Audit Commission recommends clawback on payments to failing chief executives who find similar jobs in another council

Under-performing council chiefs are being paid six-figure sums to quit only to find another job at a different council, the local government watchdog reports today.

Councils have paid on average nearly £260,000 each to 37 chief executives since 2006 - and one in six of them returned to work in a similar job in a different region. The local government secretary, John Denham, who ordered the report from the Audit Commission, demanded action to prevent taxpayers' money being wasted on the "boomerang bosses".

His shadow secretary, Bob Neill, said that there should be "no reward for failure" and called for greater transparency.

More than a third of council chief executives leaving their jobs between 2007 and 2009 received compensation. In six cases studied by the Audit Commission a chief executive was re-employed in a senior managerial position in another council within 12 months.

The average cost of payments to councils was 1.8 times the chief executive's annual basic salary. In four cases, it was more than three times that salary. One was paid more than £500,000 to leave a job.

The report concluded that the average payment was £256,104, while 34% received more than £300,000. A total of £9.5m was paid out during the three-year period of the study.

More than six out of seven councils said that "relationship breakdown" was a factor in paying off council chiefs. These often followed a change in political leadership of the authority. Councils were too quick to pay off a poorly performing chief executive instead of sacking them for incompetence and that left them free to get a job in a similar area, the report suggested.

It argues that councils should be able to claw back payoffs win the event of a chief executive going on to get another high-paid job in a different local authority. The report recommends that councils should publish the salaries of the top executives and details of severance packages shortly after they are agreed. It also says councils should also work harder to avoid relationships with chief executives breaking down and have better appraisal systems in place.

Denham welcomed the recommendations, saying: "The Audit Commission report shows that too many chief executives are being dismissed because they have fallen out with council leaders - this can cost as much as £500,000 and is all too often seen as a quick-fix solution. Taxpayers' money should not be used to resolve personal differences."

The minister wrote to Margaret Eaton, chair of the Local Government Association, urging the rapid adoption of the commission's recommendations.

Neill said: "Such payments are an outrageous waste of taxpayers' money and an affront to families facing soaring council tax bills. There should be no rewards for failure, either in the public or private sector. There needs to be clearer guidance discouraging such redundancy payments and greater transparency about the pay and perks of senior town hall staff."

The Audit Commission chairman, Michael O'Higgins, said: "There have been a lot of assertions made on this subject against the backdrop of concerns about public sector pay generally.

"Now the Audit Commission is laying out the facts and making recommendations aimed at protecting the public purse, as well as the rights of chief executives and council leaders."

Two-thirds think Britain needs new leadership, but this does not mean there is enthusiasm about Tory alternative

Voters think it is time for a change, and that Gordon Brown cannot provide it. These two facts emerge repeatedly from the latest Guardian/ICM poll, which exposes the theoretical potential for - but not likelihood of - a substantial opposition win.

The poll shows 68% think Britain needs a new government and prime minister. Only 27% agree continuity matters most, and Labour deserves another term.

Those are bleak figures for the governing party and consistent ones. When ICM first asked the question in September 2006, 70% wanted change. In January this year 66% said the same.

This does not mean voters are enthusiastic about the Conservative alternative. But faced with a choice, they mildly prefer it to five more years of Brown. Even 38% of people who voted Labour in 2005 say it is now time for a change. This group - people who may switch their votes - will obviously be crucial on polling day. The ICM data shows the Conservatives hanging on to around 94% of their 2005 supporters, while only 73% of former Labour backers remain loyal. Unless this latter figure increases, it will be impossible for Labour to win.

Some recent polls have put Labour support at or close to its 2005 election score, but the scale of defection suggests this is unlikely to be the case. While many former Labour voters now back no party, others have shifted to the Lib Dems and Conservatives in almost equal proportions.

Experian, the market research company whose Mosaic database is used by all parties to identify groups who may change sides, recently identified "motorway man" - over-represented in Conservative target margins, with high personal debt and more drawn to Tony Blair than Brown.The company's analysis of current YouGov polls found this group was moving to the Conservatives in large numbers. Labour is also losing above average proportions of poorer voters who have retired or live in former industrial towns, although not many are moving to the Conservatives. Richer voters, while less likely to have backed Labour in the first place, are less likely to have moved away. People in the "liberal opinions" category are also more likely to have stayed loyal to Labour, although many also back the Lib Dems.

Brown's leadership is not the only thing they dislike about Labour, but it is not popular. Only 43% of those who voted Labour in 2005 think Brown is reaching out to their concerns. Only 57% think he is the man likely to take Britain in the right direction over the next few years.

A large core vote remains loyal. But many parts of the electoral coalition that won Labour three elections in a row are unconvinced they should vote Labour again.

The Conservative leader, David Cameron, is not popular either: only 42% of all voters think he looks the most competent prime minister and only 39% think he will take Britain in the right direction. But he has the edge on Brown.

The chink in Conservative armour is economic policy. The poll suggests Tory talk of cuts is alarming voters. Before next week's budget a narrow plurality backs Labour's talk of sustaining spending to promote economic growth, ahead of Tory talk of immediate cuts to restrict debt.

Opinion is split: 48% to 46%. Each party has a sizeable number of supporters who back the other side's case: 35% of Conservatives want spending sustained and 38% of Labour voters think cutting debt is the priority. Lib Dems prefer spending to cuts by 58% to 39%.

But a series of policy questions shows the Tory message is getting through. The party has an 13-point lead over Labour as the one most likely to bring economic growth, and a 28-point lead as the one most likely to cut the deficit. It only has a four-point lead as the one most likely to raise taxes, which suggests that the party's austerity message has eroded the Tories' traditional association with tax cuts.

The poll suggests voters are looking for change, but do not know what that implies, or who is best placed to provide it. That uncertainty could lead to shifts in party support during the election campaign. If not, Labour's chances of holding on to power look slim.

Airline's main base at Heathrow is on private land, but pickets are expected at seven other locations around airport

British Airways cabin crew will be barred from picketing the airline's main Heathrow base if a strike goes ahead.

Terminal Five, which processes the vast majority of BA's Heathrow passengers, will be the main location for a strike-breaking workforce of about 1,000 volunteer staff.

It is understood that under a "picketing protocol" drawn up by BAA, Heathrow's owner, striking airline staff are not allowed to picket the T5 site which is on privately owned land.

There are about seven sites at Heathrow where pickets can stand, including Hatton Cross tube station and the Heathrow airport police station. The closest picketing spot to T5 is at a roundabout off the A3044.

A BAA spokesman said the airport would remain open even if its largest user, accounting for about 40% of flights, is disrupted by a walkout.

"Whether there is strike action or not, Heathrow will remain open for business and we advise passengers to follow the advice given to them by BA."

