Lib Dems struggle with their soul this morning

Westminster is cold and lively today in the expectation that there will be a deal between David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

The voodoo incantation of the right wing commentators is that a deal is but a formality, but some of them have invested so heavily in Cameron that they can't consider the thought of him failing now, so read them with caution.

There is no inevitability about anything happening today but there does appear to be a certain momentum. All the vocabulary coming from either side - stability, economic certainty - point towards some kind of agreement based around an economic agenda.

But if there is no PR deal that has the potential to freeze the hearts of Lib Dem MPs and activists, who have power of veto over Nick Clegg.

It might be Nick Clegg's instinct to go in with Cameron, and in many ways that is the easiest choice too. But are other Lib Dems willing to exchange voting reform for a "pupil premium" or a few cabinet seats?

In Scotland, for example, Cameron would be delighted to have a Lib Dem Scottish Secretary (g'wan yourself, Danny) and eleven bulletproof vests as public sector budgets are slashed. But do the likes of Kennedy, Carmichael and Moore want to spend their lives as sandbagging for the Tory garrison in the north?

Anyone who takes on the role of Cameron's Highlanders will reap an anti-Tory whirlwind in next year's Scottish elections.

The reason people like Danny Alexander, Jo Swinson, and Alan Reid came into politics is to reform politics. Cut a Lib Dem and they bleed proportional representation. That's why there still has to be a glimmer of light, albeit a diminishing one, that their hearts and their obstinate hatred of the Tories will drive the into Labour's half-clasped arms.

Oh, Clegg has just come out saying he hopes talks will be concluded sooner rather than later.

But everyone might be underestimating just how wily and clever Lib Dem negotiators are. They can quite legitimately exhaust talks with the Tories, or even put them on hold after they've reached a certain stage, to see what Labour can offer although that would have some parts of the media in apoplectic fits.

Last week Labour appealed to the Lib Dems to vote with their heads not their hearts, now Brown hopes that their Liberal instincts will take over. The big Brown bear is in his cave in Downing Street with a pot of golden honey, Lib Dem colours, marked voting reform.

It's doubtful that he can tempt Nick Clegg to come his way, there are no signs of serious negotiations. It would take some courage to go into a deal with the Brown bear, the stench of political death clings to him, the bones of allies and foes who've tried to deal with him litter his cave. Good grief he chews up Rochdale pensioners as a morning snack, what would he do to the Lib Dems?

But if Clegg wrestles with him he might, just might, imbue the Labour party with the courage to tackle Brown themselves. Brown's downfall, in or out of a deal, is regared as an inevitability but it might be as messy and unsightly as watching the Lib Dems struggle to sell their PR souls in exchange for power with Cameron.

The groundwork for the glittering prize, PR reform, is impossible to achieve in less than two years according to the naysayers. But then, has anyone seen an easy road to parliamentary reform?

A Lib Dem deal with the Tories is odds on and one with Labour is almost a mathematical and political impossibility. But there will be Lib Dems this morning, some of them the Scottish MPs who'll be in the frontline of trench warfare, who will be drawn to Labour, It would be a difficult deal, it would cause schism and heartache, but it might, just might, change politics for ever. After all, if the Lib Dems are not for voting reform, what are they for at all?

"Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night"

I've never seen anything like it at a UK election. A massive, congo snake of people queuing outside my local polling station to vote this evening.

There's talk of turn out being close to 70 per cent, which would be phenomenal. (Mind you, my constituency is Bethnal Green and Bow where ballot stuffing means turn out could be 120%)

Job done, I'm reporting for duty at my Westminster desk and I realise I'm ending the campaign where I started it, and where I spent almost the entire time - in front of a computer screen and a television.

I've covered every other election on the road and I've been deeply frustrated this time to be flying a desk, or I was until I read Andrew Sparrow's excellent final dispatch on his Guardian live blog last night.

Andy's been typing about 14,000 words a day (I know, incredible) since the beginning of the campaign. Although he argued too that the best place to be was out meeting voters he's concluded that with rolling news, twitter, blogs, popping to a press conference and getting the occasional phonecall from the frontline he's been as close to the modern general election as it is possible to be.

Each election campaign I've covered has become more and more of a televisual event and this one, with the three live debates, the process has reached it's zenith. That means that you'd hardly know there was an election going on in lots of constituencies as phonebanks take over from door knocking.

But if the turnout at my polling station was anything to go by the television, and the momentous nature of this election, has boosted interest.

I'm also struck that after all that 24/7 media absorption - starting at dawn with Today/Aithris na Maidne and ending long after that crash edit into Newsnicht Scotland - I still don't know who will be the winner tomorrow morning.

I've read, watched, twittered, blogged, swingometered and seat projected my way through the last four weeks and, like everyone else, I end up clueless about how things will be a few hours from now. Exciting isn't it?

Tom Harris has already got the quote of the day from Bette Davis in All About Eve: "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night".

Reading tea leaves/polls at T minus 24

With just 32 hours to go before the polling stations open the 2010 campaign looks like going to the wire.

Wednesday's daily ComRes poll for the Independent shows party support had remained static with the Tories on 37 per cent, Labour on 29 per cent and the Lib Dems on 26 per cent. This would make the Tories the largest party but short of a majority.

