Afternoon summary
- George Osborne’s Evening Standard has published an editorial saying the Conservatives should drop their target for getting annual net migration below 100,000 because it is “economically illiterate”. The editorial also says that no senior cabinet minister, apart from Theresa May, supports the policy in private and that “all would be glad to see the back of something that has caused the Conservative party such public grief.” (See 3.23pm.)
- The Liberal Democrats will make opposing Brexit their first priority in the next parliament, after they promise in their manifesto to preserve free movement, remain in the single market and hold a referendum on the final EU exit deal. The manifesto also includes plans to generate £1bn a year by legalising and taxing cannabis.
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
Sinn Fein and the DUP are “punishing” the people of Northern Ireland through their refusal to restore powersharing, the SDLP leader has claimed.
As the Press Association reports, Colum Eastwood accused his republican rivals of pursuing a “scorched earth” policy as he urged an end to the sense of constant crisis which has halted devolved government at Stormont. Eastwood was in Newcastle in Co Down to launch his party’s General Election campaign in which the SDLP is defending three seats, in Foyle, South Down and South Belfast. He said:
I sometimes suspect that this is more about punishing people. It is more about beating people, it is more about winning. I don’t think that either the DUP or Sinn Fein should be allowed to go away from this saying they have beaten the other. What we need to do is figure out a way of working.
Ed Conway, Sky’s economics editor, has also produced a chart comparing the Labour and Lib Dem plans.
Wow. For all the talk abt inequality/fairness, Labour is pledging to spend less than half what the LibDems are on welfare (far right bars) pic.twitter.com/z7SCA9HzQX
— Ed Conway (@EdConwaySky) May 17, 2017
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a useful paper comparing the Labour and Lib Dem manifesto plans relating to income tax and benefits.
Here is the summary.
Both the Liberal Democrats and Labour propose increasing income tax. While the Liberal Democrat proposal would affect the highest-income half of adults, Labour’s proposal would only affect the highest-income 2%. But the revenue from Labour’s plans is vastly more uncertain, and highly likely to be lower than under the Liberal Democrats.
Both the Liberal Democrats and Labour propose increases to benefits. But those proposed by the Liberal Democrats are much larger – reversing nearly all of the cuts planned for the next few years.
This observation focuses just on income tax and benefits, so is only part of the bigger picture. Both parties propose other tax rises (such as higher rates of corporation tax) which would also ultimately affect the incomes of UK households. And both parties propose increases in public spending, particularly on education and the NHS.
The IFS has also produced useful charts explaining the two parties’ different approaches. On income tax, the Lib Dem plan would affect all 55% of the population who pay some income tax and raise around £6bn. The Labour plan would only affect the 2% highest-earning adults (or the 4% top taxpayers, taking into account the large proportion of adults that don’t pay income tax), but the IFS says it could easily raise less than the £4.5bn envisaged by Labour.
And this chart sets out the two parties’ plans for benefits. The Lib Dem proposals are more generous.
Farage says Osborne editorial shows Tories 'never planned to cut immigration'
Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, has taken the editorial in George Osborne’s Evening Standard (see 3.23pm) as an admission that the Tories were never serious about reducing immigration.
.@George_Osborne admits the Tories never planned to cut immigration. I suspect he has got something right for once. https://t.co/2SqKtU9cap
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) May 17, 2017
It is not a wholly unreasonable interpretation of what the editorial is saying, because it contains this passage:
Over the past seven years, the government has not been able to reduce significantly the numbers of non-Europeans coming here — though we could. The damage to the economy from seriously reducing work visas was judged too severe by an expert migration committee; the impact on community relations of further limiting family reunion visas was seen as unpalatable; and few thought we were taking in too many refugees. There are no other groups we can turn away.
BBC Radio Bristol has now posted some audio of Boris Johnson making his Sikh temple alcohol gaffe earlier today. (See 12.57pm.)
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has apologised after saying this, during a visit to a Sikh temple in Bristol today... pic.twitter.com/cwvXQZcIyE
— BBC Radio Bristol (@bbcrb) May 17, 2017
Here is our story about the incident.
Updated
Tories should drop pledge to get net migration below 100,000, says Osborne's Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now edited by the former Conservative chancellor George Osborne, has published a strong editorial today saying the Tories should abandon their target of getting annual net migration below 100,000. Just in case you missed it, Osborne - who defended the target while he was in government, even though he was known to be sceptical about it - has tweeted a link.
Here's our editorial on why the Tory pledge to reduce migration to 10,000s should be dropped from the Manifesto ... https://t.co/68jRp1LxeD
— George Osborne (@George_Osborne) May 17, 2017
Here’s an extract.
To meet the pledge, the number of both EU and non-EU migrants will have to be reduced by around two thirds. How is that to be achieved? No one in government can identify the third we want and the two-thirds we don’t. Asked whether we want to stop bankers, builders, berry pickers or baristas coming from Europe, ministers are at a loss. The business secretary, Greg Clark, could not name a single sector that should have its supply of labour forcibly reduced. He knows that to do so would push up prices and hurt firms. Rohan Silva makes a similar point here ...
We have been here before. Over the past seven years, the government has not been able to reduce significantly the numbers of non-Europeans coming here — though we could. The damage to the economy from seriously reducing work visas was judged too severe by an expert migration committee; the impact on community relations of further limiting family reunion visas was seen as unpalatable; and few thought we were taking in too many refugees. There are no other groups we can turn away.
Mrs May knows all this. She knows that a sensible immigration policy is driven by clear principles not arbitrary numbers. If one of those principles is no longer to be the freedom to move to work between Britain and Europe, we need to hear what its replacement will be. Recommitting to a failed immigration pledge, without knowing how to achieve it, is merely wishful thinking. She still wants to be a new broom. She should use the Tory manifesto tomorrow to sweep away this bad policy from the past.
The editorial also says that no senior member of the cabinet, other than May herself, supports the migration target in private and that “all would be glad to see the back of something that has caused the Conservative party such public grief”.
