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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Politics
Andrew Sparrow, Claire Phipps and Kevin Rawlinson

General election: IFS says Labour plans amount to biggest state intervention in economy for decades - as it happened

Jeremy Corbyn speaking to the press outside the Institute of Engineering in London, where a party meeting took place as they dealt with the fallout from the sensational leak of its draft General Election manifesto.
Jeremy Corbyn speaking to the press outside the Institute of Engineering in London, where a party meeting took place as they dealt with the fallout from the sensational leak of its draft General Election manifesto. Photograph: Rick Findler/PA

May sidesteps tax rise questions

The prime minister, Theresa May, appeared on LBC in the evening to take questions from the station’s presenter, Nick Ferrari, and some voters.

Theresa May sidesteps tax rise question and answers callers on LBC
  • Asked repeatedly if she could rule out any tax rises if the Conservatives were returned to government, May would only say that the Tories had “no plans” to do so and was instinctively a low tax party.
  • She was attacked on her record on immigration and other issues as home secretary but insisted that she was the right person to lead the Brexit negotiations.
  • May was confronted by a doctor who was thinking of leaving the NHS because of its state under her government. But she defended its record, saying it had invested. She also highlighted greater pressures on A&E as a cause of problems there, rather than the closures of departments.
  • She admitted that the Tories had not kept up some of their promises to the armed forces.

You can read a further summary of the day’s earlier events here.

Updated

Who is the most important Philip on Downing Street? “My husband [who’s] taking out the bins,” May says.

And that ends the interview.

May, asked about manpower in the armed forces, admits the Tories have not kept past promises.

Another question from a caller: the Tories want to reduce immigration but May has failed repeatedly to do so as home secretary. How can she be believed now?

May says that the UK will be able to set its terms when it leaves the EU. Ferrari says the figures for non-EU migration were also high under her tenure. May insist she did influence it, saying they closed down colleges to stop abuse of the system. She claims she wants to reduce immigration and Corbyn does not want to.

Next question: May and the Tories have repeatedly failed in negotiations - so how is she the right person to lead Brexit negotiations?

May points out that she succeeded in deporting high profile Islamic extremists and in convincing the Police Federation to reform. May adds that, in her eyes, a good Brexit deal involves access to the single market.

Next up, a doctor who says she is thinking about leaving the profession because of the state of the NHS under the Conservatives.

May lists the investments made in the service. But says the party does need to make sure to put money in to help A&E. Asked about closures of those services, she says there were pressures on them.

The caller accuses May of demoralising the workforce. May defends Jeremy Hunt, saying he has done a “very good job”.

Ferrari tried repeatedly to get May to commit to not raising taxes over the term. She will only say she would go into government with no plans to raise tax and that the party’s instinct is towards low taxation.

A question from Sophia in Hastings, who works for the NHS and is thinking of voting Labour: how has she helped the ‘just managing’ families?

May says the Tories have increased the support for childcare from 15 free hours to 30 for three and four-year-olds. They have also changed the personal tax allowance. But May recognises there is “more to do”. She wants an economy to provide good jobs to fund the NHS and the education system.

Sophia, who went back to work after nine months, says there is still a great gap in childcare funding. Many families fall outside the funding bracket, including her own. More provision needs to be made for younger children, she says.

May, in response, says she recognises the situation people find themselves in: they need two incomes and it poses problems – but she wants to ensure that there are opportunities.

Asked how far along the party is in its plans on childcare and if she would need to raise more money to help young families, May segues into mental health care. Ferrari tries again, asking May about the triple lock: May answers that pensions will go up, though the Tories have not yet worked out how much.

Asked if she will raise tax, she says she wants to reduce tax on young families because that’s the Conservatives’ instinct. Are they going to put tax up for those earning more money? “We are a party that believes in low tax.”

Ferrari tries again. May says the Tories would go into government with no plans to increase tax.

Updated

Ferrari now asks about May having lost her parents in her 20s. She says her husband was her “rock” during that time. Part of the impact, she says, was to reinforce her belief in public service that she learned from her parents.

Her faith helped as well, May says, because it provided support. She still goes to church now, though her parents never forced her, she adds.

Theresa May is being interviewed by Nick Ferrari on LBC now. He opens with a question about her not having had children.

“It’s been very sad, it’s just turned out not to be possible for us,” she says. “You just get on with life.”

Would she have been able to work as hard if she’d had children? Yes, May answers, sidestepping the bear trap on to which Andrea Leadsom threw herself headlong during the Conservative leadership contest.

Theresa May is due to appear on LBC radio in a little less then 10 minutes. We’ll be bringing you updates on what she says then.

The leader of the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon, has joined those criticising of Theresa May for suggesting that the Scottish nationalists have - like the Tories - been fined by the Electoral Commission for mistakes on electoral expenses.

Sturgeon demanded an apology from the prime mMinister for an “unacceptable” smear, insisting that her party has “always played by the rules” in elections.

The Crown Prosecution Service has said that, even though spending returns submitted by some of the party’s candidates and officials may have been inaccurate, there was insufficient evidence to prove Tory officials were knowingly dishonest. And the party was fined a record £70,000 for “numerous failures” in reporting expenses for the 2015 general election and three by-elections in 2014.

May insisted Conservative expenses were “properly reported and properly declared and that the candidates did nothing wrong”. She said:

If you look at the expenses issue, we have seen all the major parties and the Scottish nationalists being fined for mistakes made on national expenses. We have paid our fines and I sincerely hope the other parties are paying theirs.

But Sturgeon said:

Yesterday, we saw the Crown Prosecution Service say that they couldn’t prove criminal intent on the part of Tory candidates, but clearly saying like the Electoral Commission had already done, that there were likely to have been errors in Tory election expense returns.

Not to put too fine a point on it I think there is some evidence that Tories at the last general election were not playing by the rules and for Theresa May to try to distract attention from that by smearing other political parties I think is unacceptable - for anybody but particularly for the Prime Minister.

The SNP unlike the Tories has always played by the rules in elections and we have never been fined by the Electoral Commission.

I’ll give Theresa May the benefit of the doubt that she just made a mistake but either way I think we should see a retraction and an apology from her for smearing the SNP in the way that either intentionally or inadvertently she did yesterday.

Afternoon summary

  • The Institute for Fiscal Studies director, Paul Johnson, has said the Labour plans amount to the biggest state intervention in the economy for decades. (Readers have pointed out that the bank bail-outs were bigger, but Johnson was talking about interventions that governments have chosen to make, not those forced on them by economic catastrophe.) (See 2.18pm.)
  • The SNP has said it is considering introducing a 50p top rate of tax for Scotland. (See 5.11pm.)
  • David Cameron has effectively abandoned his claim that energy price caps are Marxist. (See 5.28pm.)
  • Gordon Brown has given an election speech backing Labour without mentioning Corbyn. (See 3.27pm.)

That’s all from me for today.

My colleague Kevin Rawlinson is taking over now. He will be blogging Theresa May’s LBC phone-in at 7pm.

The Women’s Equality party has welcomed the fact that Labour’s manifesto includes commitments on equality, but it says Labour is not going far enough. Sophie Walker, its leader, says that although the manifesto calls for a “properly funded system of free childcare”, what it is proposing does not go further than what the Conservatives are offering. She said:

We already have 30 hours free childcare for three- and four-year-olds. It is the lack of universal childcare and the two year gap between the end of parental leave and nursery that is pushing women out of the workplace and fuelling the gender pay gap. To say that the offer will ‘eventually be extended’ is not a policy, it’s a stab in the dark. For voters that are looking for a new alternative, it just isn’t ambitious enough.

The most old-fashioned aspect of Labour’s manifesto is its addiction to old-style economics. The Labour party is willing to borrow £250bn to fund capital spending on physical infrastructure, which will be paid for by families, but when it comes to the social infrastructure that holds our society and economy together and helps families get by, Labour still sees this as a luxury item that can be delivered by women at little or no cost.

Here is a Guardian analysis by Alan Travis and Phillip Inman of the policies in the Labour manifesto.

Earlier I said that TUSC’s decision not to put up candidates at the general election was unlikely to make much difference because they got so few votes nationally in 2015. (See 3.02pm.) But Dave Nellist has been in touch to say that in some constituencies where where there is a proper TUSC vote, the decision could make a difference. He said he received 1,769 votes in Coventry North West, which could be helpful to Labour given it has a majority of just 4,509 in the seat. Labour could also benefit from the TUSC vote in Tottenham ( where TUSC got 1,324 votes in 2015), in Bethnal Green & Bow (949) and Coventry South (650 - perhaps significant because Labour’s majority there was just over 3,000.)