This poll gives the Conservatives 294 seats - 32 short of an overall majority – Labour 251 seats and Liberal Democrats 74.

These voting intention figures are identical to figures from ComRes yesterday – the first time during the election campaign that figures have remained unchanged. Comfort there for Cameron through the night.

But in a dramatic turn around the daily Yougov poll for the Sun showed the Lib Dem bubble had burst and that Labour, although second, would be the largest party at Westminster.

The poll gave the Tories 35 per cent (no change), Labour up two to 30 per cent and the Lib Dems falling four points to 24 per cent.

This would give Labour 277 seats, the Conservatives 269 and the Lib Dems 72 MPs and leave Westminster on a knife edge on Friday morning.

Remember, though, remember something quite different could be happening in the marginal seats and take note of this.

ComRes found that a third of people admit they may change their mind about how they will vote on Thursday, with Liberal Democrat voters being more likely than supporters of the other two main parties to switch.

I'm told that there's a Yougov poll for the Scotsman but it is embargoed. When they publish it, I'll link it.

Gordon Brown - speech of the campaign

Win, lose or draw these ten minutes in front of Citizens' UK in the Methodist Central Hall today will go down as Gordon Brown's most impassioned performance ever, and the speech of the 2010 election campaign.

It has everything - emotion, history, family, faith - even a protester mounting the stage.

You cannot make a speech like this every day, and the danger is that historically it may become an echo of another great Labour speech, Neil Kinnock's "I warn you not be ordinary..." on the eve of the 1983 election.

But let's leave history for later. This is him - Gordon Brown, heart and soul bared, fighting for what he believes.

These tea leaves in full - Tories still short

With just 48 hours to go the election race remains open, with most polls pointing to a hung parliament.

Three different polls tonight show slow deflation in the Lib Dem bubble and while the Tories are still ahead, they will not get an overall majority.

A daily ComRes poll for the Independent and ITV showed the Tories on 37%, down one point on the day, Labour on 29%, up one, and the Lib Dems on 26%, up one, and Others on 8%.

This poll would give the Tories 294 seats - 32 short of an overall majority - with Labour on 251 seats and the Liberals on 74. Close, but no dice.

Another daily Yougov poll, for the Sun, left the Tories 49 seats short of a majority despite being on 35%, with Labour and the Lib Dems on 28% each. This means a Labour-Lib Dem coalition could still outflank the Tories on Friday morning.

A poll by Opinium, for the Express, left the Tories on 33%, Labour on 29% and the Lib Dems on 28% - enough to make Labour the largest party in the parliament.

Bank holiday weekend polling is prone to more fluctuation we're told, which might explain why the Tories are low and Labour higher in the Express poll.

One final, and very important poll. The Reuters/Ipsos MORI poll of marginal seats showed Labour and Tories neck and neck on 36% , up one point for the Tories and down two points for Labour in a fortnight.

This would produce a 7% swing in support to the Conservatives from Labour compared with the last general election in 2005, that could leave Cameron with a slim, two seat majority.

The election is won and lost in the marginals, and this poll seems to indicate, for the first time, that David Cameron might sneak it home on Thursday night.

If there are higher than average swings in the marginals, if the Labour vote is not motivated to come out and if the Lib Dem election machine has not caught up sufficiently with Cleggmania to identify and get its potential support to the polls, then David Cameron will win - narrowly. On the other hand...


Labour’s Peter Mandelson insisted it was a dead heat to the finish post. He said: "This race remains a three-horse race, whatever David Cameron may claim. One thing is clear - the electoral arithmetic means only two parties can form the next government and give Britain its prime minister: Labour or Tory, Gordon Brown or David Cameron."

Big Society? Tell me again,what is that?

Labour has produced a quite witty viral video on what the Tory idea for a Big Society would mean in reality - public services abandoned to the voluntary sector.

If you go to the Labour website you can personalise it and send it to your mates who might be swithering.

Labour also gave us a preview of their final night election broadcast, fronted in England by tough guy Ross Kemp and in Scotland by Richard Wilson.

If Tutti Frutti had just been on TV Richard Wilson might have been a good idea but we automatically associate the actor with the term "one foot in the grave". (which is where...geddit?)

Anyway, in interior decorating news, polling evidence is mixed today, but there are figures coming through this evening showing that David Cameron shouldn't measure the curtains for Downing Street.

"It was me and my Da against the world"

Apparently it's Bank Holiday sunny in Glasgow today, though it feels like February on the banks of the Thames.

If you're at a loose end on the Clyde, wondering when you'll get round to washing the windows, you could do worse than listen to Robert Carlye's incredible podcast about growing up in Glasgow that's on the Daily Record website today.

There's an edited version in the paper but Carlye telling his own childhood story - abandoned by his mother at the three, of growing up in destitution with his father as life unraveled - makes for a very moving memoir. "It was me and my Da against the world," he says.

Carlye takes you on journey from the east end of Glasgow to the west, and from there to London and Brighton, weaving in how all that happened informed his work from Full Monty to Hamish MacBeth.

I don't often hang around for the duration of podcast but this is worth the listen all the way to the end, even the sentimental parts. And this is not a plug for the paper, or Johnnie Walker who sponsor the series, it's just a signpost to an extraordinary story.