Updated
Sturgeon says Labour likely to descend into 'civil war and bloodletting' after election
Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, told BBC Scotland today that Labour would probably descend into “civil war and bloodletting” after the election, and that this was another reason to vote SNP. She said:
I think when we’ve got one of Jeremy Corbyn’s closest allies, perhaps his very closest ally, Len McCluskey, effectively saying Labour’s not going to win this election and it’s all about damage limitation, then we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you want MPs that are going to hold the Tories to account, be an effective opposition and stand up for Scotland’s interests, then that in Scotland can only come from the SNP.
If Labour’s heading for the kind of defeat that some of the polls suggest, they’re going to descend into a period of civil war and bloodletting.
So, they’re not going to be capable of being an opposition to the Tories.
Real opposition, just as it has over the past two years, will only come from the SNP. Tory MPs will be a rubber-stamp for Theresa May, Labour’s not fit to be in opposition.
Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
John McDonnell also told Labour supporters at the Lincoln event not to believe the polls.
We’ve got a lot of work to do, we know the polls at the moment, we know what they’re like. To be frank, don’t believe them.
I think there’s a rumbling, a subterranean rumbling at the moment, where people are saying we want change.
McDonnell challenges Hammond to TV debate
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has challenged Philip Hammond to an election debate. This is what he said at a campaign event in Lincoln.
Philip Hammond today, I know has fallen out with Theresa May and she wouldn’t confirm whether he’d stay on as chancellor if they got re-elected, so he might not be there for long.
But let me say this - over this next couple of weeks, if he’s still there, I am challenging him to a televised debate.
He’s talking rubbish about our manifesto and our costings this morning, so I want to challenge him to a televised debate, draw him out.
If he’s confident about his figures, come and debate them with me.
The Lib Dem spending plans (see 12.42pm) involve more borrowing than the government’s, but the sums do add up, according Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. This is what he told the World at One.
The costings look like they add up in the sense that there are a set of numbers for tax increases they propose, all of which are much more modest than what we saw yesterday [from Labour].
The £6bn from income tax is pretty certain because it’s a small increase on an awful lot of people.
What’s interesting is two other things on the spending side.
One is, rather like the Labour party, the Lib Dems want to have a big increase in investment spending - whereas Labour was talking about 250 billion, the Liberal Democrats are talking about 100 billion, I think over five years although that’s not wholly clear.
But secondly, even the other bits of spending ... they’re talking about increasing spending more than they’re going to increase taxes. That’s an interesting difference from what Labour was trying to do.
Nigel Farage was “using metaphor” when he spoke about donning khaki and taking up a rifle to resist any attempt to block Brexit, according to Ukip. (See 1.55pm.) He was not apparently advocating armed uprising. A party source suggested that it was unfortunate that in “these literal times” Farage’s figure of speech had been misunderstood.
Farage suggests any attempt to block Brexit could provoke armed uprising
And, while we’re on the subject of what comes out of Nigel Farage’s mouth, a reader has flagged up a video clip of the former Ukip leader finishing a recent speech by suggesting he would join an armed uprising if anyone tried to block Brexit. He said:
If [Brexit] is not delivered, there will be widespread public anger in this country on a scale and in a way that we have never seen before. If that happens, if that happens, much as I’m enjoying myself - I love doing the LBC talkshow four nights a week, I enjoy my trips to the States, with Trump and the White House and everything else, I’m enjoying my life - but if they don’t deliver this Brexit that I’ve spent 25 years of my life working for, then I will be forced to don khaki, pick up a rifle and hit the the front line.
It is not entirely clear how serious Farage was being. I’ve tried his spokesman for a comment and will let you know when I get a reply.
UPDATE: Nigel Farage was “using metaphor” when he spoke about donning khaki and taking up a rifle to resist any attempt to block Brexit, according to Ukip. (See 1.55pm.) He was not apparently advocating armed uprising. A party source suggested that it was unfortunate that in “these literal times” Farage’s figure of speech had been misunderstood.
Updated
The Lib Dems have criticised Theresa May for refusing to accept that Brexit is to blame for the collapse in the value of the pound. (See 12.21pm.) This is from the Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman Tom Brake.
Theresa May’s refusal to accept the economic impact of Brexit could have come straight out of Nigel Farage’s mouth.
The falling pound is already hitting wages and pushing up prices, but Theresa May doesn’t care.
On top of that she is refusing to back her own chancellor, one of the only cabinet ministers left who accepts the economic risk posed by Brexit.
People don’t have to accept an extreme version of Brexit that will permanently damage living standards.
We will give you your say on the Brexit deal in a referendum, with the choice to remain in Europe if you don’t like the deal on offer.
The Scottish Labour leader, Kezia Dugdale, has threatened the Labour group on Aberdeen city council with disciplinary action if it strikes a coalition deal with the Conservatives and independent councillors in order to retain power in the city.
Dugdale had taken a more nuanced approach to the question of council coalitions than the Scottish National party leader Nicola Sturgeon, who has entirely banned SNP councillors from deals with the Tories. Scotland’s proportional representation voting system for councils makes coalitions routine; the SNP formed two with Tory councillors after the 2012 council elections.
The snap general election has made this issue very live for Labour, which had previously four coalitions with Tory groups, including in Aberdeen. On 4 May, the SNP became Aberdeen’s largest group with 19, but Labour lost eight seats to hold nine, while the Tories came second with 11 seats, up eight.
Dugdale told an election rally in Glasgow the party’s Scottish executive committee (SEC) would robustly enforce its policy to block any pacts with the Tories if they involved spending or jobs cuts. The Tories would be the lead party in an Aberdeen coalition.
She confirmed the Aberdeen Labour group submitted a deal for approval by the SEC on Tuesday night but it was refused. “It was rejected because we didn’t believe there was enough evidence the Labour group put forward that there would be no compulsory redundancies and no end to austerity,” she said.
The Aberdeen group was still trying to negotiate a deal, but Dugdale was adamant it would be rejected because “the lived reality is that the Tories are the party of austerity”.
She said: “If they do proceed with a deal with the Tories and independents, we will be writing to the Labour group in Aberdeen making clear that they’re in breach of the Labour party rule book and we will take the associated necessary disciplinary action alongside that.
Labour has used Twitter to respond to the Tory claims about their spending plans. (See 10.14am.)
