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Monday 20 April 2015 11:59 am

General Election 2015: Ed Miliband gives me the heebie jeebies, Nigel Farage models himself on Boycie and Nicola Sturgeon has “thin lips” – here are the best reactions to the party manifesto launches

By: Catherine Neilan

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Voters have had some interesting reactions to the manifesto launches of the last week – and not in the way you might expect. 
 
They collectively had only “the haziest recollection” of the details – despite them dominating the news all week. As part of the weekly poll update for Ashcroft National Polls, they had to be shown edited highlights to refresh their memories. Here are the best reactions from those viewings. 

Labour

On Ed Miliband's appearance:
 
[infographic id="71"] 

How did he get in instead of his brother?

He’s not leader material.

 
On his policies:
 
Unemployment would go up. I own a zoo.
 

They left that note, ‘there’s no money in the pot’. I saw it on Facebook.

He’s about spending more money. He’ll run us into debt again.

He doesn’t say how he’s going to pay for it

I’d have turned off before the end of that.

Conservatives

On David Cameron's appearance: 
 
When he says stuff, it sometimes comes across that he actually means it.
 
He has an air of authority. It doesn’t mean I support him but there is an element of leadership.
[infographic id="70"] 
 
On his policies 
 
It’s as though they’ve taken all the non-racist stuff from Ukip and stuck it in the manifesto.
 
I work in the justice sector and I was a cut. I’m going to vote wherever Chris Grayling is not.
 
I work for Royal Mail, so I got privatised. Now I’ve got to work for a living and it’s a killer.
 
Where’s the money coming from?
 
He says no rise in train fares, but we’ve got the most expensive trains in Europe. Shouldn’t someone have had their eye on the ball already?

Liberal Democrats

On Nick Clegg's appearance:
 
He’s got a good heart.
 
[He probably watches] Countryfile or Antiques Roadshow, something soft and fluffy. Or whatever his wife has told him they’re watching.
[infographic id="72"] 
 
On the policies:
 
He told us nothing really. He just said ‘vote for us and we’ll make it all fine'
 
 

Ukip

On Nigel Farage's appearance
 
[infographic id="73"] 
A tweed-jacketed Tory who hates Europe
 
A skinhead with a baton.
 
He says what the normal man in the street would like to have said. Most of what comes out of his mouth, a lot of us have said at some point.
 
If he got into power, I wonder how different he would be then?
 
He models himself on Boycie [from Only Fools and Horses]
 
On Ukip's policies
 
It sounds doable and he says how he’s going to get the money
Not letting foreign criminals in is a no-brainer.
[The other party leaders are] afraid, they don’t want to be accused of being racist. But other countries do, like Australia
It’s as though he’s taken things from the Conservative and Labour manifestos and put them into a package that would cut us off from the rest of the world.
 
On the SNP
 
[infographic id="74"] 
 
On the polling the Conservative party has regained the lead it had last month, with 34 per cent of respondents saying they would vote David Cameron back into Number 10, up one percentage point since last week. Labour has dropped three points to 30 per cent, Ukip remained on 13 per cent, Lib Dems nudged up to 10 per cent while the Greens dropped back to four per cent. 

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