Campaign round-up: Clegg mania, Plaid umbrage and Mandy dancing in the anything-is-possible election

by Jennifer Painter
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

In the wake of the leaders’ debate round one, the two main parties launched a plethora of ammuntion against the Liberal Democrats. One Labour candidate has been accused of taking the attack too far. Birmingham Hall Green’s Roger Godsiff issued campaign leaflets with the slogan: “Do you want convicted murderers, rapists and paedophiles to be given the vote? The Lib Dems Do.” The Labour Party subsequently said the leaflet was not approved at a national level and it has since been withdrawn.

A Lib Dem grassroots campaign has taken the form of a Facebook group entitled “We got Rage Against the Machine To #1, we can get the Lib Dems into office!” More than 100,000 people have joined, with numbers spiralling in response to the Clegg media frenzy. According to a YouGov poll before the second debate, 34 per cent of voters think that the “Clegg effect” will be long lasting.

Celebrity endorsement has once again graced the political platform; comedian Eddie Izzard has produced a Labour broadcast in which he salutes “brilliant Britain”, stating that he takes “great offence” to the Conservative analogy of a “broken Britain”. David Cameron enlisted the help of Take That singer Gary Barlow to publicise yet another hard-hitting Tory policy – the proposed implementation of a national school music competition. Neverlet it be said that the Conservative Party isn’t working for the greater good of the education system.

Helen Mary Jones, Plaid Cymru member of the Welsh National Assembly, described the first leaders’ debate as “totally irrelevant”, on the grounds the party leaders had “nothing to say to Wales”. Plaid saw a 5 per cent decrease in its support after the political stand-off and Ms Jones demanded that her party be allowed to take part in the next two debates – an interesting point of view considering that Plaid isn’t standing enough candidates to form a government. But then, in a week that has seen Peter Mandelson joyously licking an ice cream and ballroom dancing in Blackpool, it shows that anything is possible in this election.

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About The Author

Jennifer Painter is reporting for Tribune during the general election campaign
  • Robert

    Izzard is the biggest joke, come to my town and I’ll show you a broken place, it has massive drug problems, crime is growing, youth unemploymentmassive, a real serious joke of a youth training program where kids get an hours a week job training.

    We are told OK they can work in community work picking up littler cleaning graffiti, but of course the council employs people for this, so if the youth do it free redundancies, as labour once proudly shouted at Thatcher, how times change.

    In my area children as young as six or seven are into drugs, I once saw a ten year old laying on the ground with a needle in his arm, I turned him onto his side made sure he was breathing and walked away, no good calling an ambulance they refuse to come out to a 999 call unless you have spoken to NHS direct.

    Is the UK broken some area are smashed we have no go areas in my town not Muslim but drug related where you step the into the estate a bloke will come out with a long screw driver to ask what you want, the people in the area are so badly addicts the police had to open a station.

    Izzard needs to get out and look around the real problems, under labour we again have people living under bridges, a year ago people were building a shanty town in my area.

    New labour old Tories, old Tories new liebour…..

  • Robert

    Izzard is the biggest joke, come to my town and I’ll show you a broken place, it has massive drug problems, crime is growing, youth unemploymentmassive, a real serious joke of a youth training program where kids get an hours a week job training.

    We are told OK they can work in community work picking up littler cleaning graffiti, but of course the council employs people for this, so if the youth do it free redundancies, as labour once proudly shouted at Thatcher, how times change.

    In my area children as young as six or seven are into drugs, I once saw a ten year old laying on the ground with a needle in his arm, I turned him onto his side made sure he was breathing and walked away, no good calling an ambulance they refuse to come out to a 999 call unless you have spoken to NHS direct.

    Is the UK broken some area are smashed we have no go areas in my town not Muslim but drug related where you step the into the estate a bloke will come out with a long screw driver to ask what you want, the people in the area are so badly addicts the police had to open a station.

    Izzard needs to get out and look around the real problems, under labour we again have people living under bridges, a year ago people were building a shanty town in my area.

    New labour old Tories, old Tories new liebour…..

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