OpEd: Election 09-04-15

The commentators 09-04-15

...on the general election campaign

This is a campaign dominated by carefully contrived photo-opportunities and sound bite-filled speeches delivered to audiences largely (and sometimes totally) made up of activists. At all costs, normal voters are to be avoided, and wherever possible print journalists — who after all are supposed to be the ‘tribunes of the people’ — must be sidelined.
- Stephen Glover, Daily Mail

The Tories should nip this one in the bud. It does not matter what Ed Balls said a few months ago about taxation of “non-doms”, apparently ridiculing what Ed Miliband now supports. Balls was wrong and Miliband is right, and George Osborne should now agree. The chancellor can claim to be tougher than any of his predecessors on tax avoidance. He can argue that all parties have been lax on tax scams. All should now strive to cleanse them from the fiscal deck. This is not a left-right issue, any more than it matters how much or little a tax raises.
- Simon Jenkins, The Guardian

Tick tock, tick tock . . . Time is running out for David Cameron to move decisively ahead in the opinion polls and stop Ed Miliband becoming prime minister. With hardly any sand left in the top half of the hourglass, Britain should have woken up by now. Instead the country that was transformed by Margaret Thatcher is sleepwalking towards electing the most left-wing prime minister in living memory.
- Tim Montgomerie, The Times

This refusal to countenance one version of English nationalism while at the same time enacting another via the utter negligence of entire parts of the United Kingdom is visible to anyone outside the political class. Or indeed anyone who gets on a train. This is why we are not having the election we were told we were having, the one in which all that mattered was Nigel, the one in which English self-determination and supremacy were taken for granted. Ukip are fading while the SNP flames. The power balance is indeed shifting. It’s time to speak about England.
- Suzanne Moore, The Guardian

Most papers had made up their minds long before MPs packed up their pencil cases for the end of term, and five weeks of hustings are unlikely to change any of their opinions. The Telegraph, Mail, Mirror and Sun seem to think their role is not to tell their readers what the politicians are saying, but to tell them what is wrong (or, occasionally, right) with what the politicians are saying.
- What happened to news on the front, comment on the OpEd?

You can get daily updates from Editorial Intelligence by signing up here