Tories attempt to tackle the ‘anti-politics’ problem

Interesting tactics from the Tories – vote Lib Dem get the IMF was the message from Ken Clarke and George Osborne at their London press conference just now. In a word association would you say that reeks of “old politics” or “change?”

As one shadow cabinet member put it to me, if the message from the voters is anti-politics, if that’s why they’re grabbing hold of Nick Clegg, will they respond well to be being told they’re reckless and wrong-headed.

What should they be doing?

A Shadow Minister helpfully suggested to me they should be sacking Steve Hilton, the communications guru. A senior aide nominated Andy Coulson for the chop. All sorts of people are saying they told the leadership not to get involved in debates on equal terms, giving Nick Clegg parity.

For balance, I should mention that there are Tory candidates I spoke to today in the North-West and the Midlands who say the “blue collar” vote (quite “old” that, as a label, but you know what they mean) isn’t remotely interested in the Lib Dem surge. We will see.

There is some evidence, pollsters tell me, that the Lib Dem surge was actually three smaller mini-surges…one followed the manifestos (and a certain bafflement at David Cameron’s “you run Britain” approach), one followed the debate, and a third one followed the coverage of the debate (people wanting to be part of the bandwagon).

On that last point, fascinating piece of false memory syndrome dug out by The Times’ Populus poll (see Peter Riddell article) which suggests that twice as many people now claim to have watched the debates as actually did.

They may have caught the coverage on news bulletins, it may seem bad form not to have watched or they just want to be part of the national phenomenon that people are talking about.