Mary Riddell

Interesting to hear Nick Clegg desperately seeking balance in Radio 4’s World At One. Asked in a listeners’ phone-in how he could work with Gordon Brown, whom he described in his Telegraph interview today as “a desperate politician”, he decided that he should recalibrate the insultometer. Time to turn his fire on the Tories.

“Talk about desperate,” he said in response to the claims by George Osborne and Ken Clarke that the bond markets would collapse in the case of a hung Parliament, leaving  the IMF beating on Britain’s door .  This claim, Mr Clegg maintained, was “a truly desperate act” on the Tories’ part.

He’s right, of course, but that doesn’t answer the Gordon question. When pushed, he did not deny his hostility towards Mr Brown, saying only that this was a time “to put personality politics aside.” Again, he’s correct. The courtship between Labour and the LibDems is as ponderous as two giant turtles mating. Or not mating, in the case of Mr Clegg, who… Read More

I’ve spent the morning at Kids Company, talking at an event with its founder, Camila Batmanghelidjh, and Lord Freud, who switched from advising Labour to orchestrate David Cameron’s welfare reforms. The debate was organised by Editorial Intelligence to discuss community and family – both subjects on which Camila knows more than most politicians.

On 25 December 2007, a decade after New Labour came to power, 1273 children turned up at her drop-in centre for the Christmas lunch they would not get at home. If ever there was evidence of  David Cameron’s broken society, that should have been it. Yet at Kids Company, no one talks in such terms. The focus there is on taking children , many of whom have been terrified, brutalised and introduced to drugs by members of their own family, and helping them secure a future.

Camila recognises, as most politicians do not, that the dividing line between the agressor and the… Read More

My colleague, Ed West, draws attention to the ruckus over a local Labour leaflet accusing the LibDems of wanting to give the vote to convicted murderers, rapists and paedophiles. What a calumny. Labour’s general secretary, Ray Collins, has put a stop to the offending leaflet, and quite right too.

The fuss has, however, brought to the fore one of the unsung scandals of the election campaign: the blanket ban on prisoners voting. The European Court of Human Rights declared this prohibition, which dates back to the 19th century notion that jail inmates deserved “civic death”, to be unlawful in 2004.

 As Juliet Lyon, of the Prison Reform Trust, says, people are sent to prison to lose their liberty, not their identity. Voting is not a privilege but a basic human right. That does not mean that murderers, rapists and paedophiles would all get a vote – some prisoners would certainly be ruled out –  but it does mean that… Read More

Today’s polls, showing the LibDem surge unabated, continue to point to a hung Parliament. The Nick Clegg bubble may burst on Thursday, but there’s no obvious reason why he should lose out either to Gordon Brown or David Cameron on foreign policy. Mr Brown’s inherited wars and Mr Cameron’s barmy army of Euro-allies leave both leaders open to attack.

 So it’s full sail ahead, as things stand, to an election with no decisive winner. Would this be a bad thing? As I say in my column this morning, the Tory spin suggests that a hung Parliament would be a disaster. Expect economic meltdown, a visit from the IMF and the fiscal equivalent of plagues of locusts and seven years of famine.

True or false? While the Tory hype is self-serving. any minority government risks being weak and opportunist. Coalition administrations, on the other hand , can be more stable and fairer than one-party monoliths. As Charter 2010 points out, an… Read More

If any group illustrates the mixed messages delivered by David Cameron, it is Britain’s hoodies. What are they to make of his curious blend of hugs and kicks? Not long ago, the Tory leader was expressing pity for the  failed and failing inmates of Feltham Young Offender Institution. Now he is going to jail anyone  found carrying a knife. Of course there should be severe penalties for anyone who kills, maims or threatens violence.

But is it sensible to bang up every teenager who, often through fear of attack from a rival gang, carries a weapon he or she does not intend to use? In 2008/9, almost 14,000 people were caught in possession of a blade. Around 20 per cent received a custodial sentence. Today’s Observer looks at the cost of jailing the rest. Locking up a juvenile costs between£60,000 and £160,000 a year, while the annual fee for an adult is £50,000.

