Skip to main content

UK Election 2015: party leaders campaign after TV debate – live.


  • SNP leader mobbed in Edinburgh after debate success
  • Cameron and Miliband tied in snap polls

LIVE Updated
Labour leader Ed Miliband in Blackpool
Labour leader Ed Miliband carries fish and chips he bought for the media from a Harry Ramsden’s restaurant as he campaigns in Blackpool Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA
and

Afternoon summary

  • The Lib Dems and and SNP have clashed over plans for future spending on the NHS. As the Press Association reports, The SNP claim their anti-austerity plan would see Scotland’s health budget rise by a total of £2bn by 2020. But the Lib Dems say the SNP’s desire to increase public spending across the UK over the next five years “threatens to wreck NHS funding”. The Scottish Lib Dem party president Sir Malcolm Bruce said:
The SNP plan to borrow £180bn to pay for their promises threatens to wreck NHS funding. The SNP plan to take on more debt would mean £3.1bn extra in interest payments every year. That eats into the money available for health.
  • David Cameron has tweeted a picture of the note Liam Byrne, the former Labour chief secretary to the Treasury, left for his successor saying there was no money.
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.

Steve Fisher, the Oxford academic who produces a weekly election results forecast for Elections Etc, using a complicated model looking at current polling and who polls shift before an election, has published his latest update.
Here are his latest seat forecasts.
Con: 300 (257– 346)
Lab: 258 (215 – 298)
LD: 20 (11 – 30)
SNP: 47 (36 – 55)
PC: 3 (2 – 3)
UKIP: 5 (4 – 5)
Grn: 1
And here is an extract from his commentary.
Our first update since the official start of the campaign finds the Conservatives having moved ahead in the polls, by a nose. Our polling average now has them leading Labour by a point — 34%-33% — having been locked together on 33% apiece for the past month. (All the polls so far were before last night’s debate.)
This has boosted the Tories’ chances: our model now gives them a 79% chance of winning the most votes and a 79% chance of winning the most seats (both up from 74% last week). The probability of a Conservative majority is up to 20% (from 16%), while Labour’s hopes of a majority are virtually gone (our model gives them less than a 0.5% chance of one). The chances of a hung parliament are still high, at 80% (down slightly from 83%).
Our central forecast is for a hung parliament with the Conservatives clearly the largest party, with 35% of the vote and 300 seats to 32% and 258 for Labour.
Updated

Nicola Sturgeon is to address an anti-Trident rally in Glasgow tomorrow. Patrick Harvie, the co-convenor of the Scottish Green party, who is also speaking at the event, said the protesters wanted to make it Trident election issue.
We have a chance to send a strong message that by re-purposing our military and adapting to the threats of the 21st century we can leave the Cold War mentality behind and free up funds to create the jobs our society needs. Scotland is a nation of peace not international aggression. Those advocating renewal of Trident should think carefully how £100bn could transform our communities.

Ed Miliband has been buying fish and chips for the journalists travelling with him in Blackpool ...
Ed Miliband with fish and chips for the media in Blackpool.
Ed Miliband with fish and chips for the media in Blackpool. Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA
While David Cameron has been ticking a baby ...
David Cameron looks at 7-week old Regan with first-time buyer Kelly Jeffers in a showhome during a general election campaign visit to a housing development with a family in Chorley
David Cameron looks at 7-week old Regan with first-time buyer Kelly Jeffers in a showhome during a general election campaign visit to a housing development with a family in Chorley Photograph: Leon Neal/REUTERS
And Nicola Sturgeon has been photographed with a little one too.
Nicola Sturgeon campaigning in the Edinburgh West constituency
Nicola Sturgeon campaigning in the Edinburgh West constituency Photograph: Ken Jack/Demotix/Corbis

