|
Brought to you with
|
|
Morning all,
Philip Webster report's on today's political stories, four weeks from the election.
|
This morning:
- Row as Tories accuse 'backstabber' Miliband over Trident
- Now Tories plan change to non-dom status
- Sturgeon to fight for tax freedom after election
- Labour advances in Tory marginals
- How will the 'don't knows' vote – poll
Latest: Michael Fallon defended on Today his personal attack on Ed Miliband. “We saw in that Labour leadership election just what he would do to get into power. You cannot be sure what kind of backstairs deal he would do after the election.”
|
|
Tweet us @TimesRedBox, visit our Facebook page or reply to this email to let us know your views or feedback.
|
|
|
|
|
2015 general election
|
|
Election gets personal as Tories accuse Miliband of being prepared to barter Trident
|
|
Four weeks today the polling stations will be open. And this morning, it gets personal.
The Conservatives will commit to replacing all four of Britain’s nuclear submarines, and raise the prospect of Labour not matching that commitment because of a deal with the anti-Trident SNP.
So far, so electioneering. But in making the charge in The Times Michael Fallon, defence secretary, reminds the nation how Ed Miliband became Labour leader by defeating his brother David.
“Ed Miliband stabbed his own brother in the back to become Labour leader. Now he is willing to stab the United Kingdom in the back to become prime minister,” Fallon writes. In remarks that raised eyebrows among some Conservatives he also accuses Miliband of weakness and a “lust for power”.
As Francis Elliott writes the attack on the Labour leader’s character will inflame tempers and comes after the Tories spent a day on the back foot over Miliband’s surprise proposal to abolish non-dom status.
The Tory defence assault has to be based on an assumption that a Miliband deal with the SNP might involve dumping the UK’s nuclear deterrent. But Labour, like the Tories, is committed to keeping Trident.
The Tories point to an interview by Ed Balls, shadow chancellor, with the BBC in March in which he left open the possibility of reducing the Trident submarine fleet to three rather than four boats. But Labour has insisted it will not negotiate away the deterrent to appease the SNP.
Labour is committed to a “continuous at-sea” deterrent and will decide whether that can be done with three rather than four boats, although there have been signals that it will in the end be four. Party spokesmen accused Fallon of lying and smearing.
Other papers pick up on Fallon’s remarks. The Guardian says some Tories also criticised Fallon after he launched a highly personal attack on Miliband.
It adds that in an echo of Margaret Thatcher’s attacks on Labour’s defence policy in the 1980s, Fallon will claim today that Miliband would “barter away our nuclear deterrent” and that the Labour leader would bow to the SNP’s “childlike worldview”.
The Telegraph says Fallon will warn that Britain will be open to “nuclear blackmail by rogue states” because Miliband is “so desperate for power” he is willing to “barter Britain's national security”.
The Mail says the Conservatives will pledge to build a £100billion fleet of four new Trident submarines and Fallon will claim the Labour leader is “so desperate for power” he is willing to weaken Britain’s nuclear defences just to win support from the SNP.
The Sun says the Tories will commit to renewing Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent in full – and issue a “dire warning” that the SNP will force Miliband to scrap it.
|
|
2015 Election Countdown
|
|
28
days to go
|
|
Labour election campaign
|
|
Now the Tories will stop rich inheriting non-dom status
|
|
Ed Miliband’s pledge to abolish non-dom status caught the Conservatives unawares but they fought back by pointing to “chaos” in Labour’s plans because of an admission by Ed Balls that scrapping the rule altogether could cost the country money. My take on the row is here.
Now The Times reveals this morning that the Tories are looking at changes as well.
Michael Savage writes that sons and daughters of the super-rich will no longer be able to inherit the controversial “non-dom” tax status under a plan being considered by George Osborne to respond to Labour’s move.
Rules that allow the rich to pass down their non-dom status to their children are regarded as the hardest to justify, we report.
Labour’s plan provoked an angry response from the City and business groups.
But the plan to end the rule is overwhelmingly popular, according to a poll by YouGov for The Times, although the public also believes it could harm the economy
Some 77 per cent of those polled using YouGov’s First Verdict app said they supported removing tax breaks on the overseas incomes of non-doms, while 20 per cent opposed the move. However, 44 per cent thought the economy would be harmed if wealthy non-doms left Britain, compared with 29 per cent who thought it would be helped.
