What Is David Cameron Hiding in Bread-Making Machine Row?

Michael Crick raises one of the most important questions of the campaign so far on his excellent blog. Namely, is David Cameron being straight with voters when he claims to own and operate a bread-making machine?

Michael reports that Cameron was hissed when he visited a Warburton’s bread factory in Bolton on Wednesday. The Tory leader told the audience that he has a his own-bread making machine at home. If you work for Warburton’s the bakers you don’t want to hear about people owning bread-making machines and baking their own. Bread-making machines are the enemy.

But Crick spots a potential inconsistency: “I’m slightly mystified by this story. Mr. Cameron said he bought his machine ‘the other day,’ but I seem to remember him proudly showing off his new bread-maker to me when I visited him at his constituency home when he was running for leader back in 2005, almost five years ago. Indeed, I was so impressed I thought of getting one myself. Perhaps my memory is playing awful tricks on me. Or perhaps it was Samantha’s bread-machine he showed me… and Mr. Cameron was so impressed he went out and bought his own. One bread machine, or two? I suppose critics will say it just shows how the Camerons are upper crust.”

Durability Brown: Another Migraine-Inducing Interview With the Prime Minister

The PM’s interview on the “Today” program was not a car crash. It wasn’t bad for him in the conventional political or media sense that he somehow gaffed — he didn’t. But it was still migraine-inducing radio.

Gordon Brown is a very skilled political operator. He has been doing these interviews for so many years that he does them almost on autopilot. Every time his interviewer asks a straightforward question he responds with a blocking move. By the end, John Humphrys must have felt that it would have been a more productive use of his time to repeatedly hit his head against the studio wall for twenty minutes. I would not have blamed him if he had run screaming from the room.

At the center of their exchanges, if you can call them that, was the notion of an end to boom-and-bust. Brown said mid-boom that he had delivered an economic miracle of permanent prosperity. Against this supposed guarantee, millions of Britons, many of the banks and the government spent and borrowed like there was no tomorrow. But there was a tomorrow — it’s here now. The end of boom-and-bust predictably went boom-banga-boom, and the resulting explosion will leave the national debt at £1.4 trillion.

Asked Humphrys: Did the PM have any regrets about having said that he had ended boom-and-bust?

Brown Heckled by Voter Over Schools. Does Michael Gove Have an Alibi?

Political heckling is a lost art. It used to be a major feature in British elections but now we’re more likely to just stand and gawp — saying when Nick Clegg walks past “there’s wotsisname, George Cameron?”

So here’s to the chap in London who is on a mission to revive the informed heckle. He should be hired by a newspaper and sent to shout intelligent questions at all the party leaders and other prominent politicians throughout the campaign.

Sky News caught him berating the prime minister today. Watch it here.

He was understandably annoyed that his son cannot get into a decent state school. But his question was so targeted and sharp that I wondered if he was Tory shadow education secretary, Michael Gove, dressed up as a voter? Clearly not, but the Tories will be happy with his intervention.

The Last PMQs, Thank Goodness

There was much excitement ahead of the final PMQs of the Parliament. But as with many Commons occasions billed as being big set pieces, this one disappointed as a spectacle.

Brown and Cameron went at each other in their usual way, of course. But goodness, this pair really, really, really hate each other. They have been going at it for almost three years now. And there is no playfulness in their encounters, or any sense of mutual respect.

When the election is all over, you can guarantee they won’t be sharing a whisky or two late at night and chuckling over how silly it all became. Brown thinks Cameron an impertinent boy, a terrible toff. Cameron thinks Brown useless and hopelessly ill-suited to being prime minister. Even when they did the walk through to the Lords for various Queens speeches it was obvious they had nothing to say to each other. They speak different languages.

What of their arguments at PMQs today? Cameron did his Brown-won’t-confront-the-truth routine. The PM responded with his Cameron-believes-in-nothing schtick. This was the usual dialogue of the deaf.

Cameron Has Just Four Weeks to Convince

Is this election a 1979 or 1997 type of contest? Those elections both produced clear victories for one of the two main parties and resulted in a decisive changes of direction for the country.

Or is it going to be a messy election of the kind from the 1970s in which the country can’t quite decide which way to jump? In the seventies this led to instability. After those decisive breaks with the past of ‘79 and ‘97 there then followed periods of great change.

And this time? In my column for the paper today, I’ve tried to explain why it’s still in the balance. You can read it here.

