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Red Box

Tuesday, March 31

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Morning all,

Philip Webster reports on day two of the official election campaign.

This morning:

  • Election: PM promises 2m new jobs after tax campaign misfires
  • Balls pledges business rate cut as left rears head
  • Exclusive: Boost for Miliband leader ratings - poll
  • IFS slams £3,000 tax rise claim
  • TV debate line-up revealed
  • Clegg exacts big price for referendum
  • Farage lifts immigration up agenda

Latest news: David Cameron denied on Today he was fighting a negative campaign. But he said he made no apology for putting the danger of Labour putting up taxes squarely into the election.

Tweet us @TimesRedBox, visit our Facebook page or reply to this email to let us know your views or feedback.

Top News
Tory policy
PM promises to create two million jobs after tax campaign misfires

So far, so familiar. Just one day in to the election campaign proper and the personal attacks have started, claims have been challenged and downgraded, pledges have proliferated and, on cue, the Labour left has reared its head. And both the main parties found their opening salvos - the Tories on tax and Labour on business - misfiring.

Today David Cameron and George Osborne grab early billing with a promise that two million jobs would be created under a Conservative government in the next parliament.

The economy featured heavily on campaign day one during which Cameron took every opportunity, including on the steps of Number 10, to make the election a choice between him and Ed Miliband as prime minister.

Expect that to continue. But today will be dominated by the Tory jobs pledge and Labour’s to cut business rates, as both parties head into safer territory.

The jobs target - double that of official forecasts - would be achieved by freezing working-age benefits, raising the tax threshold and creating more apprenticeships, Osborne and Cameron will say.

The Times says Cameron is expected to point to an increase in net employment of 1.9 million since 2010 and claim that the Conservatives are the “jobs party”. He will say: “We will be fighting for every man and woman who wants to work and earn a wage.”

The Daily Mail and the Sun get advances on the pledge thanks to interviews with the prime minister. The Mail says he pledged to create the highest employment rate in the developed world, promising a Conservative government would create “a job for everyone that wants one”.

Over another five years, the Tories would help business to create another two million – on top of the net increase of 1.9 million created since 2010. Cameron said that would mean effective “full employment”.

The Sun says Cameron put jobs at the heart of the Tories’ election pitch. If returned to No 10, theprime minister pledges to continue Britain’s employment miracle, which has seen a record 1,000 new jobs created every day.

Interviewed on Sky the prime minister said he was not banking on another coalition. “We are 23 seats short of a majority. The British people want a majority government … it is more accountable.” On ITV the prime minister said again he was putting himself forward “for a full second term.”

  • Last night the chancellor said that details of the Tories' £12 billion welfare cuts would only be published after the election. He told Channel 4 that there is a clear choice in May, his party, or “the chaos and tax increases and debt of Ed Miliband”.
Catch up: The Red Box guide to the general election
Labour election campaign
Balls promises business rate cut as the left rears its head

Ed Balls will today promise a rates cut for small companies in his first budget as Labour maintains its offensive to woo an apparently sceptical business world.

The shadow chancellor will say that Labour will cut business rates for 1.5 million small business properties and then freeze them the following year.

But Balls and Ed Miliband did not get a clear ride with their warning yesterday that Tory plans for an EU referendum meant a clear and present danger to British business.

And they will face heavy questioning over the threat from the left to block their plans to cut spending.

Not too much is heard of John McDonnell, the leader of the socialist campaign group, between elections. But he has raised the prospect of left-wing Labour MPs joining forces with the SNP to challenge the first budget of a Labour government.

The Times says Tory efforts to contrast their record with the “economic chaos” under Labour will be helped by McDonnell’s interview in the New Statesman, in which he said that a “bloc of 30 to 40 left MPs” would ensure that Miliband could not ignore demands for an end to all cuts from day one of a Labour government.

The Times also says Miliband was embarrassed when business leaders protested at being used in a political advert attacking the Tories’ promise of an EU referendum.

Two prominent businesses said that quotes from their executives had been used inappropriately in a full-page Labour advert in the Financial Times.

The Mail quotes the McDonnell interview claim that dozens of hardline Labour MPs will work with the SNP to hold Miliband to ransom and stop him making any cuts to public spending. The left-wingers have pledged to vote against any budget that includes austerity measures to tackle the deficit.

Poll
Would Miliband be up to the job of Prime Minister?
Exclusive YouGov polling
Miliband’s leadership ratings get big boost

Was the YouGov poll released on Sunday, showing a 4-point lead for Labour, evidence of a real change in attitudes? Today's voting intention poll is back to level-pegging, and I wrote yesterday suggesting our previous poll was accurate in recording a brief post-debate bounce which would probably fade, Stephan Shakespeare writes.

Exclusively for Red Box, we now have a new poll confirming that indeed attitudes to Miliband have changed. We asked four tracker questions which we last asked seven weeks ago. In that period, Miliband has gone up by significantly more than the margin of error on every measure. "Has or has not made it clear what he stands for?​" In February it was Net -23, now it's Net -9. "Has he been a strong or weak leader of his party?" His 'strong' rating was Net -37 and is now Net -19. Has he been decisive or indecisive? His 'decisive' rating has moved from Net -34 to Net -15. Finally, "would he or would he not be up to the job of Prime Minister?" Net -36 moves to Net -10.

