After 90 days of textbook campaigning and little change in the polls, the parties have been pulling out all the strategic stops this week in trying to convince the remaining 40% of undecided voters. Last night Miliband, Clegg and Cameron took to the stage for the final time in “The Election leader’s special.” Hosted by David Dimbleby, the 90 minutes in a BBC question time format saw a specially selected partisan audience grilling the three leaders. But were any of them convincing enough?
Cameron, first up on the stage, practically bounding off his chair in an attempt to exhibit his continued passion and energy for this campaign. Followed by Miliband then Clegg, the questioning largely focused on welfare and tax, immigration, the EU and the NHS. The liveliest part of the questioning focussed on the trading that will take place in the likely event of an inconclusive election result next Thursday. Both Cameron and Miliband stated they were not willing to negotiate on any part of their manifestos, both adamant they would be achieving majority governments. Miliband went further than he ever has in ruling out any kind of coalition or “confidence and supply” arrangement with the SNP, even if it means Labour would have to forfeit their chance in government. Clegg played on this by presenting the Lib Dems as the only sensible option since neither party can form a majority. The failure of the leaders in addressing the looming spectre of a hung parliament seemed to do little to reassure an already sceptical audience.
A Guardian/ICM poll heralded Cameron as the winner on 44%, followed by Miliband on 38% then Clegg on 19%. Cameron’s lead has largely been credited to his confident performance and ability to confront challenging questions whilst deflecting attention to Labour. With the aid of the now infamous note left in 2010 by outgoing Labour Treasury Secretary Liam Byrne, stating there was “no money left,” Cameron was able to ensure that Miliband’s segment was dominated by angry questions from the audience on Labour’s economic record. Miliband didn’t crumble as the Conservatives would have hoped, but it wasn’t his best performance of the campaign. Considering the Lib Dems have only been polling at 9% of the vote, their 19% result last night would have come as a breath of fresh air to the party. Whilst far from a revival of “cleggmania” it may have done enough to improve Clegg’s ratings in his own constituency and see him regain some credibility.
The Conservatives for much of the week held a strong footing on the back of favouring polls, endorsement from 5,000 small businesses, plus David Cameron’s vow to introduce a law guaranteeing no rise in income tax rates, VAT or national insurance before 2020 if the Tories win the election. However, in the hours leading up to last night’s televised interview, the Tories fell onto the back-foot following allegations from the Lib Dems that claimed they wanted to make £8bn of cuts to child benefit three years ago. David Cameron moved quickly to reject such charges but whilst it remains unproven it still leaves another ‘nasty Tories’ stain. The leak saw Cameron immediately having to tackle difficult questions in the debate on where his government would be making cuts to already stretched departments. It seems this may make coalition talks pretty difficult next week, but with so many high profile Lib Dems facing tight battles in their constituencies – including Danny Alexander – it may have been a risk worth taking.
Meanwhile, Miliband caused a frenzy with his appearance on Russell Brand’s youtube channel, #Milibrand quickly trended on twitter and became a favourite amongst both supporters and opponents. Now viewed over 870,000 times, it has aided Miliband’s visibility in the campaign. A Britainthinks poll for the Guardian found that it provided great cut through with the youth demographic but whether this audience will actually vote, remains to be seen. Scotland continues to dominate Labour headlines despite attempts to do otherwise with their pledge to remove stamp duty for first-time buyers purchasing for under £300,000. Surveys and polls have instead continued to give Miliband’s party a headache. Most worryingly for Labour was the Ipsos-Mori poll that predicts the SNP winning all of Scotland’s 59 seats. This came on the back of an ORB survey which showed that a potential Labour-SNP deal made 25 per cent less likely to vote Labour and 16 per cent more likely – a difference of nine points, which could be crucial in a tight election.
All eyes will be on the polls this weekend, with 6% of those taking part in the ICM poll saying they had changed their mind as a result of the debate the party leaders will be anxiously waiting to see if this figure will be replicated across the national vote.