Cameron effectively abandons his claim that energy price caps are Marxist

David Cameron, the former Conservative prime minister, has been campaigning for Edward Timpson, the Tory candidate in Crewe and Nantwich. In an interview, he was asked if was awkward campaigning for a prime minister, Theresa May, promoting policies like extending grammar schools that he does not support. He dodged the grammar school aspect of the question and instead argued that he wanted his party to do well because Jeremy Corbyn was “completely unsuited” to be prime minister. He said:

Look I’m a strong Conservative and I want the Conservative team to win. I resigned after the Brexit vote because I knew the country needed fresh leadership. That is exactly what Theresa May is delivering and I want her to have the biggest possible majority so she can deliver the best possible deal.

The election in a way is a straight choice between her continuing as prime minister with that important work and Labour, frankly, have put up a candidate who is not, you know, cut out to be prime minister, would make a terrible prime minister. So this election is important and that’s why I’m out here today.

Cameron was also asked if he still thought imposing price caps on energy bills was “Marxist”, as he claimed when Ed Miliband proposed the idea. May is now in favour, and the plan will be in the Tory manifesto. Asked about this, Cameron effectively abandoned his earlier claim. He said:

Look you have to look at the detail of the policy. But I totally understand why she wants to put something like that in place. In many ways, this election shows that the Labour party has deserted traditional working families who want to improve their situation, get a decent job, pay less in tax, face lower bills. It’s the Conservative party standing up for them and I’m delighted to be out here supporting her.

David Cameron
David Cameron Photograph: Sky News/David Cameron

Updated

SNP says it may introduce a 50p top rate of tax for Scotland

The Scottish finance secretary Derek Mackay has told MSPs the Scottish government may introduce a new 50p top rate of income tax next year, as the Scottish National party bids for centre left votes in the general election.

The SNP has faced intense criticism from Labour, their pro-independence allies the Scottish Greens and the Lib Dems for refusing to use Holyrood’s new powers over Scottish income tax rates to help mitigate Treasury cuts, despite originally pledging a 50p top rate.

Faced with increasing signals that Labour at UK level would be raising taxes for the wealthiest if it won the election, Nicola Sturgeon hinted earlier this month a 50p tax rate would feature in the SNP manifesto.

Mackay told Holyrood on Thursday:

Analysis produced by the Scottish Government showed that there is a revenue risk associated with raising the additional rate.

However, the first minister has asked the council of economic advisers to consider how and to what extent this risk can be mitigated, and if we are sufficiently assured that it can be, that we consider raising the additional rate from 45p to 50p from 2018-19 onwards as part of budget considerations.

Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, said Sturgeon had already cut £1.5bn from local services after failing to offset Westminster cuts. She said:

This desperate attempt to win back voters who are deserting the SNP for its record of failure in office won’t fool anyone.

In 2015 Nicola Sturgeon supported a 50p top rate of income tax, then joined forces with the Tories to vote down such a proposal in the Scottish parliament.

She says one thing before an election in an attempt to sound left-wing, but acts right when she actually has to make decisions in government.

Derek Mackay.
Derek Mackay. Photograph: Andrew Cowan/Scottish Parliament/PA

The Green party has stood down their candidate in Home Secretary Amber Rudd’s seat of Hastngs and Rye, saying Labour candidate Peter Chowney had agreed to “a number of demands from us”.

The news marks the latest in a series of grassroots progressive alliances prompted by the Greens, though co-leader Caroline Lucas has expressed her frustration that Labour and the Lib Dems had not responded in kind in seats where her party might succeed in beating the Conservatives, such as the Isle of Wight.

In a letter to local members, the party said Julia Hilton would now stand down as the Green candidate in the seat, where Rudd has a 4,796 majority. The seat was held by Labour between 1997 and 2010.

The party said there was an “urgent wish of many in Hastings to unseat Amber Rudd” but acknowledge local members may be disappointed.

“We hope they can understand the reasons behind our decision and continue to vote for the Green Party in future elections,” said local party secretary Julia Hilton.

Here is the Guardian’s Politics Weekly podcast. Heather Stewart is joined by Polly Billington, Rafael Behr and Alex Hern to discuss the leaked Labour manifesto, Paul Johnson of the IFS on manifesto sums, plus Jessica Elgot on board the Lib Dem battle bus and Damian Tambini on election law and social media.

According to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, the changes to the manifesto agreed at the Clause V meeting amounted to “tinkering” only.

For the large media pack who waited outside the grand Institution of Engineering and Technology building near the Thames for several hours, that was a long wait for not much news from Jeremy Corbyn, or from those who left earlier, among them Len McCluskey who prompted a collective media gasp of worry by slipping on rainwater on the stone steps (he was fine).

But Corbyn looked energised and confident. He would, of course, say he believes the manifesto will swing the election for Labour and it is a brilliant document. But he sounded genuinely enthused by the apparent unanimity.

Do we know who leaked the draft document (we’ve been told the final version is different in some elements)? No, we don’t. But it has certainly focused a lot of media attention on a meeting which might otherwise have passed with less notice, and on the manifesto.

Jeremy Corbyn speaking to reporters as he leaves Labour’s Clause V meeting
Jeremy Corbyn speaking to reporters as he leaves Labour’s Clause V meeting Photograph: Jack Taylor/Getty Images

Corbyn says Labour manifesto promises are 'very popular' and could 'transform the lives of many'

Here is the full text of what Jeremy Corbyn said in his statement at the end of the Clause V meeting.

We’ve just concluded our joint meeting of the shadow cabinet and the national executive and we’ve discussed our manifesto for the general election. We’ve just unanimously agreed the contents of it. We’ve amended the draft document that was put forward in the most informed, interesting, sensible discussion and debate in our party. And we’ll present this manifesto to the British people in the next few days.

Our manifesto will be an offer and we believe the policies in it are very popular, an offer that will transform the lives of many people in our society, and ensure that we have a government in Britain on June 8 that will work for the many, not the few, and give everyone in our society a decent opportunity and a decent chance, so nobody’s ignored, nobody’s forgotten, and nobody’s left behind.

The details will be published in the next few days. The details will be set out to you, including the costings of all the pledges and promises that we make. And I know that you’re all looking forward to reading it in great detail at that time. And at that point you will be able to ask all the questions you like. But for today, thank you all very much for coming.

Jeremy Corbyn speaking to the media after the Clause V meeting where Labour’s manifesto was agreed.
Jeremy Corbyn speaking to the media after the Clause V meeting where Labour’s manifesto was agreed. Photograph: Jack Taylor/Getty Images

HuffPost’s Paul Waugh has more on what the press were yelling at Jeremy Corbyn.

Jeremy Corbyn's statement after Labour's Clause V meeting

Jeremy Corbyn is making a statement after the Clause V meeting.

The contents of the manifesto have been unanimously agreed.

He says the draft has been amended in the most informed, sensible discussion.

The manifesto will be an offer for a government that can work for the many, not the few. No one will be ignored or forgotten.

The details will be set out in great details, including the costings, in the next few days.

At that point people can ask all the questions they like, he says.

And that’s it. He does not take questions, although reporters yell some at him, including one from someone asking him if the leak of the manifesto amounts to a shambles.

I will post the full text of what Corbyn said in a moment.

This is from Channel 4 News’ Michael Crick.

Here is some commentary on the Labour manifesto from a Guardian panel, with contributions from Faiza Shaheen, Jonathan Freedland, Aditya Chakrabortty, Ayesha Hazarika and Poppy Noor.

And here is an excerpt from Aditya’s contribution.

Believe the press and these proposals are “hard left” and “radical”. Yet polls show that kicking carpetbaggers such as Richard Branson off our rail network would be wildly popular. Theresa May has swiped the idea of capping energy prices. Raising the corporate tax rate to 30% would be a reversal of George Osborne’s giveaways, but it would put Britain on a par with Germany and Japan and leave it well below the going rate in that bastion of communism, the United States.

The problem with these ideas is not that they’re too radical, but that they’re not radical enough. Even if the trains were taken back into public ownership we’d still need to work out a fair way of subsidising them – and of to what ends they should be used (to funnel wage slaves into London? To form part of a rebuilding of regional economies?).

Gordon Brown did not criticise Jeremy Corbyn in his speech today. But that has not stopped the Conservative party sending out a misleading press release quoting Patrick McLoughlin, the party chairman, saying: “Gordon Brown was absolutely right when he said Jeremy Corbyn can’t provide the leadership our country needs.”

As the Tories make clear in the notes at the bottom of the news release, Brown did say this (more or less) - in a speech he gave almost two years ago.

