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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Politics
Andrew Sparrow ; Matthew Weaver and Kate Lyons (earlier)

General election: Lib Dems face backlash over remain pact with Greens and Plaid - as it happened

The Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson. Her decision to enter a pro-remain pact with the Greens and Plaid Cymru has angered some of her party’s activists.
The Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson. Her decision to enter a pro-remain pact with the Greens and Plaid Cymru has angered some of her party’s activists. Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

Afternoon summary

  • George Osborne, the former Conservative chancellor, has said the Tory plans to increase investment spending will mean “higher taxes later”. (See 2.13pm.)
  • A former Lib Dem candidate in Wales has said that many Welsh Liberal Democrats are unhappy about his party being involved in the Unite to Remain pact. (See 4.26pm.)

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

Here is the Unite general secretary Len McCluskey on Ian Austin’s decision to endorse the Tories.

Corbyn says many Jewish people in Britain would not agree with Jewish Chronicle's anti-Labour analysis

In a clip broadcast on the BBC, Jeremy Corbyn was asked to respond to the front page Jewish Chronicle editorial that says most British Jews think he is antisemitic.

In his reply, Corbyn said that many Jewish people in Britain did not agree with what the paper was saying and that Labour had confronted the issue. He said:

Antisemitism is a poison and an evil in our society. Any form of racism is a poison and an evil in our society. I have spent my whole life fighting against racism. I will die an anti-racist.

I want every community to feel safe and supported in this country – the Jewish community, the Muslim community, any other community from any faith or any other part of the world.

Our party has confronted the issue. We have suspended or expelled members. We have an education programme. And all of that has been set up since I became the leader of this party. And we will carry on doing exactly that.

There are many Jewish people in this country who are members of the Labour party, supporters of the Labour party, work with the Labour party, and they do not share the views that have been put forward on the front page of the Jewish Chronicle. I regret the Jewish Chronicle has chosen to say that.

I simply say to everyone: our community is stronger when people work together, when we recognise the danger and poison that antisemitism is. We will be a stronger community when we defeat all forms of racism. And I will be part of that campaign to eradicate racism in any form.

Jeremy Corbyn.
Jeremy Corbyn. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images

Updated

Unite to Remain pact not likely to affect result in more than about six seats, says John Curtice

At the Unite to Remain press conference this morning it was claimed that “at least 44” of the 60 seats covered by the Lib Dem/Green/Plaid Cymru pact were winnable. (See 1.04pm.)

But in an interview on the World at One, Prof Sir John Curtice, the leading elections expert, said that in practice he thought the pact would result in remain parties winning only around six more seats than if the three parties had been competing against each other.

He said just over one in three of the 60 seats were already held by one of the three pro-remain parties, or by Labour, which is committed to a referendum with remain as an option. And he said that in some of these seats, and in some seats where the Lib Dems were not far behind the Conservatives in 2017, the Greens did not stand anyway two years ago.

As a result, he said there were “probably, perhaps, five or six seats that might not be otherwise won by the Liberal Democrats, if they faced competition from the Greens or, in a couple of instances, from Plaid [that might now be won].” He went on:

That’s probably the order of the impact given the current standing in the polls. Obviously, if the Liberal Democrats were to improve in the polls nationally, the picture might differ.

Curtice said that, by standing down in Beaconsfield, the Lib Dems and the Greens might also help Dominic Grieve to hold the seat, following his loss of the Conservative whip. He went on:

Around half a dozen seats that might otherwise be Conservative might go to one or other of these parties, or to Dominic Grieve.

Now, if the election is very close, it could be crucial. But, to be honest, given where the polls are at the moment, with about a 10-point Conservative lead, it certainly wouldn’t be enough. But of course these parties are hoping that in the end the Conservatives won’t do so well as they are currently doing in the polls.

Prof John Curtice.
Prof John Curtice. Photograph: BBC

Updated

Jeremy Corbyn with activists after he made a speech at the Library Theatre in Darwen, Lancashire.
Jeremy Corbyn with activists after he made a speech at the Library Theatre in Darwen, Lancashire. Photograph: Jacob King/PA

Lib Dems face backlash from activists over pact with Greens and Plaid Cymru

A Lib Dem candidate asked to stand aside as part of the Unite to Remain pact has vowed to run as an independent and said members of his party were “extremely unhappy” about how the deal was struck. As PA Media reports, Mike Powell, who intended to stand in Pontypridd as a Lib Dem candidate, said he was asked to stand aside three weeks ago. The pact involves the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and the Green party agreeing not to stand against each other in 60 seats across England and Wales to give voters a single choice for a remain-supporting candidate.

