In order to at least make a passing attempt at fairness, I’ve been and deliberately signed up for the Lib Dem and Conservative email lists, so that I can deconstruct their emails as I have done in the past with Labour’s spam messages. Of course, they don’t really deserve it since their emails weren’t unsolicited, but I’m a little concerned that my election posts are turning into Labour-bashing central. So through this, I’m hopefully saving some for the other parties too.

The only problem now is if I actually agree with what the parties have to say. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Today’s swing figure:

» 2.87% swing to the Conservatives «

Somewhat ironically, after all of their campaigning, the Torygraph have done the biggest damage to the Conservatives’ projected swing today. The Sunday Times/YouGov poll has the parties virtually tied at 36/35, whereas the Telegraph/ICM has Labour with a commanding lead, at 40/30. The Sindie/Communicate poll (the formula has now been adjusted to take account of Communicate polls) has them on 40/34. Of course last time YouGov were most accurate, and it is unusual for these polls to be so different, especially when all three have been published on the same day.

The magic swing formula, as it should really become known, has them on 38/33 at the moment, which is somewhere in between all three (you know, just in case you’re no good at mental arithmetic), so it’s pretty difficult to call where the ball lies today. Obviously, I’m duty-bound to believe my formula above all else. But you can make up your own mind.

Not content with lying and being corrected, John Reid has now been caught by FactCheck telling lies that’s he’s already been told are lies:

Mr Reid devoted a sizeable part of Labour’s morning press conference on Saturday to explain how he thinks the Tories’ scheme of paying money towards private operations works and in the process repeated two claims already rejected by FactCheck.

And yet he has the audacity to attack the Conservatives over a single set of adverts placed in local papers which they have now admitted were misleading, apologised for, and promised not to publish again. And, actually, I didn’t find the Conservative ad so misleading, since it said quite clearly at the bottom of the page the hospital trusts which were included in the figures, but that’s another argument altogether.

The story here is that Mr Reid has told some lies repeatedly, then been corrected, and now has gone ahead and told them all over again, learning nothing from the fact that he’s lied in the first place. Or perhaps he was too lazy to bother coming up with any new lies, and so just recycled the same old untruths. Who could possibly want him to head up the health service?

Today’s swing figure:

» 2.76% swing to the Conservatives «

A tiny change today which is well within the margin of error… so there’s nothing in particular to read in to it!

I missed one earlier (though, actually, this is such a whopper it probably needs a post of its own anyway):

A family with two children pays no net tax until their earnings reach £21,000.

That sounds good. It’s from the Labour manifesto. But, as usual, it’s not even a half-truth. FactCheck have discovered that they’d have to pay £1234.04 in National Insurance.

Now, before some Blairite comes back with the claim that National Insurance is not a tax, let me remind them of Mr Blair’s own preface, to which I’ve added some bold:

We do not duck the tough choices – from independence for the Bank of England to the tax rise we made for the NHS, to the war in Iraq.

The ‘tax rise for the NHS’ was an increase in National Insurance rates. So the party leader thinks National Insurance is a tax.

So, without doubt, the first claim must, quite simply, be a lie. Has Labour not learned anything from the lies they told about Iraq?

Apparently they [the Liberal Democrats] want to declassify not just cannabis but crack and heroin.

So said John Reid on Sky News yesterday. Which would be fine, if it were true. But it’s another blatant Labour lie.

The Liberal Democrats do not want to even change the class of cannabis. Nor do they want to declassify heroine or crack cocaine. They do want to downgrade ecstasy from Class A to B. But, and I can’t stress this enough, they do not want to declassify any of the above. This is another case of Labour openly lying.

FactCheck have uncovered three blatant lies about Mr Blair’s record in his manifesto, and a number of dodgy claims.

Here are the Labour lies:

The UK has the lowest unemployment for 30 years

Actually, we have higher unemployment that in 1979. So unless we’ve been magically transported to 2009, that’s a blatant lie.

Longest Period of uninterrupted growth in modern history

I guess it depends on your interpretation of ‘modern’, but he’s clearly not including 1948 to 1973. Since his Chancellor was making claims about ‘since 1701’, then this is clearly another lie.

We will invest more in renovating and building new kitchens as well as investing an extra £210 million in school meals.

Except the £210m was already in the education budget. So how can this possibly be classed as extra money?

And now for some general dodginess:

Crime has fallen by 30 per cent overall, with almost five million fewer crimes a year than in 1997

According to one set of statistics – the British Crime Survey. Mr Blair says the BCS is ‘the most authoritative crime survery overall’. So why, in the exact same manifesto, does he criticise the Tory figures using the Recorded Crime Statistics, instead of the BCS?

The number of asylum applications has been cut by two-thirds since 2002.

How can Labour possibly even begin to claim the credit for this, when the number of refugees has fallen worldwide?

How could anyone want to re-elect a party which can’t even be honest about its record in its own manifesto? After eight years, they should be shouting from the rooftops about their acheivements, not having to lie about them to be re-elected. It’s crazy.

Today’s swing figure:

» 2.73% swing to the Conservatives «

Unless something drastic happens in the next few days (which, with the announcment of the Conservative tax proposals, it just might) then it looks like Labour are going to storm this election once again, with a three-figure majority. I just hope that this doesn’t happen, as I highly doubt that it would be good for the country to have a third Labour party victory with such a big majority.

Today’s swing figure:

» 3.38% swing to the Conservatives «

This comes as two new polls are included today, which has given a small boost to the figure, albeit well within the margin. The Conservatives are still a whole point down on their position from this time last week, so it’s still not going well for them.

If you didn’t witness the premiere of This Week‘s eleciton titles on Monday, you’re clearly not a dedicated enough viewer of the late night political show. But you can always have a gander by clicking on the above link.

That seems like an appropriately cheery link for my 500th post!