Former prime minister Gordon Brown has urged voters to back Labour candidates who will hold the government to account, the Press Association reports. He attacked the Conservatives’ record on the NHS and child poverty, as he pressed Theresa May to reveal her hand for Brexit negotiations and her strategy on trade. But he failed to mention Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at all in a 25-minute campaign speech, instead urging voters in Coventry to back Labour’s three candidates for the city at the election.

Brown said:

Ask yourself, is the National Health Service safe with the Conservative candidates, or the Ukip candidates, or the Liberal candidates in Coventry?

Or is it safe with the people who have always fought for the health service, that supported the extra funding, that made the promises and want to see them kept, that will hold the Government to account on the National Health Service.

I say to you, the National Health Service is safe only in the hands of Labour people who will fight every day.

Brown also urged May to give straight answers on questions on her domestic policy, rather than just “slogans and sound bites”.

Mrs May says she wants this single issue election to strengthen her hand with Europe.

But as Geoffrey (Robinson) has just said, we don’t know what her hand is - she is not telling us what her hand is in these negotiations.

And it is to be at the cost of manufacturing and the cost of the car industry and the cost of jobs if we are not told what we are voting for on June 8.

She wants a free hand - she wants us to write her a blank cheque.

Gordon Brown posing for a selfie at a Labour rally in the Engineering Building of Coventry University, where he delivered a speech.
Gordon Brown posing for a selfie at a Labour rally in the Engineering Building of Coventry University, where he delivered a speech. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Theresa May has been out doing some door-to-door campaigning in Southampton.

Theresa May with Conservative candidate Paul Holmes (right) during a visit to Southampton
Theresa May with Conservative candidate Paul Holmes (right) during a visit to Southampton Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
Theresa May walks through a garden as she walks with Paul Holmes in Southampton.
Theresa May walks through a garden as she walks with Paul Holmes in Southampton. Photograph: SIMON DAWSON / POOL/EPA
Theresa May in Southampton
Theresa May in Southampton Photograph: SIMON DAWSON / POOL/EPA

Jeremy Corbyn will make a statement after the Clause V meeting but will not take questions, my colleague Peter Walker says.

Sky’s Faisal Islam says Labour are meeting in the same building as a bunch of divorce lawyers. Could be useful if some of the wilder predictions come to pass ....

To vote in the general election, you need to be registered to vote by 22 May. There are details of how to register here.

TUSC says it won't field candidates at the election because it's backing Corbyn's Labour

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), a party to the left of Labour set up in 2010 by the late Bob Crow, has announced that it will not be putting up candidates at the election. Instead it is backing Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour.

Explaining its decision, the TUSC national chair Dave Nellist, who was a Labour MP and leftwing ally of Corbyn’s between 1983 and 1992, said:

Ever since Jeremy launched his leadership bid in 2015 TUSC has been determined to support him against Tory and Blairite attacks and build the anti-austerity struggle that lay behind his success.

This has meant that TUSC has been prepared to contest local elections against right-wing Labour councillors carrying out Tory cuts. No politician from whatever party should expect that they can carry through austerity policies without challenge at the ballot box.

But this general election is different, giving working class people the opportunity to drive out the Tory government and, on this occasion, put a socialist in Number 10. That’s the job that we will concentrate on for the next four weeks.

We know that getting 326 or more Labour MPs elected on June 8th wouldn’t stop the Blairites continuing to plot against Jeremy. They did it last summer and, if they feel confident enough, they could do it again this summer. They don’t support the socialist policies of taxing the rich and public ownership that are needed to overturn the ‘rigged system’ and they will do what they can to resist them.

But defeating the Tory government would be seen as such a victory for Jeremy Corbyn it would inspire and give confidence to millions that a different society is possible.

It would create the chance to build the mass support base that Jeremy will need against the capitalist establishment to implement his policies and we will work determinedly towards that end.

The TUSC endorsement is unlikely to have much practical effect. In the 2015 general election it got just 36,490 votes nationally (0.1%) of the total.

UPDATE: Earlier I said that TUSC’s decision not to put up candidates at the general election was unlikely to make much difference because they got so few votes nationally in 2015. But Dave Nellist has been in touch to say that in some constituencies where where there is a proper TUSC vote, the decision could make a difference. He said he received 1,769 votes in Coventry North West, which could be helpful to Labour given it has a majority of just 4,509 in the seat. Labour could also benefit from the TUSC vote in Tottenham ( where TUSC got 1,324 votes in 2015), in Bethnal Green & Bow (949) and Coventry South (650 - perhaps significant because Labour’s majority there was just over 3,000.)

Updated

And here’s another tweet from the Clause V doorstep from my colleague Peter Walker, author of the newly published and excellent How Cycling Can Save the World.

Jon Trickett has been a Labour MP for 20 years, and it’s fair to say he has rarely caused the media fuss he did just now.

The shadow Cabinet Office minister was the first person to leave the ongoing Labour manifesto meeting, as he had to catch a train to another engagement.

En route to his taxi he paused to give the press a few words about the progress. He’s not added vastly to our sum of knowledge, but we’re due to hear from Jeremy Corbyn between 3pm and 4pm - no later than 4pm as that’s as late as the room booking lasts at the Institution of Engineering and Technology in central London. Trickett said that the meeting had been “very productive” and that an “exciting” manifesto was emerging. (See 2.12pm.)

A few minutes later Emily Thornberry also left, getting into a cab without a word.

IFS says Labour plans amount to biggest state intervention in economy for decades

I’ve had a chat with Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, for the Guardian Politics Weekly podcast, and I asked him what he made of the leaked Labour manifesto. He certainly thinks it’s radical. Here’s what he had to say:

It’s certainly transformative what the Labour Party is suggesting here, and I think it’s important to be clear that this is not just about tax and spending; this is about the state getting deeply involved in much more of the private sector than it has been, certainly since the 1970s, and perhaps since the 1940s, with respect to, say, telling banks which branches they can’t close; setting minimum wages for a quarter of private sector workers and about 60% of young people, and dramatically improving labour regulation. All of those things are utterly different from anything we’ve experienced in many, many decades.

If you take what’s here at face value, then much of it I think is unprecedented even in the 1970s. This is a level of state intervention that probably goes back more decades than that.

The IFS runs the slide-rule over every party’s tax-and-spending plans during general election campaigns: here’s what Johnson makes of what he’s read so far of Labour’s.

We clearly know from today’s leaked Labour manifesto that they’re looking at spending a very, very large amount more than the Conservatives will. We’re looking about an additional £25bn a year on infrastructure spending; an additional £10bn a year or so to cover the impact of getting rid of university tuition fees; we’ve already heard that they’re looking at spending another £7bn or £8bn on other aspects of education. And then, I’m afraid I haven’t got through the rest of the manifesto, but there’s obviously an awful lot other promises in there. How much that adds up to, I don’t know.

On the tax side Labour have suggested a very big increase in corporation tax – increasing it by about 40%, about one percentage point of national income, which we were quite amused to see they’d described in their manifesto as asking companies to pay a little more. And they’ve said that they will increase tax on those earning over £80,000 a year but we have no details of that yet.

That is, in terms of taxes and spending, a dramatically different picture.

IFS director Paul Johnson
IFS director Paul Johnson Photograph: Felix Clay for the Guardian

This is what Jon Trickett, the shadow lord president of the council, told reporters as he left the Labour Clause V meeting.

The meeting has been very productive. An exciting document is emerging. It will speak to the whole country, to every part of the country, and it will speak for the many and not the few. We anticipate the manifesto will be the basis of our new government which will take the whole country in a new direction. You will now need to wait for the end of the meeting which will take place in due course.

Jon Trickett
Jon Trickett Photograph: Sky News

This is from my colleague Anushka Asthana.

My colleague Peter Walker is with journalists doorstepping Labour’s Clause V meeting. He has news ....

The Cornish political party Mebyon Kernow has announced that it will not be fielding candidates at the election. The party, which thinks Cornwall should have “at least” the same powers as the Scottish parliament and which has four members on Cornwall council, said it did not have the resources to put up candidates because it had been focusing on the local elections. A spokesman said Mebyon Kernow was “extremely angry” that the locals coincided with the snap general election.

Nuttall says he will come under 'no pressure whatsoever to resign' if Ukip wins no seats

The Ukip leader Paul Nuttall says he will “come under no pressure whatsoever” to resign as leader should Ukip fail to win any seats at the election. Speaking at the Ukip fishing policy launch earlier (see 1.14pm), he said:

Can I stay as Ukip leader? Of course I can stay as Ukip leader. I’ll come under no pressure whatsoever to resign. I think that’s quite clear.

