Election 2015 live: Tebbit – Cameron's SNP scare tactics risk driving Scottish Tory voters to Labour

21 Apr 201517.03 EDT

Jamie Grierson's evening summary

Jamie Grierson

A sign of desperation or a shrewd turn to a safe pair of hands? Sir John Major was wheeled out by the Tory party today as the three-way war of words between the Conservatives, SNP and Labour continued to heat up. Major, dubbed a “party legend” by the Sun’s political editor Tom Newton Dunn and “Jurassic John” by the Mirror’s Kevin Maguire, warned voters of the perils of a Labour-SNP tie-up after the election. He said it would be a “recipe for mayhem”.

But the real mayhem appears to be the in-fighting the Tory’s focus on the SNP has sparked. Amid deepening unease among Tory grandees, former Tory chairman Lord Tebbit said it was “logical” to vote Labour in areas where Conservatives stand no chance. His comments follow the remarks of Tory peer Lord Forsyth that leading Conservatives are playing a “short term and dangerous” game that threatens the future of the UK by building up the SNP as a way of damaging the Labour party in Scotland.

Cameron is delivering a speech in Bedfordshire tomorrow - let’s see if he respects his elders and count how many times the SNP gets a namecheck.

The big picture

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Major’s appearance did successfully wrestle airtime away from Miliband, who delivered a key speech in Manchester on saving the NHS - Labour’s campaign centrepiece. He claimed there is a fortnight to “rescue” the NHS as he accused Cameron of being a “mortal danger” to the service. The Labour leader pledged to take action to “save” it from day one of taking office with a rescue plan to boost funding and tackle a “crisis” in staffing.

What happened today

• Sir John Major has called on the Conservative party to show more passion in its election campaign, as he warned that economic statistics meant nothing unless people feel their lives are improving. The former prime minister praised the coalition government for bringing Britain “back from the brink to the genuine prospect of prosperity”. But he indicated that the Tories needed to liven up their campaign.
• David Cameron is demeaning himself and his office by endangering the union in an attempt to stay in Downing Street, Ed Miliband has said. Instead of confronting the SNP, the Labour leader said, Cameron was talking them up to highlight the threat of a hung parliament and persuade voters to back a majority Tory government.
• The Conservatives are to draft in a deployment of Republican activists to bolster their efforts in key seats before the UK election. In an unusual move, a team organised by the US Young Republicans International Committee will arrive on 2 May to help out in the marginal seat of Enfield North, and the constituency of Aylesbury, where the Conservatives face a challenge from the UK Independence party (Ukip), as well as the safer seat of Windsor.
• Conservative party supporters should consider voting tactically for Labour in most areas of Scotland as the best way of supporting the UK, the former Tory chairman Lord Tebbit has said. Amid deepening unease among Tory grandees at the party leadership’s attacks on Ed Miliband over possible plans for a post-election pact with the SNP, Tebbit said it was “logical” to vote Labour in areas where Conservatives stand no chance.
• Wikipedia has blocked a user account on suspicions that it is being used by the Conservative party chairman, Grant Shapps, “or someone acting on his behalf” to edit his own page along with the entries of Tory rivals and political opponents. The online encyclopedia, where pages are edited and created by readers, has tracked the changes made by a user called “Contribsx” who has systematically removed embarrassing references on Shapps’ Wikipedia page about the Tory chairman’s business activities as Michael Green, the self-styled millionaire web marketer.
• The Scottish National party’s flagship financial policy of full fiscal autonomy could lead to a shortfall of nearly £9bn in Scotland’s finances by 2020, according to the latest projections from the Institute of Fiscal Studies – a gap that would only be closed if growth were to double that predicted for the UK as a whole. The IFS published its report on Tuesday after the SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, dismissed as irrelevant the institute’s previous projection of a £7.6bn shortfall for 2015-16 under the policy, which would require Scotland to fully fund spending through its own tax revenues and borrowing.
• London mayor is being primed to take bigger role in Conservative campaign after getting starstruck response while canvassing in the capital.
  