Representatives of Unite's cabin crew branch Bassa, met police today to discuss picketing arrangements - the first picket lines operated by Bassa since a BA walkout nearly 13 years ago.

o Extra £60-80bn cost predicted over next 20 years
o Public 'not prepared' for cuts or new charges

Britain's political class is accused today of a pre-election conspiracy of silence over how to meet rising financial demands on the welfare state, estimated at an extra £60bn-£80bn over the next two decades.

The stark warning is made by an all-party commission on 2020 public services led by Sir Andrew Foster, the former chief executive of the Audit Commission. It includes Stephen Dorrell, the former Conservative health secretary who is David Cameron's public services adviser, and Mathew Taylor, former head of policy to No 10 during Tony Blair's premiership.

"We are emerging from the longest recession since the 1930s and facing huge challenges," Foster said. "But what we are being offered by politicians is a narrow and limited set of choices - cut now or cut later. We cannot just go on doing the same things with less money. If we do, we will continue to fail those who rely on public services the most."

In a report prepared for the commission by the LSE economist Prof Howard Glennerster, published today, future demand pressures on the welfare state is put at an extra 4.4% of GDP in the next 20 years and 6% if free personal care for elderly is included. That amounts to between £60bn and £80bn in extra demand.

By 2060 the real-terms extra demand on the welfare state will have reached an astronomical 8%-10% of GDP.

Glennerster warns: "Nowhere in the current political debate are these dilemma openly recognised by politicians. None of the crisis cuts envisaged for public spending by any party come anywhere meeting the long-term fiscal shortfall."

The need for the extra money is caused by the demands of an ageing population, and the cost of existing cross-party pledges on cutting child poverty and tackling climate change.

The report also warns that public opinion does not seem prepared to discuss the challenges ahead. Research commissioned by Mori shows that in spite of the fiscal deficit, only 50% of the public believe that spending on public services needs to be cut. A large majority (75%) think efficiency savings can avoid the need for cuts.

The commission believes the scale of future demand, independent of the need to cut the existing £80bn structural deficit in the nation's finances, will require new ways to fund the welfare state such as co-payment, greater use of social insurance, a tax on property price gains, and increasing the full state pension age for those capable to work to 69 by 2050.

It also proposes new responsibilities on citizens to reduce the demands they make on the state. "If citizens refuse to pay more, they have to contribute more," the report says.

It also proposes the break-up of the existing Whitehall structure, and the development of more locally-run services.

The report suggests "individual eye-catching proposals to save public money do not meet the need to create a new constituency for the kind of tax changes over the long-term that will be required".

Extra spending identified by Glennerster for the next 20 years includes 1.3% of GDP on the NHS, 1% on public sector pensions, 0.5% on state pensions, 1.5% on pledges to meet child poverty, 0.5% to reduce impact of climate change and 1.7% from free personal care for the elderly.

To meet such demand would require government spending as a proportion of GDP to rise to over 45% by 2020, and nearer 47%-48% by 2030.

The commission argues that increases of that size cannot be met by traditional tax rises.

The report also accuses the Treasury of giving up any attempt to include an overall total for future demand, or any estimates for offsetting reductions in the real costs of other benefit spending, largely by allowing benefits no longer to rise in line with earnings.

It says: "The need to expose the shallowness of this debate is glaring and urgent. To cut public spending without proper debate about the long-term challenges is a recipe for future discord. To make short-term budget decisions without a clear, long-term vision for public services could be disastrous."

The report says life expectancy is rising faster than previously projected by the Treasury.

It foresees the percentage of the population over 65 rising from 16% in 2008 to 23% in 2033, and that of population aged over 85 doubling to 5%. As a result percentage of adult male time spent in retirement will rise from 18% in 1950 to well over 30%.

The report calls for greater devolution of power and local control of public services to enable prioritisation of problems to reduce inequalities.

It proposes selective introduction of co-payments or user charges, that would link contributions to service use directly and limit the risks of over-consumption.

'I was in the forum every day, it was a regular part of my daily routine. I lived the EDL, the group still does mean a lot to me, but there is something wrong with the leadership. I am not a racist and never have been. I am just concered about the UK being overtaken by Sharia law and being subject to islamification. I wanted the video to be discussed as something for us to be ashamed of and learn from it.

I wanted it to be an EDL training video of how NOT to conduct act [sic]. Instead I was banned. I want an apology and I want my account re-instated'

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The English Independence Party is an ethnic nationalist party set up after, or possibly during, the fall of the civic nationalist Free England Party. It joins the growing ranks* of other ethno-nationalist groups ranging from the England First Party, white nationalists; The BNP, British but in favour of an English 'Volk parliament'; United England Patriots and English Shieldwall, Anglo-Saxon revivalists, and; Steadfast and the English Lobby, both supporters of majority rights for the ethnic English.

There is overlap between these groups but ideologically speaking they are a somewhat disparate collection of ethno-nationalists. Some might be more correctly termed white-nationalists and others cultural nationalists, but even the more culturally orientated delve into areas of race. The English Lobby, for example, has recently launched a petition to "preserve the White English ethnic group identity".

The other common link that these ethnic nationalists share is a dislike, or lack of trust, for civic nationalists. So it's perhaps no surprise that new English Independence Party launched into an attack on English civic nationalism with one of the first posts to the English Independence Party blog (originally publically available but now hidden from view).

There's little point fisking this, it doesn't need it. But as a civic nationalist I do feel the need to reply and hopefully inject a bit of reason. I have some insight into ethnic nationalist insecurities through discussions with them on this blog when they have come to inform me that I am an idiot and to tell me that only the ethnic English can be English. Ethnic nationalists understand 'civic nationalism' to be code for multiculturalism, and they feel that a civic, plural and inclusive English national identity will render Englishness as meaningless as they feel British identity has become. I don't share that insecurity. I want people from other races, religions and cultures that make England their home to feel a sense of belonging, to feel English. In my speech to the Convention on Modern Liberty I asked the audience to ask themselves three questions:

1. What is my ethnic identity?
2. What is my national identity?
3. What is my state identity, my citizenship?

Given England's constitutional status it is perfectly possible, and very probable, that second, third or fourth generation immigrants will not answer "English" to any of those three questions. That's bad for England. My civic nationalism is about allowing people who are not ethnically English to feel English by national identity, which I hope will help instill a sense of pride in England's cultural heritage and collective national identity, despite the fact - or even because of the fact - that they are not ethnically English. I want to bring us together as a nation, not by being prescriptive, but by providing a gateway into Englishness. By railing against English civic nationalism as "stupid" the ethnic nationalists are not only a reaction to the multiculturalism they despise, they are an integral part of it. We have arrived at the position whereby each and every ethnic group competes for their 'rights', the logical endpoint of multiculturalism as described by Paul Kingsnorth:

Britain now is a 'cosmopolitan' society in which no one cultural identity has pre-eminence, and in which Englishness, Polishness and Bangladeshiness must compete on equal terms. The nation's many 'minorities' are not to be integrated into mainstream society ('integrated' is such a problematic word; and anyway, what is the mainstream?) but fenced off, theoretically if not physically: defined as 'BMEs', afforded 'protection', treated as victims, spoken for. Descended from Pakistani immigrants but born in England? Sorry, you're still 'Pakistani', or 'Asian' or' 'minority ethnic'. You can be British, if you like, because Britishness has been stripped of meaning and is therefore 'inclusive' - but you can never be English (or, presumably, Scottish or Welsh, though this gets less attention) because Englishness is 'racially coded'. Attempts to define it are thus potentially racist; it's best if the English just shut up about it and get on with 'celebrating diversity' instead.