According to the Press Association, Nuttall initially appeared hesitant when asked if former leader Nigel Farage will be helping with his campaign to be elected MP for Boston and Skegness, noting: “I would think so.”

When pressed, he later said: “Yeah, of course, Nigel will come campaigning with me in Boston.”

Paul Nuttall.
Paul Nuttall. Photograph: Chris J Ratcliffe/AFP/Getty Images

Gordon Brown has been delivering his speech on the car industry at the general election at Coventry University. (See 10.59am.) I will post more on it when have seen the text, or some copy on what he’s said.

Gordon Brown gives a Labour party campaign speech at the engineering department of Coventry University.
Gordon Brown gives a Labour party campaign speech at the engineering department of Coventry University. Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters

But union leaders like the Labour manifesto proposals. I’ve already quoted Unite’s Len McCluskey saying it is “really, really exciting”. (See 11.18am.) Here is reaction from two more.

From Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union

We wholeheartedly welcome the Labour pledge to protect fire and rescue services from further destructive cuts.

Since the Tories came into government they have undertaken an unprecedented and savage assault on fire services.

Over 10,000 frontline firefighter posts have been axed, response times to emergencies are getting slower and fire deaths are on the rise for the first time in decades.

There is a clear choice in this election between a Labour government who will invest in public services and scrap the pay cap or a Tory one that will continue to make life-threatening cuts.

Labour stands on a manifesto that will tilt power back towards working people.

From Mark Serwotka, leader of the Public and Commercial Services union

Labour’s manifesto pledges to end the public sector pay cap, improve collective bargaining, repeal anti-trade union legislation and strengthen employment rights are welcome news indeed for PCS members and for all public sector workers.

These commitments to many of our long-standing industrial demands have never been on offer from the Labour party before and are in stark contrast to what the Tories are offering at this election.

We have been clear that our message to our members is that another Tory government would be the worst possible outcome and Labour’s manifesto commitments offer a positive and much-needed alternative.

CBI says Labour manifesto risks 'putting economy into reverse gear'

The CBI has said that some of the plans in Labour’s draft manifesto “risk putting our economy into reverse gear”. This is from Josh Hardie, the CBI’s deputy director general.

If accurate, this is a manifesto that is past its sell-by date.

With the significant challenges our economy faces, the goal of making the UK the most competitive and fair economy in the world can only be achieved by a strongly pro-enterprise government.

A number of these policies risk putting our economy into reverse gear rather than moving forward to support business in creating an inclusive, innovative economy that works for people in all corners of the UK.

While proposals around apprenticeships and to increase spending on R&D to 3% should be welcomed, proposals to damage the UK’s flexible labour market and competitive markets will threaten jobs and prosperity.

Earlier I quoted a tweet from Matt Zarb-Cousin, who until recently worked as Jeremy Corbyn’s press officer, suggesting that Labour HQ leaked the manifesto, continuing “their tradition of undermining the leadership”. (See 8.54am.)

Two Labour candidates fighting for re-election, who both worked for the party before becoming MPs and who are both on the right of the party, have hit back at Zarb-Cousin on Twitter.

Ian Austin posted this comment on Zarb-Cousin’s tweet.

And John Woodcock tweeted this response.

Wales will be ignored and taken for granted if the Tories win an election landslide, the Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said at the launch of his party’s Welsh general election campaign. He said:

If the Tories get a landslide, Wales will be taken for granted. It is time that we gave the people of Wales, the people of the United Kingdom some hope.

Wales, like other parts of the country, remembers what it was like to live under a Conservative government with a landslide majority in the 1980s.

Tim Farron and supporters at the launch of the Welsh Lib Dem campaign in Cardiff Bay.
Tim Farron and supporters at the launch of the Welsh Lib Dem campaign in Cardiff Bay. Photograph: Matthew Horwood/Getty Images

Dave Ward, the CWU general secretary, has posted this on Twitter, hitting back at today’s Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail coverage of the Labour manifesto. (See 9.11am.)

Fish caught by foreign vessels in British waters should be landed, processed and sold in the UK to help rebuild its fishing industry, Ukip has said. As the Press Association reports, Ukip wants the next UK government to make fisheries a “red line” in forthcoming Brexit negotiations, while also scrapping the EU common fisheries policy (CFP) in its entirety, plus enforcing a 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

It also said a time-limited licence should be offered to foreign flag vessels to allow them to fish within the UK’s territorial waters during the rebuilding period. Changes to UK law are needed to ensure all fish caught within the EEZ are then brought back and sold within the country, the party said.

Mike Hookem MEP, Ukip’s fishing spokesman, speaking at a policy launch this morning.
Mike Hookem MEP, Ukip’s fishing spokesman, speaking at a policy launch this morning. Photograph: Chris J Ratcliffe/AFP/Getty Images

The actor Sir Ian McKellen has become the latest star to wade into the general election, urging voters to back Labour’s Wes Streeting in the poll, the Press Association reports.

The Lord Of The Rings star posted an online video message in support of Streeting, the former Ilford North MP, who won the seat from the Conservatives in 2015 with a wafer-thin majority of 589 votes.

The star described Streeting as “one of the great young politicians” as he urged viewers to hit the ballot box on June 8. McKellen, who lives in east London rather than in the Ilford North constituency, said:

I don’t normally get involved in politics but I have voted, I think, in every election that I have been able to.

It’s a lovely feeling you know, when you go and put your little cross against the name that you believe in.

And if you don’t do it of course, you can’t really complain if things go wrong after the election.

And if you take my advice, consider Wes Streeting, Member of Parliament for Ilford North, and we need him back in Parliament because he’s one of the great young politicians, everything before him but his principles firmly in place.

Sir Ian McKellen backs Wes Streeting in a YouTube video

Theresa May has been visiting Young Minds, a mental health charity, in London today.

Theresa May meets a helpline advisor during a visit to the Young Minds mental health charity in London.
Theresa May meets a helpline advisor during a visit to the Young Minds mental health charity in London. Photograph: Carl Court/PA

Bookmakers send out a lot of political betting news releases and mostly I ignore them, because they are little more than bids for free advertising. But this one seems worth mentioning. Betfair say that, following the leak of the Labour manifesto, they have seen a wave of people betting on Labour to get most seats, significant enough to have shortened the odds. Katie Baylis, the Betfair spokesperson, said:

While still huge outsiders, we’ve seen a Labour overall majority shorten from 189/1 at the start of the week to 49/1 this morning and Labour to win most seats come in to 27/1 from 47/1, with 76% of all bets on this market today on Jeremy Corbyn’s party.

Baylis said they had taken £2,000 this morning, in the form of lots of small bets, from people betting on Labour to get the most seats.

The Tories are still the overwhelming favourites. Betfair have them at 1/14 to get a majority (signalling a 95% probability) and 1/33 to get the most seats (signalling a 97% probability).

Tom Baldwin, who was director of strategy and communications for Ed Miliband when Miliband was Labour leader, told the BBC’s Daily Politics that there were three theories as to who leaked the manifesto.

I don’t know who’s done it, and for what reason. There seem to be three different conspiracy theories. One is that it was done by someone to undermine Jeremy Corbyn, another that it was done by someone close to Jeremy Corbyn to make it look as if someone is trying to undermine Jeremy Corbyn, and the third one is that they get it now, ahead of Clause V, so that it is harder to roll back some of the wilder ideas.

Baldwin also said the manifesto was not as extreme as Theresa May’s.

There is nothing here as extreme as leaving the single market at any cost, bringing back grammar schools and nothing so dishonest as promising to cut immigration when you know you can’t do it.

Tom Baldwin on the Daily Politics.
Tom Baldwin on the Daily Politics. Photograph: BBC/Daily Politics

The Labour manifesto has passed the Polly Toynbee test. She is not convinced that Jeremy Corbyn has the ability to persuade the public to vote for this agenda, but she is very enthusiastic about the policies.

Here is her column about the document.

And here is an extract.

What a cornucopia of delights is here. The leaked Labour manifesto is a treasure trove of things that should be done, undoing those things that should never have been done and promising much that could make this country infinitely better for almost everyone.

No, this is not a repeat of the “longest suicide note in history” 1983 manifesto. There is no reprise here of the killer pledges that caused the party to split back then – pulling out of Europe, out of Nato with unilateral disarmament, protectionist exchange and import controls, or nationalising pharmaceutical, building materials and many more industries. Reluctantly, no doubt, here is a pledge to keep Trident and spend Nato’s required 2% on defence, an essential backstop against those who regard Labour as perennially weak on national security.