Who won the debates? Five alternative assessments

We’ve already published plenty of information about who won the leaders’ debate. (See 10.26am and 1.42pm.) But the attraction of a multi-party encounter is that it allows for multiple interpretations. Here are five more.
They are all based on grouping the seven leaders into certain combinations. To arrive at an overall score, I have used the average figures for what all seven leaders got in the four opinion polls released overnight (see 7.01am), and then adjusted accordingly. Some assessments are probably more useful than others, but I will post them here anyway in case they provide fresh insight.
1 - Men beat women
Men: 18.5% on average (ie, the combination of the figures for David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Nigel Farage and Nick Clegg, divided by four)
Women: 9%
This seems like a barmy conclusion because it is completely counter to the verdict produced by those who have been measuring Twitter sentiment. (See 10.26am.) But there is a difference between posting a positive tweet about someone, and telling a pollster that you thought they won. This figure serves as a reminder that, although Nicola Sturgeon made a very positive impression in the debate, the polls suggest Natalie Bennett and Leanne Wood didn’t.
2 - The right beat the left
Left: 12.25% (with Miliband, Sturgeon and Bennett counting as left)
Right: 21.5% (Cameron and Farage alone) or 17.3% (if Clegg is included as on the right)
Again, the focus on Sturgeon’s impressive performance has overshadowed the extent to which other candidates on the left polled badly.
3 - Parties of government beat parties outside government
Leaders in government: 17% (Cameron, Clegg and Sturgeon)
Leaders out of government: 12.5%
4 - Nationalists beat non-nationalists - just
Nationalists: 14.6% (Sturgeon, Wood and Farage, who is effectively an English nationalist)
Non-nationalists: 14.25%
Bracketing the SNP and Plaid Cymru with Ukip is, of course, questionable, because the SNP and Plaid Cymru are progressive, pro-European parties who are quite different from Ukip in many respects. But there are parallels too, and so in some respects grouping them together could be helpful. It is also worth pointing out that, were it not for the inclusion of Wood, the nationalists would have beaten the non-nationalists, and the non-Londoners beaten the Londoners, quite easily.
5 - Non-Londoners beat Londoners - just
Non-Londoners: 14.6% (Sturgeon, Wood and Farage, who all live outside London.
Londoners: 14.25% (Cameron, Miliband, Clegg and Bennett all have their main home in London, even though the first three also have constituency homes outside London.
Updated
15:46
The Home Office said it would introduce exit checks at the borders from April. But it has emerged that the new system is being phased in gradually.
David Hanson, the shadow immigration minister, has put out a statement claiming this is a symptom of Tory “incompetence”.
The Tories have failed to deliver on their promise of full exit checks, and having left it so late companies are rightly concerned about implementation. People will now be worried that the Tories’ incompetence will lead to yet more queues and chaos at our borders.
While information will be provided to the government about who is booked on a ferry or Eurotunnel, we now know the Tories won’t be checking exits because they left it too late to have a robust system in place. Instead exit checks will be ‘phased’ with no timetable on when they will be complete and no timetable on when this information will be matched with visa data – which is how we really know if someone has left.
15:29
Further to my post about Alex Salmond (see 2.59pm), a reader points out that, even if I can’t find anyone with a tattoo of David Cameron or Ed Miliband on their leg, Boris Johnson has inspired this level of devotion in at least one fan.
15:19
According to the Telegraph, Nigel Farage’s decision to say that foreigners who are HIV positive should not be treated by the NHS was part of a deliberate “shock and awful” strategy to mobilise the Ukip core vote.
Privately, insiders conceded the comments were “a bit spicy” but they were vindicated by a half-time ComRes/ITV News poll showing 24 per cent of voters giving Mr Farage the lead in the debate.
“It was a core vote message. It wasn’t to reach out to floating voters. We need to mobilise our base and that’s what he did,” said one senior source. “Call it shock and awe, or call it shock and awful.”
The Telegraph also says that Douglas Carswell, the Tory MP who defected to Ukip, has refused to endorse Farage’s comments. Carswell is on the liberal wing of Ukip and his father was a pioneering Aids/HIV doctor in Africa.