Powell, who has been a councillor since 1999, has refused to cooperate with the pact and will instead stand as an independent. As part of the pact, a Plaid candidate will stand in Pontypridd, PA Media reports.

In an interview with the BBC’s World at One, Powell said there was “disquiet and discomfort” within the Welsh Lib Dems about the pact. Explaining his decision to run as an independent, he said:

I think that people deserve to have an opportunity to vote for someone who’s going to represent the people of Pontypridd, rather than standing to represent a cause to remove Wales from the United Kingdom.

When it was put to him that by standing he would split the remain vote, he said:

I don’t think I will split the remain vote. That won’t happen. It will not be a split. I understand the fundamentals.

We’re dealing with Plaid Cymru, they’re the Welsh nationalist party. We’re not dealing with the Scottish nationalist party, we’re not dealing with the English nationalist party.

These are nationalists. They want to remove Wales from the United Kingdom.

I don’t see them as a remain party as such. Their ultimate goal is to remove Wales from the United Kingdom. And myself and a lot of people in the valleys are not prepared to vote for that.

Powell said many Welsh Liberal Democrats felt the same way:

I know there are an awful lot of members in the Welsh Liberal Democrats who are extremely unhappy with the way this negotiation has been dealt with.

Updated

Jeremy Corbyn has been in Rossendale and Darwen this afternoon. He said it was the 15th constituency he had visited in the campaign. It is a Conservative seat (Jake Berry was the sitting MP), but Labour finished behind by just 3,216 votes at the last election.

In a short speech, he criticised the Daily Telegraph for the way it used its front page yesterday to promote Boris Johnson’s column defending billionaires. He said:

When the Tories and Boris Johnson decide to make the front page of the Daily Telegraph a defence of billionaires, it’s a bid odd, it’s a bit weird. I would have thought they’d have some humility, some humility to understand just how offensive all of that is.

Updated

At his Q&A in Liverpool, when asked about Labour’s handling of antisemitism allegations (in the light of what Ian Austin has been saying today), John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said Labour had done what the Jewish community had asked it to do on this issue. (See 11.58am.) He said the same thing later on the World at One, telling the programme:

Look, everything that has been asked of us by the Jewish community we’ve done. We were asked to look at antisemitism in the party and we’ve done a detailed investigation. We’ve identified a small, a tiny number, of antisemitic activities and we’ve dealt with it. We were asked to ensure we had disciplinary procedures that were fast, and I was saying ruthless as well, and that’s what we’ve done. We’ve expelled people. We were asked to set up an education programme. We’ve done that with independent organisations. I just say to them, have a look again at the reality of what we’ve done because actually we’ve done everything asked of us.

But the Jewish Labour Movement, the mainstream organisation for Jews in the party, has said McDonnell is wrong, and that the party has not been doing enough.

Updated

Boris Johnson rules out agreeing to second Scottish independence referendum

Boris Johnson has made a “cast iron” pledge that he will not grant Nicola Sturgeon the powers she needs to hold a second independence referendum, regardless of whether the SNP wins a majority of Scottish seats in December’s general election or if they win a pro-independence majority in the Holyrood elections of 2021.

In his strongest rebuff yet to Sturgeon’s vow to hold a second vote on independence next year, Johnson used his first visit to Scotland of the election campaign to insist:

Absolutely, there is no case whatsoever [for a second referendum] because people were promised in 2014 that it would be a once in a generation event and I see no reason why we should go back on that pledge.

Describing Nicola Sturgeon and Jeremy Corbyn as “yoke-mates of destruction” in terms of the future stability of the union, he told reporters:

It’s perfectly obvious that Jeremy Corbyn is going to rely on the SNP to get him into power and to do that he’s done a shady deal to have a second referendum.

