Tonight's televised debate

[shaun.lawson]

bigfeller, what's it like to have 'Dave' as your MP?

 

 

 

Utterly dreadful. On Thursday morning, I'll be up bright and early to cast my vote in a polling station in the middle of nowhere, even though it's totally and utterly pointless because of where I live.

[Danny Wilde]

Quietly confident, because I don't want to be complacent.

 

If you bump into Blair on the streets of London, you will give the mendacious war-mongering kent a serious kick in the nads won't you ? That should give the LibDems another 2% boost in the opinion polls.

[shaun.lawson]

If you bump into Blair on the streets of London, you will give the mendacious war-mongering kent a serious kick in the nads won't you ? That should give the LibDems another 2% boost in the opinion polls.

 

Blair was in my old constituency today: Harrow West, where I grew up, and had the biggest swing from Tory to Labour of all in 1997. Unfortunately, the boundaries have been changed, and where my parents live (Pinner) is now part of Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner: a constituency as Tory as bloody Witney!

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

Islington issues - inflation, price of polenta has gone through the roof!

 

It's Grim Up North London is one of my favourite Private Eye cartoons!

 

If the Dumbs do take Blair's heartland, it's a sure sign Brown will be departing!

[shaun.lawson]

Islington issues - inflation, price of polenta has gone through the roof!

 

It's Grim Up North London is one of my favourite Private Eye cartoons!

 

If the Dumbs do take Blair's heartland, it's a sure sign Brown will be departing!

 

Ah - but Islington, like much of London, is a strange mix of rich and poor, affluence and deprivation. I've been horrified by how ghastly many of the estates people live in are; even more so when they turn around and say they're voting Labour anyway. What on earth do Labour have to do to lose their vote?!

[Ulysses]

What on earth do Labour have to do to lose their vote?!

 

Call them bigoted?

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

Ah - but Islington, like much of London, is a strange mix of rich and poor, affluence and deprivation. I've been horrified by how ghastly many of the estates people live in are; even more so when they turn around and say they're voting Labour anyway. What on earth do Labour have to do to lose their vote?!

 

 

I actually think people on the canvass helps. The likes of Thatcher and Edwina Currie always said that knocking on doors won votes. Even Malcolm Rifkind managed to get a decent number of votes in Wester Hailes over the years before being booted out.

 

Labour made the calculation that the underclass would either not vote or not go anywhere else, so they focused on the middle class. I think they will finally get bit on the backside now and there could be a few shockeroonis come Friday.

[Harry Palmer]

I thank the person on here that provided this....

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKFTtYx2OHc&playnext_from=TL&videos=nTTFdVoillg

 

Shaun, have you met Dave?

 

I hope people realise that with a name such as Cameron he is actually Scottish....

[shaun.lawson]

Call them bigoted?

 

Except Brown went up in my estimation when he did that. All her questions were good and incisive - except that one, which was a borderline non sequitur. "Where are all these Eastern Europeans coming from?" Oooh, tough one: Eastern Europe, perhaps?

 

Do people on benefits have it easy? My arse they do. The real madness, though, is in people somehow becoming worse off when they find work - and the way to deal with that is a minimum wage which is a genuine living wage, massively more social housing, and far greater taxes on the rich. It ain't going to happen though, so immigrants will keep being blamed for everything. Beyond that, the real scandal was in what Brown said being reported: I imagine every single person on this forum have walked away from a conversation muttering to themselves at some point or another. It's human nature - and more than that, for all his panicked backtracking, I think he was right.

 

I actually think people on the canvass helps. The likes of Thatcher and Edwina Currie always said that knocking on doors won votes. Even Malcolm Rifkind managed to get a decent number of votes in Wester Hailes over the years before being booted out.

 

Labour made the calculation that the underclass would either not vote or not go anywhere else, so they focused on the middle class. I think they will finally get bit on the backside now and there could be a few shockeroonis come Friday.

 

No doubt it does. I am worried by the epic amounts of leaflets we've deluged the good people of Islington with though: there must be a danger of it being counter-productive. More than that: while every party does it, there is something very uncomfortable about asking people point blank how they're going to vote. It's their private business, isn't it?

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

 

No doubt it does. I am worried by the epic amounts of leaflets we've deluged the good people of Islington with though: there must be a danger of it being counter-productive. More than that: while every party does it, there is something very uncomfortable about asking people point blank how they're going to vote. It's their private business, isn't it?

