economy last time around. He says he does not. He uses the example of Barack Obama, who he says have a deficit not because of what they spent on schools and hospitals but because of a global financial crisis that was not the fault of one government.
It’s useful sometimes when normal people ask politicians questions. One man puts it plainly. If I spend too much in a week, I can’t afford to buy a pint. We got to the end of a 13 year government, he tells Mr Miliband, you can’t tell us you didn’t overspend.
Ed Miliband using his famous memory here to remember not only his own questioners, but also David Cameron’s questioners. Calling on “Jenny” and telling her that the leader of the Conservatives didn’t answer her questions.
Miliband says he will not do a deal with SNP. He’s pushed by members of the audience – surely he may have to make a deal?
“I do and I am the leader. We are not having deals.”
“If the price of a labour government was a coalition of a deal with the SNP – not going to happen.”
This is actually probably quite a strong statement, one he may be held to after May 7. He is saying there will be no coalition with the SNP and there will be no “confidence and supply” with SNP – so that means a minority Labour government if he doesn’t manage a majority.
David Cameron talked about a “darkened room” of coalition negotiation. Mr Miliband clearly enjoys this comment, or as he puts it “I don’t like the idea of that image… for a range of reasons.”
The audience, probably like many voters, don’t seem to buy it – they are asking him to tell them the truth about who he might make a deal with because it would earn him respect.
Ed Miliband nearly falls off the stage in the final televised debate with the leaders before May 7.
Nick Clegg has got his yellow tie on, he’s gone back to his roots it seems.
Unsurprisingly the first question is on tuition fees. He says he “was between a rock and a hard place on that particular policy” and he says sorry, as he has said before.
It’s going to be difficult for Nick Clegg here. He has to present himself as separate from Ed Miliband but also David Cameron too – but so many of his recent decision will be tarred with the influence of Mr Cameron.
Oh those heady days of “I agree with Nick.”
Unsurprisingly, again, Clegg is being attacked for his colleague Danny Alexander leaking a government document. Why should we trust his party if they do that, the audience asks.
It’s a good question – leaking government documents later doesn’t bode well for the future coalitions.
Audience member: “Have you got another job for after next week for when you lose your seat and your party becomes an irrelevance.”
Nick Clegg: “Charming. No I don’t”
Ouch.
He says it is foodbanks that have inspired his “yellow card” system on welfare sanctions – he says that he wants a system in place that will give
the big question: people who voted for you, like me, did not expect you to put David Cameron in number 10.
Nick Clegg says that there is a “little matter of democracy”. He says he runs a party who gets 8 per cent of the seats and he is not the boss, but the Conservatives got a majority.
Like Ed Miliband he also likes David Cameron’s darkened room comment – “if either of them thinks they are still going to get a majority they need to lie down in a darkened room”.
Nick Clegg says whatever happens the party who gets the most votes gets to “make the first move”.
But really interestingly he says that if that doesn’t “work out” then other options may have to be worked on. A bit of a contradiction there as his whole justification of joining the Tories was that they were the largest party – or as he puts it, the “little matter of democracy”.
@Channel4News