14:59
Alex Salmond, the former SNP leader, said Nicola Sturgeon “hammered” David Cameron in the debate last night.
Asked about a claim by Michael Gove, the Conservative chief whip, that a Labour/SNP alliance would be a “lethal cocktail”, Salmond replied:
I think Michael Gove is showing all the signs of panic and the distress that the prime minister was showing in the debate last night when he was hammered by Nicola Sturgeon ... I think the first minister is wiping the floor with the Westminster old boys’ network.
Salmond was campaigning in Kircaldy where he also met a particularly enthusiastic supporter.
They certainly are passionate about their politics in the SNP. Does anyone know of anyone with tattoo of David Cameron or Ed Miliband on their leg?
Alex Salmond gets a look at supporter Aphra Wilson’s tattoo, of his good self, in Kircaldy. Salmond was signing copies of his book whilst campaigning in Gordon Brown’s constituency.
Alex Salmond gets a look at supporter Aphra Wilson’s tattoo, of his good self, in Kircaldy. Salmond was signing copies of his book whilst campaigning in Gordon Brown’s constituency. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian
Updated
14:38
The Tory video team have been busy today. Here is another one they have produced trying to make the case that a Labour government would be held to ransom by the SNP.


theguardian.

Popular posts from this blog

UK GENERAL ELECTIONS:Inquiry announced into memo alleging Sturgeon wants Tory election victory.

Image
Civil service instigates investigation into leaked memo from Foreign Office about supposed comments made in February Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, with David Cameron in her office at the Scottish parliament earlier this year. Photograph: WPA Pool/Getty A civil service inquiry into a leaked memo which claimed that Nicola Sturgeon privately wanted to see David Cameron remain in power after the general election has been instigated following calls from the First Minister. Ms Sturgeon described the allegation as “100% untrue” and accused Whitehall of “dirty tricks”.
Read more