Is a more inclusive English national identity a threat to the cultural identity of the ethnic English? I don't think so. It may undermine the racial coding of Englishness, but that would be no bad thing, and those ethnic nationalists who are more interested in protecting the cultural inheritance of England should think about the positive benefits of an immigrant population who respect - respect not tolerate - the ethnic English on the basis on a mutual respect and a shared national identity.

* To the starting list you might also add The English Defence League, but their ideology is somewhat unclear.

The perfumed tablet's displacement from the RPI by the dribbling liquid dispenser won't wash if we want clean governance

A harsh blow to the reputation of one of civilisation's humblest boons was delivered yesterday by the Office for National Statistics. They have extracted the bar of soap from the basket of goods used to calculate the Consumer Prices Index and Retail Prices Index. It was done, of course, with the best of intentions - to more accurately chart changing consumer behaviour. Garlic bread is in and pitta out; hair straighteners are 2010 and hairdryers so 2009; throw your DVDs in the bin, unless of course you have a Blu-ray player. This is not the first time that soap has fallen foul of the government. The manufacture of soap became so lucrative in the 17th century, that it was a right only granted to tax-paying monopolies. By 1636 the star chamber issued a decree forbidding soap manufacture outside a one-mile limit of London and Bristol. Long into the next two centuries, soap pans were fitted with padlocks, the key to which was held by the taxman. Today, we are told the bar of soap is slipping from grace to be replaced by the liquid soap dispenser. These dribbling spouts, which spew soap in every direction save the intended one, are to personal hygiene what 4x4 are to good neighbourliness. They only add to the mountains of landfill, because inevitably they rarely last multiple refills. They complicate a simple task and need themselves to be regularly scrubbed. The tablet of soap perfumes all around it and when its job is done, disappears leaving not a rack behind.

Even if one woman in 24 will be raped at some point, Baroness Stern's review offers no easy solutions; not because she is a wimp, but because there is no magic wand

Around 120,000 rapes take place each year in England and Wales. One woman in 24 will be raped in her lifetime. These are shocking figures. Yet the number of rapes that end in convictions is pitifully small. Only 2,000 men, some of them multiple offenders, were convicted of rape last year. Quite rightly, this disproportion between commission and conviction provokes huge concern. Yet neither the public's strongly held views nor the strenuous efforts of policymakers over more than 30 years have yet managed to convert public outrage into sufficiently effective solutions. In many eyes, rape remains the embodiment of a crime for which the victim always suffers while the offender goes free.

Baroness Stern's review of the response of public authorities to rape complaints offers no easy solution to these problems. This is not because Baroness Stern is a wimp. It is because there is no magic wand that can wave away some of the inherent difficulties in rape and rape law. Rape cases hinge on the ability to prove the lack of consent to an activity which in other circumstances is entirely lawful. Consent and the denial of consent each cover many moods. There is sometimes a direct conflict of evidence that is hard to resolve. Short of allowing Stern to reverse the burden of proof in rape cases - an option which was outside her terms of reference and which would in any case be fundamentally unjust - it is hard to see how the disparity between reported rapes and rape convictions could in fact be changed quickly.

Yet the law is not the only way of addressing the issues and the baroness has not shrugged her shoulders in the face of the legal problems. She thinks there is much in the heightened modern response to rape, especially in police support for victims, that is getting better and can be built upon further. That is undoubtedly true and deserves recognition. She wants the health service to take over the forensic medical provision for rape victims. She wants prosecutors to have greater personal responsibility for individual cases. And she wants rape victims to get full compensation even if they were under the influence of drink or drugs. Stern is right to argue that such joined-up measures can promote an atmosphere which continues to take rape seriously and simultaneously encourages victims to pursue their cases.

Baroness Stern is also right that conviction rates are not the be all and end all of an effective rape strategy. But this is not a zero-sum game. This country would certainly benefit from the more rounded approach to rape response that her report advocates. Yet the scale of rape and sexual assault in our society is appalling. People are right to be indignant that so few rapists still answer for their crimes.

The AA and RAC are urging the chancellor to postpone a planned 3p hike in petrol duty, due on 1 April

Motorists should brace for record high petrol prices this year as the cost of unleaded fuel surges to £1.20 a litre or more, according to research by the AA.

In a stark warning to consumers, the organisation says those struggling on tight budgets would be hard hit by the predicted price hike and has urged the chancellor, Alistair Darling, to postpone the introduction of a planned 3p hike in petrol duty, due on 1 April.

The average petrol price is currently just over £1.15 a litre, but the AA says pump prices could nudge £1.20 by next month - equivalent to over £5.40 a gallon - when the petrol levy is due to start.

Figures show the average petrol bill for a two-car family has already soared by £52 a month in the past year, to £245.

The AA's president, Edmund King, said: "The UK is barely out of recession, yet petrol threatens to rise to record prices seen during the boom of 2008, shortly before the collapse into recession.

"If families, drivers on fixed incomes and those on low pay were unable to cope with prices then, they are even less likely now." King attributed the increase to rises in the price of wholesale petrol since January.

Surging petrol prices will also hit supermarkets which have recently absorbed some of the cost of pump increases.

The RAC has joined calls for the government to hold back new fuel duty charges, saying petrol prices were well below the £1 a litre mark when the levy was announced in last year's budget.

Lindsay Hoyle, Labour MP on the Commons business select committee, called the increase a "complete disgrace".

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, he said: "Yes, crude oil has gone up this year, but nothing like the rise in petrol prices. Motorists are being legally mugged at the forecourt by petrol companies."

Labour looks a party trundling towards defeat, yet suggesting the Conservatives are the solution runs into hostility; and so opportunity knocks for the Liberal Democrats

Labour ministers speak these days of getting out of bed with a spring in their step. Amid Conservative stumbles and signs that their own party is no longer quite as detested as it once was, they report the unfamiliar tickle of a gust in their sails. Momentum may indeed have shifted somewhat, and yet the single salient fact about today's Guardian/ICM poll is that - a few weeks before a general election - Labour remains behind, just as it has been in every one of the last 319 polls published by any company. Meanwhile Gordon Brown who - unwittingly or not - yesterday left Woman's Hour listeners thinking that he would respond to defeat by clinging on as leader of his party, still drains Labour's standing with a public that overwhelmingly feels that it is time for a change.

