Cameron is desperate to make 7 May seem like a victory
Only days from the general election and the Liberals let it be known that they won’t work with a certain party leader because he’s very unpopular in the country. They’re accused of hubris, trying to choose another party’s leader before the votes are counted. The party leader in question, whose ratings consistently drag down his own party ratings, was Edward Heath.
It was October 1974. You’ve heard a lot about the first election of that year in February 1974. The results gave Labour four more seats than the Tories but Edward Heath hung around in No. 10 for the weekend testing the water to see if Jeremy Thorpe would cut a deal to keep the Tories in power. In the October election Edward Heath openly supported the idea of “coalition” in the hope of tapping into voter feelings.
No such talk from David Cameron today. He’s desperate to claw back to getting the majority his aides thought was in the bag a few short weeks ago. And he’s desperate to make 7 May look and feel like a moment of undisputed victory, the launch of a newly mandated Tory government, even if the results aren’t crystal clear.
He’s going to have no truck with the constitutional convention that in a hung parliament the sitting Prime Minister is entitled to try to form another government. He will, instead, immediately anoint himself the undisputed victor and hope to create a momentum that will not allow Gordon Brown to do anything other than go the Palace. That, it is emerging, is the plan. It remains to be seen if the results fall in a way that makes that difficult or not.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail today, David Cameron said in Blackpool this morning there were only “three years” left to the election. What a thought.
Boris on a visit to Walworth Academy with David Cameron just suggested they bring in “the wall game” there – David Cameron looked a little uncomfortable.
On the BBC News channel the candidates for Home Secretary were filmed taking part in a Radio 5 debate – they’re wearing giant headsets with bulging microphones like pom poms that made them look like a cross between cheerleaders and air traffic controllers.
Gordon Brown has been speaking in Ipswich alongside Duncan Bannatyne supporting Chris Mole, one of the PPS’s who famously wrote to Tony Blair in 2006 telling him to make way.
He took questions from Labour activists so not opening himself up to the heckling that Nick Clegg got a short while ago in Blackheath.
Here’s Labour’s latest viral ad – an attack on David Cameron’s DIY government, the Big Society.