 

 

Well, Shaun, I think the converse is also true. When Willie Rennie won the by-election in Dunfermline in 2006, he had actually stopped me in the High Street the Saturday beforehand to ask me how I would vote. Rather than the tempting "by putting an X beside my preferred candidate" and walking on, I asked him why he was campaigning on issues then devolved to the Scottish Parliament such as resources at QMH, which had been devolved to the Scottish Parliament with a, er, Labour-Lib Dem coalition. With no response, I then asked him why his party was so pro joining the Euro given that would mean even lower interest rates and a bigger asset price bubble a la Ireland as that was a Westminster issue, and he gave no response either. At that point, any hankering to vote Lib Dem that I had was gone. They won the seat on the basis of being Labour's closest challengers.

 

On a similar note, Bruce Crawford, the SNP candidate, actually knocked on my door and engaged me in the issues. I didn't agree with him, he didn't agree with me, but I had enough respect for the guy for actually calling and discussing things to vote for him. That's the difference.

[shaun.lawson]

I thank the person on here that provided this....

 

Shaun, have you met Dave?

 

I hope people realise that with a name such as Cameron he is actually Scottish....

 

I've not - but I'm deeply uncomfortable with what you linked to. It's inverse snobbery. By all means attack Cameron for a taxation policy which favours the rich - but why should his background be held against him? I'm privately educated myself: what was I supposed to do? Say "no Mum, no Dad - it's not fair if I go to private school when others can't" when I wasn't even eleven years old yet? Clegg went to an extremely expensive private school as well; so did Blair.

 

Every parent has the right to provide the best for their child they possibly can. That Cameron benefited from that is hardly his fault - and a mere symptom of an entire society which is still founded on wealth, not merit in all too many cases. Every person I know who've bought a house did so because of their inheritance; even people doing internships like me can usually only afford it because of rich parents helping them. What does someone do if they come from an abusive background or a broken home?

 

So deal with those problems and create a society based on meritocracy - but don't hold it against someone when they were born wealthy. It's their character and what they have to offer which counts: not a background over which they had no control.

[Ulysses]

for all his panicked backtracking, I think he was right.

 

I suspect her question was motivated by xenophobia, but of itself I don't think it was a bigoted question - even if she only dodged the charge on a technicality.

 

If the PM had been taking advice from me he would have handled the aftermath differently. It might not have worked any better, but it could hardly have been any worse.

 

 

 

No doubt it does. I am worried by the epic amounts of leaflets we've deluged the good people of Islington with though: there must be a danger of it being counter-productive. More than that: while every party does it, there is something very uncomfortable about asking people point blank how they're going to vote. It's their private business, isn't it?

 

Don't worry, most people like to be asked.

[shaun.lawson]

Well, Shaun, I think the converse is also true. When Willie Rennie won the by-election in Dunfermline in 2006, he had actually stopped me in the High Street the Saturday beforehand to ask me how I would vote. Rather than the tempting "by putting an X beside my preferred candidate" and walking on, I asked him why he was campaigning on issues then devolved to the Scottish Parliament such as resources at QMH, which had been devolved to the Scottish Parliament with a, er, Labour-Lib Dem coalition. With no response, I then asked him why his party was so pro joining the Euro given that would mean even lower interest rates and a bigger asset price bubble a la Ireland as that was a Westminster issue, and he gave no response either. At that point, any hankering to vote Lib Dem that I had was gone. They won the seat on the basis of being Labour's closest challengers.

 

On a similar note, Bruce Crawford, the SNP candidate, actually knocked on my door and engaged me in the issues. I didn't agree with him, he didn't agree with me, but I had enough respect for the guy for actually calling and discussing things to vote for him. That's the difference.

 

Yes - those are the conversations I love, even if it doesn't change someone's mind. Fortunately, as a 'nice' party, we don't get much abuse on the doorstep: whereas it must be pretty hellish being a Labour or Tory activist much of the time.

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

Yes - those are the conversations I love, even if it doesn't change someone's mind. Fortunately, as a 'nice' party, we don't get much abuse on the doorstep: whereas it must be pretty hellish being a Labour or Tory activist much of the time.