Remember David Cameron is cautious, deeply conservative even, by temperament. He is not an ideologue. But if he is to win and then be a transformative Prime Minister he’ll need to convince voters not just that he is an appealing character but that he carries conviction.

In trying to break through to the swing voters who will decide the election he is hampered in several respects.

There is immense cynicism and disillusion as a result of the dismal failure of the political class, which was demonstrated most spectacularly by the expenses scandal.

Cameron has been leader of his party for four and half years, so doesn’t have the luxury of being seen as new, in the way Barack Obama was.

The Tory leader polls well personally, but there is still much distrust of his party and its motives.

What Will the Cider Party Do Next?

They were only formed yesterday, but within hours the new party created in the west country to overturn the government’s proposed tax on cider had won a great victory. In the chaos of the wash-up in Parliament the new tax ended up being poured down the sink of history, becoming the shortest-lived tax ever, according to Guido.

It was an extraordinary victory for the Cider Party. Clearly this is a new political movement with considerable potential. If they can achieve this much in under 24 hours, what might they tackle next? Welfare reform? Bank regulation? The House of Lords?

I predict a split though; it was ever thus with new parties based around a single issue. Some in the Cider Party will want to capitalize on their victory and broaden their appeal by developing policies on a whole range of subjects beyond the realms of apple-based alcoholic drinks. Hardliners will want the party to stay true to its roots and only have cider-related policies. It promises to get messy. But I bet their annual party conference will be fun.

Vintage Naughtie Beats Up Nick Clegg Live On Air

It’s fashionable to criticize Jim Naughtie, the BBC Today programme presenter. On occasion he even makes it easy, as when he does one of his interminable audio essays for the show on a subject such as a US election. (Naughtie, sitting at a bar: “Here we are, in a small bar, in a small American town, miles from the metropolitan tumult, a world away from the vast seething pit of American democracy they call Washington. And…” Barman: “Hey, buddy, you wanna drink?” “I’m broadcasting… A beer please. And as that great man of American letters John Updike put it…” etc, on and on, for a good ten minutes.)

But on his day Naughtie is a truly fearsome political interviewer, as he proved again when he took a baseball bat to Nick Clegg this morning in Today’s famed 8.10am slot.

Clegg has been strutting a bit in recent days. Lib Dem leaders quite rightly love general elections because it puts them on an almost equal footing. They get proper airtime and some attention. But it means they are also open to more scrutiny from interviewers such as Naughtie.

As David Blackburn says at Coffee House, Clegg got demolished. Listen to the whole interview here.

[Read on over the jump]

Election Starts, Nothing Proceeds to Happen

It’s been a busy day for cameramen, helicopter pilots in central London and news channel presenters. But for just about everyone else, life has carried on as normal.

The launch of the election has been exciting, in its way, if you are a political addict (my name is Iain Martin, and I have been a political addict since the 1979 election). But for all the wall-to-wall coverage, and endless analysis, there is no escaping the fact that nothing much has actually happened yet — other than the election being called. I rang a leading blogger for a chat and he couldn’t think of much to say. He had decided to spend the afternoon putting up pictures in his office.

Even the news channels are getting a little bored and desperate. As I write this, I see that Sky News has gone over to live coverage of a Plaid Cymru press conference (which looks as though it is being held inside the tiny outside lavatory of a miner’s cottage near Swansea).

This part of the election feels much more phony than the hand to hand combat of the last few weeks. But it actually masks rather a lot of activity.

Election Exclusive: Inside No. 10 as Gordon Brown Prepares Historic Trip to Palace (*)

The scene: It is 9 a.m. Tuesday, April 6, and Gordon Brown is sitting in his open-plan office. He is at his desk on the horseshoe-shaped command and control hub from which he runs the country. He has on his best mauve tie. Around him are standing his loyal retainers — Ed Balls, Charlie Whelan and veteran Brown fixer and gatekeeper Sue Nye. It is eerily quiet and all that can be heard is the distant hum of conversation and some laughter from the adjoining office. Officials have set up a number of shredding machines and have been working all night disposing of documents. Gordon is in a reflective mode:

GB: “I think this is the right time, isn’t it? I mean, this is absolutely the right time, isn’t it? It’s not the wrong time, is it?”

Sue Nye (very quietly, under her breath): “Oh for God’s sake, here we go again.”

Ed Balls: “Gordon, we’ve talked about this, haven’t we? Remember? About how everything is ready to go and that the election has to be now. And we’ve discussed how you always do the right thing at the right time, don’t you?”