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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Election 2015 live: Ed Miliband and Boris Johnson interviewed on the Marr show

Boris Johnson (left) and Ed Miliband on the Andrew Marr show
Boris Johnson (left) and Ed Miliband on the Andrew Marr show Photograph: Handout/Reuters

Afternoon briefing

The big picture

Not a day that is going to decide the election campaign, but Ed Miliband and David Cameron have both confounded their critics; Miliband by outclassing Boris Johnson quite easily on the Andrew Marr show, and Cameron by showing that it is possible to give a passionate speech about his economic stability agenda.

What happened today

Some people will say, well you’re playing it a bit safe, they’ll say you’re talking too much; they already are talking too much, about economic stability and economic security and the security of families here in our country.

I have been prime minister these last five years. People are saying to me, you are putting too much emphasis on a strong and stable economy and on securing our future. I plead guilty. I know how important it is to have that strength and that stability in our economy. I know that everything else you talk about, it’s just dreams without a strong economy. That’s what we’ve got to get across these last few days. All those dreams.

If you think economic security and stability don’t matter. If you want to take a risk, go with the other guy. Vote for the other man. My God, he’s got plenty of risks. He has gone all around the world and found ideas that haven’t worked anywhere in the world and he has put them in a book. It’s called the Labour manifesto.

  • Rupert Murdoch has said Cameron will not be able to survive as Conservative leader if he does not win a majority. (See 2.29pm.)
  • Labour’s plans for rent controls have received a mixed reception. George Osborne, the chancellor, described them as “totally economically illiterate” and the National Landlords Association said they would be counter-productive, because they would lead to landlords introducing big rent increases whenever possible. Alex Hinton, director of Generation Rent, welcomed the plan for rent cap, but said the proposals were still “riddled with loopholes”. But the Green leader Natalie Bennett said the Labour idea was sound.

Keeping rent rises in line with inflation will reduce poverty and allow tenants a better standard of living.

  • Miliband has confirmed Labour’s commitment to keeping aid spending at 0.7% of GDP. In a speech he said:

And let us tell all of those parties including Ukip, who threaten this aid, that we are proud of what we have done.

Not as a matter of charity but as a matter of justice.

What’s happening tomorrow

Ed Miliband is giving a speech on living standards. And Ed Ball is speaking in Scotland.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

A bad day for alternative Tory leaders?

As Rupert Murdoch has noticed, there is quite a lot of speculation around today about David Cameron being replaced.

But, with the day’s political events mostly over, it is worth pointing out this has probably been a good day for the Cameron share price. He made a speech that was well received (see 3.30pm), while three of the people tipped as likely successors have all, in one way or another exposed their limitations.

Theresa May?

As Alex Salmond said, her warning about a Labour/SNP government provoking the most serious constitutional crisis since the abdication has made her a laughing stock in Scotland. (See 12.39pm) Nicola Sturgeon went even further, saying May had made herself look “completely and utterly stupid”. Sturgeon explained:

People will look at these silly comments and I was going to say they would treat them with contempt - that actually attaches too much seriousness to them. People will just laugh at her.

More worryingly for May, even Ruth Davidson, the Conservative leader in Scotland, has failed to back her up. On the Sunday Politics Davidson described the claim as “hyperbolic”.

Boris Johnson?

Johnson went head to head with Ed Miliband on the Andrew Marr show, and came off worse. According to Tim Montgomerie, Tory MPs were not impressed. (See 12.26pm.)

Sajid Javid?

Javid was on the Sunday Politics too. He did not make any mistakes, but he was wooden and unconvincing, prompting Andrew Neil to ask at one point.

Are you being paid by the cliche, Sajid Javid?

So we end the day, surprisingly, with Cameron’s position in his party looking marginally stronger than you might have expected when reading the Sunday Times.

Updated

Ed Miliband and his wife Justine (front) meeting Hindu devotees at the Shree Swaminarayan Temple in Willesden Green, London, earlier today.
Ed Miliband and his wife Justine (front) meeting Hindu devotees at the Shree Swaminarayan Temple in Willesden Green, London, earlier today. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Clegg says Labour's rent controls plans will lead to 'huge' rent hikes every 3 years

Nick Clegg has criticised Labour’s plans for rent controls. He said:

What the Labour Party has said might sound superficially attractive, but I think it will be much less attractive to tenants across the country when they realise that in practice it will mean huge hikes in their rent every three years and probably fewer properties available to rent in the first place because more and more landlords will simply quit altogether.

Ed Miliband has just finished his speech on international development at s rally in Islington. I have not seen the text yet, but here, from Twitter, are some of the highlights.

