Sorry about the week’s absence, exams and such have taken up my time recently. So what’s happened since I last wrote? Well we’ve only gone and got a new Prime minister and a new government. Not any old government though, a coalition government, between the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats. Who’d thought that would have been the outcome a couple of months ago.

So how did this happen? Well after we had a hung parliament the Lib Dems started negotiations with the Conservative party, then started flirting with Labour. But after the Labour Party couldn’t offer the Lib Dems a good deal, they went ahead with the Tories. So what does this coalition government mean for the parties manifestos? Well both parties have to give some things and get to keep others. The Liberal Democrats are sacrificing their initial economic plans of prolonging spending cuts, the further integration of the E.U is also going to be lost and their promise to scrap plans for nuclear power stations and trident. The Tories are also getting their way on immigration. The Lib Dems will have to give up their amnesty for the Conservative’s unspecified cap on the number of non E.U immigrants entering the country per year. While the Conservatives have allowed the Liberal Democrats to get their way on several of their own policies. Peoples first £10,000 will no longer be taxed, a fully elected Lords chamber is being looked into and the Tories have had to sacrifice their inheritance tax cuts to the richest in the country. But the most important achievement for the Lib Dems is a referendum on the AV voting system. Finally the possibility of a breakthrough of voting reform?

Despite their differences, are many areas they both agreed on. They both want to make the country greener with measures like scrapping the proposed third runway at Heathrow. They also agree on civil liberties. They both agree to make the DNA database stricter as well as scrapping ID cards.

That’s policies, but what about personnel, who got what in the cabinet? Well no Liberal Democrats got a job in the top four, but still managed to get some good ministerial posts. George Osborne got the chancellor, William Hague is now our Foreign secretary and Theresa May is our home secretary. So what did the Lib Dems get out of it, well Vince Cable is business secretary, David Laws is Treasury secretary, Chris Huhne is energy and climate secretary and Danny Alexander (one of the leaders of the lib dem negotiation team, which got them this coalition) is now Scottish secretary. Of course the new PM’s new best friend Nick Clegg is his junior, which means Nick Clegg, in theory, could end up answering questions about conservative policy.

So that’s that for the Coalition, and with a 5 year fixed term we well might be having them for that long. As for Labour, the contenders have thrown their hats in for the leadership contest. At the moment it’s between six of them. One Blairite, two brownites and two from the left wing of the party and one whom doesn’t have any particular allegiances. So who are they? The Miliband brothers Ed & David, the latter being the favourite to win. Ed Balls, Gordon Brown’s close ally, John McDonnell, well know for being a troublesome back bencher, Diane Abbott another left wing back bencher (she’s the one form bbc’s this week) and then Andy Burnham, former health secretary. David Miliaband is definitely favorite, with experience of being foreign secretary as well as being a good speaker and a young politician who could compete with Cameron and Clegg. His younger brother Ed was also in the previous Labour cabinet and I think is the dark horse of the contest. Ed Ball’s close friendship and political alliance with Gordon Brown may prove his biggest hurdle, do people want more of the same in the Labour party? I think the other contenders as not well known enough and the two from the left of the party are not catch-all enough to win an election. Only time will tell who will become the next leader of the opposition, for now its up to Harriet Harman to run the party.

Monday saw the Chancellor give a speech outlining the government’s plans on spending cuts and how they will raise the 6bn they said they would. We’ve now got a government that, in Cameron’s words, are “rolling up their sleeves”. But where is the money going to be saved? Here is a simple breakdown of where that money is coming from:

• £1.15bn in “discretionary areas” like consultancy and travel costs, £95m through savings in IT spending, £1.7bn through delaying/stopping contracts and projects and renegotiating with suppliers
• £170m from reducing property costs, at least £120m from a civil service recruitment freeze and £600m from reducing quango costs and £520m from other “lower value” spend
• The biggest cuts by department are £683m (4.6% of departmental budget) at Transport, £780m (7.2%) at Communities and Local Government, £836m (3.8%) at Business, £670m (1.1%) at Education and £325m (3.2%) Department for Justice
• The devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would have to save £704m - although they would have the option of deferring savings until the following year
• And local authorities - which will be expected to save £1.165bn - will be given more “flexibility” to find savings as “ring-fences” around government grants are being removed.
  