By any ordinary standards Labour would be judged a party trundling towards defeat, and yet it would be wrong to dismiss its rising spirits as the pure product of delusion. For while the country seems agreed that change would be a good thing, there is no such agreement on what form it should take, and suggestions that the Conservatives are the solution run into outright hostility. In the past few days, a former leader of the Conservative MEPs stirred old fears about the nasty party by defecting to the Liberal Democrats over David Cameron's entanglements with rightwing eastern Europeans, and Tory talk about restoring tax breaks for second-home owners pointed to continuing differences between the priorities of central office and Acacia Avenue. While Mr Cameron will be cheered to be (just) back at the 40% threshold, which gives him a decent chance of a working majority, he should be chilled that only 29% of voters actually want him to get one.

The greatest of all Conservative vulnerabilities are to be found on the economic terrain where the election's decisive battles may be fought. After months of public floundering about whether expenditure cuts were required at all, the government has deftly reframed the argument as one about timing - immediate blood, sweat and tears under the Tories, as against Labour's promise of pain postponed. Besides the (serious) case for proceeding with caution until the recovery firms up, electors preoccupied with muddling through the here and now are perhaps bound to warm to the argument that belt-tightening can be put off to another day, and our poll shows a generally unpopular administration is narrowly prevailing on this point. More people suspect the Conservatives than Labour of planning to raise taxes, which is probably wide of the mark, and is one more sign that tough Tory talk about the cupboard being bare may have hit home rather too far for the party's own good.

Popular misgivings about Mr Cameron unleashing a new age of austerity are real but not necessarily something that an unpopular government will be able to exploit, and so opportunity knocks for the Liberal Democrats. Today's poll confirms Nick Clegg remains little-known, but his party stands at a respectable 20%, and in the planned leaders' debate he will stand shoulder-to-shoulder alongside Messrs Cameron and Brown, providing the third force with a spotlight it has never enjoyed before. Mr Clegg may, however, find he squirms in its glare - his recent message has meandered from low taxes and Margaret Thatcher in the Conservative press, to a stress on political reform and the environment in the pages of publications found on the other side of the aisle.

No party enjoys total command in the face of the challenges confronting the country, and - although a bankrupt electoral system may yet give one of them untrammelled power - it is telling that many more voters would prefer a hung parliament to either strain of majority rule. England does not love coalitions, Disraeli said. That may be so, but our poll suggests that the country dislikes over-mighty political parties even more intensely.

Nice NGO you have there, say the civil servants. Shame if anything happened to it

o There has been no ban on the use of the word "purdah", says the Cabinet Office, taking issue with our claim that it has been officially frowned upon to avoid giving offence to minorities. (The actual meaning of the word is "a curtain or screen to keep women separate from men or strangers".) No prohibition, they say, and we must believe them. Never mind the siren voices from Whitehall who tell us that using the term these days would be akin to flying their careers straight into a mountain. Clearly a misunderstanding. We accept that. But it is understandable because there have been some funny things going on. Not least the fact that a number of non-governmental organisations benefiting from funding by Whitehall tell us they have been hauled in and warned that they had better recognise the purdah period by making sure they don't release any reports or say anything that might cause trouble for the government. If you find the hospitals are dirty or the cells are full, shut up about it for a while. If asylum seekers are being force fed Mars bars, keep it quiet. Nothing has been written down. Just chats, you understand. But if Britain suddenly seems less broken for a while, you'll know why.

o And it certainly feels broken in Kent where Graham Rumsey, the Tory councillor we highlighted a fortnight ago over his achievement in being jailed for failure to pay council tax, has had the wrecking ball out again. This time he has been given an additional prison sentence for failing to control his dangerous dog, which attacked two teenagers on local playing fields last September: 42 days to run concurrent with the 60 days for not paying his tax. Eventually, we are told, he will cease to be a public representative. And eventually, he will cease to enjoy the backing of the party. But that's for later. For now, he merely symbolises the work there is to do.

o And it starts with the drive against alcoholism. With that in mind, the royals are doing their bit to dissociate themselves from the evils of drinking. Wells & Young's in Bedford has a successful bottled beer called Young's Kew Gold, so called because some of the hops used in the brew were developed at the Royal Botanic Gardens. Traditionally, a consideration was paid to Kew to help with further research. But now the tremulous royal gardeners have apparently decided they no longer wish to be associated with an alcoholic beverage so the beer will soon reappear as Young's London Gold. The royals know exactly what happens outside the Locarno on a Saturday night. They want no part of it.

o Not for them a trip to Wandsworth at the weekend when the young Tories of Conservative Future plan what they describe on Facebook as "a day of campaigning and drinking (not necessarily in that order!)". Drinks are free after 4pm and those who have been before, if they remember anything, will recall "what a legendary session this tends to turn into". Believers in the new sobriety will give the area a miss.

o Damn this downturn, part 307. "At one time I had 38 classic saxophones but it's down to 15 now - there is a recession, after all," explains British jazz star Courtney Pine. Rich or poor. Black or white. All are suffering. Everybody hurts.

o And finally, can this reply from the UK Border Agency, currently being pored over by immigration solicitors on their restricted-access website, be genuine? "You claim that you could not relocate to the area where your parents are living as you fear attacks from guerrillas. However, information from the World Wide Fund for Nature confirms that guerrillas [sic] are not native to that part of the country and in any event there are few recorded incidents of primates attacking humans unless their natural habitat is disturbed or their young threatened". Frightening if it is.

Leaked report reveals European doubts over Britain's finances and questions 'ambition' of Labour's plans to cut debt

Labour's strategy for controlling Britain's spending was tonight under fresh challenge when it emerged that the European commission is preparing to demand tougher government action to rein in the UK's record peacetime deficit. In findings which were seized upon by the Conservatives, Brussels warned that the current plans for repairing the black hole in the budget left by a deep and long recession needed to be more ambitious.

"A credible time frame for restoring public finances to a sustainable position requires additional fiscal tightening measures beyond those currently planned," said a draft report, due to be approved by the commission , but leaked to the news agency Reuters. It added: "The overall conclusion is that the fiscal strategy in the convergence programme is not sufficiently ambitious and needs to be significantly reinforced."

The findings are likely to stoke what has become the pivotal political row between the two main parties ahead of next week's budget, and the general election campaign that will follow.

They will add to pressure on the prime minister at a time when Labour's new-year resurgence appears to have stalled. An ICM poll for the Guardian tomorrow shows the gap between the parties has increased, to a nine-point Conservative lead over Labour. It also suggests that Brown's personal unpopularity with the electorate remains a drag on the party's standing, even though the Tories have been beset by their own problems in recent weeks.