 Given that the average sentence i… Read More

Tory strategists say that winning this election is like carrying a Ming vase across a room. One stumble, and the treasure is smashed. So how bad was the leaders’ debate for David Cameron? In many ways, he didn’t do much wrong. Implying we might be nuked by China may be an egregious lapse, but most voters won’t mind much. Nor may they be bothered by the thud of clichés (”We’re all in this together”) or even the lack of clarity on how to pay off the deficit. But though he stayed calm, Mr Cameron’s face seemed to register a growing horror. The Tory nighmare had been that he might lose out by appearing a master of presentation. If only.

Nick Clegg 'out-Daved' David Cameron (Photo: Getty)

Nick Clegg did not exactly pirate the Cameron playbook. Instead he produced a more novel and… Read More

A leaders’ debate? You’d think it was a casting session for the Chippendales. Will Dave do the reptilian tongue flick? Can Gordon avoid the pouchy eyes that signify too little sleep? Will Nick’n'Vince be surgically separated by showtime? To read the preamble, you might imagine that the three leaders are spending today quivering nervously amid a discarded heap of panstick make-up, Obama voice coaches and unflattering ties.

Dave says he hasn’t had enough preparation. Gordon may think he’s had too much after weeks of being put through his paces by Alastair Campbell. Mr Campbell will have been an unsparing Dave double in their rehearsal sessions. As he tells me in an interview for Fabian Review, he is as determined as ever for Labour to win. “The choice is not Tony or Gordon, and it’s not Gordon or perfection,” he says. “It’s Gordon or Cameron.”

On the election outcome, he adds: “This one I genuinely can’t call. It could be a Labour win, it… Read More

Rory Bremner’s battlebus last night reached Horsham in Sussex, where I joined him on a panel for the Q and A session which makes up the second part of his show. Bremner, who hasn’t done a live tour for six years, is very funny. Catch him if you can (he’s in Harrogate tonight). His William Hague impression went down particularly well in what used to be the safest Tory seat in the country.

Last night’s audience, however, was either being very generous or it has not swallowed the Tory manifesto with unqualified delight. During the Q and A, criticism of David Cameron’s tax breaks for marriage got a round of applause, as did opposition to Trident.

Worse, at least one query submitted to Bremner by the audience suggested extreme vagueness over the identity of the elected representative. “Why no mention in your show of our MP, Angus Maude?” the questioner asked. Surely that should be Francis Maude, the former Tory party chairman, sitting… Read More

The world has become a slightly safer place. Yesterday in Washington, 47 nations signed up to an agreement designed to stop nuclear material falling into terrorist hands. After years of international indolence, the ghosts of the Cold War are being banished.

Last week marked the historic signing of the US-Russia arms reduction treaty: Next month the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will be reviewed. Barack Obama, with Vladimir Putin, has taken the most dramatic steps to ward off nuclear catastrophe since Reagan and Gorbachev moved away from mutually assured destruction.

The notable absentee at this peacefest is Binyamin Netanyahu, who stayed away from the Washington summit. The Israeli leader, with a vast and and unadmitted nuclear armoury at his disposal, has also fallen out with the US over how to deal with Iran. He believes that Tehran, which may be close to getting its own bomb, poses an existential threat to Israel.

If so, he is going the wrong way about… Read More

Any last hope that Labour may freeze VAT seems to have vanished. The Labour Cabinet members arguing that the tax rate could be pegged nearer the election have lost their fight. Today Alistair Darling told me he will not deviate from yesterday’s refusal to rule out a rise. “We’re sticking to our pledge,” he said when I asked him if change in VAT policy was now off the table. “If you kick away any element [of flexibility in taxation] you get into trouble.”

The final word will disappoint some colleagues, but he is thinking about the future. While maintaining the election will be “a fight to the wire”, he has an added incentive after Gordon Brown promised he would keep his job if Labour wins. “I’d like to complete the job,” he told me. “I’m looking forward to doing that.” Though polling suggests that the public prefers his parsimony to George… Read More