Sandhurst's sheikhs: Why do so many Gulf royals receive military training in the UK? A parade outside the building at Sandhurst Continue reading the main story In today's Magazine The death list that names 5,000 victims Is this woman an apostate? Voices from a WW1 prison camp The Swiss selfie scandal Generations of foreign royals - particularly from the Middle East - have learned to be military leaders at the UK's Sandhurst officer training academy. But is that still a good idea, asks Matthew Teller. Since 1812, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, on the Surrey/Berkshire border, has been where the British Army trains its officers. It has a gruelling 44-week course testing the physical and intellectual skills of officer cadets and imbuing them with the values of the British Army. Alongside would-be British officers, Sandhurst has a tradition of drawing cadets from overseas. Many of the elite families of the Middle East have sent their sons and daughters. Perhaps the most notable was King Hussein of Jordan. Continue reading the main story Find out more Matthew Teller presents Sandhurst and the Sheikhs, a Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4, on Wednesday 27 August 2014 at 11:00 BST It will be available on iPlayer shortly after broadcast Four reigning Arab monarchs are graduates of Sandhurst and its affiliated colleges - King Abdullah of Jordan, King Hamad of Bahrain, Sheikh Tamim, Emir of Qatar, and Sultan Qaboos of Oman. Past monarchs include Sheikh Saad, Emir of Kuwait, and Sheikh Hamad, Emir of Qatar. Sandhurst's links have continued from the time when Britain was the major colonial power in the Gulf. "One thing the British were excellent at was consolidating their rule through spectacle," says Habiba Hamid, former foreign policy strategist to the rulers of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. "Pomp, ceremony, displays of military might, shock and awe - they all originate from the British military relationship." Sheikh Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa, King Abdullah, Sultan Qaboos Sandhurst alumni: King Hamad of Bahrain, King Abdullah of Jordan and Sultan Qaboos of Oman It's a place where future leaders get to know each other, says Michael Stephens, deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute, Qatar. And Sandhurst gives the UK influence in the Gulf. "The [UK] gets the kind of attention from Gulf policy elites that countries of our size, like France and others, don't get. It gives us the ability to punch above our weight. "You have people who've spent time in Britain, they have… connections to their mates, their teachers. Familiarity in politics is very beneficial in the Gulf context." "For British people who are drifting around the world, as I did as a soldier," says Brigadier Peter Sincock, former defence attache to Saudi Arabia, "you find people who were at Sandhurst and you have an immediate rapport. I think that's very helpful, for example, in the field of military sales." The Emir of Dubai Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum with his son after his Passing Out Parade at Sandhurst in 2006 Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Emir of Dubai, with his son in uniform at Sandhurst in 2006 Her Majesty The Queen's Representative His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, The Emir of Qatar inspects soldiers during the 144th Sovereign's Parade held at The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on April 8, 2004 in Camberley, England. Some 470 Officer cadets took part of which 219 were commissioned into the British Army Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar until 2013, inspects soldiers at Sandhurst in 2004 Emotion doesn't always deliver. In 2013, despite the personal intervention of David Cameron, the UAE decided against buying the UK's Typhoon fighter jets. But elsewhere fellow feeling is paying dividends. "The Gulf monarchies have become important sources of capital," says Jane Kinninmont, deputy head of the Middle East/North Africa programme at the foreign affairs think tank Chatham House. "So you see the tallest building in London being financed by the Qataris, you see UK infrastructure and oilfield development being financed by the UAE. There's a desire - it can even seem like a desperation - to keep them onside for trade reasons." British policy in the Gulf is primarily "mercantile", says Dr Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, of the Baker Institute in Houston, Texas. Concerns over human rights and reform are secondary. The Shard at dusk The Shard was funded by Qatari investors In 2012 Sandhurst accepted a £15m donation from the UAE for a new accommodation block, named the Zayed Building after that country's founding ruler. In March 2013, Sandhurst's Mons Hall - a sports centre - was reopened as the King Hamad Hall, following a £3m donation from the monarch of Bahrain, who was educated at one of Sandhurst's affiliated colleges. The renaming proved controversial, partly because of the perceived slight towards the 1,600 British casualties at the Battle of Mons in August 1914 - and partly because of how Hamad and his government have dealt with political protest in Bahrain over the last three years. A critic might note that the third term of Sandhurst's Officer Commissioning Course covers counter-insurgency techniques and ways to manage public disorder. Since tension between Bahrain's majority Shia population and minority Sunni ruling elite boiled over in 2011, more than 80 civilians have died at the hands of the security forces, according to opposition estimates, though the government disputes the figures. Thirteen police officers have also lost their lives in the clashes. "The king has always felt that Sandhurst was a great place," says Sincock, chairman of the Bahrain Society, which promotes friendship between the UK and Bahrain. "Something like 20 of his immediate family have been there as cadets. He didn't really understand why there was such an outcry." David Cameron and King Hamad David Cameron meeting King Hamad in 2012... A protester is held back by police ... while protesters nearby opposed the Bahrain ruler's human rights record Crispin Black, a Sandhurst graduate and former instructor, says the academy should not have taken the money. "Everywhere you look there's a memorial to something, a building or a plaque that serves as a touchstone that takes you right to the heart of British military history. Calling this hall 'King Hamad Hall' ain't gonna do that." Sandhurst gave a written response to the criticism. "All donations to Sandhurst are in compliance with the UK's domestic and international legal obligations and our values as a nation. Over the years donations like this have saved the UK taxpayer a considerable amount of money." But what happens when Sandhurst's friends become enemies? In 2001, then-prime minister Tony Blair visited Damascus, marking a warming of relations between the UK and Syria. Shortly after, in 2003, Sandhurst was training officers from the Syrian armed forces. Now, of course, Syria is an international pariah. Journalist Michael Cockerell has written about Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi's time at the Army School of Education in Beaconsfield in 1966: "Three years [later], Gaddafi followed a tradition of foreign officers trained by the British Army. He made use of his newfound knowledge to seize political power in his own country." Ahmed Ali Sandhurst-trained Ahmed Ali was a key player in the Egyptian military's removal of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi That tradition persists. In the 1990s Egyptian colonel Ahmed Ali attended Sandhurst. In 2013 he was one of the key figures in the Egyptian military's removal of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, now rewarded by a post in President Sisi's inner circle of advisers. In the late 1990s there were moves by the British government under Tony Blair to end Sandhurst's training of overseas cadets. Major-General Arthur Denaro, Middle East adviser to the defence secretary and commandant at Sandhurst in the late 1990s, describes the idea as part of the "ethical foreign policy" advocated by the late Robin Cook, then-foreign secretary. Tony Blair and Robin Cook Tony Blair and Robin Cook at one point planned to end Sandhurst's training of overseas cadets The funeral of King Hussein in 1999 appears to have scuppered the plan. "Coming to that funeral were the heads of state of almost every country in the world - and our prime minister was there, Tony Blair," says Major-General Denaro. "He happened to see me talking to heads of state - the Sultan of Brunei, the Sultan of Oman, the Bahrainis, the Saudis - and he said 'How do you know all these guys?' The answer was because they went to Sandhurst." Today, Sandhurst has reportedly trained more officer cadets from the UAE than from any other country bar the UK. The May 2014 intake included 72 overseas cadets, around 40% of whom were from the Middle East. "In the future," says Maryam al-Khawaja, acting president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, "people will look back at how much Britain messed up in the [Middle East] because they wanted to sell more Typhoon jets to Bahrain, rather than stand behind the values of human rights and democracy." "It's one thing saying we're inculcating benign values, but that's not happening," says Habiba Hamid. Sandhurst is "a relic of the colonial past. They're not [teaching] the civic values we ought to find in democratically elected leaders." line Who else went to Sandhurst? Princes William and Harry, Winston Churchill, Ian Fleming, Katie Hopkins, Antony Beevor, James Blunt, Josh Lewsey, Devon Harris (From left to right) Princes William and Harry Sir Winston Churchill Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond (but did not complete training) Katie Hopkins, reality TV star Antony Beevor, historian James Blunt, singer-songwriter Josh Lewsey, World Cup-winning England rugby player Devon Harris, member of Jamaica's first bobsleigh team line Sandhurst says that "building international relations through military exchanges and education is a key pillar of the UK's international engagement strategy". Sandhurst may be marvellous for the UK, a country where the army is subservient to government, but it is also delivering militarily-trained officers to Middle Eastern monarchies where, often, armies seem to exist to defend not the nation but the ruling family.