These numbers are not in themselves good, but without question they represent a big and meaningful shift. The Tories are betting heavily that 'leadership' is the key to this election, but the second Obama election (where the exit polling showed Romney winning on 'leadership' and 'policies' but losing heavily on 'cares about people like me' - as we all know Romney still went on to lose the election) reminds us of the importance of Miliband leading on values.

YouGov
2015 general election
Tory claim of £3,000 Labour tax rise becomes a ‘guess’

David Cameron’s central claim that Labour would increase the tax bill by £3,000 on every working family was barely standing 24 hours after it was first made as independent experts demolished it.

In The Times political editor Francis Elliott says the claim was downgraded to a “guess.”

You suspect that the Institute of Fiscal Studies will be busy over the next few weeks and its intervention yesterday was incisive. It dismissed as “unhelpful” and “not sensible” the key assumptions behind the Tories’ calculation and suggested that Labour could meet its target with no tax rises at all.

Labour has dismissed the £3,000 figure as “totally made-up” and denied a Conservative claim that Miliband has said that he wanted a 50-50 split between tax rises and spending cuts to cut government borrowing.

Grant Shapps, Tory chairman, who was given a tough going-over on the claim by Evan Davis on BBC 2’s Newsnight, acknowledged that the figure was an estimate but said it was up to Labour to come clean about its tax plans. “Unless they are going to tell us exactly how they are going to do it then I am afraid we are left to having to guess,” he said.

The Guardian says Cameron’s personalised attack on Miliband was weakened within hours when the IFS issued a strongly worded critique of the £3,000 figure, pointing to at least four different potential flaws in the Tory assumptions.

2015 Election Countdown
37 days to go
TV election events
Cameron stands to the far right of Farage

David Cameron does not often stand to the far right of Nigel Farage but he will be glad to know that for the first televised leaders’ debate involving all parties that is where he will be, Katie Gibbons writes

Placed towards the centre of the seven person line-up, between deputy prime minister Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband, Farage will have less contact with the prime minister who is set to stand at the podium furthest to the right.

In the only opportunity for other leaders to go head to head with Cameron during the campaign, the Green Party's Natalie Bennett will take the left-hand position followed, by Clegg, Farage, Miliband, Plaid Cymru's Leanne Wood, Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon and finally, Cameron.

Although the standing order does have some importance, the more pressing issue is how the leaders will use the very short amount of time they have to speak. They will get to answer just four questions in the last major public event before the campaign manifestos are published next week.

The party leaders have also been offered a choice of podium ahead of the second televised election debate to ensure that height advantage does not unfairly advantage them, according to the Telegraph.

The seven party leaders have been told to email the producers of ITV’s "Leaders Debate" with details of “their ideal podium height”.

The Sun sees the lineup as a boost for Cameron because he will be the right-hand side of the line-up – well away from Clegg, Miliband and Farage. It means the Tory chief will not be drawn into unseemly spats with his rivals, it says.

Comment
Ukip's core base: Can Cameron win it back?
Matthew Goodwin

As the short campaign gets underway Nigel Farage will be feeling rather confident. The big fear inside Ukip was that their support in the opinion polls would have been relentlessly squeezed by now; that their drop in support a few weeks ago was the sign of an impending and almighty crash. But this did not materialise.

Ukip continues to average around 14 per cent and has also redrawn its expectations. You won't hear Farage talking about winning thirty seats these days. But you might hear him talking about a targeted and concise campaign that begins in Thanet South. To what extent can this core base be squeezed over the coming five weeks? Why, after all of that, would a majority of these voters suddenly abandon the party?

Read the full comment on The Times Red Box.

Interactive: The rise of Ukip - how Nigel Farage's party entered mainstream politics
2015 general election
Clegg exacts big price for referendum

Nick Clegg will commit the Lib Dems to spending more on mental health today. The FT also tells us that his party is preparing to exact a big price to allow the Conservatives a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU. Its conditions are expected to include allowing EU nationals living in the UK to vote in the ballot. Clegg has refused to rule out backing a 2017 referendum.

Give your support to The Times' child mental health campaign
Rise of Ukip
Ukip tries to force immigration on to agenda

Nigel Farage is trying to put immigration high on the election agenda before Thursday’s seven-way debate.

The Guardian says he will unveil Ukip’s first billboard poster in Dover today and accuse the prime minister of intentionally deceiving the public over the Conservative promise of reducing immigration to the tens of thousands, saying it is not feasible while the UK is part of the European Union.

Meanwhile The Times quotes Farage as saying
he has informal conversations with Conservative MPs “all the time” about working together after the election.

Top News

Tuesday comment


1. Head or heart? It’s a Wizard of Oz election
- Rachel Sylvester, The Times

2. We need to know who Ed is going to clobber
- Paul Johnson, The Times

3. No wonder the SNP are confident – the Tories behave as if they want Scotland gone
- Polly Toynbee , The Guardian

4. Policy is trivial - personality is destiny
- Janan Ganesh, The Financial Times

5. Let the Tories finish the job on the economy
- Richard Oliver, chairman of BAE systems, The Telegraph
Peter Brookes
Red Box
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This morning's briefing was produced by Katie Gibbons.

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