Theresa May and Hammond need a serious lesson on the difference between capital and revenue spending. #GE2017
— Labour Press Team (@labourpress) May 17, 2017
Hammond's "analysis" is utterly flawed: once again confuses capital & revenue spending, undermining the whole exercise
— Labour Press Team (@labourpress) May 17, 2017
Households are counting the cost of the Tories: working families set to be ave of £1,400 a yr worse off by 2020 because of them
— Labour Press Team (@labourpress) May 17, 2017
May and Hammond clearly rattled by Labour's fully funded spending commitments... False Tory claims but no costed plans of their own #GE2017
— Labour Press Team (@labourpress) May 17, 2017
May's 'economic plan' has missed all debt and deficit targets they have set themselves. The Tory plan is a failing one. #GE2017
— Labour Press Team (@labourpress) May 17, 2017
Theresa May fails to rule out either hitting working people or giving millionaires another tax break. #GE2017
— Labour Press Team (@labourpress) May 17, 2017
Boris Johnson in Sikh temple alcohol gaffe
Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, has been visiting a Sikh temple. As Pete Simson from BBC Bristol reports, it hasn’t gone well ...
Orange is the new white pic.twitter.com/lSgFDijsOw
— Pete Simson (@SimsonPete) May 17, 2017
Sensational gaffe by Boris. After promising free trade to end tariffs on whisky between UK & India, Sikh lady informs it's against religion
— Pete Simson (@SimsonPete) May 17, 2017
She's absolutely livid. Boris Johnson apologises. "How dare you talk about alcohol in a Sikh temple."
— Pete Simson (@SimsonPete) May 17, 2017
She told him about alcoholism in her family. He's apologised several times
— Pete Simson (@SimsonPete) May 17, 2017
What Lib Dem manifesto says about drugs
This is what the Lib Dem manifesto says about drug policy.
The war on drugs has been a catastrophic failure. Every year, billions flow to organised crime while we needlessly prosecute and imprison thousands of people, blighting their employment and life chances, and doing nothing to address the impact of drugs on their health. Our current approach to drugs helps nobody except criminal gangs. For that reason Liberal Democrats will:
- End imprisonment for possession of illegal drugs for personal use, diverting those arrested for possession of drugs for personal use into treatment and education (adopting a health-based approach), or imposing civil penalties.
- Break the grip of the criminal gangs and protect young people by introducing a legal, regulated market for cannabis. We would introduce limits on potency and permit cannabis to be sold through licensed outlets to adults over the age of 18.
- Concentrate on catching and prosecuting those who manufacture, import or deal in illegal drugs.
- Repeal the Psychoactive Substances Act which has driven the sale of formerly legal highs underground.
- Move the departmental lead on drugs policy to the Department of Health.
Lib Dems says legalising and taxing cannabis could raise £1bn
Here are the Lib Dem policy costings.
The Lib Dems would spend £14bn more on the current budget than the government, which explains the - £14bn figure at the bottom.
The chart also shows that the Lib Dems think their plans to legalise and tax cannabis could raise £1bn.
Here is the Lib Dem manifesto.
Updated
The Lib Dems have released their election manifesto. As my colleague Jessica Elgot reports, it says they will oppose Brexit as their first priority over the next parliament, promising in their manifesto to preserve free movement, remain in the single market and hold a referendum on the final EU exit deal.
10 things we've learnt from the Theresa May/Philip Hammond press conference
A proper election press conference is a rarity these days. All the main parties like holding events were journalists sit alongside party supporters as they ask their questions (although this can backfire when reporters get booed for asking awkward questions, as happened at the Labour event yesterday). So a proper press conference with the prime minister and the chancellor is a bonus.
That said, it would help to have a prime minister who likes answering questions. Theresa May is not, by nature, forthcoming. Ask her the time of day, and she will probably respond by asking why you want to know. We saw that today when she started off refusing even to confirm that the Tory manifesto will be published tomorrow.
But sometimes what politicians don’t say can reveal as much as what they do, and so the gaps in her answers were revealing. And other comments were interesting too. Here are 10 things we’ve learnt.
1 - May won’t confirm that Philip Hammond will stay on as chancellor after the general election (although the chances are that he will.) The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg got the first question at the press conference and she explicitly asked May to confirm that she would keep Hammond as chancellor. Quite pointedly, May refused to answer this bit of the question. A second reporter asked the same question, and this time Hammond replied, stressing how well they worked together; May, again, chose not to confirm that he would stay. But she was warmer about him in response to the final question, when the Sun’s Steve Hawkes asked her to give an endorsement of her chancellor. She replied:
Happy to do so, yes. Very happy to do so. As Philip says, we have worked together over the years for many years, longer than we would care to identify.
What are we to make of this? Tony Blair and David Cameron both went into elections confirming that they would keep their chancellors, although only opaquely - with something along the lines of, ‘Why change a successful team?”, I seem to remember - but generally PMs hate giving assurances of this kind, not least because all that does is prompt questions about other appointees. (“Will you keep Boris Johnson?”) May did not confirm that Hammond would keep his job, but that is probably more indicative of her unwillingness to disclose any information than of an intention to sack him. Kuenssberg’s judgment seems spot on.
It would be huge to move Hammond if May wins - doesn't seem likely but there have clearly been issues btw the 2 teams
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) May 17, 2017
2 - May has confidence in the “relationship” with President Trump - although perhaps not the man himself. Asked if she had confidence in Trump, she replied:
We have a very special relationship, as you know, with the United States of America. This is the most important defence and security relationship that we have around the world. I was very pleased that when I went to the United States shortly after President Trump’s inauguration he was able to commit to his 100% commitment to Nato, which is an important bedrock of our security, and the bedrock of the security of Europe.
We continue to work together and we have confidence in that relationship between us and the United States in that helps to keep us all safer.
There is no reason why a prime minister does have to say she has full confidence in a foreign leader; it is up to the Americans who they choose as their president. May did not say anything undiplomatic, but she could have praised Trump in personal terms and chose not to. Just imagine how David Cameron would have answered that question about Barack Obama.