The pro-Corbyn group Momentum insists that Labour is catching up in the polls in a trend it says will be boosted by the leak of the party’s manifesto.

Emma Rees, Momentum’s national coordinator, praised the draft manifesto and predicted it would be “incredibly popular”.

Speaking on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme Rees said Corbyn was getting more visibility and a fairer hearing in the press which was helping Labour to claw back support.

She said:

We have seen an increase dramatically in the popularity of the Labour party. We are catching up in the polls.

Challenged to cite evidence, Rees said:

There has been a 10-point increase that was reported last weekend. We’ve now got four weeks. These policies set out in the draft manifesto have wide public support. Things like the £10 minimum wage - 70% are in support of that policy. Those are the sort of policies that people are going to be voting for in this election.

Rees said the draft manifesto set out “a set of really bold policies which I think will be incredibly popular with the electorate and will tackle our rigged economy and our rigged system in the interests of the many and not the few.”

Patrick Harvie, the Scottish Green party’s co-convenor, has urged green voters in Scotland to only back candidates who support policies such as opposing Heathrow’s expansion, quitting fossil fuels and expanded public transport.

At the launch of his bid in Glasgow North to win the party’s first Westminster seat, Harvie said the Scottish Greens (a separate party to the Greens in England and Wales) would not endorse any other party at the general election.

Distancing himself from open support for tactical withdrawals in Tory target seats by his fellow party co-convenor Maggie Chapman, Harvie said: “We will not endorse any other parties. I will certainly not endorse any other candidates.

“The advice I would give to anyone who doesn’t have a Green candidate is ask yourself what are the most important issues to you, then put those to the candidates and judge them as individuals.”

His list of key election topics, which included a universal basic income for all adults, excluded Scottish independence and Brexit – issues where the Scottish Greens are very closely aligned to the Scottish National party.

His party has faced heavy criticism from opponents for standing only three Westminster candidates this election in an effort to reduce competition for their pro-independence allies the Scottish National party in as many seats as possible.

Harvie said that was not true: the party did not have the money or time to prepare for this snap election, so soon after last week’s council elections. He said Glasgow North had the highest Green council vote last week, and was the party’s best chance of winning, even though the Greens came fourth there in 2015.

“I regret the fact there are many, many Green voters who know they don’t have a Green candidate this year. I regret that if we had the kind of resources other parties take for granted we would be able to do that,” he said.

Patrick Harvie at his campaign launch.
Patrick Harvie at his campaign launch. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian

McDonnell says Labour's manifesto is 'extremely modern' and not like Foot's in 1983

John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, was doorstepped by a BBC reporter as he left his home this morning and asked about the Labour manifesto. Here are the main points from what he had to say.

This is an extremely modern, progressive set of proposals. And it is looking to the long term future. And most people are extremely excited at what they’ve seen.

  • He rejected claims that the plans would take Britain back to the 1970s. This is the claim being made by the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail - see 9.11am. Asked about this, he replied:

It’s progressive. For example, if you look at the energy proposals, they are what a lot of modern European states have done over the last five years. So it is quite comprehensively modern.

In terms of railways, I just say a lot of foreign countries now actually own our railway system, a lot of of foreign companies who are then ploughing those profits back into their own railway system. It seems a bit odd that we are subsidising German Deutsche Bahn, for example.

It’s a transformational programme. It will modernise our economy and it will ensure that everyone shares in the prosperity of the country.

  • He defended the rail nationalisation plan, saying the railways are already run by state-owned companies, only foreign ones.

Railways renationalisation has been Labour party policy for a number of years. That means when the franchises run out you bring them back into public ownership. In fact, they are in public ownership at the moment, but they are owned by usually other foreign states.

  • He said the leak of the manifesto was “disappointing”.
  • He said Labour would produce costings for its policies when it published the final manifesto on Tuesday. The drafts that have been leaked overnight do not include costings.
John McDonnell leaving his home this morning.
John McDonnell leaving his home this morning. Photograph: BBC

According to Matt Spencer, a TV news producer, Jeremy Corbyn’s car ran over the foot of a cameraman as Corbyn was arriving for the Labour Clause V meeting.

Len McCluskey, the Unite general secretary, told reporters that the policies in the Labour manifesto were “really, really exciting” as he arrived for the Clause V meeting. He said:

If the British electorate can only look at that rather than the obsession that you people have about the leadership of the Labour party.

Asked if Labour voters wanted the policies in the draft manifesto, he said: “I absolutely do.”

He also described railway nationalisation as “the most popular policy out there”.

Here are some more tweets about what senior Labour figures have been saying as they arrive for the Clause V meeting.

Senior insiders say the Labour manifesto drafting process involved a very tight group, led by Corbyn’s policy chief Andrew Fisher, in close consultation with shadow chancellor John McDonnell.

Key stakeholders including the political officers of the trades unions were shown a draft - which they could read, but not take away.

Some unions are understood to have expressed concerns about some of the key pledges, including cutting arms sales and opposing Heathrow expansion.

Shadow cabinet ministers have only been given access to tightly controlled sections of the manifesto, and some continue to have doubts about aspects of it, with just hours to go before it must be signed off.

On Thursday morning, both sides of the deeply divided party, suspected each other of the embarrassing leak. One senior party insider even suggested one of Corbyn’s allies could have leaked the draft document in a “jujitsu move” that could allow them to claim the general election was lost because of sabotage.

Meanwhile, party insiders say close allies of Corbyn appeared genuinely discombobulated by the leak on Wednesday night, and initially suspected figures on the party’s right-wing, including deputy leader, Tom Watson; though like the rest of the shadow cabinet Watson is understood to have had direct access only to parts of the manifesto.

Brown warns hard Brexit would threaten thousands of car industry jobs

Gordon Brown, the former Labour prime minister, is giving a speech later today about the car industry and the election. But he has set out the core of his argument in an article in today’s Daily Mirror. Here is an extract.

The automotive industry employs 52,000 in the West Midlands and 20,000 in the North West. So, 46.5 per cent of vehicle manufacturing jobs are in these two regions.

I fought while prime minister to save and expand Jaguar and Vauxhall, I worked with Nissan, Honda and Ford and I am not going to give up the fight for jobs now ...

It’s a car industry with a huge advantage we’ve built that differs from our past: we are so competitive and productive that we export 80 per cent of what we produce. And, by beating foreign competitors, half of all cars and vehicles produced in Britain are today sold into the European Union.

What’s more, the British car industry is so integrated with mainland Europe that hundreds of millions of parts and components go back and forward before we assemble the completed car in Britain.

Any disruption to this integrated European supply chain, such as charging tariffs at £1,000- £2,000 extra per car, imposing custom barriers and losing crippling legal actions over rules of origin – will instantly threaten British jobs and livelihoods ...

We hear a lot about getting out of what are said to be burdensome European single market regulations, about the freedom that comes from abandoning the customs union, about ending the rule of the European Court of Justice and about getting our money back as well as controlling our own borders but what manufacturing needs - tax-free, tariff-free access and the frictionless movement of goods in and out of continental Europe - is barely mentioned by Mrs May - and almost seems to have been relegated to an afterthought.

Throughout my political life I have fought for jobs and high-quality jobs for British workers in every industry and region and nation of the country and I refuse to give in to those who would put the security of our jobs at the bottom of the list in any agenda of Brexit negotiating requirements.

The Nissan factory in Sunderland.
The Nissan factory in Sunderland. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

According to Paul Waugh at HuffPost, one of the key issues at Labour’s Clause V meeting today will be whether to toughen the language in the manifesto on immigration. He says:

One source who has shared the draft tells me that the biggest bone of contention today will be unions’ worries that the wording on immigration is far too weak, leaving the party without a doorstep-ready message on a key issue for many Labour supporters. The text simply promises Labour won’t ‘make false promises’ on immigration. I am told there are plans for 1,000 extra border guards, but no mention of what they will do, for example.

Here are the key extract from the section on immigration in the draft of the manifesto seen by the Guardian.

Labour will not make false promises on immigration numbers. Our economy needs migrant workers to keep going.

The Conservative government has scapegoated immigrants to divert from for their own failings and have made bogus promises on immigration.

When politicians fan the flames of fear it has real consequences on both recently-arrived and long-settled communities. We see this in the appalling rise in hate crimes, which shame us all.

Labour understands the historic contribution of immigrants and the children of immigrants to our society and economy ....

Labour believes in fair rules and reasonable management of migration.