So there you have it. 6bn as simple as that! Lets just see how they get on, and just how many jobs are going to be axed. All we know is that these will not be last of the cuts.

That’s it for this week, today is the Queen’s speech, it’s going to outline more policy area’s of the new government. Read next week for more this week in politics.

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So, a hung parliament, who’d thought we’d have that outcome? Will we have a Con-Lib or a Lab-Lib government?  Politics has never been so exciting! Well not for a while anyway…

In the end it was a disappointing election for all three parties. Labour lost a large amount of their seats, the Lib Dems lost some seats and the Conservatives didn’t win a majority government. So what’s going to happen next? The Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats are currently in talks and it looked set that a deal may be done in the next couple of days. But today at 5pm Gordon Brown announced he’d be stepping down as leader and offering the Liberal Democrats a full government coalition. Reports Nick Clegg is in a very difficult position right now. Does he go with the Tories, probably a more popular choice with the people, but make more concessions to David Cameron and loosing the possibly of electoral reform. Or does he go with the Labour, perhaps less popular with the majority but would get more of what the Lib Dems want from Labour as well as getting Lib Dem MPs into the cabinet.

Nick Clegg did the right thing in going to the Tories first. Reports say that talks are going successfully and that progressing well. That said news of Labour’s proposal will not only turn Nick Clegg’s head but shake the Tories plans for government. If Clegg decides to turn down Cameron’s current offer then the Tories will have to step up their game if they want to win over the Lib Dems. But people have to understand that its not Clegg’s decision. Firstly Clegg isn’t even in the negotiation team, and if even if the negotiators agree, 75% of the Liberal Democrats will also have to agree with the deal. So what will happen? I have no idea, Clegg can take the safe route and go with the Conservatives or go with the Labour party and try push through a once in a political generation opportunity of electoral reform.

As for Gordon Brown, I feel for him. He made the right decision in deciding to step down, but all of the recent criticism and personal attacks from the Tory press have been unfair and a lot of the time wrong. He deserves credit for stopping a global recession Turing into a depression. The race for the labour leadership will be a three way split. It will be between Ed Balls, one of Gordon Browns closest allies, the Miliband brothers, Ed & David. The deputy leader Harriet Harman has ruled herself out of the contest. The leadership contest isn’t going to get going for a couple of weeks, well not until they do or don’t form a new coalition government.

Who will be our new government? No one knows, we can only wait and see. Politics has not been this exciting for some time, so I will be keeping you all updated regularly – whether you like it or not!

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It’s been a long night. And yet, at this point there’s no clear outcome. As projected the Tories are on their way to becoming the largest party, but aren’t quite close enough for a majority. As this point it stands like this:

Cons; 285 / Lab; 231 / Lib Dem; 50 / other; 27 

It’s still all to play for & it’s still heading for a hung parliament, of one kind or another!  Labour & the Lib Dems have both had bad nights. Labour loosing seats left right and centre and the Lib Dems not making the breakthrough that looked possible around a week ago.

Read later tonight when I’ll give a much more detailed overview when there’s a better political picture & I’ve had some rest!

Just over 24hours and the polls will close on this year’s election. The parties are all out trying to persuade the voters, but its up to us to decide who will run our government over the next 5 years.

The Tories are now ahead in polls by a few clear points, the lib dem surge is now falling away and the labour party are gaining a couple of points, but what does this mean for tomorrows election? Well it seems we could have three outcomes. Either a Tory minority government, which seems the most likely, a hung parliament, with any possible outcome or even a Tory majority government. The Tories current support shows they’d be getting around 280 seats in parliament, a lot short of the 326 needed for that majority. Labour will still get a large amount of seats dew to the electoral system, and the lib dems are project to increase their seats to the high 70’s mark.