3 - May wants to use the Conservative manifesto to show she can take tough decisions. In her opening remarks May said:
Unlike Jeremy Corbyn’s fantasy wish list of easy policies, paid for with imaginary money, I will set out in detail the five great challenges our country faces over the next five years and lay out how we will tackle them.
While Jeremy Corbyn and Labour retreat into an ideological comfort zone, ducking the difficult challenges which lie ahead, I will be straight with people. I won’t shy away from facing the challenges of our time. Rather, I will set out how we will tackle them head-on, because that is what leadership is about. And on this key test Jeremy Corbyn has failed once again.
This sounded like a hint that the manifesto will include tax rises of some sort to fund social care. The New Statesman’s George Eaton also detected a whiff of William Beveridge.
May says Tory manifesto will spell out "five great challenges". Echo of Beveridge's "five great evils"?
— George Eaton (@georgeeaton) May 17, 2017
4 - May won’t rule out putting up taxes for high earners. Asked about Labour’s plans to put up taxes for the top 5% of earners, May said that the Tories were a low tax party, but she declined to rule out putting up taxes for people in this bracket. Hammond said the top 1% of earners pay 27% of income tax, which he said was more than under Labour. This implied he did not want to see them pay more, but, like May, he refused to say so explicitly
5 - May refuses to accept that Brexit has led to a slump in sterling, which has pushed up inflation. Asked if she agreed with this, she said that sterling had started to fall before the referendum. This is technically true, but rather misses the point, as this chart points out.
May: "Sterling had started to slide since before the vote came through."
— James Ball (@jamesrbuk) May 17, 2017
Reality: pic.twitter.com/YjBY1xcEUf
My colleague Rafael Behr says that the Bank of England has no problem saying Brexit led to the fall in the value of the pound.
May now pretending that sterling fall isn't down to Brexit. That's not BoE view.
— Rafael Behr (@rafaelbehr) May 17, 2017
6 - Hammond thinks that the inflation-driven squeeze on the cost of living is just temporary. Asked about inflation and living standards, he said:
Yes, we have seen inflation passing through the economy. But this will be transient. It’s a result of currency movements last year. And the OBR forecasts that in every year of the five-year forecast period real wages will continues to increase.
7 - The Tories are renewing their claims that Labour cannot be trusted with the economy. The press conference was called to publicise a document claiming there is a £58bn black hole in Labour’s plans. (See 10.14am.) May said in her opening remarks:
Any party which asks the British people to entrust to them the responsibility of forming the next government through the crucial years of our Brexit negotiations and beyond must demonstrate that it has the credible economic plan and the capable team to safeguard our economic security.
No-one could look at what Jeremy Corbyn and his Labour party offered yesterday and conclude that it passed that test. The risk that a Jeremy Corbyn government would pose to our economy has been laid bare.
8 - The Conservative manifesto will be published tomorrow. Hammond refused to say this in his Today interview this morning (see 8.18am), and at the start of the press conference May talked about it being published “later this week”, but later, in what may have been a slip of the tongue, she said it would come tomorrow.
9 - The manifesto will include an update on the Tory timetable for getting rid of the deficit. Asked when the deficit would be eliminated, Hammond said the manifesto would make this clear.
10 - May and Hammond are not willing to debate the merits of getting tax to focus more on wealth than income. Asked by the Financial Times’s George Parker for their thoughts on this (see 10.37am), they both ducked the question. Nick Timothy, May’s co chief of staff, is known to be sceptical about George Osborne’s cuts to inheritance tax, and there has been speculation that the manifesto could include plans for some new tax on estates.
Updated
McCluskey says his comment about losing 30 seats being 'success' for Labour was 'taken out of context'
While the Tory press conference was taking place BBC News showed a clip of Len McCluskey, the Unite general secretary, “clarifying” (my term) what he said to Politico Europe yesterday when he told it Labour would be doing well if it only lost 30 seats. His words were taken out of context, he said.
My comments were part of a conversational piece which have been slightly taken out of context because it was done on the basis of ‘if the polls are to be believed’.
The reality, of course, is that Labour has launched their manifesto, a fantastic manifesto, a manifesto for workers, for ordinary working people and a manifesto which will change Britain for the better.
We are getting constant feedback from our members and there’s been an incredible response, a very positive response.
I think therefore it’s going to be interesting to see what happens over the next few weeks. I feel full of confidence now that the opinion polls can start to change.
The Labour party campaign has outshone the Tories’ comfortably. Jeremy Corbyn has come across as a man of the people and real leader.
I believe these next three weeks will throw up something that is quite extraordinary. I’m full optimism for what Labour can achieve.
There is everything to play for now and we’ll be fighting for every single vote.
Q: [To PM] Can you endorse the chancellor?
May says she is very happy to do so.
Q: What is wrong with a levy on firms paying very high salaries?
May says people think taxes on businesses don’t matter. But they do, she says. She says that if you put up taxes on businesses, they will stop investing in the UK.
And that’s it.
I will post a summary soon.
Q: Labour would put up taxes on the top 5% of earners. Will you have similar bad news for them in your manifesto?
May says she will set out her plans in the manifesto tomorrow.
She says under the Tories 31 million people have seen a tax cut.
There is a very clear choice between the two parties: the Tories are a low-tax party, and Labour’s instinct is to put them up, she says.
- May confirms the Tory manifesto will be published tomorrow.
- May refuses to rule out tax increases for top earners.
Hammond says the top 1% of earners pay 27% of income tax at the moment – more than under Labour.
Updated
Q: Do you accept that Brexit is to blame for the 17% slide in sterling since the referendum. And if it is not to blame, what is?
May says sterling had started to fall before the referendum. What matters is that you have a credible economic plan.
Hammond says the key thing is to get started with the Brexit talks as soon as possible and to get the best possible deal. Business needs certainty, he says.
Q: Does the fact that the US president seems willing to discuss intelligence with the Russians make you more reluctant to share information with him?
May says what Trump shares with people is up to him. She says the UK continues to work with the US to deal with the terrorist threat.
Q: [To Hammond] When will you eliminate the deficit?
Hammond says no one should doubt his commitment to getting rid of the deficit. But, as for the timetable, we will have to wait for the manifesto.
