OpEd: Election 27-04-15

The commentators 27-04-15

...on the general election

The Labour leader has announced that as Prime Minister he would prevent those letting out their properties from increasing rents above the rate of inflation (which means a price freeze, since inflation is now zero). He argues that this is in the interests of ‘Generation Rent’ — one of those weird phrases that Ed Miliband, but no one else, uses in everyday conversation. A price freeze might well be in the short-term interests of those currently renting, but it would actually blight the prospects of finding decent accommodation for the generation Miliband purports to be helping.
- Dominic Lawson, Daily Mail

Like an alcoholic reaching for the bottle, Ed Miliband cannot help himself when he spots an opportunity to intervene in the market. Having advocated a freeze of energy prices in 2013, which would have fixed electricity costs at a level higher than they are today following the oil price crash, the Labour leader is now pushing rent controls.
- Iain Martin, The Times

Since no one ascends to or clings on to office by risking the country, this election calls for something beyond partisanship. In Scotland, pro-union voters should, just this once, give very serious consideration to voting for the unionist best placed to win their seat. Brave voices such as Norman Tebbit have risked tribal discontent to urge this, and I urge it too. The SNP is trying to get out of England the answer it couldn’t get out of Scotland last year. No one who believes in Britain should assist them, least of all in England - Nigel Dodds, The Guardian

With this unrelenting depiction of the Scots as an invasion force of savages poised across the Tweed, Cameron has set his legacy in the stone of destiny. His obituary will record him as the crocodile-tears Prime Minister who illustrated that greater love hath no man than that he lay down his country for his life.
- Matthew Norman, Independent

Ed Miliband is far more dangerous than his awkward image suggests. An unprincipled, ruthless, opportunistic left-wing ideologue, he represents a serious menace to Britain’s future. Backed by the ScotsNats and Labour’s trade union paymasters, his regime would be one of debts, bureaucracy, mass immigration and constitutional chaos.
- Leo McKinstry, Daily Express

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