The European commission is set to warn that on current plans the UK will not meet the 2014-15 deadline for reducing the budget deficit to below 3% of national output. Chancellor Alistair Darling's proposals envisage the gap between spending and taxes being reduced to 4.7% of gross domestic product, but the commission said even this target might be missed as a result of weaker growth than the Treasury is expecting.

The assessment provided some support for Darling ahead of next week's budget, when it said the plans for the coming fiscal year were adequate, but the findings will increase speculation in the markets that the election will be quickly followed by fresh measures to cut spending and raise taxes, whatever the result.

The shadow chancellor, George Osborne, claimed the report was a heavy blow for the prime minister. "The Conservatives have been arguing that we need to reduce our record budget deficit more quickly to support the recovery. Our argument is backed by credit rating agencies, business leaders, international investors and now the European commission. That is why we need a change of government to restore confidence in our economy at home and abroad."

A Treasury spokesman said the government was committed to halving the deficit over four years and that such a cut would be the sharpest among the Group of Seven industrialised countries. "The chancellor has taken a judgment on the appropriate pace of adjustment in 2010-11 and beyond," the spokesman said.

This takes into account "the uncertainty around prospects for the public finances given the exceptional nature and strength of the global downturn, the need to support the economy through the early stages of the recovery, and the need to deliver sustainable public finances," he said.

While tomorrow's poll will be dispiriting for Labour, it is also clear that voters are not convinced by the Conservatives.

The survey shows only 18% think Britain would be best served by a strong Labour win. And though almost a third think a clear Conservative victory would be best, 44% want a hung parliament in which the government works with smaller parties such as the Liberal Democrats.

The Tory leader is 11 points ahead of Gordon Brown as the man voters want to win, and 20 points ahead as the leader best campaigning for "the votes of people like you". He has a 14-point lead as the most competent for prime minister, and an 11-point lead as the man most likely to lead Britain in the right direction.

The figures call into question recent excitement about a Labour fightback. The Tories, at 40%, are up three on the February Guardian poll, and up two on another more recent ICM poll last weekend. The Liberal Democrats are on 20%, unchanged since the last Guardian/ICM poll, while support for other parties is on 9%. Conservative support has been within three points of 40% in all ICM polls since October.

Brown is likely to try to stay on even if he loses power, but a close result could mean there might have to be another election this year. Questioned on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, Brown said: "I will keep going. I will keep going because I want a majority."

Asked whether he owed it to the Labour party to stand aside if he did not secure a majority, he said: "I think I owe it to people to continue and complete the work we've started of taking this country out of the most difficult global financial recession."

ICM Research interviewed a random sample of 1,002 adults by telephone on 12-14 March 2010. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.

You performed the worthy task of providing exposure to the labour conditions associated with the UK meat industry (Violence and abuse rife in food factories, 13 March). Indeed the EHRC investigation adds to the social science evidence base that has already argued that exploited people in this sector are "treated as animals". Yet your coverage fails to note the interwoven exploitation of animals and the pressing need to curtail the meat industry precisely because of its inequitable impact on exploited humans - not just in terms of labour conditions but also because of the relation between meat consumption with both impaired public health and anticipated contributions to climate change.

Dr Richard Twine

Lancaster

o Isn't it time we reconnected with how our food is provided (Perfect storm has led to a race to the bottom, 13 March)? The storm has been gathering for decades. At its core are corporate greed, long and unaccountable supply chains and perverse agricultural subsidies. It's not just workers who suffer - a race to the bottom means our food system is dependent on underpriced fossil fuels, does not recognise the limitations of water and land resources, and supports unhealthy diets. We will only be able to address these challenges successfully with a completely different approach to food and agriculture policies and practices. With the upcoming reform of the European common agricultural policy, we have a unique opportunity to do this. That is why today we are joining with hundreds of other organisations in launching a European Food Declaration (www.europeanfooddeclaration.org). The declaration outlines principles for a radically new common agriculture and food policy that is fair, inclusive, transparent, sustainable and, importantly, has the interests of people rather than corporations at its centre. This is the time to reconnect people and their food and do away with practices that abuse people, livestock and the environment.

Patrick Mulvany

UK Platform for Food Sovereignty

Kirtana Chandrasekaran

Friends of the Earth

o Ideally, legislation should ensure that these things do not happen in our society. Given that it is unlikely those laws will be made or enforced, should there a pragmatic solution, along the lines of Fairtrade or Freedom Foods, so that consumers can vote with their purses for decent conditions for the people employed in the food industry?

Vicky Brown

Truro, Cornwall

o The degrading working conditions that employees are subject to in many of Britain's food factories are a direct legacy of Margaret Thatcher's crusade against trade union organisation in pursuit of a deregulated labour market. The Liberal Democrat leader's support for this brave new world and his muscular redbaiting ("bankers are Scargills in pinstripes"), together with New Labour's ambivalence to working-class self-organisation give some clue to the feelings of abandonment driving sections of the white working class into the arms of the BNP. Women with heavy periods and people with bladder problems on production lines forced to endure the humiliation of bleeding and urinating on themselves need trade union organisation. They don't need Nick Clegg.

Mike French

Wolverhampton

o Sadly the abuse of meat plant workers does not stop at staff employed by the abattoirs. The job of independent meat inspectors is to make sure the UK's meat is safe. However, if they try to stop production to inspect a suspect carcass, they report being bullied and intimidated as a means of making contaminated meat pass by. They receive little or no support from the Food Standards Agency, their employer, when they raise this issue. Hundreds of redundancies, made to cut costs, mean there are now too few meat inspectors to do the job.

The FSA need to take action to support meat inspectors, and protect the UK consumer. It should not wait for a meat safety tragedy to hit the headlines before the concerns of meat inspectors are taken seriously.

Dave Prentis

General secretary, Unison

Too many junior minister jobs given out as a 'political reward', says public administration select committee report

A third of ministerial posts should be scrapped to slim down the government and prevent junior ministers clogging up parliament with extra legislation, a committee of MPs argues today.

The government has 119 ministers - a figure that exceeds the Indian government's total of 78 to run a country of more than 1 billion. Too many ministerial roles in the UK are given as a "political reward" instead of out of necessity, the public administration select committee report concludes.

While the number of cabinet ministers has remained stable for more than 100 years, the number of unpaid junior ministers has risen sharply. That upward trend is "striking and hard to justify", says the report. "We were told that an over-abundance of ministers can 'clog' the decision-making process, blurring lines of responsibility and diverting resources," it adds.

Successive prime ministers have appointed additional ministers by creating unpaid posts, which are not subject to the caps on remunerated positions. The report suggests new legislation should be created to limit ministerial posts and cut the number of position by a third.

"Ministers' role is to take key decisions, account to parliament for them and conduct discussions at the highest level," says the report. "Some junior ministerial roles appear to fall far short of this. Civil servants should not be put in the position of 'making work' for ministers. Not only is this costly and inefficient but it devalues the role of ministers."