Q: [To May] Do you have full confidence in Donald Trump?
May says she has a very special relationship with the US. She was pleased to visit him after his inauguration. He committed to Nato. They work together and she has confidence in that relationship.
Q: Would you like to see tax focus more on wealth than income?
May says her philosophy on tax is to keep it low.
Hammond says that sounds like yesterday’s question. The challenge now is how to make sure international companies pay their fair share of tax. That is an international challenge, he says.
Hammond says the inflation-driven squeeze on living standards will be 'transient'
Q: At a factory yesterday a worker on £350 a week asked twice what you would do to help him. Prices are rising faster than wages. Will you admit that Brexit will put a squeeze on living standards?
May says Brexit will be the subject of a negotiation.
On living standards, she says she wants to see more well-paid jobs. But for that you need a credible plan.
You can also help people with the cost of living, she says. She says the government is doing this with energy costs.
Hammond says the government has seen 2.9m new jobs created since 2010.
There will be inflation moving through the system. But this will be “transient”, he says.
- Hammond says the inflation-driven squeeze on living standards will be “transient”.
Q: How bad have relations got? And will you stay as chancellor?
Hammond says he has known May for many, many years. They work closely as a team. All this media stuff is just tittle-tattle.
May refuses to say Hammond will stay as chancellor after the election
Q: [From the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg] If increasing tax and spending is such a bad idea, why has it happened under your government for the last seven years. And Hammond admitted this morning swearing in rows with Number 10? Will he stay as chancellor after the election?
May says the Labour numbers do not add up.
People will be paying the price of Labour, she says.
She says the Tories have shown they have a credible economic plan.
It is true to say everyone is focused on 8 June, she says.
- May refuses to say Hammond will stay as chancellor after the election.
Hammond says what he admitted this morning (see 8.59am) is that he sometimes swears.
The Tories will always cost you less in tax, he says.
Philip Hammond says the Labour manifesto confirms what we suspected: that they do not have a credible plan.
It is the latest from the “catalogue of chaos” we have had from Labour.
He says they are not up to the job.
John McDonnell, a self-confessed Marxist, could not tell us what the deficit is, he says.
He says Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, thought you could employ a police officer for £30.
He says Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, did not know how many pupils her plans would help.
And Emily Thornberry yesterday could not explain Labour’s benefits policy.
Hammond says the Tories have updated the document costing Labour’s plans they produced earlier in the campaign using information in the manifesto.
He says Labour would trigger economic chaos.
There would be more borrowing, more debt, and increasing uncertainty, he says.
He says Labour’s manifesto is a plan for the ideological few, which would mean chaos of the many.
A vote for any other party is too big a risk to take, he says.
Updated
Theresa May says the election will be about who will get the best Brexit deal – her or Jeremy Corbyn. And it is about economic credibility.
Under the Tories the deficit has come down by almost three quarters. Employment has gone up. And that means a better future and more security for people.
She says just today we have seen that the work of fixing Labour’s mess continues. The government has sold its remaining shares in Lloyds Banking Group. And the employment figures show employment is up. (See 9.53am.)
But this is all at risk in the election.
The next government must be credible.
And no one can look at Labour’s manifesto and conclude it is credible.
She says she will publish her manifesto later this week. It will not be a “fantasy wishlist”, like Labour’s.
She says it will address the five challenges of our time.
And, unlike Corbyn, she will be “straight with people”, she says. That is what leadership is about.
(That sounds like a hint that the Tory manifesto may include potentially unpopular tax rises.)
Updated
Theresa May and Philip Hammond's press conference
Theresa May and Philip Hammond are hosting the Tory press conference, which is about to start.
The Tories are using their press conference to publicise a dossier about the Labour manifesto they sent out last night claiming there is a £58bn black hole in Labour’s plans.
Tory election press conference. They still haven't got a manifesto for us, but they have made this pic.twitter.com/CzfPE180oe
— Michael Deacon (@MichaelPDeacon) May 17, 2017
Yesterday Labour produced its own document, giving costings for its plans (pdf), which showed that they added up.
The discrepancy between the two claims is partly explained by the Tories including Labour’s nationalisation plans as spending pledges.
The Tories say:
Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell say that their so-called ‘fiscal credibility rule’ does not commit them to balancing the capital budget and therefore have not costed the amount they would borrow for capital. However, whatever their rules say, money borrowed for capital spending is money that still needs to be borrowed. We have therefore included capital spending in our calculation of their black hole. This will usually explain why there is a difference between our costings in the scorecard and the scorecard Jeremy Corbyn published.
And Labour says:
Bringing utilities into public ownership does not affect the public spending deficit in the same way that the rest of our policy measures do. This is because it involves only exchanging bonds (paying low interest rates) for shares (yielding higher dividends). As several economists have pointed out, in line with international accounting standards, it should not be included on the balance sheet of tax and spend because it has zero net effect on the government’s financial position.
Updated
The Conservatives are holding a press conference shortly. Business Insider’s Adam Bienkov says the press are getting the usual treatment.
At Canary Wharf where Theresa May is due to give a press conference. pic.twitter.com/JEyFNIGn6q
— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) May 17, 2017
As usual press being kept in a holding area until the event begins.
— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) May 17, 2017
Unemployment has hit a 42-year low, but real wages are shrinking, according to Office for National Statistics figures out this morning.
My colleague Graeme Wearden has the details on his business live blog.
ITV’s political editor Robert Peston has an interesting point about Philip Hammond’s Today interview.
Never thought a Tory chancellor would do interview on Labour manifesto without once attacking its plan to tax high earners. How times change
— Robert Peston (@Peston) May 17, 2017
Hammond refuses to deny having angry rows with May's team over tax policy
The main line from the Philip Hammond Today interview came right at the end.
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Hammond, the chancellor, refused to deny having angry rows with May’s team over tax policy. Asked about these allegations, which were made in a front-page Times story last week, he dismissed them three times as “tittle-tattle”, but refused to deny them outright. When the subject was first raised, he replied:
This is tittle-tattle, John. I don’t recognise any of this stuff. It’s media tittle-tattle.