• Nigel Farage has said that critics of the lack of ethnic diversity in the Ukip manifesto have got it wrong, because along with “one fully black person” it also features a “half-black” party spokesman. The spokesman the Ukip leader was referring to is Steven Woolfe, the party’s migration spokesman, whose grandfather was African American.
• With just 16 days to the election, the latest Guardian projection has the main parties virtually tied: the Conservatives are on 271 seats and Labour on 270. Behind them, the SNP is projected to win 55 seats, the Lib Dems 28, Ukip four and the Greens one.
  

Quote of the day

Grant Shapps is a fine man and has never done anything dodgy – Paddy Ashdown*

*In response to a story by the Guardian’s Randeep Ramesh on claims Grant Shapps has edited the Wikipedia pages of his Tory rivals under a username Contribsx, the Lib Dems sent out a cheeky press release with this “quote” from Lord Ashdown before adding: “This Press Release has been edited by Wikipedia user Contribsx”

Hero of the day

Fictional Danish prime minister Birgitte Nyborg Christensen, played by Sidse Babett Knudsen. Not our hero of the day, but Nicola Sturgeon’s, who confessed to having re-watched Borgen “once or twice”.

Villain of the day

Peter Endean, who is standing for Nigel Farage’s party in the council elections in Plympton Earle and is UKIP’s communications manager for Plymouth, re-tweeted an image of some of the rescued migrants with a caption that said: “Labour’s new floating voters. Coming to a country near you soon”. He later apologised.

Tomorrow’s agenda

Tomorrow is likely to be dominated by the Boris show as the Tories seek to weaponise their prize jester. London’s mayor is to be given a bigger role in the Conservative campaign after getting starstruck response while canvassing in the capital.

Other events:

7.30am - Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg is expected to give a press Conference at the National Liberal Club

9am - David Cameron is expected to deliver a speech in Bedfordshire

7.30pm: Ukip leader Nigel Farage will appear on BBC Leader Interviews

That’s it for me for today. It has been a pleasure. Join the Guardian’s election team tomorrow morning, as we bring you the latest news, reaction, analysis, pictures, video, and jokes from the campaign trail.

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Shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna has given a personal pitch to the audience at the London Evening Standard debate.

Umunna spoke of his father’s experience as an immigrant in the mid sixties and pledged to improve the lives of Londoners without turning “different groups” against each other.

He said:

I’m very proud to be a Londoner born and bred, but my late father arrived in this city in the mid 1960s from Nigeria with very little and worked his way up to become a successful businessman.

He was probably in the eighties the only member of the Institute of Directors who also worshipped Harold Wilson and the Labour party. Why? Becauyse it was thanks to the Labour party that the signs that greeted him - no blacks, no Irish, no dogs - it was thanks to the laws that we introduced that those signs were taken down and my dad got the fair crack of the whip when he wanted to go for a job.

However, while it’s right we do live in a fantastic city now in 2015, a great city, there are two Londons. One of great wealth, never mind the lattes, think of the champagne, and one where a third of Londoners are living in poverty. That is a disgrace in 2015.

What we are not going to do is tackle these challenges that we face by setting up different groups against each other and blaming immigrants like my father for all of our problems. The only way we can build a better and fairer London is by working together.

Here’s an audioboom link to Umunna’s full opening remarks.

Buzzfeed has two great pieces on contrasting views of Labour leader Miliband.

Hannah Jewell describes how a Tweet sent by a 17-year-old student about Ed Miliband led to her picking up more than 10,000 followers and launched the hashtag Milifandom.

Meanwhile, Siraj Datoo takes a look at the Labour leader’s popularity (or lack thereof) in his own constituency.

If Miliband is going to become prime minister, then the voters of his own constituency, Doncaster North, are precisely the kind of people he needs to reach. Yet even as his national profile rises, the reaction among the locals here suggests that he still has some way to go before he comes across as a truly convincing figure.

21 Apr 201515.09 EDT

Aisha Gani

The Guardian is working with the pollsters BritainThinks to conduct focus groups throughout the election with 60 voters in five key marginals. Each has an app to feedback what they are noticing in the campaign in real time. From thoughts on manifestos to tactical voting – here’s their reaction to events of the day:

As Milimania threatens to escalate, my colleague Robert Booth reports that the Tories are priming the big guns - Boris Johnson is about to take centre stage in his party’s election campaign.

