ITV Leaders Debate

I think it was the Daily Telegraph that first reported it, I'm wondering what they hope to gain from an obvious untruth.

Me too.

That's a fair and balanced overview . But I do think you're underestimating the quite rapid growth in support for the Greens but whether that translates into seats is entirely another matter! They may have a leader who's prone to 'brain fades' but they do seem to provide a home for the growing number of the disenchanted of the Labour and Lib-Dem parties.

I hope the next government will be an alliance of Conservatives, Lib-Dem and Ulster Unionists but without Clegg whose treachery proved he really couldn't be trusted by either his colleagues in government or by his own party members. To replace him, I hope that Danny Alexander is able to cling on to his seat and return to the Cabinet; he'd be a better leader than Tim Farnon plus he was widely regarded and trusted. But Cameron has to tackle the 'elephant in the room' - the Europe question - at an early stage and not wait until 2017. He appears to have turned a deaf ear to people like Donald Tusk, who became President of the European Council in December: it is he that Cameron and Foreign Secretary Theresa May will have to deal with in any negotiations. He (Tusk) has made it abundantly clear that there will be NO modifications to the freedom of movement laws; well he would, wouldn't he, his country is the major beneficiary of the policy!

Isn't it ironic that should Milliband be shoe-horned into Number 10 by Sturgeon and Salmond, that his is very likely to be the last Labour government for many years! Unless he creates 40 or so new constituencies in the north, the electoral arithmetic simply won't add up in Labour's favour and we may see a return to the grand old days of Whigs and Tories dominating the House! But my big fear for a SNP-dominated Labour government is the legacy it will leave behind: the debt burden, huge now but will be massive in 2020. Any attempt to trim budgets or curb spending will, I read, be vetoed by Labour's hard left and the SNP both of whom will take huge delight in seeing public spending spiral out of control, knowing that they will not be recalled in 2020 to sort-out the mess! If we're going to have a Labour government, then let's have a real Labour government, not a minority one, possibly with fewer MPs than the Tories, hide-bound to the SNP. Otherwise Milliband will only be remembered as the Prime Minister who broke-up the Union.

You're a bit more generous to Ukip than John. Were this election to have been held last year, in June or July say, I think they would have inflicted serious damage on both the major parties and could well have displaced the Lib-Dems as the third party. But Ukip has suffered some rather unfortunate publicity arising out of its failure to vet its candidates properly; it's a young party, it will learn from its past mistakes as have the others. Like you I do think they will be a voice in the House but I think they may well have a few more seats. around ten I think.

There appear to be some conflicting accounts in circulation. One that is more believable is that it arises from a memo written by Sturgeon to a senior Westminster Civil Servant some time ago in which she allegedly said that the Tories have a better, stronger leader and that that memo - or its content - was leaked to a Daily Telegraph reporter.

Yes. Kuya said 3. I said 1

You might be correct about their chances last year. And in that sense they have faded since. I note that you have them down for 10 seats. We shall see.

The Greens are in a similar position. Lots of supporters these days but likely to come away with few seats if any. I totally agree with the Filipino Tony Oposa and his messages. However, I would prefer to see the main parties here adopting greener policies as opposed to having a Green Party per se. There are changes afoot in the UK in terms of green policy. In my line of work we are getting hooked up to some new and meaningful changes on the UK mainland that are totally green in approach. So it isnt as if things are not happening back in the UK in that sense.

Electionwise, Ukip is a bit of an unknown quantity right now and my estimate of up to 10 seats may be an underestimate. The reason I say that is that Farage and Ukip polled highly in all the surveys conducted immediately after the Leaders' Debate:





Combining those results, the "Poll of Polls" becomes:

Just one percentage point separating Cameron, Milliband and Farage. But will that support translate into Westminster seats, that's the $64 million question. I'd tend to suggest that Ukip will score more seats from Labour and the Lib-Dems than from the Tories. Ukip membership has increased markedly since their local and European election results last May and most of their newer members are from Labour's traditional heartlands in the north of the country. If we elected our MPs using PR then Ukip would be in line for around 200 seats but we don't so relax!

