The Guardian's sister paper, The Observer, has a rather bizarre editorial that decides for Clegg not because of anything that had gone before but because of pr.
Today is the day when all the Sunday papers come out with their endorsements for the general election which they do, to a man, with all the solemnity and sense of occasion that Winston Churchill might have experienced during his “we shall fight them on the beaches” speech. The Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Times, and Mail on Sunday come out for the Conservatives in a series of perhaps the least surprising developments of this campaign.
The Guardian’s sister paper, The Observer, has a rather bizarre editorial that carefully examines the achievements and shortcomings of the Conservative and Labour leaders in respect of the economy and speed of social change, and then decides for Clegg not because of anything that had gone before but because of proportional representation ‘n’ stuff. Hilariously, The Independent on Sunday comes out in favour of a “hung Parliament”. Yep, the most exciting election for a generation and the Indy’s rooting for RON.
And to the polls, which are beginning to look a little bit more wholesome for the one-time heir apparent, David Cameron. YouGov for the Sunday Times has the Conservatives on 35 per cent, the Liberal Democrats on 28 per cent, and Labour on 27 per cent. ComRes (Sunday Mirror and Independent on Sunday) has the Conservatives a whole ten points ahead of Labour on 28 per cent, whilst the Liberals are down one on 25 per cent.
ICM (Sunday Telegraph) have the Tories up three points on 36 per cent , and the Liberal Democrats down three on 27 per cent; amazingly, the same poll has Labour up one on 27 per cent which just shows how wrong those doubters were over Brown’s cunning Slag Off The Core Vote Strategy, which he rolled out earlier this week. There’s also something from BPIX for the Mail on Sunday which has the LibDems three points ahead of Labour on 30 per cent and the Tories on 34 per cent. UK Polling report has an analysis of the figures here.
The upshot of all this is that it looks like Cameron may just pull it off, dagnammit. The News of the World reports that the odds have been cut on a second election this year, to general relief from the public and politicos alike, as their polling of the marginals indicates that there will be a four seat Tory majority.
On which topic, the Tories have finally coughed a policy: apparently they plan to introduce a Great Repeal Bill which would get rid of all that nasty, unnecessary criminal justice legislation brought in by Labour over the last thirteen years. Now this one, folks, is going to be a corker: can your hear that grinding noise? That’s the sound of every civil servant in Whitehall digging their heels in.
Meanwhile, the Observer reports that a Conservative PPC who is likely to be returned to Westminster founded a church to “cure” The Gays through the power of prayer. What IS this Conservative tourettes regarding our homosexual brethren at the moment? You just have to mention Judy Garland, and they’re off on a journey of fevered imaginings in the vicinity of a gaggle of conveniently placed journalists. Meanwhile Nick Cohen sticks up for the comrades by declaring that “Labour still has something to give” beyond uncharitable sentiments about the views of elderly ladies on their way to buy a loaf of bread.
Finally Henry Porter reckons that a little bit of religious bigotry is tolerable in a healthy society, and Jack Straw is worse than Belgium. Well, it’s a new angle for Henry, we’ll give him that.
3 Responses to “What we’ve learned from the Sundays”
Ged Robinson
RT @leftfootfwd: What we've learned from the Sundays: http://bit.ly/dBYFrx – @smithsky1979 reviews the hot sheets
VoteVoteVoteForNigelBarton
I’m finding all this Cleggmania a bit of a wind up. Guardian readers may love him but does he or his MPs/PPCs have any understanding of working class and low-income life? These are the people (including me) who have most to lose from a Tory government. The Lib-Dems are progressive socially but have always been economically conservative. I’ve read Cable’s manifesto. Yes to punishing the banks, but overall we’d be better off under Labour. And the Lib-Dems may have opposed plans to invade Iraq, but once the invasion was underway, their leadership quickly fell into line. That really struck me at the time, having seen their banners on anti-war demos. Yes, Brown should go, but not because of his policies, but simply because he is – de facto – unpopular. Rightly or wrongly he has been hounded almost universally by the British media and no-one could survive that and anything less that a majority win on 6th May. Whether Clegg or, say, Miliband, take over, just please please keep those deficit hawk, Little Englander, prejudice-ridden, look after the well off, punish the poor, shallowly populist liars Cameron and Osborne out.
Mr. Sensible
2 interesting stories over the weekend on the ‘free schools’ policy.
First, in yesterday’s Observer:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/may/02/schools-tories-ofsted-schools-policy-michael-gove
And in today’s Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/02/conservative-education-policy-swedish-failures