UK News

The big rescue package has bought the politicians some time

They promised us market meltdown if there was a hung parliament. That was the Conservative pitch before the election.

That isn’t quite what happened. The pound did fall a bit, so did gilts and stocks but most losses were made up by the end of the first day after the result became known, which had been widely expected.

Attention, anyway, had moved elsewhere. There was already mayhem in global markets when British voters were going to the polls on Thursday. One hedge fund manager described it as seven or eight out of 10 when compared with the peak of the crisis.

Things were getting even more hairy on Friday and over the weekend it became clear that the European authorities would have to act to prevent the problem in Greece and they duly did, leading to stocks and the euro rallying as risk appetite  returned.

The $1 trillion global emergency rescue package has calmed things for now and the UK story may have moved to Page 4 from  the front page for global markets.

Talks are still going on between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats over possible power-sharing but so far no end remains in sight.

Both sides keep saying they are making progress but at the moment there is precious little detail and in reality all options remain wide open.

from The Great Debate UK:

The Disunited Kingdom

- Paul Henderson Scott has written numerous books on Scottish history, literature and affairs, including ‘A 20th Century Life’ and its sequel, ‘The New Scotland’. He has been Rector of Dundee University, President of the Saltire Society and of Scottish PEN and a Vice-President of the Scottish National Party. The opinions expressed are his own -

The recent election has revealed more clearly than before the profound divide between Scottish and English opinion. The Conservatives have 297 seats in England but only one in Scotland (plus eight in Wales). As Joyce McMillan said in The Scotsman, “Our pattern of voting increasingly marks us out as a nation apart”.

Both of the two major Scottish papers had headlines like: “The Disunited Kingdom”. Much of the English press, or at least their Scottish editions, drew the same conclusion. "The Daily Mail" said that Britain is now "a nation of two tribes”. Magnus Linklater in "The Times" said that, “England and Scotland may share a boundary, but this weekend there is little common ground between them”.

If the Conservatives form the next British Government they have no moral right to legislate for Scotland where they have only one parliamentary seat.

One might well ask how could there be such a wide divergence between two countries which have been in a Union under the same government for 300 years? Before the Union of 1707 Scotland and England had profoundly different histories. For centuries they had very little contact except across a battlefield.

Scotland was very much part of the rest of Europe, allied to France and in close contact with many other countries in trade and cultural exchange. It evolved a distinctive and rich cultural and intellectual tradition. Even after 1707 Scotland retained control over its own education system, the law, the church and local government which had much more influence on national character and opinion than the distant Parliament in London.

In the 19th century the British Empire reconciled many Scots to the Union because of its consequences for the Scottish economy and the opportunities which it gave for administrative employment in its territories. Most of the steam ships and the locomotives for the whole empire were built in Scotland.

What now for Cameron’s agenda?

The big question is what happens to David Cameron’s modernisation agenda if he has to rule with a minority government.

Cameron had a lead of around 25 points or more against Labour not so long ago. But if tonight’s exit poll is right he is now short  of a majority.

Many will question Cameron’s judgement and those in the party who have always thought the move to the centre was a mistake will make their voices heard, turning their ire on advisors like Steve Hilton who came up with the Big Society.

Perhaps the most incendiary issue will be Europe. Many Tory rightwingers think the EU is evil. Cameron is going to have to pay more attention to them as they could well hold him hostage like they did John Major after 1992.

Elections don’t get more exciting than this

It’s going to be a long night! Cliffhanger, nailbiter, whatever you want to call it — it doesn’t get more exciting than this.

Polls closed just over two hours ago and the exit polls show we are clearly in hung parliament territory. The Conservatives are projected to have the most seats at 305, but that’s 21 seats short of an overall majority.

Labour, meanwhile, are shown with 255 and most interestingly the Liberal Democrats with just 61, one short of what they got in 2005 — when they and everyone else were expecting a surge of support.

If the exit poll is proven right, even a Labour/LibDem coalition would be short of a majority.