We believe fair rules mean that a distinction should be made between family connections and migrant labour. We do not believe family life should be protected only for the wealthy and so we propose to replace the income thresholds for family attachments with an obligation to survive without recourse to public funds. Labour will replace the financial threshold test for family reunion.

We will work with employers who need to recruit from abroad, but we will crack down on any employer that exploits the system to undermine wages and conditions.

We increase prosecutions and penalties for employers not paying the minimum wage, stop employers from recruiting only from overseas, and make zero hours contracts illegal.

The Royal Mail’s share price has fallen this morning following the revelation that the Labour manifesto includes a plan to nationalise it, the Telegraph’s Jack Maidment reports.

This is what the draft of the manifesto seen by the Guardian says about Royal Mail nationalisation.

The Conservative government’s privatisation of Royal Mail was a historic mistake, selling off another national asset on the cheap.

Labour will reverse this privatisation at the earliest opportunity, because it is a profitable company that should still be giving a return to the many not the few, and because key national infrastructure like a postal system is best delivered in public ownership.

Senior Labour figures arrive for Clause V meeting to finalise manifesto

Senior Labour figures are arriving for the Clause V meeting where the final manifesto will be agreed.

Here are some tweets about what some of them have been saying to reporters on the way in.

The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg says senior Labour figures are saying the manifesto is more Ed Miliband than Michael Foot.

Gary Gibbon, Channel 4 News’s political editor, makes a similar point in a good blog on the leak. Here is an extract.

As for the document itself, the team has managed to sprinkle some extra content on top of the Ed Miliband manifesto of 2015. Rail nationalisation isn’t miles from where Labour in 2015 had got to. The regional state energy suppliers idea had been floated in 2015 with talk of local cooperatives but didn’t make it in. Royal Mail nationalisation wasn’t pushed for too hard by the unions in 2015. Maybe that has changed?

This is more radical than Ed Miliband but nothing like as radical as the 1983 manifesto (unilateral nuclear disarmament, renationalisation of British Shipbuilders, British Telecom and British Aerospace). Think Hollande Phase 1, perhaps? It’s not the manifesto Andrew Fisher, the Corbyn policy chief, would’ve written with a free hand, nor quite the one that Jeremy Corbyn or John McDonnell has preached in fringe meetings for 4 decades. They’ve felt constrained by lack of time, limited preparation and polling. The Ed Miliband policies poll very well with target Labour voters. The problem comes, much as did for Iain Duncan Smith and the Tory Party back in the Blair years, when you mention who is punting them).

This is what the draft of the Labour manifesto that the Guardian has seen says about Labour’s fiscal credibility rule.

Our fiscal credibility rule is based on the simple principle that government should not be borrowing for day-to-day spending, but that investing for future growth makes good sense. It was designed in conjunction with, and is supported by, world-leading economists.

Compliance with the rule will be overseen by a strengthened and truly independent Office for Budget Responsibility, which we will make accountable to Parliament.

The fiscal credibility rule will commit us on taking office to:

  • Set out a plan to eliminate the current spending deficit on a forward-looking, five-year rolling timescale
  • Leave debt as a proportion of trend GDP lower at the end of each parliament than at the start
  • When conventional monetary policy is hampered by the lower bound to interest rates, suspend operation of the rule in order that fiscal policy can work with monetary policy to support economic recovery
  • Make the Office of Budget Responsibility responsible to parliament with a clear mandate to “blow the whistle” on government breaching these rules

Robert Peston, ITV’s political editor, says he thinks this is the most important part of the document.

Green party dismisses Labour's Trident policy as 'self-evidently absurd'

This is what the version of the Labour manifesto obtained by the Guardian says about Trident although, as we report in our story, the sentence starting ‘But any prime minister ...’ has now apparently been taken out.

Labour supports the renewal of the Trident submarine system. But any prime minister should be extremely cautious about ordering the use of weapons of mass destruction which would result in the indiscriminate killing of millions of innocent civilians. As a nuclear armed power, our country has a responsibility to fulfil our international obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Labour will lead multilateral efforts with international partners and the UN to create a nuclear free world.

The Greens have described this stance as “self-evidently absurd”. This is from the Green’s co-leader Jonathan Bartley.

Labour’s stance on Trident is both deeply disappointing and self-evidently absurd. What could be more illogical that pledging to renew a multibillion pound nuclear weapons system that will never be used? With people struggling to get by in Britain it’s inexcusable to be wasting people’s money on this cold war relic.

Instead of funding HMS Pointless we could plough billions of pounds into our health service, hiring 85,000 more nurses, midwives and other NHS staff. Labour has acknowledged that nuclear weapons would result in the ‘indiscriminate killing of millions of innocent civilians’ yet refuses to see sense and pledge to scrap Trident. Real security means having a world class health service, not locking ourselves into replacing obsolete, useless weapons.

Jonathan Bartley.
Jonathan Bartley. Photograph: Richard Vernalls/PA

Updated

Slightly chaotic scenes this morning near Waterloo in south London, as Labour’s launch of a campaign poster was overtaken by questioning over why Jeremy Corbyn, who had been due to unveil it, was not there.

In the wake of last night’s leak of the Labour manifesto we instead had the party’s campaign coordinators, Andrew Gwynne and Ian Lavery, in front of the truck-mounted poster showing the slogan, “The Tories have held back Britain long enough.”

Lavery gave a brief speech castigating the Conservative record on areas including the NHS, housing and pensions. The government was “holding millions of people back and in cannot continue to be the case”, he said.

We’re seeing huge cuts in terms of austerity and ordinary people are suffering greatly, whilst those at the top are receiving huge tax cuts. And it just simply can’t be right. We, as a Labour party, will put that right.

But as he stopped, there came repeated shouts of, “What’s happened to Mr Corbyn?” led by Channel 4 News’s Michael Crick.

“Mr Corbyn is doing preparation the work for a very important meeting,” Lavery told the media surrounding him, as Gwynne tried to gently pull him towards their nearby car.

Lavery said he was actually pleased about the leak of the manifesto, as it got the “visionary” policies some extra attention.

He was meant to be here but things happen, and Mr Corbyn is dealing with internal matters within the party, and he’s dealing with preparation work. But listen, what is fantastic is the manifesto - really, really exciting, really visionary. They’ve done us a real favour, from what I’ve seen this morning. Lots of people are terribly excited about seeing it. It’s absolutely fantastic - visionary policies for a new Britain.

Ian Lavery responding to a question from Channel 4 News’ Michael Crick.
Ian Lavery responding to a question from Channel 4 News’ Michael Crick. Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

Updated

Corbyn's manifesto could be an transformational as Attlee's, Labour's election chief suggests

On the Today programme this morning Andrew Gwynne, one of Labour’s two general election coordinators, said that the plans in the Labour manifesto were “genuinely transformational”. When John Humphrys put it too him that the document was an unrealistic “wish list”, and that it was too leftwing for the public, Gwynne replied:

I’m sure if I was here in 1945 you would have said the same about Mr Attlee’s vision, wouldn’t you, when he transformed Britain with the creation of the welfare state, the creation of the national health service, extending educational opportunities to all. So let’s have some ambition in politics. I don’t believe that Britain should be held back. I think we need to look beyond the short term, quick fixes that we’ve had far too often in politics in recent years.

Jeremy Corbyn (left) with Andrew Gwynne
Jeremy Corbyn (left) with Andrew Gwynne Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images

Here is the Labour poster launch this morning that Jeremy Corbyn missed. (See 8.32am.) Ian Lavery and Andrew Gwynne, Labour’s joint election campaign coordinators, took charge instead.

Ian Lavery (speaking) and Andrew Gwynne reveal a new poster for Labour’s general election campaign.
Ian Lavery (speaking) and Andrew Gwynne reveal a new poster for Labour’s general election campaign. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Plaid Cyrmu says there are proposals in the leaked Labour manifesto that the party has opposed in Wales. This is from Plaid’s Jonathan Edwards.

In the face of a Tory landslide at UK level, that elements of Labour’s High Command are more focused on damaging their leader by undermining their own manifesto than they are on opposing the Tories shows the chaos within the Labour party.

Many of the policies in the leaked manifesto are policies that the Labour party has opposed and blocked in the Welsh government. They say they want to scrap tuition fees but continue to charge £9000 in Wales where they govern. They say they want to scrap zero hour contracts but have voted against doing so on seven separate occasions despite having the power to do so in Wales.

And here is the Times’s Matt Chorley’s take, from his Red Box morning email.

It’s easy to dismiss it as mad and out of step with Britain in 2017, and large parts are. But some of the things that conventional Westminster wisdom will seize on as crackers will strike a chord with voters.