All will be decided tomorrow, but the final outcome may not be reached until late on Friday due to this year’s unpredictable voting patterns. The parties are pulling out of the guns to persuade the voters before tomorrows election, unless you are like me and have voted via post.

I plan to update my twitter @ http://twitter.com/willgrant99 with tomorrows election as it happens. Read over the next couple of days as I will give a review of the election and it’s outcome!

In under a week we’ll have some kind of new Government unless Labour manages to pull off a masterstroke of some kind. We could be having a hung parliament or the Conservatives could gain some more support and get their majority Cameron is so desperate to achieve. All three tv debates are over and the countdown is on till Thursday.

 The polls show the Tories on about 34%, if this support is put across the country it seems they would be about 40 seats off a majority. This isn’t enough for the Tories and the government they were so set of claiming and fear a lib-lab pact off running the country. Despite this the momentum does seem to be with Cameron’s party once again. Following Brown’s bigot comment mid-week, it seems labour have it and stand almost no chance of winning a government. The Lib dems are campaigning saying it is a two horse race. But with the current electoral system it’s a two horse race between the Conservatives and a hung parliament. Its far too close to call, and even with the opinion polls no can really tell with a election that is so close.

As for the TV debate, well it seems it was Cameron’s time to shine. After Clegg shone in the first two, Cameron came through on top in the third and final debate. Not by along shot mind. In fact I don’t think anyone looked that great. Despite it being the best debate in terms of policy discussion, it was generally the same information and catchphrases, the three leaders have adopted, just recited and repeated from the previous debates. I think they all attacked another, and Cameron particularly focused on Clegg. Clegg seemed a little uneasy and didn’t manage the attack all that well. Brown was his usual resilient yet plain self, and spent the entire night making sure we all knew that the other two parties will cut child tax credits.

As for Cameron, well he came out on top I guess. The reason being he didn’t manage to answer any tough questions put to him. When he was asked about the parties plans to cut inheritance tax for the 2000 richest estates in the country he simply ignored it and moved on. I think the debates have been a good thing for politics, getting people interested again, but watching David Dimbleby being reduced to merely just asking questions and not being able to follow up on them like in question time, well it meant the debate lacked an edge it so badly needed. But perhaps these changes will come with following elections.

Nick Clegg made an appearance at my uni on Friday. He gave around a 15 minute speech and then stuck around for some questions. The whole thing was exciting and a good experience, but you begin to notice just how staged and orchestrated the whole process is. He said the same things I’ve already herd and the same policies and criticisms I listened to just the night before. Non-the less he did well and made a great impression on the crowd. There are pictures below!

That’s all this time, i do plan to update most days until Thursday, and continue on the weekly basis from the Monday next week.

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Nick Clegg talking to the crowd of DMU students on Friday morning.

I must apologize for the lack of blogs over the past three weeks. My internet was very limited when I returned home from uni so I didn’t quite have the chance. So what I’m going to do is cover the Tv Debate in this instalment, then take a look and dissect the parties manifestos on Friday.

The biggest news with this election is obviously last Thursday’s TV debate and the impact it has had on the election. Despite what people said, I thought it was really good to see all of the party leaders debating and arguing with one another, really showing some passion and exposing one another’s flaws and weaknesses. So who did the best, well there is no getting away from it, Nick Clegg had nothing to loose and he most certainly didn’t loose anything. What the debate has done for the Lib Dems over night is remarkable. The night before the Tories were ahead in the polls over labour with a clear 8 to 9 points, on 39%, with Labour on 31% and the Lib Dems down with 20%. Friday sees the Lib Dems increase their lead by a massive 9%, much more than anyone could have predicted. The Tories lost around 6% and Labour 2%. This has completely redefined the election. Out of all the leaders it was David Cameron who seemed to have lost the most. I think he just beaten Gordon Brown to 2^nd debate, but has now lost a lot of ground on winning an overall majority. Cameron failed to take advantage of Brown’s weaknesses by hardly ever attacking Labour and completely failed to scrutinise the Lib Dem’s policies. In fact despite the slip to third in the polls for Labour, they now find themselves in a real opportunity to maintain his power.

