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Election 2015 – live: Ashcroft poll shows Clegg to lose seat and Tories to beat Farage

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Key events
Nick Clegg the leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrat party points at a press conference in London.
Nick Clegg the leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrat party points at a press conference in London. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
Nick Clegg the leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrat party points at a press conference in London. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

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Evening summary

Nadia Khomami
Nadia Khomami

There was one thing the parties wanted to talk about today more than anything else, and that was the issue of taxation. As the final day of the penultimate week of the election campaign came to a draw, the leaders battled it out over who poses the greatest danger to “hardworking people”. It was all rather... taxing. Here’s how it panned out.

The big picture

The big story of the day was Ed Miliband being interviewed by Russell Brand for the comedian’s youtube show The Trews. In it, Miliband insisted he will stand up to big businesses, expounded the value of voting, warned about the threat to living standards posed by Conservative spending cuts, and claimed Rupert Murdoch is “much less powerful than he used to be”.

Ed Miliband meeting with comedian Russell Brand, April 28, 2015. Photograph: Russell Brand/YouTube/PA

Critics dismissed the interview as a sign of madness. The Sun branded Labour the “Monster Raving Labour party”, the Daily Mail said “Pathetic” Miliband had been savaged for the “stunt”, and David Cameron said he has no time to hang out with the “joke” Russell Brand. But the general consensus was that Miliband’s decision to meet Brand was completely vindicated. He came across well, and on top of that, Google searches on him jumped by 17% and were all related to the Russell Brand interview. Brand himself went so far as to back Miliband over the need for credible change, stating: “It says a lot about Ed Miliband that he understands the way the media works now, the way the country feels at the moment … that he was prepared to come and talk to us here at the Trews.”

What happened today

I know what needs to be done without reaching into the wallets of hard-working people and taking their money. So here’s the choice. You get me, you get that guarantee about taxes. You get Ed Miliband and you’ve got someone who attacked every single spending reduction and saving that we had to make.”

No government led by me as prime minister will cut the tax credits that working people rely on. Instead, we will raise them at least in line with inflation in every budget.

  • The Liberal Democrats ruled out going into coalition with a party that refuses to commit to raising the tax-free threshold to £12,500 by the end of the next parliament. Nick Clegg said the issue would be non-negotiable in any future government and that it would have to take priority over any other tax changes.
  • Jeremy Hunt criticised Andrew Lansley’s health reform, stating that the changes to the NHS “weren’t very popular” but that the laws had been guided by the “right principle”.
  • A new Ipsos Mori poll gave the SNP a 34-point lead in Scotland and showed Labour just 3 points ahead of the Tories, which, according to forecasters, would lead to the SNP winning all but one of the 59 seats in Scotland.
poll
  • A new ComRes poll of voting intentions in Labour/Conservative marginals puts Labour 3% ahead.
    ComRes suggested that if those results were replicated on election day with a uniformswing across all these constituencies, it would see Labour win 40 of the 50 seats.

Quote of the day

“We don’t want some giddy, Yes we can euphoria ... People don’t want euphoria this time. People want security and stability and an end to this fear” - Russell Brand to Ed Miliband.

Laugh of the day

Zac Goldsmith: Russell brand is Rasputin crossed with dick van dyck. Kew hustings getting lively!

— George Parker (@GeorgeWParker) April 29, 2015

Tomorrow’s agenda

Tomorrow is the first day of the final week of the general election campaign, and the three main party leaders will appear on a special episode of BBC question time to mark the occasion. Ed Miliband, David Cameron and Nick Clegg will each face 30 minutes of questioning from the studio audience, who will submit questions in advance and on the night. No doubt there will be much speculation in the lead up to the event, and much debate and fallout afterwards. Labour has already complained about the make-up of the audience at the event – 50% of which will be from government parties - claiming it is another example of the BBC giving into Cameron’s demands.

There will also be much to talk about with regards to tomorrow’s Guardian front page, which reveals that the Tories plan to cut £8bn in the benefits budget.

Meanwhile in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon and Jim Murphy will unveil their final campaign posters in Edinburgh and Glasgow respectively.

That’s it from me today. Join the Guardian politics team at 7am tomorrow, when we’ll try and keep you up to date with everything that’s happening in the general election campaign.

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Aisha Gani
Aisha Gani

The Sun has given birth to this front page, endorsing the Conservatives in this election:

THE SUN: It's a Tory! #tomorrowspaperstoday #BBCPapers pic.twitter.com/UivDeNotxb

— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) April 29, 2015

In it’s editorial the paper attacks Labour, explains a Ukip vote will erode the chances of the Tories, calls Russell Brand a “39-year-old teenager”, and adds:

If you’re among the 20 per cent of voters still picking a side, don’t swallow the Left’s ridiculous propaganda about the Tories.

Adding:

David Cameron and his party have not got everything right. They are too aloof. Wages are too low. But austerity was not designed by callous Tory toffs to punish the poor, as left-wingers childishly claim.

And concludes:

Here’s the real reason:

Because this time they are by far the best bet for the prosperity and happiness of millions of ordinary people who read The Sun.

It really is that simple.

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Aisha Gani
Aisha Gani

Zac Goldsmith, the Tory candidate for Richmond Park and North Kingston, had this to add on Russell Brand according to the FT’s George Parker:

Zac Goldsmith: Russell brand is Rasputin crossed with dick van dyck. Kew hustings getting lively!