“Don’t recognise” is a standard Westminster formula that politicians use nowadays when they want to play down a story that contains elements of truth. If a story is just not true, they say it is not true. When John Humphrys put it to Hammond that the Times said that there had been angry phone calls and swearing between Hammond and May’s aides, particularly Nick Timothy, her co-chief of staff, Hammond said that May had a “strong team” and that he worked closely with them. (The answer suggested that “swearing at the chancellor” might be one measure of strength, but Hammond did not put it quite like that.) Humphrys then pointed out that Hammond was not denying the story, and then Hammond admitted that he did sometimes swear.
I’m not going to say I’ve never occasionally sworn. I work extremely closely with Theresa May’s team. I work extremely closely with Theresa.
Humphyrs concluded by saying Hammond’s answer suggested there was “a bit of truth” in the Times story. Hammond again said it was “tittle-tattle”.
The Times story (paywall) said that the most recent clash between Hammond and May’s aides was over tax policy, and whether or not the Conservative manifesto should repeat David Cameron’s pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT. Here’s an extract.
Relations between the chancellor and Theresa May’s top team have deteriorated following a series of clashes over policy and presentation.
Philip Hammond infuriated senior Downing Street aides by effectively committing the prime minister to ditching a promise not to raise VAT, tax or national insurance days after she called the election and before the policy had been settled, The Times has learnt ...
Anger flared again after the chancellor’s briefing to journalists in Washington last month, three days after Mrs May announced the snap election. Mr Hammond appeared unilaterally to set a key economic policy by criticising David Cameron’s pledge not to raise the main rates of tax in a briefing for economics correspondents.
“It’s self-evidently clear that the commitments that were made in the 2015 manifesto did, and do today, constrain the ability of the government to manage the economy flexibly,” he said in what was taken as a bald hint that the so-called tax lock pledge would not be repeated.
The briefing incensed No 10, where it was suspected that Mr Hammond was seeking to tie Mr Timothy’s hands as he prepared the manifesto. “There was a lot of swearing and angry phone calls,” one source said.
But the Times also said that Hammond and Timothy have had a series of rows, including over the U-turn over raising national insurance for the self-employed (which led to May and Hammond’s teams briefing against each other, and sources being quoted claiming Timothy was “economically illiterate”), and over plans for an ambitious free schools building programme, plans to protect firms from foreign takeover and plans to put workers on company boards (all of which were backed by Timothy but which Hammond is said to have watered down).
Updated
Q: The Times says you have been involved in rows with Theresa May’s aides, including Nick Timothy.
Hammond says this is “tittle-tattle”.
May has a strong team, he says.
Q: You are not denying you swore at them.
Hammond says he will not say he never swears.
But this is “tittle-tattle”, he says.
And that’s it. The interview is over.
I will post a summary soon.
Updated
Q: You have not made a good job of running the economy.
Hammond says the deficit has come down.
Q: But David Willetts, a former Tory minister, says Britain is not investing enough and that productivity is too low.
Hammond says he has set out plans for investment.
But it does not make sense to borrow as much as Labour plans for ideological reasons.
Q: When will you publish your manifesto?
Very soon, says Hammond.
Q: Tomorrow?
Very soon, says Hammond.
Q: Labour have told us how they will pay for their extra current spending?
Hammond says the IFS says we cannot rely on the government to raise as much from corporation tax as Labour predicts.
Q: The IFS is talking about in the long run ...
Hammond returns to the point about the £58bn black hole.
Q: But you are adding two figures that you yourself treat separately.
Hammond says money for investment will either have to be borrowed or paid for in tax. There is no where else the money can come from. There is no magic money tree.
He says Labour’s plan would lead to more borrowing, and the deficit going up, not down.
Q: How much will HS2 cost?
About £32bn, says Hammond.
Q: Not £52bn?
Hammond says there is a lot of contingency built in.
And it will be spent over many years, he says.
Q: There is a lot in the Labour manifesto that people will like.
Philip Hammond says Labour’s plans don’t add up. He says Labour has committed to spend £105bn, but only identified £47bn in revenue. That amounts to a £58bn black hole.
Q: But you are combining capital spending and current spending. That is not fair.
Hammond says capital spending has to be paid for too.
Q: Are you saying you won’t borrow?
No, says Hammond. He says the government will set out its plans in the budget in the autumn.
Philip Hammond's Today interview
Good morning. I’m taking over from Claire.
John Humphrys is interviewing Philip Hammond, the chancellor, on the Today programme.
Time now to hand the live blog reins to Andrew Sparrow.
I’ll be back bright and early on Thursday, with the Snap briefing to boot: you can sign up to have that delivered to your inbox over here.
Claire Bassett, chief executive of the Electoral Commission, has been speaking to the Today programme about online political campaigning.
For some good background on this issue, I suggest starting here:
- Conservatives launch online offensive against Corbyn.
- Facebook employs ex-political aides to help campaigns target voters.
- The great British Brexit robbery: how our democracy was hijacked.
- Follow the data: does a legal document link Brexit campaigns to US billionaire?
Bassett tells Radio 4:
Campaigning has existed in one form or another for a very long time … Those rules apply whether it’s online, in print media or any other media.
They include transparency about how money is spent, and that’s reported.
But she concedes:
Social media changes really fast and we need to keep up with that.
For example, she says, political leaflets posted through your front door must have an imprint that says where it has come from:
At the moment those rules don’t apply to social media.
In response to a series of Observer articles – those third and fourth links above – on possibly foreign interference in the Brexit vote, Bassett said there are clear rules on the permissibility of donations, which specifically exclude overseas donations.
She said the Electoral Commission requires political parties to apply that test themselves, but also monitors social media and relies on public reporting. But she cautioned:
If something is happening outside the borders of this country … it is not something that we can cover within our regulation.
How do you register to vote?
There are five days left to register, and you must be registered to have a vote in the 8 June election.
You can register at gov.uk/register-to-vote, which requires you to answer 11 questions including name, address, national insurance number and whether you want a postal vote. The deadline is midnight on 22 May.
To register you must be a British, Irish or qualifying Commonwealth citizen resident in the UK, or a UK citizen living abroad who has been registered to vote in the UK in the last 15 years.
