Tactics vary, but all parties are now jockeying for advantage in a possible hung parliament
Updated on 04 May 2010
With less than two days before the country goes to the polls, Channel 4 News Political Editor Gary Gibbon reports that "things are getting sweaty in the Labour camp" as Gordon Brown and ministers call on Labour supporters to vote tactically.
Two Labour Cabinet ministers have signalled their support for tactical voting to stop the Conservatives achieving a majority in Thursday's general election.
Ed Balls and Peter Hain both called on Lib Dem supporters to back Labour candidates in Labour-Tory marginals, and hinted that Labour voters might reciprocate where their candidate stands no chance of winning.
But both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives have rejected the move as an act of "desperation".
Labour spent the day issuing a call to arms to what Gordon Brown called the country’s "anti-Conservative majority".
Gordon Brown today urged Liberal Democrat supporters in constituencies where the contest was between Labour and Conservative not to "allow a Liberal vote by chance to put a Conservative candidate in".
As Channel 4 News Political Editor Gary Gibbon reported on this evening's programme, "You can tell things are getting sweaty in the Labour camp when you get a Labour leader calling for anti-Conservative rivals to lend him their support."
Labour-supporting newspapers such as the Daily Mirror are telling readers where to plant their vote in order to keep the Tories out.
And ministers are walking a very difficult line, hinting that Labour supporters should lend their support to the Lib Dems where they are the main challengers to the Tories.
Welsh Secretary Peter Hain told Channel 4 News that "voting intelligently means do not get, above all, the outcome you don’t want".
But Labour's problem is that there is a whole new group of Liberal Democrat supporters this time around who may not be happy to lend their support to Labour. A recent poll of the marginals suggests a few of them are going over – but not enough.
The Lib Dems have their eye on second place in the share of the vote – they do not want to lose any votes to Labour. Party leader Nick Clegg said today's comments by Peter Hain and Schools Secretary Ed Balls showed how desperate Labour had become. “I want people to vote with their hearts,” he said.
Meanwhile, Conservative leader David Cameron is engaged upon a 24-hour campaign day. He told supporters in Northern Ireland: "I had to fly through a volcanic ash cloud, but I wasn't going to miss it for the world!"
Shadow business secretary Ken Clarke said tonight the Tories were still in with a slim chance of getting a majority – and David Cameron is doing everything in his power to make that a reality.
For more on tactical voting and hung parliaments
- Blog: Labour targets tactical votes
- Final fight for votes as election looms
- What's so bad about a hung parliament?
- Hung parliament in the balance in 2010
- Hung parliaments: a short history
The comments, by the Schools Secretary Ed Balls and Welsh Secretary Peter Hain, came as the opinion polls continue to suggest a hung parliament - but with the Conservatives now likely to be the largest party.
In an interview with The Independent newspaper, Mr Hain said that people should vote "with their heads not their hearts".
"I support every Labour candidate and the Liberal Democrat leadership supports every Liberal Democrat candidate," he said. "But voters are intelligent and they know what the real fight is in their own constituency. They will draw their own conclusions."
Mr Hain held out the prospect of a four year "partnership government" with the Liberal Democrats, with an assurance that Labour would not call a second election at a time to maximise its own chances.
Mr Hain, once a young Liberal activist, has flirted with the idea of "a progressive alliance" with the Liberal Democrats in the past, but it was more of a surprise that Mr Balls should offer even tacit support for tactical voting.
Analysis from Political editor Gary Gibbon
Peter Hain has hardly been off the 24-hour news channels this morning repeating his message that voters should vote "intelligently" – i.e. you may prefer the Lib Dems but if you're in a Lab/Con marginal lend us your vote one last time.
It's "not orchestrated" according to Mr Brown's team and he as leader of the party can't go near it, but with Ed Balls sending out signals as well (in his New Statesman interview) this is not something the leadership is unhappy about.
Studio discussion: Ed Miliband, Damian Green, Chris Huhne
Jon Snow was joined on the programme by Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne, Labour Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, and the Conservatives' spokesman on immigration, Damian Green.
Ed Miliband explained that the comments on tactical voting today by Ed Balls and Peter Hain were intended to draw attention to the fact that in this election "there are over 100 seats where Labour are fighting the Conservatives".
He said there was a danger in those seats that the anti-Conservative vote splits between Labour and the Lib Dems, producing a Conservative majority.
Mr Miliband thought it was "really important" for Labour to give a clear message to undecided voters, which was that if you want to keep the Conservatives out, you need to vote Labour.
Damian Green said the Tories were campaigning on their policies and not on Labour's "desperate negativism". He wanted "to do a deal with the British public".