— George Parker (@GeorgeWParker) April 29, 2015

Now there’s a creative comparison:

Rasputin the famous Russian monk who was influential to Tsar Nicholas II and his family in the 19th century and connected with the monarchs downfall. Photograph: The Guardian
Is that a Mockney accent? Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins.
Is that a Mockney accent? Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Photograph: Getty Images

Exclusive: David Cameron interview

David Cameron has said he remains convinced the Conservatives “will get there” over the final week of the election campaign but added it was time to “throw caution to the winds” in a new interview with the Guardian.

David Cameron said it was time to throw caution to the wind. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

As Nicholas Watt and Patrick Wintour write:

The prime minister acknowledged that people are hesitant about voting Conservative because they need to think hard after seven years of struggle in the wake of the recession.

But Cameron, who said he has “turned up the dial markedly” in recent days as a “passionate prime minister” hitting the election trail, added: “I think we will get there. But the reason it is taking time is, quite rightly, people want to have a good look and a good think.”

The prime minister’s confident declaration comes after he tore up the Tories’ cautious campaign book, drawn up by the party’s election director Lynton Crosby, to speak from the heart in recent days to workers assembled on a series of factory floors.

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The Conservatives have received praise from 90 tech entrepreneurs, who have written to the Guardian to say it would be bad for jobs, growth and innovation to “change course”. The company executives, who endorsed the Conservative-led government for supporting the tech industry, include Brent Hoberman, a co-founder of Lastminute.com and Made.com as well as a non-executive at Guardian Media Group; Andrew Fisher, executive chairman of Shazam; and Tim Steiner, chief executive and co-founder of Ocado.

Other signatories include David Cameron’s digital adviser and Tory peer, Baroness Joanna Shields; Alex Chesterman, chief executive and co-founder of Zoopla; and Holly Tucker, founder and president of Notonthehighstreet.

Rowena Mason
Rowena Mason

Labour is unhappy about the make-up of the audience at Thursday’s BBC Question Time event.

Party sources said it is another example of the BBC giving into Cameron’s demands, as 50% of the audience will be from government parties. The split is Conservative 25%, Labour 25%, Lib Dem 25% and don’t knows 25%.

Ed Miliband is taking part in the Question Time event last, after David Cameron and then Nick Clegg. They will each face 30 minutes of questioning from the studio audience, who will submit questions in advance and on the night.

Hosted by David Dimbleby, it will be broadcast from Leeds Town Hall from 8pm and is being shown live on BBC One.

Labour consider Cameron has previously got his own way because he refused to debate head-to-head with Miliband and the broadcasters shied away from empty-chairing him.

Ed Miliband was on Classic FM earlier, where he told host Nick Ferrari about the importance of music education and his own struggle to learn the violin. Here are some of the key points from the interview:

Miliband said music education is “something that needs to be valued” and can be “an incredible liberation” for many children:

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I think there’s a danger that in education at the moment we undervalue these kind of creative subjects. I think we undervalue artistic subjects. Music, for example can be an incredible liberation for lots of kids and it can bring out extraordinary talent. It is an important thing and it is something that needs to be valued.

Miliband said he learned to play the violin with the Suzuki method – but he was “terrible.

For four years I schlepped away playing the violin and then at the age of 11 I said to my mum, ‘I’m really fed up with playing the violin and I’m not really very good at it – why are you forcing me to do it?’ And she said, ‘I don’t want you to be playing the violin, I don’t think you’re very good at the violin either, I thought it was because you wanted to do it,’ at which point I promptly gave it up. I don’t think I had any natural talent but I don’t think I practised very much, that’s my excuse.

Miliband said he used to secretly watch Dallas rather than do his homework.

I used to sneak off and watch Dallas and I remember my dad used to come down the stairs and I used to turn the telly off and sneak back in to my room, pretending I was doing my homework, not watching JR and Sue Ellen. So I suppose that was like my limited form of [rebellion].

Miliband confessed that the Labour Party leadership contest between Ed and his brother David was “bruising” for the family. Asked by Ferrari whether his mum had found it tough, Miliband said she’d probably been through tougher things.

She was in hiding in Poland during the Second World War, she was in a convent, you know, she was just extraordinary. So I think she never says this to me, but my intuition is that she sort of has gone through some tougher things, even tougher things than her two boys standing for leader of the Labour Party.

Miliband told Nick Ferrari what he would have said in a final conversation with his dad, who died when Miliband was 24.

When I was 21 he had this heart bypass operation and he was in intensive care for weeks and it sort of didn’t go well. He was then quite frail.

[I would have said] how much I loved him, what a great dad he’d been, yes and how much I would miss him, you know.

Miliband said he’s grown used to the media’s more personal attacks – with one exception.

I think the alternative is worse, which is not a free press. And I can answer back in the extreme cases – the Daily Mail, saying my dad hated Britain. My Dad loved Britain.

I remember that day actually, it was after the Labour Party Conference and one of the people who works for me rang me up and said, ‘Look I think you should see what the Mail is saying because it’s getting quite a lot of attention’. I was actually with my mum and she thought it was awful, and so far from the truth.

You know, it’s interesting when we used to go on holiday, he much preferred getting home rather than being on holiday. It’s the classic refugee thing I think.

And finally, the Labour leader said he’s happy to be “a square”.

I was pretty sort of square – geeky, verging on the nerdy.… I’ll tell you the white trousers story, it wasn’t so much that I liked to wear white trousers, it’s that I was asked what I wore at the school disco when I was 16 or 17 and I said it was a particularly bad pair of white trousers and purple jumper.

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