Over breakfast this morning my eye caught a news headline, “Ming’s Secret Deal with young rival Nick Clegg to become leader.” A quick google later shows it’s a Daily Mail story, but not as popular with the Mail’s readership as “Ming’s Critics branded Enemy Within by Rival” which is helpfully followed by up to 22 howls of anguish from people earning more than £70k who don’t think they should be taxed more. (There is of course a key misunderstanding – whilst the Lib Dems want to tax the super rich more, we’re not saying the 70k-ers are the super rich, just that that’s the threshold at which the LIT policy means they may begin to pay more than they had been under council tax)
Elsewhere, Rachel Sylvester in the Telegraph is seizing on the metaphor of the moment to say that the Lib Dems are having a Northern Rock moment
Squeezed between David Cameron’s tree-hugging Tories and Gordon Brown’s Thatcher-hugging Labour Party, the Lib Dems are haemorrhaging support almost as fast as Northern Rock is losing its investors.
Good job Northern Rock’s share price went up yesterday – the last thing the Lib Dems want right now is a hostile takeover bid.
The immigration paper made headlines at the BBC (also covers tax policy and the Sandi Toksvig Q&A), the Guardian and the Press Association (brief mention of the policy, lengthy mention of Ming’s declining support)
And our new environment policy got coverage as “banning gas guzzlers by 2040” at the Telegraph, Times, and Scotsman, with only the Guardian choosing to headline it in a way that didn’t mention cars.



One Comment
But surely the Lib Dems have to accept responsibility for any ‘misunderstandings’ about their tax proposals?
I think that probably came about when Ming Campbell said he was going to hammer the rich?