Election 2015- Hume Brophy Daily Update 23 1 May 2015

Last night’s leaders debate in Leeds is the hot topic of discussion this morning. , and all faced tough live audience questions with Cameron facing a grilling over his party’s position on food banks. Miliband was yet again quizzed on that infamous ‘no money’ note whilst tuition fees were the stumbling block for Clegg.

The Party’s will be taking a collective sigh of relief this morning having avoided any massive bloopers last night, (although Mr Miliband did unfortunately take a bit of a stumble as he walked off the stage!) According to UK polling, David Cameron came out narrowly on top at 44% with 38% for Miliband and 19% for Nick Clegg ( ICM/Guardian instant reaction poll following the Question Time)

Elsewhere, Nigel Farage also faced audience questions last night on the BBC in and defended UKIP’s record on Europe, immigration and the NHS. faced Scottish voters on BBC whilst leader Leanne Wood appeared in a similar format on BBC Wales. These debates are the final high profile hustings before the General Election next Thursday.

Business Today  Polls  Trivia  On the campaign trail  For the diary

Business Today

 Prime Minister David Cameron holds a 'PM direct' event (10:00am) and unveils a four point plan as part of a day campaining on economic growth in the North  Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg speaks in on the party's health policies (10:00am) and then spends the afternoon campaigning in the North West  Labour Party leader Ed Miliband campaigns in Cardiff with Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones and hosts a speech and question and answer session with shadow work and pensions secretary in Bristol (12:00pm). He then campaigns in with leader  Shadow education secretary speaks at the National Association of Head Teachers conference in Liverpool (3:45pm)  UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage campaigns in London  Green Party leader Natalie Bennett launches the party's LGBTIQ manifesto in London (3:00pm)  Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon continues her helicopter tour of Scotland  Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy campaigns in Paisley  leader speaks in Melrose (1:00pm)  Scottish Liberal Democrat leader MSP campaigns in Edinburgh on mental health services (11:00am)  MSP visits a food bank in Glasgow to launch the Scottish Green Party's briefing on the minimum wage and social security

Polls

In the penultimate poll release by IPSOS-Mori today, the Conservatives have a 5 point lead compared to the other parties. Top line figures for this are; CON 35%, LAB 30%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 10%, GRN 8%. Panelbase meanwhile have new figures of CON 32%, LAB 34%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 17%, GRN 4%.

According to UK Polling ‘The daily YouGov poll for the Sun has topline figures of CON 34%, LAB 35%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 12%, GRN 5%.

Once again overall polls are stagnate with not any sign of them producing a result either way.

 Labour 33% +0  Conservative 34% +0  UKIP 14% +0  Liberal Democrats 8% +0  Green 6% +0  Others 5% -0

*As of 30 April 2015, BBC poll of polls

Likelihood of:  Hung parliament 89%  Conservative Majority 10%  Labour Majority 1%

Seats (with increases/decreases based on last parliament)  Labour 263 Seats (gain of 6)  Conservative 279 seats (a loss of 23 seats)  UKIP 3 seats (gain of 1)  Liberal Democrats 28 seats (loss of 28 seats)  SNP 51 seats (gain of 45 seats)  Others (26 seats)* (loss of 8 seats)

*http://www.betfairpredicts.com/ as of 1 May 2015

Number crunching

According to yatterbox.com ‘. Looking at the social media activity of politicians since 1 April we found:

 The economy has only been the third biggest issue, behind the NHS and tax. Labour have made more than double the mentions of the NHS than the Conservatives, whereas the Conservatives have mentioned the economy three times more than Labour.

 When weighting the results to take the number of candidates into account, we see that minor parties are punching above their weight in almost all the top campaign issues.’

Courtesy of yatterbox.com

Trivia

Did you know?

1. The first women elected to the Commons was Countess Markievicz. She represented Sinn Fein and refused to take up her seat in the Commons. The first woman elected to the Commons who did take up her seat was Nancy Astor in 1919 for the Conservative Party.

2. There will be 650 constituencies contested on May 7th. England has 533 constituencies, Scotland 59, Wales 40 and Northern Ireland 18. Scotland previously had 72 constituencies prior to devolution in 1999.

3. Sir Winston Churchill was MP for Dundee for 12 years, but only visited the constituency 3 times.

4. The major parties, by convention, do not stand against the Speaker. According to the BBC ‘This unique Lib Dem-Labour-Conservative pact is the result of a long-running convention that the neutrality of the Commons Speaker - who must renounce his previous party allegiance on being elected to this prestigious post - should not be challenged by the main parties running a candidate against him at a general election.’ is defending his 12,000 vote majority against the Greens and UKIP, who are standing against him.

On the Campaign Trail

The Flying Scotsmen? What will the SNP mean for Westminster in the coming weeks and months ahead?

@Thenewstatesman

Undecided voters Baby watch and the election still make up coverage in the papers.

@TheTelegraph

Manual workers in the Commons

@BBCpolitics

For the diary

GENERAL ELECTION NEXT THURSDAY, 7 MAY! Polls are open from 8am until 10pm