On Wednesday, the leader of Scottish Labour, Richard Leonard, categorically ruled out any form of electoral deal with the SNP, after Johnson warned against making 2020 the “year of two referendums” and Sturgeon told voters that demand for a second vote on independence would become “irresistible” if her party were to win the election in Scotland.

Johnson visited the Roseisle distillery, near Elgin, in Moray, accompanied by the local Scottish Conservative candidate, Douglas Ross, who won the seat from the SNP’s former Westminster leader Angus Robertson in 2017. Johnson spent little over an hour touring the rural distillery in a strictly managed visit during which he had no contact with the public.

Boris Johnson (centre) walking past copper stills during a general election campaign visit to Diageo’s Roseisle Distillery near Elgin.
Boris Johnson (centre) walking past copper stills during a general election campaign visit to Diageo’s Roseisle Distillery near Elgin. Photograph: Daniel Leal-Olivas/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Updated

Boris Johnson has said that the comment from the Tory candidate Nick Conrad, who said in 2014 that women at risk of rape should keep their knickers on (see 12.20pm), was “completely unacceptable”. Johnson told journalists:

Those comments are completely unacceptable. He has apologised long ago. But I can’t stress [enough], those comments are completely unacceptable.

The Conservative MP Sir George Hollingbery, a former minister and former parliamentary private secretary to Theresa May, has announced that he standing down as an MP.

As the Institute for Government’s Gavin Freeguard points out, this takes the tally of MPs leaving parliament up to 72.

Updated

Richard Tice, the Brexit party chairman, has confirmed that he is standing as a candidate in Hartlepool. As my colleague Josh Halliday reported in his story this morning, before Tice’s candidature had been formally announced, the Labour-held constituency is one of the Brexit party’s key targets. The Brexit party has joint control of the council and got a higher vote in the constituency in the European elections, according to one estimate, than in any other Labour seat.

Updated

These are from my colleague Steven Morris, who has been with the Lib Dem leader, Jo Swinson, on a campaign visit to Somerset.

Updated

Dawn Butler, the shadow minister for women and equalities, is going to stand for the Labour deputy leadership after Tom Watson stands down after the election, Bloomberg is reporting.

Tory plan for extra borrowing just means higher taxes later, says George Osborne

George Osborne was seen as a political patron to Sajid Javid when Osborne was chancellor and Javid was a new MP rapidly getting promoted into government. Now Osborne edits the Evening Standard, and he does not seem over-impressed by Javid’s plan to turn on the borrowing taps. Here is an extract from today’s Standard editorial.

Number 11 is doing a heroic job trying to restrain its neighbours, but they too want to spend more. In an echo of his shadow, Sajid Javid announced today his own £100bn “fund” for a “decade of renewal”.

That’s code for higher capital spending – on the grounds that one-off commitments to roads and hospital buildings can be turned off more quickly than recurring spending on things like welfare and staffing.

All this borrowing by the Tories further shatters the fiscal rules that Philip Hammond established to constrain Theresa May, so his successor is proposing new rules ...

Why are the Conservatives going through these contortions?

Because they want to borrow more, while preserving their dividing line with Labour.

The risk is that they blur a distinction that should be clear: yes the Tories want to spend billions more; but Labour want to spend a great deal more billions than that. That’s the real choice.

What isn’t a choice is that the ordinary taxpayer will pick up the bill. Because all borrowing is just higher taxes deferred.

Interestingly, in the editorial (which would have been approved by Osborne, if not actually written by him), the Standard also suggests that Boris Johnson is going to put plans for a “national care service” at the heart of his manifesto.

Labour is also proposing a “national care service”, although the policy it announced at its party conference in the autumn was just for personal care to be free, at a cost of £6bn a year, not for all social care to be free.

This is what the Standard is predicting in its editorial.

Boris Johnson’s attitude to the public finances is simple: I’m in charge, and if I don’t spend it someone else will.

No 10 wants to make billions of pounds worth of commitments on spending and tax cuts during this campaign. The big idea for the Tory manifesto is social care. That might send a shiver down the spine of Conservative candidates who remember the fiasco of the 2017 manifesto pledge to make the well-off pay for their care.

But this Downing Street has found a different group of people to pay for it: you, the general public.

Get ready for plans for a national care service, funded out of general taxation like the NHS. It’s a big expansion of the state — and an idea the Tories attacked when Labour proposed it a decade ago.