He writes:

Johnson will join Cameron at a venue in south-west London on Wednesday and he is expected to campaign in 12 constituencies in the capital, making three rounds in each before polling day. This week, he has already been in Uxbridge, Finchley and Hendon. On Tuesday, he was in South Thanet in Kent taking the fight to the Ukip leader Nigel Farage. Twickenham, Ilford, Croydon and Kilburn are all in his sights.

Given the mobs of starstruck voters his canvassing appearances create, it is a strategy that could help the Tories and provide him with a head start for a leadership challenge.

Danish political drama Borgen depicts a female prime minister running a coalition government against the odds. I’ll leave you to work out why Nicola Sturgeon enjoys the show so much she has re-watched it “once or twice”.

Scotland’s first minister is a long-time fan of the show and even suggested the show’s star Sidse Babett Knudsen could play her in a movie of her life, the Press Association reports.

Ms Sturgeon met Knudsen ahead of an Edinburgh screening of the second-series finale in 2013 and has told the Radio Times it remains her favourite show.

Answering questions about her TV habits, she said Knudsen’s character Birgitte Nyborg was her favourite TV politician. Questioned on which box set she last watched, Ms Sturgeon added: “I may have re-watched Borgen once or twice...”

Other admissions made by the SNP leader included her enjoyment of soaps and TV singing contests X Factor and The Voice.

In the same feature, Green Party leader Natalie Bennett named Jed Bartlett of The West Wing as her favourite TV politician, while Plaid Cymru’s leader Leanne Wood revealed the last programme to make her cry was Michael Sheen’s Valleys Rebellion.

Ed Miliband has put his apparent spike in popularity down to voters seeing the “real me rather than the caricature”.

In an interview with ITV News’s deputy political editor Chris Ship, Miliband was asked about his recent encounter with a hen-do and whether he thought this had helped change the public’s perception of him.

The Labour leader said:

The honest truth is that I feel I’m the same person I was three months ago and I’m just setting out my case.

I think partly what’s happening – I hope – is that people are seeing the real me rather than the caricature.

Turning to more serious issues, the Labour leader repeated his disgust at David Cameron’s SNP scare tactics.

I think David Cameron’s behaviour has been reprehensible. He is trying to set one part of the UK against another. England versus Scotland.

He argued that Cameron’s campaign has been reduced to one thing - “getting back into Downing Street on the back of SNP success”.

21 Apr 201514.00 EDT

Aisha Gani

The Lib Dems sent out a cheeky press release this afternoon, with the headline:

Grant Shapps is a fine man and has never done anything dodgy – Paddy Ashdown

And signed off with the note:

• This Press Release has been edited by Wikipedia user Contribsx.

Here it is in full:

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It’s a witty nod to The Guardian’s Randeep Ramesh story on Grant Shapps who is accused of editing the Wikipedia pages of his Tory rivals.

Here’s a selection of pictures coming in to the Guardian from the campaign trail.

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Back north of the border, Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy has hit out at David Cameron and Sir John Major over their attacks on the SNP.

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He said:

John Major and David Cameron have given up on the Scottish Conservative Party and are giving their all to the SNP.

The Tory Party no longer has its own independent campaign in Scotland but has become an active campaigner for the SNP. The Tories are making it clear by their words and their deeds today that David Cameron can only be saved by Scotland voting SNP.”

We are clear that the way to guarantee the end of the Tory government is to vote Labour rather than to gamble on the messy outcomes of a hung parliament.

Turning to the Lib Dems, my colleague Frances Perraudin reports that business secretary Vince Cable has dismissed a claim by his colleague Andrew George that there will not be another Tory/Lib Dem coalition.

Speaking at an adult education college near his constituency of Twickenham, Cable said:

There could be [another coalition between the two parties]. We’re not ruling that out at all. We’ve worked with them for five years and it’s not always easy.

As I’ve pointed out to people, I’m not a Tory. I’ve fought them all my political life, but I’ve managed to create a good team out of six Tory ministers and two Lib Dems and the public will decide what kind of government they want. If some form of relationship is what the electorate point to, then that’s something we certainly can’t rule out.

