Financial Preview 08/04/2015: UK General Election 2015, Thursday 7th May 2015

It is a month until the big day and since the 7-way mega-debate last week the SNP have only increased their presence, whilst Labour launched a Tory-knocking policy decision this Wednesday morning.

Nicole Sturgeon arose as the surprise winner of the 7-way stand-off, only to have that rosy glow diminished somewhat as a leaked memo suggested she would rather Cameron win the election over Miliband. This led Sturgeon to send out a request, through The Observer, to Miliband that they form an anti-Tory, anti-austerity bloc in Westminster. Sturgeon then struggled on home soil, with experts claiming victory for Labour’s Jim Murphy and the Tories’ Ruth Davidson in the Scottish leaders’ debate on Tuesday.



However, despite a rather mixed week for the SNP leader, the Scottish party were the big winners of the post-debate landscape, increasing their Spreadex General Seats spread to 42-45 and furthering their chances of taking the kingmaker role occupied by Clegg and the Lib Dems in 2010. The complexities of this election have led to the situation that as Labour’s chances of getting a majority wane due to the voter-stealing presence of the SNP, Miliband’s chances of being at the helm of a minority government whose central pairing is a Labour and SNP coalition increases.

Yet Labour are still gunning for a majority, and created waves this morning, a sight that has become rare in this stagnant election campaign, by announcing their intention to close the non-domicile tax status loophole that costs the country hundreds of millions a year. The flustered reaction of the Tories reflected how much of a direct hit on what many perceive as the Party of the Rich this announcement was. Osborne tried to pin the announcement as another example of Labour chaos by selectively misquoting Ed Balls when the Shadow Chancellor spoke on the issue back in January, claiming Balls stated it might cost the country revenue. However the Tories immediately lost whatever ground they had gained back when it was uncovered that they had cut out the end of the interview where Balls stated ‘but I think we can be tougher and we should be and we will.’



This Labour policy announcement has forced the Tories to confront an area they are notoriously weak on. The Tories, rightly or wrongly, are seen as a party that prefers to protect the interests of the rich over the interests of the poor. The impact of this policy, then, is that it either forces the Tories to concede Labour are correct or argue for a tax that the majority of the electorate think is unfair; so far the Tories have plumped for somewhere in the middle and, in the process, guaranteed themselves some lost votes.

However this policy announcement failed to immediately make up much ground for Labour in the Spreadex General Seats spread with Miliband and co. sitting lower at 269-274 with the Tories marginally increasing to 282-287. Yet this could change over the next few days if Labour can make sure their non-dom success remains more than a flash in the pan, and can push the Party of the Rich narrative that is such Tory-Kryptonite. Like last week the biggest changed occurred not with any one particular party, but with the chances of no overall majority, increasing from 80-85 to a current binary spread of 81.8-88.9.