On the Lib Dem bus, campaigning is a family affair, my colleague Frances Perraudin reports.

Natalie Bennett, the Green party leader, is in Liverpool today. In a speech, she said the Greens would make public transport cheaper and invest more in charging points for electric cars.

Ultimately we want to make public transport more appealing. It needs to be cheaper, and more reliable. Buses outside of London need to be as reliable as they are in the capital.

We want to invest more than any other party into cycling and walking. We’d spend £30 per person on cycling and walking provision – ensuring that everyone has access to safe routes to local amenities and, wherever possible, there places of work.

And today I’m very pleased to announce a final piece of the jigsaw of our sustainable transport vision. We want to make non-car options more appealing, but we recognise that sometimes cars are essential for getting around. That’s why we’d ensure we invest in electric vehicle charging points for buses and taxis, and for cars where there are gaps in the network of public and community transport.

Electric cars, used sparingly and as part of an integrated transport system, would help us cut carbon as we so desperately too. Friends of the Earth estimate that cars like the one I’m going to be riding in today emit, on average, half the carbon of conventional vehicles.

Natalie Bennett gestures during a speech to supporters at a campaign event in Liverpool
Natalie Bennett gestures during a speech to supporters at a campaign event in Liverpool Photograph: Phil Noble/REUTERS

Cameron's speech - Verdict from the Twitter commentariat

Here is some Twitter comment from political journalists on David Cameron’s speech. There seems to be general agreement that, in response to criticism of his campaign, he has upped his game a bit.

From Tim Montgomerie, the Times columnist and ConservativeHome founder

From the Daily Mail’s John Stevens

From the Press Association’s James Tapsfield

From the FT’s George Parker

Cameron set out more on his philosophy of “boring” Conservatism in a Spectator interview last week.

From the Daily Mirror’s Jack Blanchard

Updated

David Cameron has just finished his speech. In it, he confirmed that George Osborne would remain as chancellor if the Tories won the election.

David Cameron is in Paddy Ashdown’s village.

Cameron turns up the emotion in speech defending Tory decision to campaign on economy

David Cameron
David Cameron Photograph: BBC News

David Cameron is now speaking at a Conservative rally in Somerset. He is in David Laws’ constituency.

There has been a lot of comment about Cameron not showing enough passion on the campaign trail (see 9.04am), but today he seems to be turning up the emotion. It is one of the best stump speeches I’ve seen him deliver.

If people are saying to me you are putting too much emphasis on a strong and a stable economy, and securing our future, I plead guilty. I know how important it is to have that strength and that stability in our economy.

And he brandished the note left by Labour saying there was no money.

They now tell us that this was a joke. But I can tell you, as the prime minister at the time, it wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t a joke having to make the spending reductions to get the deficit down.

Addressing complaints that there has not been enough excitement in the Conservative election campaign he goes on:

If you want political excitement. Go to Greece

If you want more showbiz in this election. Go to Hollywood.

But here and now in the UK I’m focused on something REAL. A stronger economy. Something that excites millions more: more jobs more homes, more business, more childcare, more security in retirement.

Updated

Here is a Guardian video of Boris Johnson and Ed Miliband on the sofa together on the Andrew Marr show.

Labour says that the fact that Tories are speculating about their next leader (see 9.04am) suggests the party is “in disarray”. This is from Jon Ashworth, the shadow Cabinet Office minister.

While Ed Miliband is setting out his better plan to give Generation Rent a more secure future, senior Tories are on manoeuvres, jockeying for who will be their next leader. It’s a damning indictment of David Cameron that he’s powerless to do anything about it.

Here is the full quote from Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader, on Sky about Ed Miliband changing his tune on not working with the SNP after the election. She was responding to Jon Craig, who suggested that Miliband this morning (see 10.56am) had “called [her] bluff”. Surgeon replied:

No he’s not. He is saying he wants a majority. Well yeah, he is entitled to say that, but all the polls show that he is not going to get a majority ... I suspect Ed Miliband will change his tune once the votes are cast.

If Ed Miliband doesn’t get a majority, as the polls are all saying he won’t, then he will have to work with other parties and the SNP will use our influence to make sure Scotland’s voice is heard more loudly than it’s been before to make sure we get better politics out of Westminster for the benefit of ordinary people, not just in Scotland, but right across the UK.

Nicola Sturgeon with female activists launching the SNP’s women’s pledge in Buchanan Street, Glasgow.
Nicola Sturgeon with female activists launching the SNP’s women’s pledge in Buchanan Street, Glasgow. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

Rupert Murdoch has had quite a Twitter splurge today. Here are some more of the great man’s pronouncements.

