NORWICH CITY Football Club is best known, perhaps, for being the club of celebrity cook Delia Smith but yesterday it provided the backdrop for a show of friendship between Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
Sitting on the edge of his seat on the London-Euston to Coventry train, Labour’s secretary of state for schools Ed Balls, a life-long supporter of the Norfolk club, talked of days spent on the club’s terraces with local Liberal Democrat MP Norman Lamb.
“Norman Lamb and I both go regularly to see Norwich City play; along with [former Labour home secretary] Charles Clarke and [former Labour MP] Ian Gibson,” he said.
“If you put us in a room, we would all agree that a Conservative government was very bad for Norfolk in the 1980s and we don’t want it back,” said Mr Balls.
“On lots of big issues, education, the economy, this year the progressive views shared by many Labour and Liberal Democrats supporters around the country are that Conservative policies are deeply misconceived.
“There are lots of seats in the next couple of days where Liberal Democrats will be thinking very hard about what their vote will mean in terms of policies that will shape the future of the country,” he added.
Since Sunday, senior Labour figures have appealed to Liberal Democrat voters to back Labour candidates in constituencies where first-past-the-post voting rules mean the Lib Dems cannot win.
On Monday, however, Mr Balls and fellow cabinet minister Peter Hain went further by encouraging Labour voters to return the favour in the more limited number of seats where Liberals can keep out the Tories.
Norman Lamb is facing a strong challenge in Norfolk North from the Conservatives, while in nearby Norwich North the Conservatives could be unseated if all others combine against them.
Labour, however, is speaking in multiple tongues – deliberately so to get different messages to different parts of the country, a tortuously difficult task in an era of 24-hour news coverage.
Mr Balls’s message was contradicted within hours by Gordon Brown from the couch on GMTV’s early morning show when he said: “I want every Labour vote”.
Later the prime minister, who might not be part of a future where Labour and the Liberal Democrats coalesce, was more direct: “I am making it absolutely clear what my advice is. My advice is to vote Labour.”
The party is now fighting on two fronts: for seats in the House of Commons, but also for the second largest number of votes nationally – an issue which has no constitutional significance but is of immense political importance.
A third-place finish in the popular vote would deny credibility in the effort to form an administration. But second place would put Labour, if not Mr Brown, back in the race and they know it.
The mood in Labour has been buoyed by a series of signals from Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg and other senior figures in his party that they might favour an alliance with Labour, rather than the Conservatives.
Following some disastrous days on tour, the prime minister began yesterday’s canvass with a visit to Warwickshire College in Leamington Spa, where he was greeted rapturously by students – though it helped that actor Ross Kemp was in tow.
The mood inside Mr Brown’s circle has improved on last week, partly on the back of his good mood following a welcome from religious and community groups in London on Monday.
Even Sue Nye, Mr Brown’s most loyal official since his days as chancellor of the exchequer and who was blamed by him for his Rochdale encounter with pensioner Gillian Duffy, was able to crack a joke or two. Nevertheless, the prime minister is staying in Labour heartlands rather than taking the fight to the marginal seats.
Each of the constituencies visited enjoys a 5,000-strong Labour majority.
In Wrexham, Mr Brown met 100 local Labour members in the newly established University of Wrexham. It was “one of the outstanding achievements of Labour’s 13 years in power”, Mr Brown said.
He must hope now that people remember.