 

 

Hmmm, well if you get your desired outcome, I think your 'nice' party status might be gone soon!

[shaun.lawson]

 

 

Don't worry, most people like to be asked.

 

As with everything, I guess it all depends on how you ask them.

[Moriarty]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/30/the-liberal-moment-has-come

 

General election 2010: The liberal moment has come

 

If the Guardian had a vote it would be cast enthusiastically for the Liberal Democrats. But under our discredited electoral system some people may ? hopefully for the last time ? be forced to vote tactically

 

Citizens have votes. Newspapers do not. However, if the Guardian had a vote in the 2010 general election it would be cast enthusiastically for the Liberal Democrats. It would be cast in the knowledge that not all the consequences are predictable, and that some in particular should be avoided. The vote would be cast with some important reservations and frustrations. Yet it would be cast for one great reason of principle above all.

 

After the campaign that the Liberal Democrats have waged over this past month, for which considerable personal credit goes to Nick Clegg, the election presents the British people with a huge opportunity: the reform of the electoral system itself. Though Labour has enjoyed a deathbed conversion to aspects of the cause of reform, it is the Liberal Democrats who have most consistently argued that cause in the round and who, after the exhaustion of the old politics, reflect and lead an overwhelming national mood for real change.

 

Proportional representation ? while not a panacea ? would at last give this country what it has lacked for so long: a parliament that is a true mirror of this pluralist nation, not an increasingly unrepresentative two-party distortion of it. The Guardian has supported proportional representation for more than a century. In all that time there has never been a better opportunity than now to put this subject firmly among the nation's priorities. Only the Liberal Democrats grasp this fully, and only they can be trusted to keep up the pressure to deliver, though others in all parties, large and small, do and should support the cause. That has been true in past elections too, of course. But this time is different. The conjuncture in 2010 of a Labour party that has lost so much public confidence and a Conservative party that has not yet won it has enabled Mr Clegg to take his party close to the threshold of real influence for the first time in nearly 90 years.

 

This time ? with the important caveat set out below ? the more people who vote Liberal Democrat on 6 May, the greater the chance that this will be Britain's last general election under a first-past-the-post electoral system which is wholly unsuited to the political needs of a grown-up 21st-century democracy.

 

Tactical option

 

The pragmatic caveat concerns the danger that, under the existing electoral system, switching to the Liberal Democrats in Labour-Conservative marginal constituencies might let in an anti-reform Tory party. So, voters who share this principled enthusiasm for securing the largest possible number of Liberal Democrat MPs next Thursday must, in many constituencies, weigh the tactical option of supporting Labour to prevent a Conservative win.

 

Hopefully, if this really is the last election under the old system, such dilemmas between head and heart will apply less in future. For now, however, the cause of reform is overwhelmingly more likely to be achieved by a Lib Dem partnership of principle with Labour than by a Lib Dem marriage of convenience with a Tory party which is explicitly hostile to the cause and which currently plans to redraw the political map for its own advantage. The momentum for change would be fatally undermined should the Conservatives win an overall majority. The Liberal Democrats and Labour should, of course, have explored much earlier and more explicitly how they might co-operate to reform the electoral system. During the campaign, and especially since the final leaders' debate, the appetite for co-operation has clearly increased and is increasing still. Mr Clegg's Guardian interview today underscores the potential for more productive engagement with Labour and is matched by fresh, untribal thinking from his potential partners.

 

This election is about serious choices between three main parties which all have something to offer. David Cameron has done what none of his immediate predecessors has understood or tried to do: he has confronted the Conservative party with the fact that it was out of step with the country. He has forced the party to become more diverse and to engage with centre-ground opinion. He has explicitly aligned himself with the liberal Conservative tradition which the Thatcherites so despised during their long domination of the party. He has promoted modern thinking on civil liberty, the environment and aspects of social policy.

 

Mr Cameron offers a new and welcome Toryism, quite different from what Michael Howard offered five years ago. His difficulty is not that he is the "same old Tory". He isn't. The problem is that his revolution has not translated adequately into detailed policies, and remains highly contradictory. He embraces liberal Britain yet protests that Britain is broken because of liberal values. He is eloquent about the overmighty state but proposes to rip up the Human Rights Act which is the surest weapon against it. He talks about a Britain that will play a constructive role in Europe while aligning the Tories in the European parliament with some of the continent's wackier xenophobes. Behind the party leader's own engagement with green issues there stands a significant section of his party that still regards global warming as a liberal conspiracy.