Here in Kirkcaldy, Brown’s constituency, aides are keeping cool. The Labour projection is clearly better than the wipeout that so many were predicting just a week ago.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are insisting they have the right to govern with this mandate. With Gordon Brown having first call on trying to form a government in the event of a hung parliament, it will be important for the Conservatives to establish hey should be in charge.

Adding to the complications of the night are reports of people being turned away from polling booths and thus being unable to vote. Whatever happens, expect people to complain the election was stolen from them.

Twitter users still agree with Nick

One the eve of the general election, our exclusive Twitter analysis of political sentiment shows that while the latest opinion polls point to a late rally by Gordon Brown’s Labour Party, users of the micro-blogging site still favour Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats over the other two main parties.

US market research firm Crimson Hexagon (on behalf of Reuters.co.uk) has been archiving all tweets on British politics since March 22 and analysing them for positive and negative sentiment. All parties have had their ups and downs, most notably in the aftermath of the first leaders’ debate (which led to a spike in support for the LibDems and the hashtag #iagreewithnick trending on Twitter) and Gordon Brown’s “bigot” gaffe in Rochdale,which gave us the highest percentage of negative tweets for any party during the campaign.

Just hours before the nation goes to the polls and with so many voters apparently still undecided, it’s worth taking a look at the latest numbers.

The graphic below shows positive tweets for each party up to May 4. The LibDems come out top on 20 percent, with pro-Labour sentiment on 12 percent and pro-Tory lagging behind on five percent.

The next graphic shows negative tweets for each party. Again the numbers favour the LibDems; negative sentiment for Clegg’s party is on just eight percent. Negative Labour tweets are at 16 percent. Meanwhile, despite a lead in the opinion polls, David Cameron’s Tories are the least popular on 25 percent. The highest percentage of tweets we have seen (a massive 42 percent) occurred when Gordon Brown called pensioner Gillian Duffy a “bigoted woman”.

Twitter users give their verdict on final leaders’ debate

The snap polls say Tory leader David Cameron was the victor of last night’s final leaders’ debate, but what did users of micro-blogging site Twitter make of the three main prime ministerial candidates?

Analysis of political tweets by research firm Crimson Hexagon for Reuters.co.uk shows a spike in positive LibDem tweets, up to 22 percent from 14 percent the previous day. Pro-Labour sentiment fell four points to 8 percent, while pro-Tory tweets improved only slightly from 3 percent to 4 percent, despite the widely-held view that Cameron out-performed his two rivals last night.

Negative tweets for Gordon Brown’s Labour Party hit a high (since we began archiving and analysing tweets on March 22) of 42 percent after the PM called an elderly voter in Rochdale a “bigoted woman.” That number was always going to come down yesterday and, as the next graphic shows, it fell to 30 percent. Anti-Tory tweets went up three points from 15 percent to 18 percent, while anti-LibDem sentiment remained low, at just 8 percent.

The final graphic shows the net performance on Twitter of all three parties since March 22. Overall, it sums up the fortunes of each party throughout the campaign rather nicely.

“Bigoted woman” brings election to life, but is it nail in Brown’s coffin?

Forget the budget deficit, forget the jobless, forget the recession and forget the spending cuts to come.

The  election is just over a week away. But the biggest issue for the media has become whether or not Gillian Duffy, a pensioner in Rochdale, had accepted an apology from Gordon Brown after he was overheard calling her “bigoted.”

Journalists on the campaign trail have been repeatedly complaining there’s no spontaneity. What they mean is that no one has made any mistakes — gaffes as they call them or anything that can have “gate” attached to its end.

So “Duffygate” was manna from heaven. Unaware a broadcast microphone was still on when he got back into his car, the prime minister described Duffy as “sort of a bigoted woman”.

Reporters immediately relayed the prime minister’s comments to Duffy who said she would no longer vote Labour.

Brown was forced to apologise. And then even more bizarrely, the prime minister’s cavalcade turned up at the pensioner’s Rochdale home and Brown went into her house.

He was in there for nearly 45 minutes as 24-hour news channels kept the door in shot as if they were filming the outcome of a papal election.

