Tribune – Comment, news and reviews from Britain's democratic left

With the talk of hung parliaments – and some more cynical people volunteering to bring the noose – some number crunching may be in order. The poll of polls on
April 27 put the Tories were on 33 per cent, the Liberal Democrats second on 30 per cent and Labour third on 28 per cent. Other parties collectively got 9 per cent. While psephologists might politely describe Labour’s showing as “not very good”, according to their transfer of these figures into seats, Labour would be the largest party on 276 – 50 short of an overall majority. On these figures, the Conservatives are predicted to get 245 seats and the Lib Dems 100. There would be 29 “others” in the House of Commons. If that does turn out to be the result, there could be a fair amount of “agreeing with Nick” to come.

Just a few days left to go, and the Sun have played their trump card.

Side point, but would the Lib Dems really ban page 3? That doesn’t seem to fit with their libertarian credentials.

Mea culpa: Sorry, I think I just took something written in the Sun semi-seriously. Apologies all.

Gordon has abased himself in front of Mrs. Duffy and the media.  The tape being played over and over again in the frenzy that ensued makes for painful listening.  But let’s make no mistake, with a right wing press all out to get Cameron into No 10, far more painful would be a Tory victory that would see the sort of brutal cuts being put forward as the only solution to the economic crisis.

Since the Institute of Fiscal Studies declared that the politicians are not coming clean on how they will reduce government borrowing the media have filled in the blanks.  And with a singular lack of imagination they have stuck to the prevailing orthodoxy – squeeze the welfare bill, take an axe to the public sector.  Make the old people with their free TV licences and their winter fuel allowances pay the price for the ‘Frankenstein’ financial products of Goldman Sachs’ Fabrice Touree and the greed of the bankers.

With the final Prime Ministerial debates Gordon Brown had to yet again humiliate himself and refer back to the Rochdale moment of madness, but he was then able to move on and concentrate on the economy.  And while the debates have changed the political landscape, putting the Liberal Democrats on an equal footing – and Clegg has seized his moment – Brown has shown that of the three he is the most distinctive.

Again and again in last night’s debate Brown was aggressive in sticking to his message of ‘same old Tories’.   Cameron would take money out of the economy and put the recovery at risk.

In the first debate Brown made the case for Keynesianism – private investment had dried up and the government had to step in.   Last night he made the point that the Tories were planning to offer a corporation tax cut for the banks, a move that would hit manufacturing.

And while the mantra of all is fairness it’s the Liberal Democrats and the Tories who want to cut child tax credits and the Tories want to reward the 3000 wealthiest by cutting inheritance tax.

In this final debate the instant poll had Cameron out on top but insofar as substance is concerned it was Brown that showed mastery of the economic details.

Brown no doubt wounded from the hammering that he has received – and he was wrong to say to the widow from Rochdale what he did –  he fought during this debate with a passion.  It is indeed a fight for the future of  Labour – every vote will count.

Tory claims that a hung parliament – message: any parliament in which David Cameron is not PM – would cause economic meltdown have been shown to be full of nothing but hot air, to use a polite analogy. Sixteen countries currently enjoying a triple-A rating from those nefarious agencies of which ten are currently run by coalitions and 12 use a form of proportional representation. However, a report from Lombard Street Research recently showed that the most savage cuts have taken place in hung parliaments, the worst by coalitions led by David Lloyd George in 1921, Ramsay MacDonald in 1931 and under the last Lib-Lab pact in 1977. All those governments got their comeuppance and fell shortly afterwards.