Updated

The Green party in Northern Ireland has announced it will not stand in any of Belfast’s four constituencies in a bid to assist the election of pro-remain MPs, PA Media reports. The party had already withdrawn from the South Belfast contest earlier this week to endorse the SDLP’s bid to unseat the outgoing DUP MP Emma Little Pengelly.

Updated

Boris Johnson on the production line during a visit to the Tetley tea factory in Stockton this morning.
Boris Johnson on the production line during a visit to the Tetley tea factory in Stockton this morning. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Updated

The CBI, the leading business organisation, has cautiously welcomed the Labour and Conservative plans to spend more on investment. In a statement, Rain Newton-Smith, the CBI chief economist, said:

Labour’s ambitions to eradicate regional economic inequalities and upgrading our networks to decarbonise are shared by business. The Conservatives’ new fiscal rules would allow the purse strings to be loosened to modernise our economic infrastructure.

Updated

The Scottish Liberal Democrat Willie Rennie has appealed for support from Labour voters who feel they are “without a political home”. Speaking at his party’s official campaign launch, Rennie said:

The Labour party are moving far to the left.

They’re out of touch with moderate, reasonable people in this country. People who want to keep the United Kingdom in the European Union and want to focus on the big issues that the country faces.

All of those people who are without a political home, I think they need to come with the Liberal Democrats, because we speak for them.

Willie Rennie (right) with the Scottish Lib Dem campaign chairman Alex Cole-Hamilton campaigning in Blackhall, Edinburgh.
Willie Rennie (right) with the Scottish Lib Dem campaign chairman Alex Cole-Hamilton campaigning in Blackhall, Edinburgh. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA

Jeremy Corbyn unveiling Labour’s campaign battlebus in Liverpool.
Jeremy Corbyn unveiling Labour’s campaign battlebus in Liverpool.
 Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images

Sylvia Hermon stands down in Northern Ireland

Bad news for Northern Ireland’s remainers and good news for the Democratic Unionist party: Lady Sylvia Hermon has decided to step down as an MP.

The independent unionist, Northern Ireland’s sole pro-remain voice at Westminster, announced on Wednesday night that she was vacating her North Down seat.

The decision dismayed remainers and greatly boosts the DUP’s chances of taking the seat.

Sinn Féin’s abstention from Westminster meant Hermon was the only Northern Ireland MP to challenge the DUP’s Brexiters and to represent the 56% of people in her country who voted to stay in the EU.

Tributes to her 18 years of service flowed from all sides. Hermon was an eloquent, effective parliamentarian.

“This has been a particularly difficult decision but, after much thought, I have concluded that it is the right decision for my family and for me at this time,” Hermon said. The prospect of a tumultuous, toxic campaign in Northern Ireland may also have influenced her decision.

Sinn Féin and the SDLP had planned to stand aside in North Down to increase her chances of fending off the DUP’s Alex Easton, who closed the gap to 1,200 votes in the last election. He is now favourite to take the seat and offset potential DUP losses in Belfast.

Updated

Former Labour MP John Woodcock joins Ian Austin in urging people to vote Tory to keep Corbyn out of No 10

Like Ian Austin, John Woodcock was elected as a Labour MP and subsequently left the party, strongly criticising Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and his handling of the issue of antisemitism (although, unlike Austin, Woodcock was suspended at the time over a misconduct allegation).

Woodcock and Austin both sat as independents instead of defecting to another party. Woodcock is standing down as an MP and today, like Austin, he is urging people to vote Conservative to keep Corbyn out of No 10. He said:

There are one of two people who are going to be prime minister after an election. It is Boris Johnson or it is Jeremy Corbyn.

We pleaded with our friends in the Labour party to face up to this choice, not to leave it until too late. Now all of that, to an extent, is water under the bridge, but we have arrived in a campaign where one of two people are going to be prime minister.

The choice to keep Jeremy Corbyn away from Downing Street, to stop him getting his hands on the levers of national security and defence has to be to vote Conservative in this election and that’s what I’ll be doing as well.