The Independent quotes Miliband as saying the Conservatives are “defending the indefensible” by opposing the closing of non-dom tax loopholes. He tweeted they were the party for rich tax avoiders.
But The Sun says Miliband was branded a “hypocrite” after it emerged Labour has received nearly £12million in political donations from non-doms. Despite pledging to abolish the loophole, the party has been more than happy to accept the cash of those who take advantage of it, it claims.
|
|
|
|
|
Non-dom status should be scrapped
|
|
Oliver Kamm
|
|
But Miliband is unlikely to raise much-needed cash by doing it, writes Oliver Kamm.
Read the piece
|
|
|
Peter Brookes
|
|
TV election events
|
|
Sturgeon to fight for tax freedom after election
|
|
In the first Scottish television debate Nicola Sturgeon came under pressure over a second independence referendum.
Last night, in the second TV showdown, her policy of full fiscal autonomy - devolution of all tax and spending powers - came under attack from Labour’s Jim Murphy and other leaders.
In The Times Lindsay McIntosh says Sturgeon was forced to confirm that SNP MPs would fight for it to be introduced immediately after the general election. She has previously avoided the commitment. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that it would blow a multibillion-pound hole in Scotland’s finances.
Murphy told her it would be “so damaging” for Scotland and that her own financial advisers were opposed to it. Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, said it would give Scotland far less to spend. “That’s the other half of the equation you don’t want people out there to know,” she told Sturgeon.
Sturgeon also tried to play down her referendum remarks saying a vote for the SNP in May’s general election was not a vote for a referendum.
|
|
|
|
|
Debate throws light on SNP plans
|
|
Lindsay McIntosh
|
|
Sturgeon will press for full fiscal autonomy after the election, our Scottish political editor writes.
Read the piece
|
|
|
How the "don't knows" might vote
|
|
|
Exclusive YouGov polling
|
|
The ‘don’t knows’ are unlikely to vote
|
|
People sometimes get excited about "the voters who have not yet made up their mind" - depending how you ask the question, you can show a significant proportion are "yet to decide" (Stephan Shakespeare writes). The truth is that those who tell pollsters they "don't know" are unlikely to be voters on May 7.
But not wishing to leave any stone unturned, we asked the “don't knows” in yesterday's daily YouGov poll to make a decision here and now – “forced choice,” as we call it. We didn't actually “force” a choice so half still declined, leaving us with a tiny sample of just 93 people who now revealed their secret thinking. A total of 29 per cent chose Labour, 19 per cent plumped for the Conservatives, 21 per cent for UKIP, 13 per cent for the Greens and just 10 per cent for the Lib Dems.
My own guess is that the only significant source of change we're likely to see in the next four weeks is a few more Ukippers and Greens returning to Labour and the Conservatives.
|
|
YouGov
|
|
2015 general election
|
|
Labour advances in Tory marginals
|
|
Labour has consistently claimed it can win the “ground war” against the Conservatives because it has more activists and workers to throw into the seats that matter.
There is some evidence for that contention in Lord Ashcroft’s latest poll of marginals.
The Times reports that Labour’s lead has increased in marginal seats they are aiming to take off the Tories.
Of the ten Tory marginal seats examined by the peer, Harrow East is now on course to fall to Labour after the incumbent’s three-point lead in October turned into a four-point deficit at the start of this month.
A further three seats — Hove, Morecambe & Lunesdale and Stockton South — were already on course to change hands and the lead has now increased by between three and six points over the same period.
Sam Coates writes that voters said they had heard more from Labour than the Tories in every single one of the ten seats.
|
|
The Times & The Sunday Times Membership
|
|
£1 for 30 Days
|
|
Join today and enjoy 30 days of award-winning journalism for just £1. With our digital pack you’ll enjoy a tablet edition, smartphone app, access to the website including our new Red Box website and exclusive sports app.
|
|
|
|
|
Brought to you with
|
|
This email was sent by: %%Member_Busname%%
%%Member_Addr%% %%Member_City%%, %%Member_State%%, %%Member_PostalCode%%, %%Member_Country%%
|
|