  • Murdoch says he does not think a hung parliament will provoke a constitutional crisis.

I suppose we could take that as a slap-down to Theresa May. (See 9.04am.)

  • He says Scottish independence is “inevitable”.
  • He says quantitative easing has made the rich richer.

As Paul Waugh says, it sounds like he might be joining the Occupy movement.

Sturgeon says Miliband will 'change his tune' about working with SNP after election

Nicola Sturgeon has told Sky News that she thinks Ed Miliband will “change his tune” about working with the SNP after the election.

Speaking at a Liberal Democrat rally in Sutton and Cheam, Nick Clegg was asked to respond to Miliband’s comments that he would not do any sort of deal with the SNP.

The problem is I don’t know what he’s going to say tomorrow.

This is the dilemma for both David Cameron and Ed Miliband. They’re thrashing around making up things on the hoof because they daren’t admit what everybody knows, which is that they’re not going to win an outright majority.

Which is why you have Ed Miliband changing his tune and he might change his tune again tomorrow. You had David Cameron last week on Andrew Marr refusing to rule out an arrangement with Ukip on five different occasions.

He was asked how he could avoid relying on the SNP if he went into coalition with the Labour party: “It’s not for me to provide a running commentary on all these endless permutations.”

Murdoch says Cameron won’t survive if he does not win a majority

The most interesting thing to come out of George Osborne’s interview on the World this Weekend was almost certainly Rupert Murdoch’s tweet.

  • Murdoch says Cameron won’t survive if he does not win a majority.

For the last 30 or so, Murdoch has not just been a commentator on British politics, but an active participant. Boris Johnson seems to be the preferred Murdoch candidate for next Tory leader at the moment and this suggests Murdoch’s papers, or at least the Sun, may start actively agitating for a leadership change if Cameron does not get an outright majority.

The backlash against Boris Johnson continues. This is from the BBC’s Nick Robinson.

I’ve corrected a couple of sentences in the summary of the Miliband/Johnson interviews on Marr. (See 10.56am.) Earlier I said:

If Miliband does not have a majority, but David Cameron cannot form a government, Miliband will only be invited to Buckingham Palace to become prime minister if he can be sure of being able to win a confidence vote (which would probably require SNP support). He would need some sort of assurance from Nicola Sturgeon.

But Carl Gardner (see 11.41am) has persuaded me that’s wrong, and I’ve replaced those words with:

If Miliband does not have a majority, but David Cameron cannot form a government, Miliband will only be invited to Buckingham Palace to become prime minister if he is the person most likely to be able to win a confidence vote (which would probably require SNP support). And to be able to govern, he would want to know that the SNP would not vote against him in a confidence motion.

But the broad point I was making- that Miliband would want some kind of assurances from the SNP if he were running a minority government, and that ruling out “deals” now could make his position more tricky in the future - is a sound one.

Osborne says he wants Britain to be “the country with the greatest economic possibility in the world for its citizens”.

Q: The Conservative campaign has been criticised for lack of passion and vision.

Osborne says he does not accept that. Offering people in housing associations the right to buy will make a real difference to them.

Q: Lord Ashcroft says the Conservatives have not got much positive to say for themselves.

Osborne says he is not sure what they means. He thinks there is a real choice at the election.

Q: Rupert Murdoch has just said on Twitter that failure to win a majority would mean “the chop” for Cameron.

Osborne says he has not seen that. The Tories are fighting for a majority, he says.

And that’s it. The World This Weekend interview is over.

Updated

Q: In the past you said unfunded spending commitments threaten the economy. Have you changed your plan?

Osborne says he set out a plan at the last election, and he has proved in office he can deliver.

Osborne say Miliband’s rent controls plans are “economically illiterate”

Q: Do you know what you will do? Or do you not have a clue?

Osborne says he has set out some example of changes the Tories propose. And the Tories have a track record of turning around the economy. They have reduced poverty and equality.

Q: Imagine you were chief financial officer of a company, and you refused to say what your plans were. You would be out, wouldn’t you?

Osborne says he has a plan. Miliband is coming out with “economically illiterate plans”, as he has today. He does not know what is more worrying: the idea that Miliband thinks his rent controls will work, or the idea that he doesn’t care.

  • Osborne say Miliband’s rent controls plans are “economically illiterate”.

George Osborne's interview on the World this Weekend

George Osborne is being interviewed on the World this Weekend.

Q: Would you rule out cuts to disability benefits?