 

The Tories have zigzagged through the financial crisis to an alarming degree, austerity here, spending pledges there. At times they have argued, against all reason, that Britain's economic malaise is down to overblown government, as opposed to the ravages of the market. Though the Conservatives are not uniquely evasive on the deficit, a large inheritance-tax cut for the very wealthy is the reverse of a serious "united and equal" approach to taxation. Small wonder that the Cameronisation of the Conservative party sometimes seems more palace coup than cultural revolution. A Cameron government might not be as destructive to Britain as the worst Tory regimes of the past. But it is not the right course for Britain.

 

If this election were a straight fight between Labour and the Conservatives ? which it absolutely is not ? the country would be safer in the hands of Labour than of the Tories. Faced in 2008 with a financial crisis unprecedented in modern times, whose destructive potential can hardly be exaggerated, the Labour government made some absolutely vital calls at a time which exposed the Conservatives as neoliberals, not novices. Whether Labour has truly learned the right lessons itself is doubtful. Labour is, after all, the party that nurtured the deregulatory systems which contributed to the implosion of the financial sector, on which the entire economy was too reliant. How, and even whether, British capitalism can be directed towards a better balance between industry and finance is a question which remains work in progress for Labour, as for us all. At the highest levels of the party, timidity and audacity remain in conflict. Nevertheless, Labour, and notably Alistair Darling, a palpably honest chancellor who has had to play the most difficult hand of any holder of his office in modern times, deserves respect for proving equal to the hour. Only the most churlish would deny the prime minister some credit for his role in the handling of the crisis.

 

Labour's failings

 

But this election is more than a verdict on the response to a single trauma, immense though it was. It is also a verdict on the lengthening years of Labour government and the three years of Gordon Brown's premiership. More than that, any election is also a judgment about the future as well as a verdict on the past. A year ago, the Guardian argued that Labour should persuade its leader to step down. Shortly afterwards, in spite of polling an abject 15.7% in the European elections, and with four cabinet ministers departing, Labour chose to hug Mr Brown close. It was the wrong decision then, and it is clear, not least after his humiliation in Rochdale this week, that it is the wrong decision now. The Guardian said a year ago that Mr Brown had failed to articulate a vision, a plan, or an argument for the future. We said that he had become incapable of leading the necessary revolution against the political system that the expenses scandal had triggered. Labour thought differently. It failed to act. It thereby lost the opportunity to renew itself, and is now facing the consequences.

 

Invited to embrace five more years of a Labour government, and of Gordon Brown as prime minister, it is hard to feel enthusiasm. Labour's kneejerk critics can sometimes sound like the People's Front of Judea asking what the Romans have ever done for us. The salvation of the health service, major renovation of schools, the minimum wage, civil partnerships and the extension of protection for minority groups are heroic, not small achievements.

 

Yet, even among those who wish Labour well, the reservations constantly press in. Massive, necessary and in some cases transformational investment in public services insufficiently matched by calm and principled reform, sometimes needlessly entangled with the private sector. Recognition of gathering generational storms on pensions, public debt, housing and ? until very recently ? climate change not addressed by clear strategies and openness with the public about the consequences. The inadequately planned pursuit of two wars. A supposedly strong and morally focused foreign policy which remains trapped in the great-power, nuclear-weapon mentality, blindly uncritical of the United States, mealy-mouthed about Europe and tarnished by the shame of Iraq ? still not apologised for. Allegations of British embroilment in torture answered with little more than a world-weary sigh. Large talk about constitutional change matched by an addiction to centralisation. Easy talk about liberty and "British values" while Britain repeatedly ratchets up the criminal justice system, repeatedly encroaches on civil liberties, undermines legal aid and spends like there is no tomorrow on police and prisons. Apparent outrage against the old politics subverted by delay, caution and timid compromise.

 

There are reservations too, though of a different order and on different subjects, about the Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats are a very large party now, with support across the spectrum. But they remain in some respects a party of the middle and lower middle classes. Labour's record on poverty remains unmatched, and its link to the poor remains umbilical. Vince Cable, so admirable and exemplary on the banks, nevertheless remains a deficit hawk, committed to tax cuts which could imply an even deeper slashing of public services. Though the party has good policies on equality, it has not prioritised the promotion and selection of women and ethnic minority candidates.

