Financial Preview 25/03/2015: UK General Election 2015, Thursday 7th May 2015

With the election now 43 days away, a surge in Tory support following last week’s Budget was damaged by controversy in Dudley North of all places, whilst the debate schedule was finally revealed in a very hectic week for election news.

Let’s get the debate debacle out of the way first. Cameron’s constant stalling and refusal to engage in anything other than a 7-way head-to-head debate seems to have paid off for the Tory leader, even if his obstinate behaviour made him look weak in the progress. That 7-leader-strong discussion will take place on 2nd April, and include Cameron, Miliband, Clegg and Farage alongside Natalie Bennett of the Green Party, Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP and Leanne Wood of Plaid Cymru. This is preceded by a Channel 4/Sky News in studio question and answer session for Miliband and Cameron on Thursday 26th March, with Cameron’s important stipulation that they not actually debate any of the issues.

There is then a 5 way opposition debate (therefore excluding Cameron and Clegg) on 16th April and finally, a special Question Time with Miliband, Cameron and Clegg all separately answering audience questions on the 30th April. This messy schedule, especially the 7-way debate, plays in Cameron hands and allows him to push the Tory line of stability vs chaos, even if this appearance of chaos has been purely created by Cameron’s own refusal to participle in the kinds of 2010 debates that would have likely only given Miliband a platform to grow.



Anyway. Frustratingly for the Tories their post-Budget glow took a big hit at the end of last week, as it was revealed that Dudley North candidate Afzal Amin had allegedly plotted with the English Defence League, proposing that Amin would call off an EDL march against a planned mosque in order to plump up his feathers in the area, also pledging to be the EDL’s ‘unshakeable ally’ if the far-right group went ahead with this idea. Unluckily for Amin, if you try and get into bed with a group like the EDL it is likely things won’t go successfully, with the group themselves blowing the whistle on Amin’s actions. Despite this proposal effectively being caught on tape, Amin vociferously denied the claims, only to resign with immediate effect at the thought of a disciplinary hearing.

Needless to say this didn’t coat the Tories in glory, and left there candidate selection policy with some serious questions to answer. Following this came the relatively out of nowhere claim by Cameron that he wouldn’t stand for a third term, causing and outpouring of scorn from Labour, who branded the Prime Minister ‘arrogant’ for assuming he would have a third term to turn down, whilst the Conservatives scrabbled to downplay the comment, saying it was ‘unsurprising’ and ‘sensible’. Yet the wobble this statement was expected to cause didn’t really materialise, and unfortunately for Labour, a poll this morning revealed that the majority of the public were un-phased by what Cameron said.

Labour’s week got worse in the final PMQs of this government. On Monday Ed Balls had promised Labour would not raise VAT if elected; Miliband went into his final Parliament-based tete-a-tete with Cameron intending to use this to his advantage, asking whether the Prime Minister would rule out such a raise. However, the Labour leader was then gazumped by Cameron’s response that yes, indeed, he would, leaving Cameron with a pretty clear win on what could be his last ever PMQs.



Elsewhere, there was budget news from two of the smaller parties, with the Lib Dems largely embarrassingly themselves by busting out a Yellow Box to rival Osborne’s Big Red one, only for it to contain a rather sparse selection of policies. UKIP also came out with its budget all guns blazing, literally, with a defence heavy economic policy funded by, amongst other things, leaving the EU and the money this would save alongside big cuts to overseas aid. UKIP were also forced to expel MEP Janice Atkinson from the party after it was discovered she was fudging her expenses.

Despite their multiple controversies this week, the Conservatives managed to hold onto their lead in Spreadex’s General Election seat spread, even if the polls still indicate a margin of around two seats between the two major parties, with post-Budget landscape seeing a big swell in Tory buys and Labour sells. The Tories currently sit at a spread of 282-287, marginally up since the Budget, whilst Labour have fallen back to 270-275, with little to no change in the spreads for the SNP, Lib Dem and UKIP. There has been a big change, however, in the spreads for most seats. Whilst for much of the initial campaigning the parties have been neck and neck, it is looking increasingly likely that the Tories will win the most seats, at a spread of 65.2-71.5 compared to Labour’s 28.5-34.8, regardless of whether this actually results in a Tory government.