May 2015 UK General Election Campaign.

[mongers]

Forty-five days left before the UK general election.

Five hundred and ninety-six days of campaigning before Americans get to choose a new President and congressmen etc.

[Zanza]

I read that UKIP is doing worse in polls and might just win a handful of seats. Mainly due to lunatics and crooks among their candidates. What's your take?

[Gups]

I read that UKIP is doing worse in polls and might just win a handful of seats. Mainly due to lunatics and crooks among their candidates. What's your take?

They aren't really doing worse in the polls. Maybe down 1% from 3 months ago, but solidly at about 14%. They were never likely to win more than a few seats - between 2 and 5 because their support is fairly evenly divided across the country. There's been quite a few scandals recently with dodgy UKIP candidates but they seem to have little effect. OTOH, Farage was harassed by a left wing group while having a pub lunch with his family yesterday, which is getting him a lot of press and sympathy.

[mongers]

I read that UKIP is doing worse in polls and might just win a handful of seats. Mainly due to lunatics and crooks among their candidates. What's your take?

They aren't really doing worse in the polls. Maybe down 1% from 3 months ago, but solidly at about 14%. They were never likely to win more than a few seats - between 2 and 5 because their support is fairly evenly divided across the country. There's been quite a few scandals recently with dodgy UKIP candidates but they seem to have little effect. OTOH, Farage was harassed by a left wing group while having a pub lunch with his family yesterday, which is getting him a lot of press and sympathy.

Yes that has backfired badly; plus I think it was very wrong, going after a politician and his family isn't fair and is serious harassment.

[Richard Hakluyt]

One point to be made in Farage's favour is that he has not dragged his wife and kids into his campaigning. Similarly the protestors should not have disrupted his family lunch.

[mongers]

One point to be made in Farage's favour is that he has not dragged his wife and kids into his campaigning. Similarly the protestors should not have disrupted his family lunch.

Yeah, I didn't even know he still had a relatively young family, I'd assumed, based on age, if he had any they'd have already flown the nest.

Did you catch the Nick Clegg extended interview on the BBC were he shamelessly dragged his whole family in; so what if you're elderly mum spend time in a Japanese civilian camp during the war, who does that make you a more worthy politician?

[Gups]

Yeah, I didn't even know he still had a relatively young family, I'd assumed, based on age, if he had any they'd have already flown the nest.

He's on his second family. His first two kids are in their 30s.

[mongers]

Yeah, I didn't even know he still had a relatively young family, I'd assumed, based on age, if he had any they'd have already flown the nest.

He's on his second family. His first two kids are in their 30s.

That explains it.

I still prefer the Soviet 'model' as regards politician's spouses/children.

[Valmy]

Refuse to get them back in prisoner exchanges? Execute their relatives in purges?

[Sheilbh]

David Cameron: I would not serve third term as PM
Prime minister names Theresa May, George Osborne and Boris Johnson as possible future leaders of the Tory party
Rowena Mason Political correspondent and Nicholas Watt
Monday 23 March 2015 20.33 GMT Last modified on Monday 23 March 2015 21.02 GMT

David Cameron unexpectedly ruled out serving a third term in office, causing dismay in Conservative circles as he highlighted three potential successors.

The prime minister said he felt fit enough to serve another full five years in Downing Street – if he were to remain in power after the forthcoming general election but added that after that it would be "time for new leadership".

In an interview with the BBC, conducted largely in the kitchen of the prime minister's Cotswolds home, Cameron named home secretary Theresa May, chancellor George Osborne and London mayor Boris Johnson as potential Conservative leaders.

"I've said I'll stand for a full second term, but I think after that it will be time for new leadership. Terms are like shredded wheat: two are wonderful but three might just be too many," the prime minister said.

The three senior politicians are already the bookmakers' favourites to be their party's next leader, perhaps as soon as this year if the Conservatives lose the election. However, their ambitions have never been so publicly acknowledged by Cameron before.

The prime minister made the declaration about his political future during a informal interview with the BBC, which saw him preparing food in the kitchen and featured a brief appearance from his wife Samantha.

Cameron appears to have made a calculation that voters do not want a prime minister who goes on for too long in the vein of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. He has previously been thought to be planning to hand over to another Tory leader half way through a second term, if he were to get re-elected.

But his remarks were greeted with dismay by Conservative commentators. Fraser Nelson, the editor of the Spectator magazine, said that Cameron had just "set fire to his authority" by "pre-announcing his resignation".

Douglas Alexander, Labour's chair of general election strategy, seized on Cameron's remarks as evidence of a complacent attitude towards the electorate.

"The Tories are taking the British public for granted," Alexander said. "It is typically arrogant of David Cameron to presume a third Tory term in 2020 before the British public have been given the chance to have their say in this election. In the UK it is for the British people and not the prime minister to decide who stays in power."

Downing Street sources immediately tried to row back on Cameron's comments, saying he was only rejecting the idea of serving a full third term. In what appeared to be a damage limitation exercise, the source said: "What happens in five years' time in 2020? Let's cross that bridge when we get to it."

The source said that the prime minister is in a different position to Blair and Thatcher who declined to give similar commitments at the end of their first terms in office. This is because they chose to fight elections on four-year cycles.

Under the fixed term parliament act Cameron fights elections on five-year cycles. This means that Cameron is at the equivalent of Blair's half way stage at the end of just one term. Blair won three elections, as did Thatcher.

