It’s been a busy old start to the short campaign. While the overwhelming visual for this election is hard hats and hi-vis jackets, both Labour and the Conservatives have begun their campaigns by prioritising courting the business vote and focussing on the economy. On Monday, Labour launched its business manifesto and at the same time placed an ad in the Financial Times highlighting the risks to business of a potential referendum and Brexit from the EU.
The plan spectacularly backfired when a number of the business leaders named came out denouncing any association with the Labour party and its policies. This was followed by a front page Telegraph splash, with a letter with signatories such as Duncan Bannatyne and Stuart Rose saying that a Labour government could harm the economic recovery, will not have made light reading either for those at Labour Party HQ. While senior party figures played the letter down as ‘the usual suspects’, there are a number of signatories that backed Labour under Blair (Bannatyne, Cameron Mackintosh and Charles Dunstone to name a few). Only 24 hours after their business offensive, Labour announced plans to effectively cut the time you can be employed on a zero-hours contract to 12 weeks (from the previous 12 months). Popular with voters? Undoubtedly. Popular with business? Unlikely. They may be trying to be all things to all people. But Labour clearly still have a mountain to climb if they are going win over the business vote in just 35 days.
Not that the Tories got off to a much better start. Despite a slew of strong numbers on the economy and their business backers coming good in the Telegraph, Cameron’s suggestion that every family would pay £3,000 under Labour was quickly refuted by the widely respected Institute for Fiscal Studies calling it “unhelpful and of little value”. He also slipped up with an unfeasible suggestion that the Tories would create 10,000 jobs a day in the next five years - a noble aim, but around 10 times as many as needed.
Meanwhile, the Lib Dems are sticking with their campaigning on mental health, launching their Manifesto for the Mind, with the aim of preventing discrimination against those who suffer from mental health. As one of their red lines for any coalition negotiation it’s good to see mental health getting a much needed boost. Although as the latest Ashcroft poll puts Labour’s Oliver Coppard ahead in Sheffield Hallam, perhaps Nick Clegg should be spending more time in the constituency, rather than on visits to hedgehog sanctuaries.
Plaid Cymru were first out of the blocks in launching their manifesto. When first launched, the Twitterati were distracted by the stock imagery (with watermark still included) and poor graphic design skills, rather than the content, but this was sharply corrected. Key pledges from Leanne Wood’s party include the Living Wage for all employees, scrapping the Bedroom Tax and Trident, and renationalising the railways. And establishing a national Welsh cricket team that will be able to compete at ICC level. Well, if you don’t ask...
Week 1 of the campaign will round off with tonight’s leadership debates, a seven way affair that will be less ‘I agree with Nick’ and more ‘I disagree with you because I have a point to prove.’ In an attempt to stop the whole thing descending into farce, each speaker will be allowed one minute’s uninterrupted response, before the rabble breaks out. Tonight’s debate is important (and we’re certainly hoping for another ‘hell yeah’ moment, if only for our personal amusement) but as the Lib Dems painfully learned in 2010, appearing to ‘win’ them is no guarantee of seats in Westminster. As the smaller parties really have nothing to lose, from the Labour, Tory and Lib Dem perspective, the best they can hope for is damage limitation.