Cable suggested that the Conservative party might even need the support of the Liberal Democrats to stabilise a government if they won a small majority.

I have Mr Philip Davies and various other people calling for my head every few weeks, but they’ve got some unappetising alternatives. They might finish up with a very small majority and are then dependent on thirty to fifty kind of head banging characters who detest Cameron and try to destabilise his government.

One of the key election events of the day, John Major’s appearance in the West Midlands, has attracted high-praise from The Sun’s political editor Tom Newton Dunn, who describes the former prime minister as a “party legend”.

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Newton Dunn says when “successful” former Prime Ministers speak, Britain listens, and calls Major a “political saint”.

Not least, because we all love a bit of ‘remember him’-type nostalgia, as well as gloating at how greyer / balder / oranger they now are.

But where Mr Tony’s reputation is troubled – to put it politely – Sir John is a modern day political saint.

A YouGov poll in February found him to be the most popular former party leader of the last three decades, Newton Dunn says.

He must have forgotten which paper famously switched sides from Tory to Labour, ditching Major and backing Blair back in 1997. (Hint: his paper).

But most interestingly, Newton Dunn gives his verdict on the real reason why the Tories wheeled out their former leader.

It means Labour don’t get as much air time as they would like for their own current message, the NHS.

It’s Labour’s Health Week, their strongest electoral suit.

But Red Ed’s NHS salvation plan is now running way down in the TV and radio bulletins...

It’s as if Frank Underwood himself was running the show.

Here’s more from the Press Association. In this video, Labour Party leader Ed Miliband says Prime Minister David Cameron is setting one part of the country against another by talking up the Scottish National Party.

Hi, Jamie Grierson here. I’ll be steering the blog until close of play.

PA’s James Tapsfield has witnessed some top-class banter from the prime minister out on the campaign trail.

21 Apr 201511.52 EDT

Andrew Sparrow

Lucy Powell, the Labour’s general election vice-chair, has put out a statement about the Lord Tebbit interview. She said:

The Tory campaign is in dire straits. Conservative grandees are lining up to savage David Cameron for his increasingly desperate attempts to cling to power. He has now been heckled in the street for his refusal to talk about the NHS.

While Labour is setting out a better plan for working families - for living standards, the NHS and the next generation – a desperate Tory party simply talks up the SNP because they cannot defend their record and have nothing to offer Britain.

That’s all from me for today. My colleague Jamie Grierson, who also covered the BBC foreign affairs debate, is taking over for the rest of the day.

My colleague Denis Campbell has clarified his earlier post about today’s health hustings. What Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, actually said was that Labour would stop pay cuts in the NHS. He did not categorically commit Labour to real-terms pay increases. Denis has more in an update to the 3.24pm post.

In his NHS speech earlier Ed Miliband confirmed that Labour would write to colleges and universities asking them to take in more nursing recruits on its first day in office. There were some other lines too.

• Miliband said that the legislation to repeal the Health and Social Care Act would be introduced within 100 days of the government taking office.

• He said that planning for the next winter hospital crisis would start immediately.
  

We are also going to begin immediate planning to avoid an A&E crisis for the coming winter.

Improving GP access and ensuring there are GPs in all A&Es.

Increasing the numbers of clinically-trained NHS staff on the 111 phoneline.

And we’ll take action to tackle the increasing scandal of ‘delayed discharges’, where patients end up stuck in hospital when they could be being looked after at home.

• He claimed that Cameron was “a mortal danger to the NHS”.
  

For five years, the NHS has gone backwards.

For the next five if the Conservatives are returned to power the NHS will be starved of funds, it will face a rising tide of privatisation.

This is the truth.

David Cameron is now a mortal danger to the NHS.

It is clearly not a day for rhetorical understatement. Today we’ve had Miliband claiming that the Tories pose a threat to the survival of both the UK (see 8.52am) and the NHS, while Sir John Major was claiming that the SNP, and a minority Labour government allowing them to maximise their influence, were also a threat to the future of the union.

A TNS poll has come out this afternoon. Here are the figures.

Here is some Twitter reaction to the Lord Tebbit interview.

From Paul Goodman, the ConservativeHome editor

From Labour

From Chris Bryant, the shadow culture minister