Osborne says three principles apply. First, help the vulnerable, and that covers the disabled. Second, they want to ensure work pays.

Q: Can you say you won’t take money from the disabled?

Osborne says he has made the reforms to disability benefits he wants to see, the replacement of disability living allowance with personal independence payments. The most disabled people will get more.

Q: But the IFS says you need to identify £10bn more in cuts. Will you say what they are? Or don’t you know?

Osborne says the Tories have a record of delivering welfare reform. Clearly, further changes are needed.

The Tories would freeze working-age benefits for the next two years.

Rupert Murdoch is getting into the election forecasting business.

Alex Salmond, the former SNP leader and Scottish first minister, told Sky earlier that Theresa May was “overwrought” if she thought that having a minority Labour government dependent on the SNP would trigger the worst crisis since the abdication. (See 9.04am.) He told the programme.

This stuff from Theresa May about the worst constitutional crisis since 1936, I mean, has she forgotten the second world war or, more recently, the illegal war in Iraq which the Labour party and the Conservatives dragged this country into? For goodness sake!

The woman’s overwrought, as indeed is David Cameron. We’ve got a prime minister who can’t remember the name of his football team and a home secretary who is becoming a social media parody – there’s whole sites going up making fun of Theresa May’s panic and desperation.

Salmond was referring to, among other things, #WorstCrisisSinceTheAbdication. Here are some examples.

Tim Montgomerie, the ConservativeHome founder and Times columnist, says Tory MPs were not impressed by Boris Johnson’s performance on the Andrew Marr show.

Plaid Cymru has put out a press release out today’s Sunday Times Rich List. This is from Leanne Wood, the party leader.

Today’s publication of the Rich List boosts the already overwhelming case for rebalancing wealth throughout the UK. The fact that the number of billionaires has increased shows that austerity is benefiting the wealthiest to the detriment of those who are struggling to make ends meet.

For too long, vast areas of the UK have been economically depressed with most political efforts concentrated on the south east. GDP in Inner London is almost twelve times more than some communities in Ynys Môn with several areas of northern England in the same position.

Plaid Cymru wants to see an economic recovery that reaches all parts of each nation.

They don’t take no for an answer at CCHQ - literally. As I reported here, see 10.56am, and Nicholas Watt and Rowena Mason have written up as a story, Ed Miliband firmly ruled out a confidence and supply arrangement with the SNP.

But the Conservative press office has sent out a press notice headlined: “Ed Miliband refuses 10 times to rule out SNP deal in a single interview.” They have put this out even though Miliband specifically said “no deals”.

The Tories say that in one of his answers Miliband said he was “not interested in deals”, and that that does not amount to an outright denial that he might make one.

Clegg accuses Labour and Tories of not being honest about chances of hung parliament

Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, has just delivered a speech in Sutton accusing Labour and the Conservatives of refusing to be honest about the possibility of a hung parliament. According to the Lib Dems, there have been 176 poll this year, and 174 of them suggest that the election will result in a hung parliament.

Ed Miliband and David Cameron won’t come clean with you about their plans and they won’t come clean with you about what sort of government they might form.

These are two big deceptions they are trying to pull off at your expense.

Clegg said a hung parliament could be a good thing.

An election where no one wins outright can actually be a healthy thing. It can mean politicians working together in the national interest.

And he repeated his claim about the Lib Dems being the party that could block extremist coalitions on the left or the right.

Ed Miliband could be prime minister in less than two weeks. But with enough Liberal Democrat MPs we can stand between Alex Salmond and the door of No 10 …

But it is just as possible that David Cameron could be prime minister again. And this time, instead of being forced to listen to the Liberal Democrats, it could be Nigel Farage and his friends on the right that get to dictate terms.

Nick Clegg
Nick Clegg. Photograph: BBC News

Updated

Ukip's Suzanne Evans says she does not believe Cameron would hold an EU referendum

Suzanne Evans, the Ukip deputy chair, told Sky’s Murnaghan programme earlier that she did not believe David Cameron would hold a referendum on EU membership.

I don’t believe for a moment David Cameron is going to give us a referendum. He’s promised a referendum in the past and has actually reneged on his promises.

She also said Cameron could not be trusted to tell the truth.

[Cameron] has said the Conservatives were the only party that were going to lower taxes, all the others wanted to raise taxes – that’s clearly not true. Ukip is committed to lowering taxes.

He also said Conservatives were the only party standing a candidate in every part of the UK. Again, that’s not true and Ukip already has representatives across the United Kingdom.

Mr Cameron, I think, needs to make a new definition of what is truth and what isn’t.