If Conservatives fail to win an outright majority it will be up to the Lib Dems to forge a coalition Government with either the Tories or Labour, and I have a feeling the Lib Dems have a bit more in common with Labour than they do with the Tories. So somehow Labour have managed to find more positives out of this Lib Dem surge than the Tories. Having said that, Labour are now at their lowest point in the polls than they have been since the 80’s. People just don’t want to see another Labour term of Government, but in fact switching to the Lib Dems, may just give them another 5 years of the current PM. And this is what Cameron is trying to get across. Monday saw him release a video from his garden stressing the point of a need for a single party, strong government. This is, however, clear signs that the leader of the opposition has been rattled by the Lib Dems overnight success. The Tories just haven’t got their campaign right. This whole idea of a ‘big society’ rather than big Government might not be a bad one, but it is a little difficult to spring the concept on the public just three weeks before they go to the polling station.

What does this mean for Nick Clegg and his party? Well, this has made them no longer just the third party, but one that really matters. I’m not saying they’ll maintain they’re poll ratings, in fact I think they’ll go down a little bit, but it wont go down to the 20% mark again for a while. It also means they will receive the coverage from the print media, an area they just haven’t had the same coverage in compared to the other two. And what most important for them, it means that they win more seats in Parliament and can now be in a position to be that second party in a coalition and demand some of their polices are put in place. Now I’m not saying a hung parliament would be good for the economy, in fact that is what economists fear the most, but what it could mean is the demand from the Lib Dems, of proportional representation, a truly fair voting system that our politics is lacking. What this also means for the Lib Dems is that they need to be ready to have their polices closely looked at and also be able to fund and co-ordinate an effective election campaign over the next couple of weeks.

Right, the TV debate itself. Why did it give Clegg such a positive image whilst leaving the other two looking nervy and badly represented? Clegg kept one hand in his pocket and talked directly to the camera. He came across cool, calm and in control. Brown, as we know, isn’t great when he does things like this. He often looks nervy and isn’t great with the presentation. I think he held his own very well, but lacked anything to really appeal to the viewer. Cameron, who one the other hand, is good in these situations, came across in his usually presentable manor, but what he didn’t do is attack Brown on his Government’s failings, nor did he label brown with the reasonability with the recession. Cameron’s new and clean politics my have backfired on him. He looked as if he had nothing to say, no real bite or passion. What Clegg did was criticize the other two, grouping them together as one whilst separating himself from them. He presented himself as a real change, a new alternative to the same old parties and kept a real theme and message throughout the debate, something both Brown and Cameron failed to do. This Thursday’s debate is about foreign policy. And I think, once again Clegg will prevail. He can play the Iraq card, stating how the Lib Dems were against it, as well as the fact he wants to withdraw from Afghanistan. It will most defiantly be good watching, as both Labour and the Tories will be out on the attack of the Lib Dems. Whatever the out come these TV debates have redefined the election, and will be the major events in the upcoming election campaign.

Once again sorry for the lack of blogging, especially at this crucial time on British Politics. On Friday I will Have a break down on all three’s manifesto as well as a review on the Thursday’s TV debate.

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As soon as the politicians of the country thought they might be able to turn the corner on the sleaze and scandals shrouding Westminster it seems they just can’t help themselves. Channel Four’s dispatched exposes MP’s who describe themselves as taxi’s, the fare? £5000 a day.  The Budget is to be released on Wednesday and across the pond ‘change’ has finally come as Obama secures his healthcare bill in the senate.