A Liberal Democrat spokesperson said it was "incredibly presumptuous of David Cameron to be worrying about a third term as prime minister weeks before the general election".

"He should spend a bit more time considering how he can possibly justify to voters the Tories' dangerous plans to cut public services than agonising over his own long-term legacy."

The prime minister said political leaders should never regard themselves as "indispensable – however mad you go in this job".

"I'm standing for a full second time," he said. "I'm not saying all prime ministers necessarily definitely go mad or even go mad at the same rate... But I feel I've got more to bring to this job, the job is half done, the economy's turned round, the deficit is half down and I want to finish the job.

"I didn't just come to do this to deal with the debts and the mess, I want to go on with the education reforms and the welfare reforms.

"But there definitely comes a time where a fresh pair of eyes and fresh leadership would be good, and the Conservative Party has got some great people coming up: the Theresa Mays, and the George Osbornes, and the Boris Johnsons. There's plenty of talent there. I'm surrounded by very good people. The third term is not something I'm contemplating."

But his intervention will hardly have delighted other cabinet colleagues such as Jeremy Hunt, Savid Javid, and Michael Gove who may have leadership aspirations of their own.

Cameron's wife Samantha also appeared in the short film, saying she thought her husband was "definitely, in my mind, the best man for the job".

"I hope that me and the family help him to keep things in perspective, keep him grounded and help him pace himself over the next eight weeks," she said.

During the film, Cameron was seen cheering on son Elwen's football team, shopping at a local butcher's and preparing food in the kitchen of his Oxfordshire home.

His children were also filmed eating a meal at the kitchen table and Cameron spoke of how his daughter, Nancy, has threatened to go on hunger strike unless his friend Jeremy Clarkson is reinstated as presenter of Top Gear. The television star was suspended after allegedly hitting a BBC producer, sparking a petition for him to return.

"I told her this is not necessarily a useful intervention. It is not exactly Gandhi," Cameron said. Samantha added: "Nancy's hunger strike this morning lasted approximately five minutes."

The prime minister then joked: "It's between lunch and tea is the way it works."

Baffling. That Downing Street spin is superb. I also agree with the point Philip Collins made. The Tories wanted to make this into a referendum on who would be PM: Cameron or Miliband. Then, half-way through the Parliament the Tory party gets to decide the next one.

Everything will now be about the leadership contenders.

Alex Massie makes both points. Better:

In a brave move, David Cameron sets fire to his authority
23 comments 23 March 2015 18:35Alex Massie 

It is always useful to remember Robert Conquest's suggestion that The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is to assume it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.

No, I don't know why David Cameron would amputate his authority before he runs for re-election either. But that's what he has done today by ruling out running for a third term in office.  I dare say it was an honest – and spontaneous – answer to a simple question. But still: what a bizarre thing to do, not least because no-one expected him to run again in 2020 even if, by some good fortune, he returns to Downing Street on May 8th.

But there is every difference between common knowledge inside the village and broadcasting that knowledge to the wider world. Authority and credibility are all-too-easily bandied-about but they have some importance not least because perceptions of these qualities have some considerable impact on the overall manner in which a politician is perceived. If you doubt this, look at Ed Miliband.

Cameron, today, has started the race to be his successor. True, that race might yet begin on May 8th but the Tories were always likely to need a new leader if Cameron is defeated in May. They didn't need the leadership question to begin as soon as they had won a second term, however.

But it has. Needlessly. How long will you remain in office, Mr Cameron? When do you plan on resigning? These are questions from which there is no escape. The clock is ticking. The countdown has started and once begun it cannot be stopped. There is no blue wire that can be cut to prevent the explosion.

I know people like to complain that the press have an unhealthy fascination with these games of personality and process at the expense of policy and I dare say there's some truth to that. (Personality and process are more fun than policy). But there's no need for politicians to ask us to play these games in the first place. That's what Cameron has done, however.

Who's up? Who's down? Who is on manoeuvres? Everything (well, almost everything) half a dozen senior Tories (May, Osborne, Boris et al) do in the first three years of the next parliament will be viewed through the prism of the succession.

That's bad enough but it's really quite something to declare yourself a lame duck before an election. It also allows Labour to argue Vote Dave, Get George or Vote Dave, Get Boris.

There's one other thing too: declaring you won't seek a third term risks seeming awkwardly presumptious before you've even won your second. Risks? Nay, 'tis. Another reason why this is a baffling declaration.

Perhaps it really is the case that no-one actually wants to win the next election.

[Zanza]

That's silly. Why would you announce your resignation five years in advance? That's just setting yourself up as a lame duck.

Has Cameron ever done anything politically astute during his term as prime minister? I can only think of blunders and gaffes.

[Admiral Yi]

I don't see how the concept of a lame duck applies in a parliamentary system.

[Zanza]

I don't see how the concept of a lame duck applies in a parliamentary system.

The American president also has his full formal powers all the way to 19th January. How is it different?

[Admiral Yi]

The American president also has his full formal powers all the way to 19th January. How is it different?

The American system involves more quid pro quo.

[Sheilbh]

Has Cameron ever done anything politically astute during his term as prime minister? I can only think of blunders and gaffes.

He's always been a very lucky general.

I don't see how the concept of a lame duck applies in a parliamentary system.

As it does in the US, except the entire primary is between White House staffers/Cabinet members.