UK General Election 2015: Main parties set out stalls for most unpredictable campaign in living memory, UK election 2015 updates, United Kingdom General Election updates, UK political News 2014 2015

UK General Election 2015: Main parties set out stalls for most unpredictable campaign in living memory

THE country is now officially on election countdown and depending on who you ask we have either four months to save the economy or four months to defend the NHS.

Others may state that we are either four months from declaring independence or four months away from wresting Britain out of Europe.

But one thing is for certain – all the parties stumbled out of the blocks yesterday at the start of the longest, and most unpredictable, election campaign in memory. We’ve known the date, Thursday, May 7 , for years.

The Fixed Term Parliament Act, which locked the Tory-Lib Dem coalition together in 2010, set parliamentary terms for five years.

The date of the next Scottish parliament election was moved to 2016 to make way for this May’s UK-wide poll.Previously the Prime Minister could choose the election date, meaning everyone was on tenterhooks, waiting for Downing Street to make the call.

In October 2007, Gordon Brown nearly went to the country but then called it off.

But for the first time everyone knows the date so the normal political calender is empty.

All the main parties have been ready for months with their key messages for the long campaign.

George Osborne , flanked by four ministers who will be the Tories ’ frontline election team, yesterday published Treasury costings that alleged a £21billion black hole in Labour promises.

The Chancellor used Civil Service figures to claim there would be economic “chaos” if Labour were elected.

But Ed Miliband , in his keynote speech, said there would be “not a single” unfunded promise in his manifesto.Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls said the Tory costings document is “riddled with untruths and errors on every page”.

Nicola Sturgeon started her New Year with a letter to SNP members and ran a tartan-clad image of the House of Commons benches declaring that the more SNP MPs there are in May, the more powers will come to Scotland.

Jim Murphy MP, the Scottish leader on whom Labour’s hopes of getting a Commons majority could rest, hit back that the SNP could not masquerade as champions of the NHS when health spending in Scotland had fallen, in real terms, by “even more than David Cameron would dare”.

A vote for the SNP, he said, would simply let the Tories back in and make Cameron the “accidental Prime Minster”.Back in Westminster the Conservative attack was spearheaded by an 86-page dossier, listing 51 “promises” of new spending or cancelled cuts.

The key theme for the Tories will be economic confidence, as they warn Labour will wreck the fragile recovery if they win in May.

But thousands of people have not felt any better off under this Government.

In fact, Labour claim this will be the first election that people go into worse off than the last.

Nick Clegg, the rather ignored Deputy Prime Minister , held a press conference to say only the Lib Dems could balance a coalition, any coalition, with any party.

The SNP could end up winning more votes than the Lib Dems, but Clegg claimed the other smaller parties cannot be trusted to govern in the national interest.

But that all depends on what you see the national interest as being.The ding-dong backwards and forwards across the airwaves was, and will be, fairly predictable. The opinion polls, however, are not.

UK-wide they have Labour marginally ahead but not with enough seats for a majority.

In Scotland, where the SNP are dominating polls, Alex Salmond talks of holding the whip hand in a hung parliament. But that ignores the fact minority parties are told what crumbs they can get.

There is some talk of a second general election if no party can get a working majority with their own party or by lashing together a coalition with others.

Right now that is fanciful as it would take two thirds of MPs to vote for dissolution or a vote of no confidence.A cynical opposition would rather keep a weak government suffering than go to the polls early.

Scotland will be a major battleground but so will every UK constituency as the anti-politics effect sweeping Europe turns voters away from the mainstream towards new parties and solutions.

So it is going to be an important one but it will feel like a long-time coming.

As one online wag said yesterday: “Can’t we just hold the general election this Thursday?”

• List of Political parties of UK
• How to vote in UK election 2015
• Who is the best PM candidate for UK

• Conservative MPs elected at the 2010 general election
• Democratic Unionist MPs elected at the 2010 general election
• Liberal Democrat MPs elected at the 2010 general election
• UK MPs elected at the 2010 general election

src:dailyrecord.co.uk

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