If you are a student you may be able to register to vote at both your home and term-time addresses, but remember that it is illegal to vote more than once.
On BBC Newsnight on Tuesday evening, the shadow justice secretary, Richard Burgon, claimed the party was being “put on trial” over costings for its manifesto and for policies such as scrapping university tuition fees.
Quizzed by Kirsty Wark on what proportion of GDP would be made up by a Labour government tax take, Burgon said:
It seems to me that we are being put on trial for daring to suggest higher public spending, put on trial for daring to set out with greater transparency than any other party … how much we’re going to spend and how we’re going to spend it.
We made a pledge on tax … that 95% of people won’t pay a single penny more in taxation.
You can see Labour’s manifesto pledges and how it says it will pay for them here:
Updated
Tim Farron's comments on abortion
Tim Farron claimed that “abortion is wrong” and something he would like to wish away in a 2007 interview with a Salvation Army publication that he later claimed he had never read, seen or heard of.
The Liberal Democrat leader has now, for the first time, declared himself pro-choice after the Guardian obtained a hard copy of his comments in the War Cry magazine.
Speaking about his faith soon after he had become the MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale in Cumbria, Farron said:
Take the issue of abortion. Personally I wish I could argue it away. Abortion is wrong. Society has to climb down from the position that says there is nothing objectionable about abortion before a certain time. If abortion is wrong, it is wrong at any time.
However, Farron argued against the idea of abortion being “abolished tomorrow”, saying that the impact of such a move would be horrendous:
Women would still want abortions and they’d have them illegally. So a complete ban on abortion would not achieve what I want.
The reality is that abortion is too widely available. There needs to be tighter restrictions. The challenge to Christians is to come up with realistic alternative strategies.
However, when confronted with his 2007 words a few years ago, he responded on Twitter by claiming: “The quote on abortion is not a publication I’ve ever heard of or read or seen!”
When contacted by the Guardian on Tuesday, Farron issued a categorical response:
I am pro-choice. I believe that abortion should be safe and legal and that the limit should be set by science.
A copy of the February 2007 issue of War Cry – the Salvation Army’s official publication – was held in the Bodleian Library and includes an interview with Farron published across a two-page spread.
Updated
Ed Davey was asked about this morning’s Guardian story – you can read it here – in which Lib Dem leader Tim Farron is revealed to have said, in a 2007 interview, that he believed “abortion is wrong”.
Davey told the Today programme:
He’s changed his mind … He said he’s pro-choice.
He’s saying, and the party’s saying, we wouldn’t change the law.
Another thing the Lib Dems won’t be changing is the existing policy on university tuition fees – there’ll be no fresh promise to scrap them:
We don’t think that is affordable. We want to restore maintenance grants.
Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat election campaign spokesman who’s hoping to win back his old Kingston and Surbiton seat in June, has been on the Today programme.
He says the party is right to make this election about Brexit:
The referendum we had, no one could tell you what Brexit meant. Today, no one can tell you what Brexit meant.
We think that pulling out of the single market … that extreme Brexit would be a disaster and that looks the most likely.
The British people won’t have a chance to vote on that deal …
It’s bizarre that Labour and Corbyn are backing that.
Brexit doesn’t necessarily mean Brexit, Davey says:
The Liberal Democrats say there’s a positive alternative here … when we know the result of those negotiations it has to be the democratic thing to let the people decide.
But with around 22% of people, according to recent polling, still holding out against Britain leaving the EU, is there any point in pursuing the no-to-Brexit vote, he’s asked.
No party’s given them hope or an alternative [until now] … you don’t have to accept this.
The more Liberal Democrat MPs we get, the more Liberal Democrat votes we get, the more likely you’re going to get the sort of policies we’re arguing for.
Rebecca Long-Bailey, Labour’s shadow business secretary, has said the Unite general secretary, Len McCluskey – who said Labour would not win in June but would have had a successful campaign if it were to hang on to 200 seats – was simply being “very cautious”.
Long-Bailey told ITV’s Good Morning Britain:
I understand he is being very cautious but we are playing to win.
Understandably, he is being very cautious but I believe that we can win. I do think we have a popular manifesto that will transform the country, from banning zero-hour contracts to bringing utilities back into public ownership and driving energy bills down.
There’s a real agenda for hope here that people can really get behind.
Updated
Guardian readers have compiled a list of things they’d like to see in the Lib Dem manifesto when it’s published today. Here’s the top 10:
- Fight Brexit – but acknowledge the EU needs to change
- Become the pro-migration party
- Depoliticise the NHS
- Overhaul income tax
- Push for electoral reform
- Tackle the air quality crisis
- Introduce tax breaks and investment for green business
- Clamp down on the gig economy
- Embrace the progressive alliance
- Pledge to get rid of tuition fees
To check what the party has already said – and ruled out – take a look here:
The Snap: your election briefing
Welcome back to the campaign live blog, with more 2017 manifestos than anyone had budgeted for. I’m Claire Phipps with the morning briefing and the early news; Andrew Sparrow will be along later. Do join us in the comments below or find me on Twitter @Claire_Phipps.
What’s happening?
It’s the turn of the Lib Dems to take a twirl in the glare of the headline writers, as they launch their manifesto. We know their main pitch, of course – Brexit means let’s have another think about Brexit – but the fresh push today will be to hook younger voters. There’s a “rent-to-buy” scheme for first-time homeowners, along with votes at 16, the return of housing benefit for 18- to 21-year-olds, and discounted bus travel. Plus there’s £7bn for schools and colleges; a tripling of the pupil premium for early years; and free primary school meals. On the costings side – because surely it’s not only Labour that has to show its workings? – they’ll put a penny on income tax to fund the NHS and social care.
Will it be enough to catapult the Lib Dems up the polls (they’re currently beached at around the 10% mark nationally) and back into those yellow-turned-blue seats in England’s south-west? Tim Farron, despairing of what he calls a post-Brexit “cold, mean-spirited Britain” under the Conservatives, says it’s time to hecking well galvanise:
We are in the last-chance saloon. This is the opportunity for everyone in this country to bang their fists on the table … It won’t be very many years before we look back on this era and think: ‘What the heck were we playing at?’
