Election 2015- Hume Brophy Daily Update 19
27 April 2015
With only 10 days to go until the big day and polling still stagnant, party leaders are desperate for their team to pull away from the chasing pack. Over the
weekend, Labour Leader Ed Miliband again refused a Labour/SNP coalition, whilst Boris Johnson quashed rumours that he will take over from David Cameron as
Conservative leader if the Prime Minister loses the election. Cameron scored an own goal during a speech at the weekend, claiming he was a West Ham fan, when
in fact his team is Aston Villa. He blamed ‘brain fade’ for the error, but someone in his speech writing team could be in trouble this week.
Today Ed Miliband is in the key marginal of Stockton South, announcing his plan to scrap stamp duty for first-time buyers on homes up to £300,000. While the
Prime Minister has been boosted by 5,000 small businesses saying ‘the Conservatives should finish what they started’ in a letter published by the Daily Telegraph.
Cameron will also launch the Conservative small business manifesto in London today, espousing the party’s entrepreneurial and pro-business mantra.
Business Today
 Polls
 Trivia
 On the campaign trail
Business Today
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Prime Minister David Cameron launches the Conservatives' small business manifesto in London (10:00am)
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg campaigns in Dorset and Hampshire, speaks to activists in Eastleigh and is expected to attend a hustings in Sheffield
Hallam (7:00pm)
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Labour leader Ed Miliband speaks in Stockton on the party's housing policy plans (11:00am)
Shadow chancellor Ed Balls and Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy speak in Glasgow (10:45am)
Home Secretary Theresa May, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, Norman Baker, Steven Woolfe and Simon Thomas take part in a BBC Daily Politics
debate on home affairs (2:00pm)
Business Minister Jo Swinson and Charles Kennedy campaign in Glasgow (10:40am)
Caroline Lucas attends a debate on business in Brighton (6:00pm)
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon campaigns in Kilmarnock on housing policy
Polls
According to Anthony Wells at UK polling, Labour were ahead in the polling at the beginning of 2015, although this has fallen away somewhat towards equalisation
with the Conservatives. UKIP and the Greens have genuinely lost support although only 1 or 2 points over the course of the year so far.
Once again, not much change over the overall polling the past few days, with the usual polling results;
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Labour 33% +0
Conservative 33% -1
UKIP 13% +0
Liberal Democrats 9% +0
Green 5% +0
Others 7% +1
*As of 25 April 2015, BBC poll of polls
Betfair Predicts
Likelihood of:
 Hung parliament 88%
 Conservative Majority 10%
 Labour Majority 2%
Seats (with increases/decreases based on last parliament)
 Labour 263 Seats (gain of 6)
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Conservative 280 seats (a loss of 22 seats)
UKIP 3 seats (gain of 1)
Liberal Democrats 28 seats (loss of 28 seats)
SNP 52 seats (gain of 46 seats)
Others (24 seats)* (loss of 10 seats)
*http://www.betfairpredicts.com/ as of 27 April 2015
Trivia
Did you know?
1. Westminster Abbey used to stand on an island in the middle of the Thames on what was called Thorney Island. When the monks arrived in the 960s they
saw the island as a sacred place and built an Abbey upon it. When Kings Canute and later Edward the Confessor wanted to be close to God in the 11th
century, they built a royal palace next to the Abbey. Over time the island was built upon and the inlets drained with the royal palace eventually coming to
host Parliaments until this day.
2. The Duke of Wellington was the last ‘Tory’ Prime Minister. The modern Conservative Party arose in the 1830s, and is an ancestor of the Tory parties of the
seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Political alignments in those centuries were much looser than now, with many individual
groupings. From the 1780s until the 1820s the dominant grouping were those Whigs following William Pitt the Younger and his successors, who gradually
came to be called Tories. In the late 1820s disputes over political reform broke up this grouping. A government led by the Duke of Wellington collapsed
amidst dire election results. Following this disaster Sir Robert Peel set about assembling a new coalition of forces and called his new party the
Conservatives. However the old term Tory still exists.
3. The Whig party, coming from Roundheads and supporters of Parliament in the Civil War, were dominant in the 18th and 19th centuries. They eventually
became the Liberal Party and then onto the Liberal Democrats. The term Whig was originally short for "whiggamor", a term meaning "cattle driver" used to
describe western Scots who came to Leith for corn.
On the Campaign Trail
What will happen if Miliband loses the election, will he find his voice?
@GeneralBoles
Major offers opinion
@PeterBrookes
On the up
There are majorities, and there are majorities. Sir Cooper Rawson’s (Conservative) was the latter
@BBCPolitics