Daily catch-up: Labour’s entirely positive campaign in full; plus a hung parliament scenario

All you need to know about politics and snow

1. All right, we won’t let the Tories hit us with a VAT rise. David Cameron ruled it out at the last Prime Minister’s Questions before the election yesterday.

I said in my review I thought it might be Ed Miliband’s last time at the dispatch box.

Apparently Labour spokespeople yesterday said the party would stick with the posters even though the Conservatives have now promised not to raise VAT. That means that the two posters Labour has produced so far, the other being “Next time they’ll cut it to the bone” about the NHS, simply assert that Tory promises cannot be believed.

So much for Miliband’s distaste for negative campaigning.

2. The most important things are that it is a lower-case t and Parliaments plural, but the other thing about the Fixed-term Parliaments Act is that it gives the Scottish National Party a little more scope for a Parnell-style campaign of disruption in a properly hung parliament. Alex Salmond warned us in an interview with my colleague Nigel Morris in December:

“He said he drew inspiration from Charles Stewart Parnell, who took advantage of the parliamentary logjam in the 1880s to advance the cause of Irish home rule.”

I have tried to work out what would happen in a hung parliament as currently forecast, and there is the possibility of procedural mischief, but I don’t think it is quite as apocalyptic as some fear. In any case, I think a parliament that is hung so precisely to the SNP’s advantage is unlikely. I still think the Conservatives will gain support at Labour’s expense before polling day enough for the existing coalition to continue to have a majority.

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3. For one thing, an instant poll by ComRes for the Daily Mail suggested that 45 per cent of votes thought Cameron’s “no third term” comment was honest; 28 per cent said he was being arrogant. That supports the view that it might not have been what even the Financial Times called a gaffe.

4. Michael Ezra’s excellent essay on Marx’s anti-Semitism from 2009 has been republished by The Philosopher’s Magazine. Also well worth reading is Ezra’s response to his critics written at the time for Harry’s Place.

5. A thin sheet of snow sliding off the slide and neatly folding over itself. Photo by Cathy Hartt, via Tim Cornwell.

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6. And finally, thanks to Moose Allain for this:

To get your UKIP name take your first name and your …ah sorry, too late you’ve had to resign.