Suzanne Evans
Suzanne Evans. Photograph: Andrew Cowie/REX Shutterstock/Andrew Cowie/REX Shutterstock

Updated

The legal blogger Carl Gardner has been in touch to say he does not think it is right to say that Ed Miliband might require assurances from the SNP to become prime minister. (See 10.56am.) He explained his thinking in a lengthy blog post recently. Here’s an extract.

If it becomes clear after May 7th that David Cameron no longer commands a majority and cannot continue in office, then in accordance with convention he’ll resign; and all precedent, all expert opinion and the Cabinet manual itself tell us the leader of the largest opposition party will be appointed prime minister. Miliband won’t first need to ask Sturgeon to go looking in her handbag.

How long his government could survive is a separate question.

Updated

Tory donor apologises for anti-Cameron comments

Peter Hall, the Conservative donor quoted in the Sunday Times criticising the election campaign (see 9.04am), has issued a retraction.

This week I was interviewed by a Sunday Times journalist. Some comments I made appear in an article in today’s paper. I regret making those comments and apologise to all for this unconstructive intervention. Just to be clear. 1. I am an absolute nobody in politics. 2. I want the Conservative party to win the election and think it has a chance of doing so. 3. The government has done a good job in very difficult circumstances. 4. David Cameron is a better prime minister than I think Boris is likely to be be if ever becomes prime minister. 5. I will shut up for now.

Updated

Nicola Sturgeon will be launching the SNP’s youth manifesto with actor Martin Compston, while Jim Murphy will challenge her at a youth-related campaign event of his own to clarify her plans for a second referendum. This looks to be a key theme for Scottish Labour this week after Gordon Brown’s warnings of “constitutional crisis” on Saturday.
As if Boris Johnson’s Marr interview wasn’t bad enough, the Scotsman reports that the mayor of London has effectively banned bagpipes, noting that a new code of conduct for buskers in the city includes “piercing sounds like bagpipes” which should only be played at a safe distance from “flats, offices, shops or hotels,” ie nowhere in the the south-east of England.
A new Panelbase poll for the Sunday Times has shown support for the SNP has risen by a further 3 points since their last poll at the start of April. Support for the SNP now stands at 48 per cent, compared with 27 per cent for Labour – down 2 on Panelbase’s previous poll.

Updated

Marr's interviews with Miliband and Johnson – summary and analysis

That was an unusually productive Andrew Marr Show. There was some news (see below). But often what matters most in these big set-piece interviews is not the words but the demeanour of the person being interviewed, and today Ed Miliband put in a performance that will confirm the view that he has been seriously underrated as a media performer. The interview really came alive at the end, when Miliband was on the sofa with Boris Johnson, and if Johnson got the better of Marr by out-talking him (see 9.38am), then Miliband quite neatly carved up Johnson on two key election themes (non-doms and Miliband’s character). As Marr rightly suggested, it was one of the best moments of election TV we’ve seen.

Here are the key points:

  • Miliband ruled out a confidence and supply arrangement with the SNP. He had already formally ruled out a Labour-SNP coalition if Labour does not have a majority. Today he went further. Asked explicitly whether he was ruling out a confidence-and-supply agreement, he replied: “No deals.” In practice, the significance of this is limited because the SNP has already said it would not do a confidence and supply arrangement with Labour without a deal on Trident, which Labour has ruled out. But, as Nick Robinson points out (see 10.13am), every time Miliband closes down his options, he could be making life harder for himself after 7 May. If Miliband does not have a majority, but David Cameron cannot form a government, Miliband will only be invited to Buckingham Palace to become prime minister if he is the person most likely to be able to win a confidence vote (which would probably require SNP support). And to be able to govern, he would want to know that the SNP would not vote against him in a confidence motion. But would that consitute a “deal”? That remains to be seen. UPDATE: The legal blogger Carl Gardner says it is wrong to say Miliband would have to have an assurance from the SNP to become prime minister. See 11.41pm. I’ve amended two of the earlier sentences in this paragraph because they said otherwise. But the broad point - that Miliband would want some kind of assurances from the SNP if he were running a minority government, and that ruling out “deals” now could make his position more tricky in the future - is a sound one.
  • Miliband rejected claims that Labour’s plans for rent controls would not work. A similar policy worked in Ireland, he said. He said he was developing plans to help the 11 million people in private rented accommodation who had been “forgotten” by the other parties.
  • Miliband rejected claims that fear of having a Labour government dependent on the SNP was becoming a big issue on the doorstep. “That is not what I’m picking up,” he said.
  • Miliband left Johnson struggling to defend the Conservatives’ plans to keep non-dom status. When Miliband challenged him over this, Johnson would not support Labour’s plan to abolish it. “I’m in favour of the rich paying as much tax as is consistent with a successful economy,” he said. But he did not seem able to defend the non-dom laws in principle either and instead he resorted to criticising Labour for planning to abolish non-dom status now when it did not do anything about it when it was in power.
  • Miliband told Johnson he should not be joining the Tory “backstabber” attack on him. He told Johnson:

Lynton Crosby put him up to it. Come on Boris, you’re better than that. Don’t just do what Lynton says to you. Come on, Boris.