Lord Turnbull, the former cabinet secretary, told the committee that unpaid ministers could cost the public purse more than £500,000 in wages for private secretaries, press officers and drivers.

The report says ministerial positions could be a way of "exercising political control". MPs are being given "special envoy" roles for the prime minister or advising on particular issues or appointed parliamentary private secretaries by ministers. "The suspicion is that these are a way of extending patronage," it says.

Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's former chief of staff, told the committee: "It is a way of making sure you have that many votes in the Commons ... if the prime minister had his way, he would appoint every single backbencher in his party to a ministerial job to ensure their vote."

Tony Wright, the Labour chair of the committee, said: "The number of ministers has been growing ever since the 1950s, driven in part by the desire of prime ministers to hand out patronage positions and secure votes. Some junior ministers do important and difficult jobs. However, there are too many and it is absurd that civil servants should be having to make work for those who are underemployed."

Francis Maude, the shadow cabinet office minister, said: "A Conservative administration would reduce the size of the Commons by 10%, cut ministerial salaries by 5% and reduce the use of ministerial cars by a third."

The UK parties want to slash Scotland's budget. We will send them a strong message

Martin Kettle should have exercised caution before basing a very specific conclusion on the back of one opinion poll (If the polls are right, then Salmond's party is over, 26 February).

He suggested that a survey taken at the end of a particularly dire week for Scottish politics was evidence that the SNP's popularity was in decline: "It showed that Labour is now better placed north of the border on UK general election voting intentions than it was in 2005," and "[put] Labour ahead on Holyrood polling for the first time since Alex Salmond became Scotland's first minister." Unfortunately for Kettle, a week really is a long time in politics.

The poll on which the article was based was taken in the midst of a barrage of negative opposition attacks and orchestrated complaints to the Scottish parliamentary standards commissioner. "There is no disguising that the shine is coming off the SNP," Kettle claimed. Despite the best attempts of the opposition to tarnish senior figures in the SNP, this simply wasn't so.

Just seven days later, and not only had these complaints been thrown out by the standards commissioner, but deputy first minister Nicola Sturgeon had resolved all opposition criticism over her handling of a constituency issue with an impressive performance in the Scottish parliament.

We proceeded with our own agenda to make Scotland fairer and more prosperous, and an Ipsos Mori poll published two days after Kettle's article showed the SNP seven points ahead of Labour in Scottish parliament voting intentions, and just two points behind for the general election.

Kettle is right to suggest that at Westminster "the party battle is now moving into hung parliament territory". This is a situation redolent with opportunity. The SNP is not in this election to win the keys to Downing Street: we're working hard to send a strong block of MPs to Westminster to champion Scotland's interests. Working with our Plaid Cymru partners, we can secure vital gains for Scotland regardless of whether the next UK government is Labour or Tory.

To take just one Scottish priority, we can free Scotland's £200m fossil fuel levy from the grip of Treasury control, to invest in boosting renewable energy projects.

Kettle claims that the default position of SNP strategists is to "blame everything on London". At this election, we're not blaming London - the SNP is getting behind communities across Scotland who've had enough of the establishment politics of Westminster.

Kettle suggests that the SNP Scottish government will face difficulties in delivering on our measures to make Scotland a fairer, healthier society. "There isn't the money to pay for it all," he states. He's quite right - but this isn't the fault of SNP ministers. It's the UK Labour government who want to slash Scotland's budget by £814m in the next two years - and the other UK parties agree with them. Only the SNP will stand up for Scotland. The fight has just begun.

Fred Jarvis's 10th exhibition captures the best of his photos over half a century, from school pupils to Labour politicians

He has been dubbed "the Labour movement's very own paparazzo" by Tony Blair and his work once prompted Peter Mandelson to put pen to paper to praise him as "a great photographer".

As a former general secretary of the National Union of Teachers and president of the Trades Union Congress, Fred Jarvis is best known for his working life in trade unionism, education and political activism, but over the years his enthusiasm as a keen amateur photographer has also attracted recognition.

Later this month Jarvis's 10th photographic exhibition goes on display in central London. It represents the best of his work over the last 50-odd years, reflecting his interests and passions for education and politics, not forgetting his beloved Hammers (West Ham football club).

In total, 150 images will appear, including signed photographs of the six successive Labour education secretaries since the party was elected to government in 1997. Some will be auctioned on the opening night of the exhibition, and offers will be invited for others in a fundraising drive for the north London hospice where his late wife, Anne, a teacher and Labour party activist, died three years ago.

Jarvis first started taking photos in 1947 when he won a Voigtlander camera in a Naafi raffle while serving in the army in Germany. Since then, he has captured the rallies, demonstrations and marches that were integral to his life as a student (president of the National Union of Students) and teachers' leader. As an official and then general secretary of the largest teachers' union, the NUT, schools have been a source of inspiration.

"The lovely thing about photographing children in schools - and in particular younger ones in primary schools - is that they are so absorbed in their work," Jarvis says. "And I have always enjoyed the colour and vibrancy of primary schools, with all the work displayed on the walls." He admits he has been fortunate to have visited so many schools, camera in hand: "It dispels the myth that there is anything like a 'one-size-fits-all' comprehensive," he says. " To label them all the same is an insult to the schools and to their communities. You walk in the door and instantly get a sense of their ethos, character and history."

Also in the exhibition are numerous shots of the Labour election campaign machine at work in its Millbank headquarters in the run-up to the 1997 election, along with celebratory scenes of the victory party at the Festival Hall. "I was lucky that [then Labour party general secretary] Tom Sawyer gave me a free run," Jarvis grins.

On the day that we meet in his London home, he shows me a colour picture of five Labour leaders in one room, taken in February 2000. Alongside a fresh-faced young Tony Blair are James Callaghan, Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock and Margaret Beckett (briefly leader following the sudden death of John Smith). In a twist of fate, I learn after leaving of Foot's death that same day, at the age of 96.

o Pictures for a Hospice, 22-26 March 2010 at the TUC Centre. www.congresscentre.co.uk

The "John Lewis model" has been cited as a way of increasing staff involvement and motivation by giving them direct ownership of the service. However, as your editorial (12 March) rightly asks, is this the ideal model for the NHS, if it means that money leaves the public purse in the form of bonuses to employees?

But there are thousands of social enterprises delivering public services in a way that not only empowers staff through ownership, but keeps money within the system. Social enterprises are businesses run primarily for social and environmental objectives. They are often employee-owned but, unlike John Lewis, they do not opt for employee share-ownership giving staff a financial stake in the business. Many social enterprises might have bonus schemes or choose to spend more of their money on staff development, but money is never their primary motivation.

