The news stories are all about the Conservative party’s manifesto; the editorials are all about the Labour one. For the Tory press, that means positive front pages and negative leading articles.
So the Daily Telegraph’s splash headline, over its report of the Tory document, says: We are the true party of working people. And its editorial refers to the manifesto produced by the traditional party of the working people as one “driven by misdirected anger”.
The Daily Mail, in company with just about every national daily title, chooses one key pledge from the Tories for its front page, Right to buy: a new revolution. And its leader scorns “Labour’s statism” and Ed Miliband’s “11th-hour conversion... to parade himself as the champion of ‘fiscal responsibility’”.
The Times does similar. Front page: Right to buy for 1.3m families. Leader page: “Trust deficit: Labour’s manifesto is an attempt to prove the party can be trusted over the economy. In its vagueness, it goes some way to proving the opposite”.
The Daily Express is no different. Front: Maggie’s ‘right to buy’ dream is back. Inside is an op-ed headline: “Don’t be fooled by Labour’s promises on the economy”.
The Sun’s front page is dominated by a story about a footballer’s alleged misbehaviour but it does manage to carry a small political story headlined Bright to buy. Inside is a leader heaping ordure over “Labour’s sham manifesto” and a spread likening Miliband to Bart Simpson with the headline “Manifest-doh!”.
The non-Tory press adopts a similar formula - Tory manifesto stories on the front pages; the dissection of the Labour manifesto in leaders.
So the Financial Times’s splash is headlined Cameron builds on Right to Buy in effort to regain the edge from Miliband and its leading article, unimpressed with Labour’s financial pledges, is headlined Miliband’s belated vow to do his fiscal homework.
The Guardian’s front page headline says: Tories to offer 1.3m families right to buy housing association properties. Its leading article is kinder to Labour, arguing that its “programme offers change in times of scarcity” but remains “a calculated risk”.
The Independent’s front page headline is Cameron banks on Thatcher’s legacy while the i goes with “The great social housing giveaway”. The Indy’s leader, headlined “Pink Ed”, thinks his manifesto “is moderate enough to win over floating voters”.
The Daily Mirror chooses to splash on a story claiming that NHS patients are being denied pain relief, food and water due to budget cuts. It is based on the results of a survey carried out by the health service union Unison.
That story is the subject of its main leader. A secondary one claims that Miliband gave a “commanding performance” when launching Labour’s mainfesto.
Blokeish... triumphalist... ferocious...
The political sketch writers enjoyed their excursion to Manchester to hear Miliband reveal his manifesto amid the Coronation Street set at the old Granada studios.
Anne Treneman in the Times saw the launch as “a strange theatrical set piece” and pointed to a flaw in the central actor’s performance. Miliband’s statement that his manifesto “doesn’t do what most manifestos do” (by offering a shopping list of promises) didn’t live up to its billing. She wrote:
“The manifesto-that-does-what-other-manifestos-don’t was chock-a-block with lists of promises. Indeed, I felt like I had found the Promising Land. Labour is triple-locking every door in Britain. It is driving innovation, outlawing non-doms, giving football fans a voice in club boardrooms”.
Michael Deacon in the Telegraph thought Miliband, “his face a ferocious, glaring grin”, reminded readers that the Tory campaign “has sought to highlight Mr Miliband’s awkwardness and timidity”. But...
“Here, rather disobligingly, he sounded confident, assertive - even, at times, blokeish. (In recent weeks he’s developed a habit of defiantly grunting “Right?” at the end of sentences, as if to suggest that, should his interlocutor persist in doubting him, Mr Miliband will have no hesitation in taking the matter outside)”.
Deacon also noted that waiting outside “was a gaggle of Tory activists in Nicola Sturgeon masks” accompanied by the former education secretary, Michael Gove.
He “was attempting to give interviews about how the public distrusted Labour, but unfortunately the public kept shouting abuse at him... Mr Gove wasn’t wearing a mask. Perhaps in future he should”.
John Crace in the Guardian, like Treneman, was unconvinced about the purpose of manifestos, calling them “booklets full of promises that will be broken that turn up unwanted on voters’ doorsteps and remain unread”.
He also detected “a different Ed”. Better than expected opinion polls over the weekend have done wonders for his confidence”. He thought “the emotion in the room was verging on sexual chemistry”, adding:
“The Daily Mail’s recent efforts to portray Miliband as an untrustworthy shagger-in-chief appear to have backfired badly. Far from wrongfooting Ed, it has given him some self-belief. Given time, it could even turn into charisma.
Questions from female journalists were met with an easy flirtation. ‘Look, I’m sorry I never got round to asking you out, but I want you to know I’ve always fancied you’.
Questions from male journalists were rebutted with a charming subtext of ‘I can’t remember if I ever slept with your wife/girlfriend but if I did, then no harm done eh?’”.
Quentin Letts in the Mail heard an echo of Neil Kinnock’s 1992 Sheffield rally trumphalism in Miliband’s “palpably confident” address:
“Miliband radiated right-to-rule. ‘I’m ready’, he announced. ‘I’m ready. I’m ready”... The tone was American with folksy uses of ‘so’ and ‘get this’ and ‘ah tell you’ and ‘yuh know what?’.
During rehearsed pauses he closed his eyes and licked his lips. The acting lessons may have some way to go before he is ready for the Hackney Empire”.
Letts thought “his performance was more like a party conference oration, big on rhetoric”. He concluded: “The credulous may have been impressed. But when he asked, ‘Who do you want in Downing Street?’ (modestly thinking ‘You want me, the ruthless, randy Ed!’), I felt my shoulder blades crawl as though their skin was covered by a thousand red ants”.