Jokes wear thin at ill-tempered Labour event

Labour strategy chief Peter Mandelson berated the media at a press conference this morning for failing to focus on policy. Then he repeatedly side-stepped questions on the most important policy challenge of all: where are the tens of billions of pounds of spending cuts needed to halve the deficit going to come from?

Of course Labour are not alone in dodging that thorniest of questions. David Cameron keeps repeating that his Conservatives have gone “further than any opposition in history” in spelling out proposed spending cuts, starting with 6 billion pounds in unspecified “efficiency savings” this year. But his insistence cannot mask the fact that the Tories’ planned cuts, like Labour’s and indeed the Liberal Democrats’, add up to only a fraction of what is required.

Still, this was Labour’s press conference and it was a chance for them to be more specific. But they didn’t take it. Instead we got multiple promises to protect or even increase certain family-friendly benefits and services .

There was also a new and sinister campaign broadcast depicting heartless bureaucrats in suits and ties marching into happy families’ homes to tell them that the Tory government was taking away their child tax credit, child trust fund and guaranteed speedy appointment with a cancer specialist. So much for positive campaigning and taking Labour’s hopeful message out to the country. (Again, the Tories have their own scare tactics. Their latest campaign broadcast was not on their policies but on the perils of a hung parliament.)

Pressed on that pesky spending cuts question, Ed Balls, the schools secretary, did say that he’d already identified 300 million pounds’ worth of savings that could be found in his department and would ramp that up to half a billion eventually. As for his wife and cabinet colleague Yvette Cooper, the work and pensions secretary, she said a decision to delay some of the implementation of pensions reform would “save billions”. Wehey!

To put things in perspective: the deficit is expected to come in at around 163 billion pounds for the 12 months to end-March.

So, detailed and convincing deficit-busting plans were not on offer at Labour HQ. Instead we got tetchy exchanges between Mandelson and the media, dubious witticisms from both sides and a bizarre digression into whether or not the children’s television character Peppa Pig was a Labour supporter. (This came up because a planned Peppa Pig appearance at a Labour campaign event had been cancelled. Mandelson made some pointed comments about how this was some sort of plot by BBC managers, but no one really knew where he was going with that.)

Will a hung parliament create a serious hangover for British business?

Election day is fast approaching and with the poll gap narrowing between the Conservatives and Labour, there is a very real probability that the UK will end up with a hung parliament. For the first time since 1974, the UK may be left without clear political leadership.

- What will this really mean for British business? - How will the markets and sterling react? - Will a hung parliament scare off international investors? - Could the economy survive a second general election within a year?

Thomson Reuters has put together an expert panel that will look at the real and practical implications of a hung parliament on the UK economy and what this will mean for British business.

Angela Knight: Chief Executive, British Banking Association

Bobby Duffy: Managing Director, Public Affairs, Ipsos MORI

David Owen: Chief Financial Economist at Jefferies International

Professor Philip Cowley: Parliamentary and constitutional expert, Nottingham University and co-author of The British Election 2010

How did the party leaders fare on Twitter?

There was no undisputed winner, according to the snap polls which followed the second leaders’ debate in Bristol last night. The instant polls were split on who had won, with three saying LibDem leader Nick Clegg was the victor and another two placing the Conservatives’ David Cameron in first place.

“The three main party leaders were unable to land a knockout punch on their rivals,” said Reuters correspondent Peter Griffiths, reporting from Bristol yesterday.

Some newspapers claim Cameron’s performance — viewed as an improvement on last week — may have put the brakes on the surge in LibDem support which followed Clegg’s resounding victory in the first debate, but exclusive analysis for Reuters.co.uk shows, on Twitter at least, the Clegg bandwagon rolls on.

Market research company Crimson Hexagon has been commissioned by Thomson Reuters to archive all tweets about UK politics and analyse them for positive and negative sentiment.

The latest statistics, which include all tweets sent before, during and after yesterday’s debate, show support for Clegg’s LibDems continuing to grow at the expense of the other two leaders.

This first graphic below shows how positive tweets were distributed among the three main political parties. Pro-LibDem sentiment rocketed to 32 percent from 19 percent the day before. Positive Tory tweets fell to 5 percent while support for Labour fell one point to 7 percent.