 

Matched priorities

 

Surveying the wider agenda and the experience of the past decade, however, there is little doubt that in many areas of policy and tone, the Liberal Democrats have for some time most closely matched our own priorities and instincts. On political and constitutional change, they articulate and represent the change which is now so widely wanted. On civil liberty and criminal justice, they have remained true to liberal values and human rights in ways that the other parties, Labour more than the Tories in some respects, have not. They are less tied to reactionary and sectional class interests than either of the other parties.

 

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 project which, for all its flaws, remains central to this country's destiny. They are willing to contemplate a British defence policy without Trident renewal. They were right about Iraq, the biggest foreign policy judgment call of the past half-century, when Labour and the Tories were both catastrophically and stupidly wrong. They have resisted the rush to the overmighty centralised state when others have not. At key moments, when tough issues of press freedom have been at stake, they have been the first to rally in support. Above all, they believe in and stand for full, not semi-skimmed, electoral reform. And they have had a revelatory campaign. Trapped in the arid, name-calling two-party politics of the House of Commons, Nick Clegg has seldom had the chance to shine. Released into the daylight of equal debate, he has given the other two parties the fright of their lives.

 

A newspaper that is proudly rooted in the liberal as well as the labour tradition ? and whose advocacy of constitutional reform stretches back to the debates of 1831-32 ? cannot ignore such a record. If not now, when? The answer is clear and proud. Now.

[shaun.lawson]

Hmmm, well if you get your desired outcome, I think your 'nice' party status might be gone soon!

 

As someone who could turn procrastination into a national sport, and much prefers it when decisions are made for him, I'm not even sure if I want a coalition any more - because I think it'd probably be bad for us. If there's a hung Parliament, the Lib Dem membership would never wear a coalition with the Tories, and Cameron would never concede electoral reform. If he then soldiered on with a minority administration, at some point it'd fall, and he'd call an election blaming us and Labour for denying the country the stability it needs. Worse, I think that'd probably work, and the Tories would be returned with a big majority.

 

But on the other hand - if the Lib Dems secured a big rise in seats, but Cameron gained a very small majority, we could attack his government right from the off, and they'd get all the blame when they couldn't fix the economy. Hopefully the Tory Party would collapse in on itself a la 1992-7 too - and be thrown out after one term.

[shaun.lawson]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/30/the-liberal-moment-has-come

 

I think it's taken them a ridiculously long time to reach a blindingly obvious conclusion, which still has many caveats and reservations attached anyway. Nice to have them on board at last - but the time for The Guardian to declare for us was two weeks ago, when we had huge momentum. Doing it so late in the day lacks conviction on their part; some might say it lacks integrity too.

[Harry Palmer]

I concur with Picard......in the Scottish elections I probably won't concur.

 

Cameron is a ******. Gideon is a ######. Regardless of the snobbery in the link...this election will be based on TV Debates.....

 

Therefore, I'll keep my opinion based on my link. Thanks.

[Moriarty]

I think it's taken them a ridiculously long time to reach a blindingly obvious conclusion, which still has many caveats and reservations attached anyway. Nice to have them on board at last - but the time for The Guardian to declare for us was two weeks ago, when we had huge momentum. Doing it so late in the day lacks conviction on their part; some might say it lacks integrity too.

 

I am still quite amazed that they have declared support for the Lib Dems at all.

I know we are doing well, but to have come this far that we have the support of a major national newspaper is quite exciting, even if it is a little late.

I think this can be quite significant in going some way to make voters realise that the Lib Dems are playing with the big dogs and not just a fad. Maybe i am being naive in that though.

[shaun.lawson]

I am still quite amazed that they have declared support for the Lib Dems at all.

I know we are doing well, but to have come this far that we have the support of a major national newspaper is quite exciting, even if it is a little late.

I think this can be quite significant in going some way to make voters realise that the Lib Dems are playing with the big dogs and not just a fad. Maybe i am being naive in that though.

 

I agree - but the great irony is that "Guardian reading liberals" have been massively better represented by the Liberal Democrats than Labour for many years now, not least because of an authoritarian streak running through the Labour Party which I loathe. I'm not sure where they derive all this "Cameron is a far more moderate Tory" stuff from either.