Plenty of fist-banging elsewhere as Labour’s ruby Tuesday gets a predictable bashing in much of the press today. Both the Daily Mail and the Telegraph label the little red manifesto a scheme to “bankrupt Britain”, and the Sun curses the “Marxist masterplan”. With enemies like these, who needs friends? Unite general secretary Len McCluskey, typically tagged as Jeremy Corbyn’s biggest ally, has said Labour won’t win on 8 June (you can read the full interview in Politico here):
I don’t see Labour winning. I think it would be extraordinary … I believe that if Labour can hold on to 200 seats or so it will be a successful campaign. It will mean that Theresa May will have had an election, will have increased her majority but not dramatically.
(Two hundred seats would be Labour’s lowest haul since 154 in 1935. What happened to “back to the 70s”?)
Of course, none of this tells you what the manifesto says. This does, though; and here’s how Labour says it’ll pay for it all: £48.6bn of spending and £48.6bn in new taxes. Renationalising mail, rail, water and energy isn’t in that bit because, Labour implies, it’ll come from capital borrowing via the £250bn infrastructure investment. Or because, the Tories say rather more explicitly, there’s a “black hole” in the sums.
Certainly a bit grey is the question of whether Labour would end the freeze on working-age benefits. At the manifesto launch, Corbyn was very clear that it would:
Clearly we are not going to freeze benefits, that is very clear.
But the manifesto was not very clear either way. Then Corbyn made it clear that the party had “not made a commitment on that”. But then a party spokesman issued a clear clarification that it had:
As Jeremy Corbyn made clear today, that will mean an end to the freeze.
And then the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, cleared things up by saying that, actually, it might not:
I don’t think we can reverse it entirely. We shouldn’t be promising things we can’t afford.
In conclusion: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The Conservatives mostly spent the day lobbing sticks at Labour. But even Team Theresa May will have to show us a manifesto at some point: perhaps as soon as tomorrow.
At a glance:
- Plaid Cymru manifesto promises to protect Wales after Brexit.
- ‘I’m suffering’: Kathy Mohan, who confronted May, on her disability cuts ordeal.
- Larry Elliott: Labour gambles on tax and spend – but will the public back it?
- Diane Abbott and policing minister Brandon Lewis jeered by police delegates.
- Guardian view on the Labour manifesto: widening the bounds of the thinkable.
Poll position
A dent in Farron’s day, with a new Kantar poll showing the Lib Dems slipping three points in a week to 8%; the spoils go to the Conservatives (+3 to 47%). Labour is up by one, to 29%, but still with 18 points to claw back from the leaders.
Panelbase offered cheerier news for Corbyn, with a campaign high of 33%, against the Tories’ 47%, and the Lib Dems on a limp 7%.
Where does that leave the parties overall? With the Conservatives on a strong and stable 48%; Labour perking up a little to 31%; and the Lib Dems (9%), Ukip (5%) and Greens (2%) nuzzling the bottom of the chart.
Diary
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John McDonnell is campaigning in the East Midlands.
- There’ll be a press conference with Theresa May in London.
- Nicola Sturgeon campaigns in Edinburgh this morning; Ruth Davidson is in East Renfrewshire; and Lib Dem candidate Jo Swinson in Glasgow. Kezia Dugdale is also in Glasgow for a speech on Labour’s Scotland agenda.
- SDLP leader Colum Eastwood kicks off his party’s Westminster campaign at lunchtime.
- The home secretary, Amber Rudd, addresses the Police Federation conference.
- The formal launch of that Liberal Democrat manifesto comes this evening.
- At 8pm, it’s the ITV Wales leaders’ debate, with Labour’s Carwyn Jones, Conservative Andrew RT Davies, Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood, Mark Williams for the Lib Dems, and Ukip’s Neil Hamilton.
Read these
Anoosh Chakelian, in the New Statesman, assesses Momentum’s momentum within the Labour campaign:
A source in a highly marginal Labour-held seat where membership has doubled since Corbyn’s election has seen the new supporters coming out door-knocking, and say it’s ‘unfair’ to characterise them as ‘armchair generals’. But they do note that turnout has not been proportional to the huge increase in Labour’s support base. ‘The activism has not ticked up in the way that you would expect given the massive growth of membership,’ they tell me. ‘The idea was we’ve got all these new activists and this is going to make a substantial difference to the ground game – it’s not.’
And Marina Hyde’s campaign trail begins, in Stoke-on-Trent with the PM and here in the Guardian:
Thus far on the campaign, Conservative party branding on the huge THERESA MAY posters has been incredibly small, giving it the flavour of those speedily garbled disclaimers at the end of US TV drug adverts: ‘May cause mood swings, palpitations, hives, hair loss, suicidal thoughts, anal leakage, a savagely underfunded NHS and the continuing elevation of Liam Fox.’
In Stoke, there was no branding at all – and I don’t think May said the word ‘Conservative’ once. The closest she came was the declaration that: ‘We as a party were quite early to realise that immigration was a concern.’ There’s really never been a more important moment for voters to take back control of the control they took back last June.
Revelation of the day
Having finally confirmed that he does not believe gay sex is a sin, Tim Farron has now had to clarify his views on abortion, after the Guardian found a 2007 interview in which he told the Salvation Army’s War Cry magazine:
Abortion is wrong. Society has to climb down from the position that says there is nothing objectionable about abortion before a certain time. If abortion is wrong, it is wrong at any time.
When reminded of this, he told us his views had shifted:
I am pro-choice. I believe that abortion should be safe and legal and that the limit should be set by science.
Perhaps the more useful reminder is that Oxford University’s Bodleian library holds back copies of War Cry (along with, basically, everything else). Like Google, for people with more than 0.55 seconds to spare.
The day in a tweet
Still some blips in the Conservative-Ukip détente, as the London Evening Standard’s election hustings – hosted by its new editor – finds no room for a purple candidate:
I think Mr Osborne blames UKIP for costing him his job. https://t.co/MIs0bzRLKM
— Patrick O'Flynn (@oflynnmep) May 16, 2017
And another thing
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Updated