Scrapping tuition fees, building more council houses and spending billions extra on the NHS and social care are not just popular but represent the sort of boldness that the Tories have so far been lacking.

Instead of seizing the moment and running with it, Corbyn has pulled out of a planned poster launch on the South Bank this morning, presumably expecting one or two questions about the leak.

Is this Labour manifesto, as leaked, going to reverse the tide and deliver Jeremy Corbyn to Downing Street? No. Even a renationalised Royal Mail couldn’t deliver Jeremy Corbyn to No10 swaddled in bubblewrap and brown paper.

But it can cause the Tories problems and force them to answer questions about what they might do instead.

Here is the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush’s take on the Labour manifesto leak, from his Morning Call email.

Members of the Clause V meeting haven’t received their copies of themanifesto yet and won’t until 10am. In 2015, paper copies were numbered and watermarked to avoid leaks. It’s fair to say that Southside [where Labour HQ is based] is not exactly viewed as friendly territory by the leader’s office so it would be surprising if they were more relaxed about security than Ed Miliband’s team were.

And the leak has probably guaranteed more widespread coverage than a conventional press release or launch would have done, and gives Labour a second bite of the apple when the real thing comes out.

Just because they’re out to get you, doesn’t mean that you didn’t on this occasion leak it to secure a bigger splash than it would otherwise have got. Who really leaked it? You pays your money and you makes your choice.

But the row over “who leaked it?” speaks to the uncomfortable truth of the general election: that while an optimistic minority around Corbyn believe that they might actually get to implement this manifesto, Corbynsceptics and the bulk of Corbynite officials think this election is merely the overture to the real battle: a knife fight over whatever’s left of the Labour party.

Here is our latest story about the leak of the Labour manifesto.

It includes an embed with the full text of the leak.

Four national newspapers have splashed on the Labour manifesto leak. The Daily Mirror and the Guardian have both opted for similar, straight headlines.

But the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, as you would expect, take a different view.

Last night Matt Zarb-Cousin, who until recently used to work as Jeremy Corbyn’s press officer, suggested the manifesto had been leaked by Labour HQ (where staff are largely sceptical about Corbyn) to undermine him.

Kevin Schofield, the PoliticsHome political editor, has heard a different theory.

But Corbyn’s office say this theory is “completely untrue”.

And this morning Corbyn’s team are saying they don’t want a “witch hunt” over who was to blame.

Various versions of the manifesto have been leaked to the media. A shorter 43 page was circling on Monday night but the BBC later obtained a fuller document over 50 pages long. The document seen by the Guardian was marked as having been shown to TULO- the Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation.

We hope to be able to launch it soon so that you can read it in full.

Jeremy Corbyn was due to be attending a Labour poster launch in London at 9am this morning. But, according to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, he is giving it a miss.

Q: How would you run energy companies?

Gwynne says Labour is saying in every region there should a publicly-run energy company.

This works in Germany, he says.

He says different models might work in different parts of the country.

Q: How would you run the railways?

Gwynne says a publicly-owned one ran the East Coast mainline until quite recently.

Now that profit it going to a private company which took the franchise over.

He says profits made on the railways should come back to the Exchequer.

Q: And you will extend HS2 to Scotland. How will you fund that?

Gwynne says that will be explained in the manifesto when it is out next week.

Today Labour has its Clause V meeting to finalise the manifesto, he says.

And that’s it.

Q: You will tell people what they can pay staff. And repeal trade union laws that cut the number of strikes.

Gwynne says Labour is just talking about repealing the Trade Union Act introduced by David Cameron.

In too many workplaces people are being penalised.

Q: How will you pay for everything?

Gwynne says when the manifesto is launched next week, each pledge will be fully costed.

Q: Abolishing tuition fees could cost £10bn or £11bn. And you want to spend billions on social care. You cannot do that without putting up tax, and you say you will only put up tax for the very rich.

Gwynne says Labour has said there will be no change to VAT, no change to national insurance, and no change to income tax for 95% of workers.

Q: The top 5% will pay. Will you go back to a top rate tax of 95%, as under Harold Wilson?

No, says Gwynne. Labour is not talking about that, he says.

Q: This is an unrealistic wish list, isn’t it?

Gwynne says if it were 1945, Humphrys would have said the same about Attlee’s manifesto.

We need to look beyond the short term, he says.

Q: You will have an excessive pay law for companies with too many staff on excessive pay. There are laws on badgers, and other things. It goes on endlessly. Shouldn’t a manifesto focus on your top priorities.

Gwynne says Labour’s priorities are making sure we have a good NHS, and an education system that works for everyone. Britain can be a better place, he says.

Q: The message is, government knows best. Haven’t we gone past that?

Gwynne says it is not about government knows best; it is about empowering people.

He wants young people to be able to go to university without increasing debt.

Andrew Gwynne's Today interview

Good morning. I’m taking over from Claire.

Andrew Gwynne, Labour’s co elections coordinator, is being interviewed on the Today programme.

John Humphrys is interviewing him.

Q: You want to nationalise the railways. But Labour cannot even run itself. Its manifesto has leaked.

Gwynne says he was not planning on doing interviews about this today. But it gives him a chance to talk about Labour’s vision, he says.

Q: This suggests someone in your party wants to sabotage your campaign.

It’s not ideal, Gwynne says. But at least people are talking about Labour.

Q: Are you still going to have a launch?

Yes, says Gwynne. A draft was leaked. There may well be changes.

He says Labour thinks its package of policies is “genuinely transformational”.

He does not accept that children should be taught in over-crowded classrooms, or that care visits only last 15 minutes, or that people are kept waiting for operations.

And with that, Andrew Sparrow is here to take the live blog reins.

If you’d like to sign up to receive the Snap, our daily election briefing email, you can do so here.

Fallon says Corbyn is 'essentially a pacifist' and would be 'dangerous' if in charge of defence

Fallon is asked about the pledge in the leaked Labour manifesto to stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia. He says the Conservatives would not promise the same:

Saudi Arabia is being attacked by Houthi rebels … Saudi Arabia is fully entitled to defend itself and it’s fully entitled to call on its friends for help.

Saudi Arabia is a key partner of ours, a tremendously important trading partner and commercial partner.

Dismissing reports today that No 10 and No 11 are at odds over other aspects of the Tory manifesto, Fallon calls it “tittle-tattle” and manages to sound the “strong and stable leadership” klaxon.

Corbyn, he claims, should not be trusted to defend the UK:

He’s essentially a pacifist and would be a dangerous leader of our country if he was ever put in charge of our defences.

Updated

Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, has been speaking on the Today programme about the fresh Tory commitment to increase defence spending above inflation every year, as well as meeting the Nato goal to spend at least 2% of GDP on defence.

(Read that story here.)

He’s asked about this Donald Trump tweet. Could it cause problems for the UK, which needs F35s for its aircraft carriers?

“That’s quite an old tweet,” Fallon says, adding that the costs of F35s will come down. “We will benefit from that … You certainly need aircraft carriers in an uncertain world.”

The leaking of the manifesto has thrown off balance Labour’s plan to unveil a fresh policy each day in the runup to what was to have been official launch of its election offer.

Labour has made individual announcements on housing, hospitals, policing and yesterday’s centring on education.

There is now likely to be an investigation into the leak – and who leaked it – on the eve of the meeting at which the draft manifesto was due to be finalised.

Britain should take 50,000 more Syrian refugees from camps in the region, the Liberal Democrats will say in their manifesto, as well as re-opening the scheme to resettle lone child refugees in Europe.

Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, said Labour should match his pledge in their own manifesto and said the offer was a message about his party’s values.

“Labour should match this, this is a challenge to other parties and particularly to the government,” he said. “I think we need a strong opposition and you only get that with a clear alternative, this is our clear alternative.”

The Lib Dems estimate the cost of resettling an additional 50,000 refugees would require a hefty £4.3bn investment. Farron said his party believed it was worth the investment. “I don’t want us to be the kind of country who turns our back on those in desperate need, this is about Britain doing it’s fair share,” he said. “It’s not about taking all of the burden.”

While Farron has often urged more help for refugees after visits to refugee camps in Lesbos, Calais and Macedonia, the pledge is also a clear sign that his party is refocusing its election efforts on Labour voters, particularly metropolitan progressives.

On the issue of Trident, which has dogged the party in recent years, given Jeremy Corbyn’s longheld opposition to nuclear weapons, the draft manifesto has this to say:

Labour supports the renewal of the Trident submarine system.

But the Guardian understands that the sentence following this in some draft versions has since been removed. It had read:

Any prime minister should be extremely cautious about ordering the use of weapons of mass destruction which would result in the indiscriminate killing of millions of innocent civilians.