Image
Generations of foreign royals - particularly from the Middle East - have learned to be military leaders at the UK's Sandhurst officer training academy. But is that still a good idea, asks Matthew Teller. Since 1812, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, on the Surrey/Berkshire border, has been where the British Army trains its officers. It has a gruelling 44-week course testing the physical and intellectual skills of officer cadets and imbuing them with the values of the British Army. Alongside would-be British officers, Sandhurst has a tradition of drawing cadets from overseas. Many of the elite families of the Middle East have sent their sons and daughters. Perhaps the most notable was King Hussein of Jordan. Four reigning Arab monarchs are graduates of Sandhurst and its affiliated colleges - King Abdullah of Jordan, King Hamad of Bahrain, Sheikh Tamim, Emir of Qatar, and Sultan Qaboos of Oman. Past monarchs include Sheikh S
Read more

Ebola Outbreak: Guinea Declares Emergency As Overall Deaths From Ebola Rise To 1,069

Image
Health workers take passengers' temperatures infrared digital laser thermometers at the Felix Houphouet Boigny international airport in Abidjan on Aug. 13, 2014. Ivory Coast on Monday banned air travellers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three countries worst-hit by the Ebola outbreak, and ordered its flagship carrier Air Cote d'Ivoire to cease flights to and from them. Reuters/Luc Gnago Guinea, one of the worst-hit West African nations in the ongoing Ebola outbreak, announced a state of emergency Wednesday. The World Health Organization, or WHO, also  said  that four new people died in Guinea between Aug. 10 and Aug. 11. The total death count in Guinea from the latest epidemic was estimated at 377 by WHO while the number of cases reported had risen to 510. Overa
Read more