 

But yes, it is exciting. Have the Independent publicly backed us yet? They bloody should've as far as I'm concerned!

[Harry Palmer]

X-Factor politics....

[Moriarty]

a interesting story from the independent

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/how-mrs-duffy-refused-to-dance-to-antibrown-tune-played-by-lsquothe-sunrsquo-1958667.html

 

 

How Mrs Duffy refused to dance to anti-Brown tune played by ?The Sun?

 

Newspaper tried to ?buy up? voter called a bigot by the PM in a day of cloak-and-dagger manoeuvres. Andy McSmith reports

 

 

Gillian Duffy, the Rochdale pensioner whom Gordon Brown described as "a sort of bigoted woman", turned down the chance to make a small fortune from selling her story to The Sun because the newspaper wanted her to say things she did not believe.

 

The offer was made during a classic newspaper attempt at a "buy up", conducted in cloak-and-dagger style only hours after Mrs Duffy's chance encounter with the Prime Minister had made her a media star.

 

After Gordon Brown had emerged from a 39-minute meeting in Mrs Duffy's home to announce that he was a "penitent sinner" and that she had accepted his apology, about 50 newspaper and broadcast journalists, photographers and camera crews spent the rest of the afternoon and evening camped outside Mrs Duffy's white PVC front door, hoping that she would come out to speak to them.

 

It could have been a long, dull wait for them all, because the only action at the front of the house was a brief appearance by John Butters, of the public relations firm Bell Pottinger, who told them that Mrs Duffy would not be saying anything else that evening.

 

What they almost missed was the action round the back, where an intrepid Sun reporter, Richard Moriarty, and a photographer, Jimmy Clark, were clambering across hedge and fence in failing light to sneak in through the back garden, unseen by their commercial rivals.

 

But newspaper offices are leaky places, and it was not long before word was going around the London headquarters of rival papers that The Sun was up to something. Reporters waiting at Mrs Duffy's doorstep started receiving calls from the office asking whether they could see anything happening inside the house. The answer was "no". The next question was: "Where are the men from The Sun?"

 

The answer was that the Sun contingent was nowhere to be seen, but it took only an instant for the media pack to guess what was afoot, and, with a clatter of hastily gathered-up cameras, they raced to the back of the house, just in time to see a flash of light coming from a kitchen window which told them someone inside was taking photographs. The kitchen curtains were drawn before they could see anything more.

 

But around 8pm, Moriarty rejoined his colleagues. According to one, he looked "sheepish". The deal with The Sun had fallen through. As darkness fell, most of the media pack dispersed, although two Sunday newspapers maintained a vigil outside Mrs Duffy's door. Around 7am yesterday, the pack was back outside her door ? though they numbered only about 20, rather than the 50 who had been on duty the previous day. That was enough to make Mrs Duffy want to escape. At 8.15am, a man drove up to her house in a grey BMW and whisked her away.

 

But a hungry pack of journalists is not easily shaken off. Someone established that the BMW belonged to Mrs Duffy's daughter's partner. A scout was sent to her daughter's house in another part of Rochdale. He rang to say he had spotted the BMW, and the pack moved to maintain the siege outside a different door, where two community police officers stood guard. Mrs Duffy spent the day indoors, with curtains drawn. Soon after lunch, Mr Butters went in, but emerged later to announce that Mrs Duffy was still not saying anything.

 

There was speculation yesterday that The Sun had offered Mrs Duffy ?50,000, or even ?75,000 for her story. It is more probable that The Sun's offer was in the range of ?25,000 to ?30,000 ? which must still have sounded like riches to a pensioner who has worked all her life on relatively modest wages. But Mrs Duffy turned it down. Reputedly, The Sun, which has been campaigning aggressively since last October for a Conservative victory, wanted her to attack Gordon Brown in unrestrained language and declare her support for David Cameron but, after a lifetime's allegiance to the Labour Party, she would not do it.

 

Another rumour is that Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor who is David Cameron's link with the Murdoch empire, contacted Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of Murdoch's company, News International, to say that it would not help the Tory cause if The Sun pushed its suit too hard. Coulson's reasoning was that Labour was in such a mess after Gordon Brown's gaffe that it would pay to leave them dangling in the wind rather than give them a pretext for claiming that Mrs Duffy was party to a Tory-orchestrated media conspiracy.