He continued that his party supported the first past the post electoral system because it gives voters the chance "to chuck the government out and chuck unpopular prime ministers out". Labour was just desperate to cling to power, he suggested.
Chris Huhne said a lot of Labour voters were turning to the Liberal Democrats because the Lib Dems offer a vision for a new, fairer Britain that they don’t get from Labour after 13 years.
He said Labour was only now urging people to vote tactically because it was worried about a collapse in support. And he explained that one of his party’s four key priorities in this election was a fair voting system "so that nobody ever again has to talk about tactical voting".
Ed Miliband replied that Labour had promised it would change the electoral system and move to an alternative vote arrangement. And he said he thought fairness was coming to the heart of the general election campaign.
Discussing the case of Olivia Duffy, the Rochdale woman at the centre of last week's "bigotgate" scandal, Damian Green said jobs, immigration and education were the subjects she cared about.
Chris Huhne concluded by saying: "The reality is, if you vote Lib Dem you get Lib Dem policies and Lib Dem people – and that's what the country needs, a real change."
Tactical voting: the view from Guildford
Reporting for Channel 4 News, Sarah Smith went to the key Conservative-Liberal Democrat marginal seat of Guildford with the three main party candidates.
Guildford is a classic Tory-Lib Dem marginal – exactly the sort of place Ed Balls meant when he urged people to vote to keep the Conservatives out.
Tim Shand, the Labour candidate for the Guildford constituency, told Sarah Smith that voters should vote with their conscience. He cited the need for more affordable homes, maintaining investment in schools, and guaranteeing jobs as key issues which were only being addressed by his party.
The Conservative candidate, Anne Milton, believed Labour’s encouragement of tactical voting constituted "desperate words by a desperate, dying government". She said a lot of people in Guildford wanted a change of government and a lot of people did not want to see a hung parliament.
The country needed "clear messages from a very strong government" to get out of the recession, she said.
Sue Doughty, the incumbent Lib Dem MP for the constituency, said it was "so disappointing" that there had been no reform to the electoral system so that a seat like Guildford "has so much disproportionate influence on the vote in the rest of the country".
She said all she was interested in at the moment was getting the best for the people of Guildford in a very difficult economic situation.
Tactical voting: for and against
In an article for last month's Tribune newspaper Ed Balls warned: "In most constituencies a vote for the Lib Dems or staying at home is as dangerous as voting Conservative - it risks letting David Cameron into Number Ten...The only way to make sure David Cameron doesn't win on Friday is to vote Labour on Thursday."
But in an interview in tomorrow's New Statesman he qualifies this stance, saying: "I always want the Labour candidate to win, but I recognise there's an issue in places like North Norfolk, where my family live, where (Lib Dem) Norman Lamb is fighting the Tories, who are in second place. And I want to keep the Tories out."
Pressed on the comments in an interview with GMTV this morning, Gordon Brown said simply: "I want people to vote Labour and I want a majority Labour government."
The Liberal Democrats, who want to maximise their vote around the country to press their case for electoral reform, have reacted coolly to the overtures. The party's former leader, Lord Ashdown, described the comments as "patronising on the one hand and desperate on the other."
In an interview with the BBC "Today" programme, he added: ""It's patronising because, frankly, I don't think we should be telling the electorate what to do. They are quite intelligent enough."
And the Conservative leader, David Cameron, was quick to pounce. "What seems to be happening is that senior Labour politicians are saying, if you want to keep Gordon Brown in Downing Street, you need to vote Liberal Democrat", he said.
"If you want, on Friday, a new government that rolls up its sleeves and starts to clear up the mess, you need to vote Conservative on Thursday."
Mr Cameron is fitting in a visit to Northern Ireland during his final 36 hours of campaigning, as the latest polls suggest that the Conservatives might win enough seats in parliament to govern with the support of the unionist parties.
And there was a new - though rather less than fatal - blow for Mr Brown this morning, as one of his party's general election candidates described him as "the worst Prime Minister we have had in this country".
Manish Sood, the candidate for North West Norfolk, said: "The average person has really got no respect for the government," adding for good measure: "All the policies he is bringing in are a total disaster."
But Mr Sood's comments were dismissed by the chairman of the North West Norfolk constituency Labour Party, David Collis, as being unrepresentative.
"Despite having such a dreadful candidate, loyal Labour members will continue to put the case for Gordon Brown as the best man to take Britain forward," he added.
Another source said the consituency party had considered de-selecting Mr Sood in the past but had decided "it wasn't worth the effort", given the large Conservative majority in the seat.