Johnson, who has an article in today’s Sun on Sunday attacking Miliband for his treatment of his brother, seemed reluctant to defend this line of attack.

I’m not saying your brother had to present himself at A&E with a dagger in his back – but he would do more damage to this country than to his brother, and that is the key point.

Miliband told Johnson:

If you become leader of the Tory party, I would get rid of Lynton, if I were you. Honestly, he does not do much for you.

  • Johnson said that Labour’s plans for rent controls were flawed.

I have some brilliant housing officials in City Hall. Let me tell you, they are not by any means all paid-up Conservative supporters, to put it mildly, and they all to a man and a woman think a policy of trying to impose rent controls is pure nonsense, a gimmick, wouldn’t work.

And if it did work, if you went ahead with the drivel we have seen on the front of the papers this morning and imposed a three-year cap on rents, all that would happen is first of all you would discourage people from getting into the rental market.

You would discourage the creation of new housing.

All that would happen is that at the end of the three years, those that remained renting out their properties would jack up the rents even higher.

  • Johnson said it was “nonsense” to suggest that senior Tories wanted him to take over as leader soon after the election.

They don’t. And that is both nonsense and, may I say, trivial by comparison with the choice the country has to make in 11 days’ time.

  • He described Marr as “a lefty BBC journalist”.
Ed Miliband and Boris Johnson on the Andrew Marr show
Ed Miliband and Boris Johnson on the Andrew Marr show Photograph: HANDOUT/REUTERS

Updated

Marr's interview with Miliband - verdict from the Twitter commentariat

This is what political journalists are saying about Andrew Marr’s interview with Ed Miliband.

I will be posting a summary and analysis shortly.

From the Sunday Times’s Tim Shipman:

From the BBC’s Nick Robinson:

From the Times’s Tim Montgomerie, the founder of ConservativeHome:

From LabourList’s Mark Ferguson:

From PoliticsHome’s Paul Waugh:

From the Sunday Herald’s James Maxwell:

From Channel 4 News’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy:

From the Times’s Michael Savage:

From Total Politics’s David Singleton:

Updated

Miliband and Johnson are on the sofa together.

Q: What do you make of Labour’s plan to abolish non-dom status?

Johnson says it will cost the Treasury money.

So you want to allow non-dom status to stay, Miliband asks.

Johnson says he wants to extract money from the rich.

Miliband says they live here for 30 years and don’t pay taxes. Can you defend that?

Johnson says Miliband was in the Treasury when Labour was in power.

Miliband says Johnson is rattled.

Johnson says they went to the same primary school, as well as the same university.

But not the same secondary school, says Johnson.

Q: Do you really think Miliband is a back-stabber? [Johnson has written that in the Sun.]

Johnson starts floundering a bit. He was not saying Ed put David in A&E, he says.

Miliband says Johnson was put up to that by Lynton Crosby. But he is better than that, he says. When he takes over the Conservatives, he should get rid of Lynton, he says.

And that’s it.

Marr says that was the best bit of TV of the week. It was certainly the best bit of election TV.

Updated

Q: Economists say rent controls do not work.

Miliband says he does not accept that. There are 11 million people in private rental accommodation. They have been forgotten.

Q: Landlords will just jack up their rents beforehand.

Miliband says he and Marr both have security in their homes. Other people deserve the same.

Q: But this won’t work.

It has worked in Ireland, he says. The private rental sector has expanded.

Q: The economist Assar Lindbeck says rent controls are the most effective way to destroy a city.

Miliband says he does not accept that.

Updated

Q: Why did you not apologise for Labour’s over-spending?

Miliband says Labour did not regulate the banks properly. He has apologised for that.

Q: But why not apologise for spending too much?

Miliband says the deficit did not cause the crisis. The crisis caused the deficit.

Q: You have allowed yourself to borrow more money for capital spending? So you will borrow more.

Miliband says that is not the case. None of his plans require extra borrowing.

There are three positions he says: the Tory one, with excessive cuts, and the no cuts position. Labour’s is different.