Central Surrey Health is owned and run by its nursing team and has been able to make decisions based on experience and the needs of customers, rather than the directives of a top-down bureaucracy. Its ownership structure is not about profit, but about giving control to frontline professionals - and this extends to decisions on how to reinvest any profit to improve services. At CSH this has resulted in a doubling of spending on staff training and development.

Sandwell Community Caring Trust invests in its staff because it wants a satisfied workforce. It was ranked 11th in the Sunday Times list of the Best 100 Companies to Work For. The number one medium-size business was another social enterprise, P3, which works in mental health. Social enterprises can play a key part in creating better public services.

Peter Holbrook

CEO, Social Enterprise Coalition

Universal system paid for by taxation would disproportionately benefit the very wealthy, thinktank warns

The government has been told not to consider setting up a tax funded universal personal care service for older people, because it would disproportionately benefit the very wealthy.

The King's Fund thinktank has waded into the minefield which has seen angry exchanges between all three parties, by arguing for a "partnership" where the Treasury funds half of old age care costs, and the remaining bill is paid for by "a £1 matching government contribution for every £2 individuals pay themselves".

The system would also have a safety net for the poor. It would not be cheap, and is projected to cost the government £10.1bn in 2015, rising to £15.5bn by 2026 - 90% more than the existing system would cost in 2015. But it would benefit people with modest means, the fund said, "as they would no longer face the 'cliff-edge' of the current means-tested system if they have savings or assets of £23,000 or more".

Since 1997 adult social care has enjoyed a 53% real-terms increase in resources, yet the impact of demographic and funding pressures has meant an ever tighter rationing of services, with the "safety net of public support cast even higher".

Richard Humphries, the lead author of a King's Fund report, Securing Good Care for More People, published today, said that the existing system was a bargain-basement version of care which had seen councils contain demand by restricting access. By 2006, fewer households were receiving supported home care than in 1997, and fewer older people got publicly funded care at home than did in 2003. Three-quarters of councils now treat old people only if they have "substantial or critical" needs. "We have means-tested the soul out of the system," said Humphries. "The debate has become about the 45,000 people forced to sell their homes to get care, but there are 1.8 million people who use adult social services."

The report says that Britain is now the only rich country to "restrict access to publicly funded social care only to poorer people"; reforms in Austria, Germany and Japan have widened access to their provision. However, Humphries said it would be wrong to assume that this meant Britain needed universal free care funded out of taxation. This, the report says, would "disproportionately benefit wealthier people at the point of need". The question was a political and moral one, he argued. "Why should a cleaner on £8,000 a year pay taxes to fund the care of a person who lives in a £400,000 property that will be left to their children but does not have to find a penny?"

The fund says individuals should contribute to cost of care in old age, as there is a "growing awareness" of the affluence of the newly retiring baby-boomer generation who will control £2tr in housing wealth by 2026; otherwise we would have "by far the richest cohort in history becoming the first to receive universal free care ... paid for, to a significant extent, by the most indebted cohort in modern times".

Jackie Ashley is right (The obsession with swing voters is strangling politics, 15 March). A fairer voting system is crucial to reconnecting the people with politics. However, for this election, it is in the fight for the marginals that the chance for such change lies. Let's be clear what will happen if the Tories win. Not only will public services be cut to the quick, they are also likely to cut the number of MPs by around 100 - most of which will be Labour. A poll for Compass shows that if the Conservatives are elected then the number intending to vote for Scottish independence in a referendum will rise by a third, making it highly likely that in the subsequent parliament Labour could lose its Scottish MPs. Finally, it is expected that the Tories will introduce legislation cutting large-scale union funding.

This, plus the fact that electoral reform will disappear off the political map, could result in Labour and the Lib Dems being reduced to permanent and impoverished rumps in a parliament where, without Scotland, the Tories have a permanent majority. This leaves Labour voters in Lib Dem marginals and Lib Dem voters in Labour marginals with no choice. They must hold their nose and cast their votes informed by the battle cry "ABC": Anything But Cameron.

Colin Hines

East Twickenham, Middlesex

o Nick Clegg's claim that "the party with the strongest mandate from the voters will have the moral authority to be the first to seek to govern" (Kingmaker role is not what I seek, 15 March) seems to me to be an excuse to avoid making the biggest political decision of his career. The question Clegg needs to ask is whether or not his party is a centre-left party. If so, there is nothing morally culpable about forming a majority coalition with Labour, even if the Conservatives win the most seats, for the majority of the public will have voted in favour of a centre-left administration. The Liberal party of the 19th-century was formed of far more disparate elements than would be found within a Labour-Lib Dem administration. This is not a decision Clegg can shy away from.

Jeremy Wikeley 

Romsey, Hampshire

o However uninspiring the alternative may seem, a new governing party would grow into the job. Floating voters considering voting Labour or Lib Dem should be concerned that a Labour win would lead to 18 years' continuous tenure by Gordon Brown at 11 and 10 Downing Street. Such a long uninterrupted dominance of the top two cabinet positions would be unhealthy for our democracy and was not achieved by Thatcher, Churchill, Lloyd George, Salisbury, Palmerston, or even Gladstone, but only by Pitt the Younger and Walpole in the 18th century's very limited franchise. It would also emphasise the paucity of Labour talent since John Smith's death. 

John Birkett

St Andrews, Fife

The unelected Andrew Adonis condemns the Unite trade union for a strike decision by secret ballot that met all the legislative hurdles imposed by Margaret Thatcher and her anti-union government (Brown wades into BA strike, 15 March). British Airways cabin crew twice voted for industrial action by an overwhelming majority in defence of their working conditions. The decision to strike was not made by the union hierarchy, but by individual working people with mortgages to pay and wages to lose. People do not put their livelihoods at risk without a very good reason. Of course strikes which affect the public are never likely to be popular, but to deny workers the right to strike is to put every worker at the mercy of their sometimes awful employers without any redress.

Barry Leathwood

Bridgwater, Somerset

o Gordon Brown believes BA cabin crew's strike is unjustified and deplorable. Presumably he believes it's perfectly acceptable for managers to tear up agreements, bully staff and throw people out of their jobs in the middle of an economic crisis, created in no small part by Mr Brown's love affair with the City.

Tom Wall

London

o I hope that John Davies (Letters, 12 March) can convince the disabled, elderly, sick and children that "strikes can be good". Strikes are a primitive 19th-century method of dealing with industrial disputes by using innocent members of the public as a tool in negotiations, rather like the Somali pirates. It is surely time we evolved a more mature method of resolving such matters.

Dr Anthony Field

London

o Andrew Adonis states the reputation of BA is at stake. Well, as one who has travelled to over 60 countries in the last 15 years, mainly on BA in coach, I must say they are already the worst airline imaginable. You are treated as cattle; the staff are rude. Why? Not because they are nasty people, but that they work for a sub-standard airline.