**********

I note rather wryly that Milliband's weaponising of the NHS hasn't just back-fired, it's blown a gaping hole in the breach (to extend the military metaphor)! The Welsh Assembly's own figures show that its spending on the NHS has fallen over the last five years: who runs Wales and the NHS in Wales? Why, it's the Labour Party who've been in power ever since devolution in 1998! Not only that, but the latest luvvie to record a video endorsing the Party, Martin "Bilbo Baggins" Freeman admits to using private health care in preference to the NHS: "because I can". The multi-millionaire's credentials as another of Labour's hypocrites is furthered by the revelation that he sends his young son to the elite Lochinver House School in Potters Bar at a cost of £12,669 a year (cheap!).

Wait there's more!

In December 2012, his partner of ten years Amanda Abbington (not her real name), a fellow Thespian, faced a demand to pay HMRC £120,000 for unpaid income tax and she didn't have the where-with-all. Freeman, who at that stage was worth a cool £10 million could easily have written a cheque but they decided she would be declared bankrupt. Under English insolvency law, a partner or spouse's property is exempt from insolvency proceedings. They therefore used a legal loophole to deny the public purse of that £120,000. Their secretive tax avoidance scam scheme ceased to be a secret a few months later when a reporter happened upon and published the story making it difficult for them not to repay the debt. Which they did using one of Freeman's cheques.



Freeman's conversion to Labour is very recent. He was a card-carrying member of Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party who refused to vote for New Labour because, in his view, Blair was too right-wing and Thatcherite. Obviously Red Ed's quasi-Marxism was the magnet.

The final bit of embarrassment - for this last week - was heaped on Labour by its Shadow Justice Minister, Andy Slaughter, who apparently can not get to grips with even the most basic of instructions issued to MPs:

Mr Slaughter has been popping the following in peoples' letter-boxes:

These post debate surveys do not seem to have had any impact on the opinion polls in general. Not that I have seen.

Or better the devil we know?

That's exactly how I feel, Rob.
I feel apathetic towards all of them.
The expenses scandal finished what little confidence I had as they all had their snouts in the trough.

I was a labour voter (as were my family) in my youth and 20's then voted Tory as Labour didn't seem to put the country on the right footing in the world, which Thatcher did. She had faults but she was strong.
I have voted Tory since even though I see the continuing decline of respect for the electorate by all of them.
The shambles of the open door immigration debacle and the over-borrowing of Labour makes me see no reason to follow them. Invading Iraq (WMD) and Afghanistan did not help.
I feel Miliband blew his chance the other night. He just doesn't cut it in my view.

At least Farage is pushing the immigration issue and I hope it will push the Tories and Labour into solving the issue.

It was pretty obvious in the debate that Miliband had no time for Farage.

I was thinking UKIP would get about 5 seats, Mark.

I am a bit surprised that anyone with a claim to having some moral fibre can continue to support a party whose leaders took us to war for absolutely no good reason. In fact the aftermath of the Iraq war has caused more problems for the UK than it fixed. Saddam - and Gaddafi - may have been despots but they were very strong men who kept Al Qaida and its ilk at bay. Who gave Blair and his Cabinet free passes?

Milliband is a puppet whose strings will be pulled by Alex Salmond under instructions from his mistress, Nicola Sturgeon who will be running the country and making all the decisions which will, of course, favour Scotland first and foremost. Money, vast sums of money will be spent on the NHS - NHS Scotland. The Scots can consider themselves very lucky that their NHS is not run by Labour but NHS England will go the way of NHS Wales: into decline. When will Labour supporters wake-up and realise this?

Are you counting their two existing MPs one of whom. Reckless, I feel sure will lose his seat?

You may well be right. It's early days yet.

My guess is not based on any research, sadly.
It is just a hunch, I cannot believe Farage's party will not grow in Westminster.

The worst thing about the wars is that they have caused so many moderate Muslims to travel to enlist and join the fundamentalists.
This situation will cause so many repercussions when they leave Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

I agree. People seem to forget that Ukip is a young party comprised of people who are not career politicians with PPE degrees who live in elitist Hampstead, Highgate or Primrose Hill and have little or nothing in common with ordinary, everyday people. They (Ukip) don't have expensive election gurus from the US or Australia and therefore, compared to the Big Three, their candidates are less polished and more prone to making gaffs. But then so were Labour, Sinn Fein and the SNP in the early days of their existences. That's a big part of Ukip's appeal. Once their however-many-MPs show themselves to be good Parliamentarians and respected and hard-working constituency MPs then their numbers will be swelled. Of that I am sure.

It will be interesting to see how well UKIP will grow after Camerons 2017 referendum.

Dennis Skinner will sort em out. Like sheepdog herding sheep.