Labour’s “clause V meeting” – which is supposed to confirm the final version of the manifesto – is due to happen today.

It’s called clause V thanks to the fifth clause of the Labour rulebook, which sets out how it agrees its manifesto. (Usually, anyway. Today’s meeting might take on a different tone.)

Clause V says:

At all levels the party will ensure that members, elected representatives, affiliated organisations and, where practicable, the wider community are able to participate in the process of policy consideration and formulation.

Who will be there?

Jeremy Corbyn chairs the meeting.

Deputy leader Tom Watson and all members of the shadow cabinet attend, along with members of the national executive committee, including MPs, trade union representatives (including Unite, Unison and GMB), councillors and party members, and the Labour leaders in Scotland and Wales, Kezia Dugdale and Carwyn Jones.

As Guardian political editor Anushka Asthana points out, the manifesto commitment to renationalise energy companies isn’t a wholesale one. Instead it promises “at least one publicly owned energy company in every region of the UK”.

The Snap: your election briefing

Good morning and welcome back to the politics live blog on what is the seventh anniversary of the sealing of the deal on the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in 2010. Today brings you no rose garden (not even in the leaked manifesto of “incorrigible allotment gardener” Jeremy Corbyn). But I can offer a rundown of the latest from the campaign.

Andrew Sparrow joins us here later. Comments are open below or find me on Twitter @Claire_Phipps.

What’s happening?

Labour’s manifesto, which wasn’t supposed to be happening until next week, is what’s happening. Draft versions have found their way – there’ll be plenty of utterly contradictory explanations of how – to the press, first via the Mirror and the Telegraph. Why? To force changes ahead of official publication next week? To ensure there can’t be any changes ahead of official publication next week?

The key takeaways aren’t an enormous surprise to anyone who’s previously heard of Jeremy Corbyn: (re)nationalising railways, Royal Mail and energy companies. It’s not an enormous surprise, either, that the Telegraph didn’t like it (“Corbyn’s manifesto to take Britain back to 1970s”). The Daily Mail is even more upset – “Labour’s manifesto to drag us back to the 1970s” – but possibly because its other front-page story (“Girl jobs and boy jobs ARE the secret of lasting love”) suggests it would prefer the 1950s.

Here’s the Guardian take on the whole shebang, and a checklist of what’s actually in the manifesto. But in (very) brief? There are:

Policies we’ve heard already in this campaign: housing, education, lifting public sector pay cap, more police officers.

Policies we’ve heard already from older – dare I say New – Labour manifestos: Sure Start, early years funding, A&E waiting time targets.

Policies that will please many Labour supporters: bye bye bedroom tax, work capability and PIP assessments; repeal of the Health and Social Care Act; no repeal of the Human Rights Act; suspension of arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Policies for women: “at least 50%” cabinet representation; extending abortion rights to Northern Ireland.

Policies designed to irk some: “We will implement the recommendations of part one of the Leveson inquiry and commence part two”; anything mentioning trade unions.

Policies that could have gone either way: Trident would be renewed; university tuition fees would go; no second Scottish referendum.

Policies that mention large numbers: £6bn a year for the NHS; £8bn over five years for social care; £250bn over 10 years on infrastructure.

Policies that mention no numbers: The manifesto says all pledges are “fully costed”, but the details of what those earning over £80,000 a year will be asked to cough up aren’t in the leaked versions.

Policies that sound a tad Alan Partridge: a National Review of Local Pubs.

Observer News Jeremy Corbyn wins the Labour leadership campaign September 2015 celebrations at the Sanctuary House Pub in Westminister corbs
The national review of local pubs would probably involve a smaller team. Photograph: Katherine Anne Rose for the Observer

Oh, and there’s Brexit:

We will scrap the Conservatives’ Brexit white paper and replace it with fresh negotiating priorities that have a strong emphasis on retaining the benefits of the single market and the customs union … immediately guarantee existing rights for all EU nationals living in Britain … reject ‘no deal’ as a viable … ensure there is no return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and that there is no change in the status or sovereignty of Gibraltar.

On immigration, it says Labour “will not make false promises on immigration numbers”. The Conservatives are expected to recommit to their promise to slice net migration to the “tens of thousands”, despite the less than 10-in-1,000 chance of it happening. But will a vanishingly unlikely promise prove more of a vote-winner than a non-promise?

Elsewhere a rare Tory manifesto pledge has been spotted: a commitment to bump up defence spending above the rate of inflation every year. The Times reports today that other manifesto details have ignited a spat between Theresa May and her chancellor, Philip Hammond. But one thing that now won’t be impeding the PM’s trudge through the campaign is the spectre of Tory MPs facing prosecution over spending in the 2015 election. The CPS yesterday said it would not bring charges (one case, involving Craig Mackinlay in Thanet South, is still being considered).

Theresa May Visits British Steel On The Campaign TrailSCUNTHORPE, ENGLAND - MAY 10: British Prime Minister Theresa May talks to staff in a tea room at British Steel as she campaigns in North Lincolnshire on May 10, 2017 in Scunthorpe, England. Campaigning is underway ahead of the general election which is to be held on June 8. (Photo by Dan Kitwood - WPA Pool/Getty Images)
All that hi-vis and no George Osborne. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

At a glance:

Poll position

Strong and stable lead for the Conservatives in the latest Panelbase poll: a 17-point gap over Labour, the same as last week, though each party hopped up one point, to 48% and 31% respectively. The Lib Dems dipped two points to 8%; Ukip stands still at 5%.

It’s a different story in London, a YouGov survey for the Evening Standard shows. There, Labour heads the Tories by 41% to 36%. Follow the overall trends with our poll tracker.

Diary

Busy busy.

  • At 9am, Jeremy Corbyn unveils the Labour campaign poster. Here’s a spoiler:
  • The Labour shadow cabinet, NEC, backbench policy heads and National Policy Forum chairs have their “Clause V” meeting to confirm the manifesto. There’s been a mighty spoiler on that one too.
  • Ukip casts its fisheries policy at 9.30am.
  • At 10am, Scottish Greens co-convener Patrick Harvie sparks his campaign to become Scotland’s first Green MP with a rally in Glasgow.
  • At 10.30, Caroline Lucas shows off the Green environment manifesto in north London.
  • The Lib Dems kick off their Welsh campaign with Tim Farron in Cardiff.
  • At 12.45, Gordon Brown hits the campaign trail for Labour, with a speech in Coventry.
  • In Ireland, Tony Blair addresses a meeting of the European People’s party on Brexit; EU negotiator Michel Barnier will also speak.
  • At 4pm, Nicola Sturgeon is in St Andrews.
  • 4pm is the deadline for candidates to file their nominations. The Electoral Commission publishes the list at 5pm.
  • At 7pm, Theresa May takes questions from real, actual voters on an LBC phone-in.
  • At 7.30pm, Paul Nuttall is interviewed on ITV Tonight.

Read these

Annabelle Dickson in Politico profiles some of the new Tory hopefuls standing for election:

Theresa May’s snap general election looks set to usher in a new wave of Brexit true believers. While a handful of ardent and noisy eurosceptic veterans, including Peter Lilley and Gerald Howarth, are bowing out of the British parliament, believing Brexit to be in safe hands, candidates who were firmly on the Leave side of the referendum debate are poised to take their place.

With polls giving the Conservatives a clear lead in the UK general election, the question for the Conservative whips – the party enforcers in parliament – is how big, and crucially how obedient, will the class of 2017 be?

Nimko Ali
Nimco Ali: ‘My critics tell me I shouldn’t run.’ Photograph: Membership

In the New Statesman, anti-FGM campaigner Nimco Ali responds to the backlash to her decision to stand as a candidate for the Women’s Equality party in Hornsey and Wood Green – against Labour incumbent Catherine West:

My critics tell me I shouldn’t run against another woman at all, and particularly not another feminist, as if all women and all feminists were interchangeable. As successful as I have been as a campaigner, black and minority ethnic women like me are largely invisible: talked about and talked at…

None of the traditional parties do enough for women. The current government, in common with every previous administration, continues to do huge damage to women in every corner of the UK. The Tories are pursuing a gender-blind economic strategy that means women suffer disproportionately from cuts. Theresa May is pushing for Brexit, deal or no deal, at whatever the terrible cost to women – and Labour have done far too little to stop this train.

Revelation of the day

It seems Tony Blair hasn’t been completely exorcised from the new (not New) Labour manifesto, which pledges:

We still need to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, too.

The day in a tweet

There might be an upside to going back to the 70s:

And another thing

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