Q: A middle position?

You could put it like that.

Q: Would you start borrowing again?

Miliband says none of his plans require extra borrowing.

He is absolutely serious about fiscal responsibility, he says.

Ed Miliband
Ed Miliband on the Andrew Marr Show. Photograph: BBC

Updated

Q: Clegg says a Labour-SNP government would be illegitimate. Theresa May is saying the same. Do you agree?

Miliband says there isn’t going to be an agreement with the SNP.

The Tories are trying this tactic because their other tactics have not worked.

Boris Johnson was assuming Labour would win, Miliband says. But Miliband says he is not that sure. It is going to be very close.

Q: Just to be clear - Definitely no confident and supply arrangement with the SNP?

No, says Miliband.

Updated

Andrew Marr's interview with Ed Miliband

Andrew Marr is now interviewing Ed Miliband.

Q: How can you be prime minister if you lose in England and Scotland?

Miliband says that is premature. He does not accept Labour will lose in Scotland.

Q: Will you rule out a deal with the SNP?

Miliband says he is not going to do a deal with the SNP. That covers a coalition or confidence and supply.

He wants to set out his disagreements with them. He disagrees with their plans to break up the union. But he disagrees with them on other issues too.

Q: But what happens if you need SNP support for, say, a road in England. They will say the money has to go into the A9 first.

Miliband says he will put forward a Labour budget and a Labour Queen’s speech.

It is Labour that is addressing the issues in this election, he says.

Marr says party broadcasts should take place elsewhere.

Q: But you are in No 10 and Nicola Sturgeon phones up. Do you take her call?

Miliband says this is not how it is going to happen.

Updated

Marr's interview with Johnson - verdict from the Twitter commentariat

This is what political journalists are saying about Marr’s interview with Johnson. It seems to be 1-0 to Johnson.

Updated

Johnson says Labour's plans for rent controls would be 'disastrous'

Q: What do you think of Labour’s rent control plans?

Johnson says all his officials in City Hall, who are not paid up Conservatives, are opposed to the idea.

It would led to a reduction in supply, because landlords would not enter the market.

It has been tried in Germany, and did not work. Under the Romans it did not work under the Emperor Diocletian, he says.

It would be a “disastrous” policy, he says.

  • Johnson says Labour’s plan for a curb on rent increases for private tenants would be ‘disastrous’.

Johnson dismisses call for him to take over from Cameron after election as 'nonsense'

Q: Could the Tories do any deals with Ukip after the election?

Johnson says he does not envisage that. He does not think it is necessary or desirable.

Q: Would you back another coalition with the Liberal Democrats. As an MP, you would have to vote for one.

Johnsons says he does not envisage that. He will fight to stop it happening (meaning he will fight for a Conservative majority).

Q: Tory donors want you to take charge.

That is “nonsense’, he says.

  • Johnson dismisses call for him to take over from David Cameron after the election as “nonsense”.
Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson Photograph: BBC

Updated

Boris Johnson's interview with Andrew Marr

Andrew Marr is now interviewing Boris Johnson.

Q: You have been making a lot of the danger of the SNP.

Absolutely reasonably, says Johnson. We are the tech capital of Europe. That did not exist when Labour was in power .

Labour is proposing to put up corporation tax and income tax. It would make it harder for these small tech companies to take people on. Labour would be in power with the SNP on his back, crouching like a monkey.

Would Miliband go ahead with the A358? Would he go ahead with Crossrail?

Q: Would it be illegitimate?

There is a risk of people feeling it would be bizarre, he says.

People will look at the reality. The SNP want to break up the union. Seeing them in government, with a leftwing agenda, and without the interests of the UK at their heart, that is going to be alarming.

Q: Doesn’t this whip up Scottish nationalism?

I hope not, he says.

He says the economcy is going gangbusters.

Q: It’s not.

You would say that, says Johnson, because you are a “lefty BBC journalist”.

Johnson says he is not imperilling the union. The people who are imperilling it are the SNP.

Leanne Wood's interview with Andrew Marr

Andrew Marr is interviewing Leanne Wood, the Plaid Cymru leader, now.

Q: You could not do a deal with the Conservatives.

Absolutely not, says Wood.

We would work with a Labour government. But only if they did not implement Tory policies.

Q: And you want an extra £1.2bn for Wales. That is quite extreme, isn’t it.

Wood says the Barnett formula is unfair to Wales. She just wants parity with Scotland.

She says all parties in Wales should unite behind this demand.

If you don’t ask for something, you don’t get it.

