Marr was once a member of the Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory (an offshoot of the International-Communist League, now known as the Alliance for Workers' Liberty). At Cambridge, Marr says he was a "raving leftie", and he acquired the nickname 'Red Andy'

Norman Smith, during the election campaign said on Radio 4 Today that austerity was 'utterly terrifying'. He said that cuts risked taking Britain back to the sort of Depression-era poverty George Orwell wrote about in his 1937 book The Road To Wigan Pier.
The Tories objected to his bias against them.