Channel Four and the Times secretly filmed Stephen Byers, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon in an investigation into Lobbying and ‘cash for advice’. It seems the three would offer their services to companies in return for hefty sums. Basically Lobbying on behalf of the company, or whoever, in the House of Commons and in turn getting money for their services. Stephen Byers, a former transport secretary, compared himself as a ‘cab for hire’ and working for up to £5000 and day. Now if MP’s didn’t already have a bad reputation with the public, this is going to make things that bit worse. Labour has since suspended all three of them for the time being.

This may look bad for the Labour Government, but Gordon Brown he could kill two birds with one stone. As you may recall both Hoon and Hewitt were behind the failed cue to oust Brown from the party leadership back in January. If he axe these two he’d loose two troublesome backbenchers from his party. Byres has always been a Blairite and has never supported Brown. To loose these three would probably be a good thing for the PM. As well as this it cold give him the opportunity to appear strong and decisive to remove members of the party who will now have sealed their unpopularity with the public.

In America history was made this Weekend as Obama had his healthcare bill passed in congress. His bill narrowly passed winning 219 to 212 votes. 34 Democrats voted against the bill with 100% of the Republican party. Nevertheless this is change that Obama promised, and is signs he may finally making the big decisions he promised. I find it strange that his popularity has gone down as people oppose the bill, yet they voted for him in full knowledge this was one of his key policies. The opposition to the bill has been fierce, dividing the nation into bitter disagreements. From a British perspective it seems ridiculous that the opposition to the bill has been so strong. He hasn’t introduced a National Health Service, but simply taken the pressure off a lot of the poorest families in the country. The bill now means a further 35 million people will be covered with healthcare and will pay for senior citizens pills and drugs.

That’s all for this week. read next week when I’ll be covering the budget as well as all of the weeks happening in politics!

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In the past week of politics not a lot seems to have really happened. The Tories are still on top in the polls, not by a lot mind. Gordon Brown is staying resilient and Nick Clegg says he offers a “real change”.  Oh and the budget is going to be announced on the 24^th of March, I’m sure everyone is looking forward to that one.

 Gordon Brown has vowed he will ‘keep going’ even if he fails to win a majority. But hasn’t said much on what will happen if Labour loose in the coming election. Though to be honest I think labour have had a pretty good couple of weeks, going by their standards. Since the ‘bulling’ accusations, Gordon Brown and his party have seemed to avoided any further scandals, in fact seemed to have proved to be a party that are not only strong, but finally united under Gordon Brown. It seems since Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon tried to get him ousted as leader Gordon Brown has gone from strength to strength. Obviously Labour still have an uphill battle to win this election but it really does seem the momentum is with the Labour party.

But what David Cameron will be asking himself is why? Only a couple of months ago people thought that Labour were dead and buried and stood no chance against a new, vibrant Conservatives who were waving the banner of change. But it seems the problems are now coming the Tories way, rather than that of Labour. Following a series of back-firing poster campaigns and problems such as Lord Ashcroft, the Tories are struggling to establish themselves as the sweeky clean savior of British politics. Whats more people just don’t seem to trust them with the economy. This seems to be Cameron’s biggest problems. If we wernt in a recession then I think the Tories would be out of sight with the polls, but since the Tories proposed economic solutions over the past few months have all been the wrong ones, do people actually want to give them the chance for real?

Nick Clegg has said his party is the only one which offers change. At a party conference in Birmingham last week, he said that the choice between Labour and the Conservatives was a “dismal choice between the party of the few and the party of no-one,” The Lib Dems are also taking the same stand on the economy as Labour, saying that cuts too soon would damage economic recovery.  But despite denying that they would make up a majority in a hung parliament, they have stated their demands if they were to make up a minority Government. They want tax reform, more spending on education for poorer children and a move towards a greener economy as well as political reform in Westminster.

To me a Lib-Lab Government wouldn’t be all to bad, but that’s my opinion. That’s all I’ve got in this week in politics. Next week hopefully there’ll be news on the Tories spending cuts, as well as everything else that’ transpires.

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