Leanne Wood
Leanne Wood on the Andrew Marr Show. Photograph: BBC

Updated

Today's Guardian seat projection - Tories 274, Labour 269

Here is today’s Guardian seat projection.

Guardian seat projection
Guardian seat projection

Morning briefing

Good morning. It’s the penultimate weekend of the election campaign, and I’m writing today’s Election Live blog.

The big picture

Labour has a big policy announcement this morning: its plan to cap rents in the private sector, which are being described on the front page of the Sunday Times as amounting to the return of rent controls.

But today there might be just as much interest in signs that are emerging suggesting that the Tories are starting to panic. They are aheads in two of three of today’s polls, but not be enough to make David Cameron confident of remaining prime minister. During elections reporters are always on the look-out for a “wobby Thursday”, or its equivalent, and the Sunday Times has decreed today as the “wobbly weekend”. Two Tory donors have complained about the quality of the campaign, and there are signs that Boris Johnson’s supporters are on manoeuvres. There is a story in the paper but, as often happens on a Sunday these days, the jolliest account is in Tim Shipman’s Red Box email briefing briefing. Here’s an excerpt.

It all began with James Kirkup’s piece in Saturday’s Telegraph that senior figures in the Conservative party are already planning for a world after Cameron and were even considering installing Boris Johnson as leader by acclamation after the election. I picked up the same talk early last week with multiple sources talking about mysterious approaches to donors by senior figures in the party about whether Boris might take over, all of which are of course vociferously denied by the powers that be.

Today, Marie Woolf and I report in The Sunday Times that this is just the tip of the iceberg. We both received unsolicited phone calls from MPs all week saying that cabinet ministers and their supporters were already phoning around seeking their backing for leadership bids if Cameron fails to get back into government.

Separately MPs, backed by influential donors, said they are prepared to engineer a coup against Cameron by submitting letters of no-confidence in him after May 7 and planning a “mass show of support” for Johnson if the Tories lose. A major donor, who declined to be named, said: “Boris is the only one who can win. Everyone knows what is going to happen in 10 days’ time. If Dave doesn’t make it we’ll get rid of him.”

What’s in the papers

Labour

Conservatives

Peter Hall, an investment manager, who has given almost £600,000 to the Tory party since 2005, criticised Cameron’s “curious lack of energy and belief in his campaign” and called on him to “unleash visceral passion and belief in his vision of the future” and “get down and dirty” if he is to remain prime minister.

He added: “If we don’t have a Conservative government after May 7 it will be because of David Cameron. I see no powerful vision of the future provided by David Cameron” ...

Hugh Osmond, the Pizza Express entrepreneur who gave almost £115,000 to the Tories between 2008 and 2011, said: “What would a Cameron UK really look like? I’ve just no idea. I don’t find either of the campaigns the slightest bit inspiring. They are utterly cynical, trying to woo those few extra electors their way.”

A YouGov poll today shows the Tories would move from two points behind Labour to three points ahead if Johnson were leader. He is judged Cameron’s best successor by 31%, with Theresa May, the home secretary, second on 13%.

Lib Dems

Because I’ve realised it is possible to be business-like with them. I can envisage a scenario in which I would stomach working with the Tories if the situation required. You have to let your head rule your heart.

The article implies that he would prefer this to a coalition with Labour, although Cable is not quoted saying that directly. But he is quoted saying said a Labour/SNP government would be ‘very dangerous and completely unacceptable’.

We can’t let small extreme tendencies dominate the country. I speak as someone who has lived in Scotland. I have Scottish children. We could not work with people committed to break up the UK.

Today’s diary

9am: Ed Miliband, Boris Johnson and Leanne Wood, the Plaid Cymru leader, are the guests on the Andrew Marr show.

10am: David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Alex Salmond and Suzanne Evans, the Ukip deputy chair, are interviewed on Sky’s Dermot Murnaghan show.

1pm: George Osborne is interviewed on The World this Weekend.

2.30pm: Sajid Javid, the Conservative culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, the former Labour culture secretary, and David Laws, the education minister, are the guests on the Sunday Politics. It’s normally at 11am, but today the time has been changed.

3pm: Cameron delivers a campaign speech.

3pm: Miliband gives a speech on international development in London.

If today were a song ...

It’s Queen’s One Vision. According to James Forsyth in in the Mail on Sunday, this is being played in CCHQ as an unofficial campaign theme. “With its lyrics about ‘one voice, one hope, one real decision’, you can see why it appeals to the Tories,” Forsyth writes.

Non-election news story

The Nepal earthquake, where the death toll is heading towards 2,000.

Updated

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