 

Even without the involvement of The Sun, the presence of a man from Bell Pottinger set off conspiracy theories. The agency was founded in 1987 by Tim Bell, Margaret Thatcher's advertising guru, who advised her through the victorious 1979 election campaign. The chairman of Bell Pottinger Public Affairs, Peter Bingle, is a Tory activist who wrote a jubilant blog yesterday, jokily suggesting: "There is a strong case for giving Gillian Duffy a peerage. She has revealed the true Gordon Brown."

 

This prompted speculation that the Conservatives had deployed Bell Pottinger to persuade Mrs Duffy to cause maximum embarrassment to Mr Brown. A counter-rumour was that another Bell Pottinger director, David Hill, had stepped in. He is an old Labour Party hand, who succeeded Alastair Campbell as director of communications for Tony Blair. It was thought that he may be pulling Mrs Duffy's strings.

 

The truth is more prosaic. Finding herself under siege from the media, Mrs Duffy rang her daughter, Debbie, seeking help. Her daughter works as head of compliance at the Manchester office of the solicitors' firm DWF. The firm uses Bell Pottinger North to handle its public relations. Debbie contacted John Butters, of Bell Pottinger North, who agreed to help.

 

"This has got no link to any political associations that Bell Pottinger as a group might have," Mr Butters said. "This comes purely from the family connection. We have not tried to influence Mrs Duffy in any way, we have simply passed on to her the options that have been put to us. These range from doing a deal with a particular newspaper, to just reading out a statement outside the house. There have been lots of offers that have been declined, and some are still on the table."

 

Mrs Duffy could still emerge from this a wealthy woman if she does a deal with a Sunday newspaper. The publicist Max Clifford calculated that if she was intent on making money, she could get ?250,000 from the combination of a newspaper buy-up and subsequent magazine and television interviews. But only, he added, if she wants to.

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

As someone who could turn procrastination into a national sport, and much prefers it when decisions are made for him, I'm not even sure if I want a coalition any more - because I think it'd probably be bad for us. If there's a hung Parliament, the Lib Dem membership would never wear a coalition with the Tories, and Cameron would never concede electoral reform. If he then soldiered on with a minority administration, at some point it'd fall, and he'd call an election blaming us and Labour for denying the country the stability it needs. Worse, I think that'd probably work, and the Tories would be returned with a big majority.

 

But on the other hand - if the Lib Dems secured a big rise in seats, but Cameron gained a very small majority, we could attack his government right from the off, and they'd get all the blame when they couldn't fix the economy. Hopefully the Tory Party would collapse in on itself a la 1992-7 too - and be thrown out after one term.

 

 

So vote for the Lib Dems because we want to lose!

[shaun.lawson]

So vote for the Lib Dems because we want to lose!

 

As Lib Dem slogans go, I think it could catch on.

[Gorgiewave]

Except Brown went up in my estimation when he did that. All her questions were good and incisive - except that one, which was a borderline non sequitur. "Where are all these Eastern Europeans coming from?" Oooh, tough one: Eastern Europe, perhaps?

 

Do people on benefits have it easy? My arse they do. The real madness, though, is in people somehow becoming worse off when they find work - and the way to deal with that is a minimum wage which is a genuine living wage, massively more social housing, and far greater taxes on the rich. It ain't going to happen though, so immigrants will keep being blamed for everything. Beyond that, the real scandal was in what Brown said being reported: I imagine every single person on this forum have walked away from a conversation muttering to themselves at some point or another. It's human nature - and more than that, for all his panicked backtracking, I think he was right.

 

 

 

No doubt it does. I am worried by the epic amounts of leaflets we've deluged the good people of Islington with though: there must be a danger of it being counter-productive. More than that: while every party does it, there is something very uncomfortable about asking people point blank how they're going to vote. It's their private business, isn't it?

 

I remember being told this when I was very young and it was like a taboo to ask somebody how he or she voted, like asking a lady her age. Nobody is obliged to tell you how they will vote, some may lie and some may welcome the chance to speak to the candidate or a helper.

 

Despite Facebook and all the intrusion and gossip that goes with that, I've seen people put "XXXXX YYYYYY is voting Labour" but never "XXXX YYYYYY earns 20,000 per year". That is definitely taboo.