Rev Dr James Milton Rosenthal

St Nicholas Society

o The new BBC series Inside John Lewis suggests a solution. Good staff relations are vital for BA: no pilots, no cabin staff - no flights and no income. Isn't the best solution for BA to convert into a staff partnership, on the lines of John Lewis? It would have every incentive to promote the best interests of BA. QED.

Dr Brian Parsons

Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire

o 14 March: Adonis condemns BA crew's struggle to protect their livelihoods.

15 March: Brown condemns BA crews.

6 May: Labour's lack of support for trade unionists is reciprocated in full.

James Folan

South Wingfield, Derbyshire

David Cameron's interview with Trevor McDonald was much-hyped - but how did it play with ordinary voters far from the Westminster circus?

'I used to watch Bonanza and The High Chaparral" . . . "Does Brokeback Mountain count?" Samantha Cameron has just mentioned that, like any ordinary chap, her Dave is a fan of cowboy films, and this ad hoc group of "ordinary" viewers - far from the Westminster village and London media-land - is trying to remember the last time they sat down and enjoyed a really good western. They're struggling, and it makes one or two suspicious that perhaps the Camerons are not being 100% genuine. Does the would-be prime minister really head home to Notting Hill after a day of politicking in Westminster and relax over an old John Wayne movie?

"Does he think that's what we do?" asks Louis, an IT manager whose time is taken up by work, a young family and coaching a children's football team at the weekend. "I don't get time to sit down and watch cowboy films. How come he does?"

For this group, at least, Samantha Cameron's cowboy comment is one of the stand-out moments of Trevor McDonald's much-hyped interview with the Tory leader. "It's all about making us think he's just like the rest of us, isn't it?" says Ian, a pharmacist who likes his politicians tough as nails and straight-talking. "It's what politics has become and it's a bit sad."

In truth, it was tricky finding people willing to leave their homes and stay up until midnight on a Sunday watching Cameron and talking politics (only 1.7 million tuned in compared with the 4.2 million who stayed up for Gordon Brown's interview by Piers Morgan last month). One or two of those who did turn out in my front room, in a small village in Wiltshire, clearly came to tell the Guardian just what was wrong with Cameron. But most did not have much of a view about the Tory party's great hope, and were interested in finding out about him.

The wood burner was lit, the beer, wine and cashew nuts - we pushed the boat out - were tucked into. To a few complaints, we switched over from Match of the Day 2 to find the Tories' version of Wayne Rooney jogging alongside a busy road and then a canal.

"He looks like a hoodie," says someone. "Who's he running away from? Trevor McDonald?" The Tories' not-so-secret weapon, Samantha Cameron, makes her first appearance. "She looks like Sharon Davies," is one instant opinion. There are giggles as the Tory leader walks on stage at the party's spring forum in Brighton to music by the rock band The Killers. And sniggers when one of his old mates talks about what a great pub pool player he is.

This audience doesn't swallow the line that Cameron is just one of them. When he mentions how his wife-to-be used to live in an "edgy" area of Bristol, someone wonders if it was Clifton - Bristol's upmarket equivalent of Notting Hill. And when Cameron describes William Hague as a grammar school boy, Brian, a retired businessman who now chairs the parish hall committee, almost chokes on a cashew. He used to live near someone who was invited to Hague's wedding and started voting Lib Dem after seeing the uber-posh shop that William and Ffion chose to manage their wedding list.

There is silence when Cameron talks about the death of his young son, Ivan. Several of the people here have children that age, and nobody thinks his pain is fake. But the one striking moment for body language watchers comes when Cameron starts like a bee has stung him after McDonald asks if he would resign should the Tories lose. Then more rock music kicks in, and the interview is over.

So, having started amid doubts and some cynicism, did Cameron's performance win any more votes in this corner of Wiltshire? "He's a likeable human being," says Louis, an IT manager.

"He is likeable," agrees Eamonn, a scientist who admits he has never sat down and watched Cameron before. "But I can't make up my mind whether he's the sort of bloke I'd like to have a drink with, or whether he's so really, really good at his job that he projects the image he wants to project. Either way he comes across well as a human - but you're not voting for a human, you're voting for a party. You're not voting for him as a nice guy, you are voting for him in the role as a politician and prime minister."

Louis was struck by how Cameron and shadow chancellor George Osborne came over. "In my job, I meet a lot of guys from small companies looking to do business, and they often come in twos. You can spot the inexperience and those two don't half look inexperienced."

Brian doesn't like Cameron's willing-ness to call himself a "salesman". "When you're PM you don't call yourself a salesman. You have to sell the country, I know that, but don't brag about it."

"But he is a salesman, not a statesman," says Brian's wife, Angela. She is a self-confessed Gordon Brown fan. Later she's pleased to spot that Cameron's hair seems to be thinning on top.

Ian wouldn't mind Cameron being a bit tougher. "I want to see him get hot under the collar, I want to see him getting annoyed. You don't have to be fire and brimstone, but sometimes you need to shout. If we have a coalition government, is he loud enough? For me, he's not animalistic enough." Eamonn disagrees: "You don't get to be leader of a major political party without having real steel."

James and Rebecca have been quiet. Brought up in New Zealand, they don't get why Cameron is having to work so hard to emphasise how ordinary he is. "We don't have this whole class hang-up," says James. "A lot of this programme has been him justifying his upper-class roots. That seemed to go through the whole interview."

Rebecca is puzzled by the idea, espoused by one of the commentators, of the Tories trying to get black and Asian people in the party to reach out to white liberal voters. "That seems a bit of an odd way to make yourself seem more multicultural."

And what did our panel make of Samantha? "Her being not being particularly sophisticated, that's almost a bonus for them," says Louis. "It's pure image and she's been coached," says Eamonn.

But what about his policies? "There were no policies in it," says Louis. "He might be a nice guy, but does it matter? What is it you're really voting for? You're not voting for bloody Samantha."

By the end of the evening - though it may just be the wine and beer - most of the group seem to be regarding Cameron just a little more favourably. Even Angela accidentally calls him "Dave".

"The programme softened me to the person," says Eamonn. "It softened me to the Conservative party," says Louis. Yet no one says their exposure to the Cameron charm offensive has made them change the way they are going to vote.

"It's the fundamental failing of democracy," says Eamonn. "People are allowed to vote on the basis of complete nonsense - 99.9% of people will vote on whatever whim they have."

Time to go home. Next morning, Louis's 10-year-old daughter Connie rings to have her say. She has caught up with the programme on ITV Player before school. Cameron seemed a "nice bloke" but she, too, didn't think much of him walking on stage to The Killers. She was also deeply unimpressed that he dismissed the fox-hunting protesters who follow him around with a joke.

"You have to listen to people," Connie says. Would she vote for him if she could? "Only if he made me believe he was going to improve things."

o Follow our interactive guide in the build-up to the election guardian.co.uk/politics