John Woodcock.
John Woodcock. Photograph: Laura Lean/PA

Updated

Northern politicians and business leaders have joined forces with more than 30 regional news organisations to publish the first manifesto for the north, on the second day of an election campaign in which northern England is regarded as a key battleground. The manifesto demands the newly elected government sign up to five “game changers for the north”, as the two main political leaders address crowds in Teesside, Liverpool and Manchester today.

Uniting across political and geographical differences, the “power up the north” collaboration will present the policy pledges to the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats, demanding they sign up to the vision to “unleash” the north’s potential.

The proposals came out of a conference in September, organised by NP11 - a group of the 11 Northern Local Enterprise Partnerships – and is backed by newspaper front pages across the region including those of the Manchester Evening News, Liverpool Echo, the Yorkshire Post and the Chronicle in Newcastle. They include:

  • Taking local control of education and training
  • Asking the government to make rebalancing the economy a formal Treasury objective
  • A northern transport budget
  • Greater scale and control of investment
  • Placing the north at the helm of a green industrial revolution

In an article for the Guardian, the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, said the pledges could free northerners “from the shackles of short-sighted Westminster policies”. He writes that the proposals are backed by analysis led by the former head of the UK civil service, Bob Kerslake, which found that the north-south divide in England was as “stark as the east-west divide in Germany in the early 1990s”.

Roger Marsh, the chair of the NP11, said the north led the first industrial revolution and could be “the crucible” for the “fourth – and first sustainable – industrial revolution, but only if we take critical action now”. He added: “Our message to all political parties is clear; the north is ready to lead the transformation required for net zero 2050, enhanced productivity and a truly inclusive Great Britain.”

Nick Forbes, the leader of Newcastle city council, said: “Our north is one made up of many different and distinct places, but by working together like this we have shown we are a powerful region which is prepared to speak with one voice and do what is needed to create opportunity for the future”.

Tyne Bridge, Newcastle.
Tyne Bridge, Newcastle. Photograph: Chris Hepburn/Getty Images

Updated

Unite to Remain claims 'at least 44' seats winnable after Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and Greens form limited pact

The Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green party have formed a general election pact, agreeing not to stand against each other in dozens of seats, PA Media reports. The deal, brokered by the Unite to Remain group, will give voters a single remain choice in 60 constituencies across England and Wales. The group is confident that “at least 44” of the 60 seats are “highly winnable”.

As PA Media reports, the move follows an agreement earlier this year in the Brecon and Radnorshire byelection, where the Lib Dems took the seat from the Conservatives after the other two parties stood aside.

Heidi Allen, the chairwoman of Unite To Remain and previously Lib Dem MP for South Cambridgeshire, said the cross-party arrangement was “unprecedented in modern British political history”.

In total, the Lib Dems will stand in 43 constituencies, the Greens will stand in 10 and Plaid Cymru will stand in seven.

At a press conference in London, Peter Dunphy, an election strategist and director at Unite to Remain, said: “At least 44 of those 60 can be regarded as highly winnable constituencies.” As PA reports, he said this evaluation was based on a wide range of data, including current national opinion polls, and results from local and European elections.

Here’s my colleague Kate Proctor’s story about the launch:

Updated

Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson and Sara Mosavi, head of office for the leader, on the Lib Dem battlebus.
Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson and Sara Mosavi, head of office for the leader, on the Lib Dem battlebus. Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

These are from my colleague Richard Partington, who has been listening to the press conference that Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, has been giving.

Javid/McDonnell speeches on investment policy - Verdict from economic commentariat

Here is some more analysis of the Sajid Javid and John McDonnell speeches from economic specialists (journalists and thinktankers).

From Faisal Islam, the BBC’s economics editor

From Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies

From Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation

From the economics professor Jonathan Portes

From Newsnight’s economics editor Ben Chu

From Miatta Fahnbulleh, chief executive of the New Economics Foundation

With the Conservatives and Labour both proposing to increase sustained public spending to a level last seen in the 1970s, it was perhaps appropriate that Sajid Javid, the chancellor, delivered his speech at the Aviation View Park in Manchester below a surviving Concorde - the supersonic passenger jet launched in the 1970s.

Sadly, Concorde turned out to be unsustainable.

These are from Reuters Kylie MacLellan.

Sajid Javid delivering his speech under Concorde at the Aviation View Park in Manchester.
Sajid Javid delivering his speech under Concorde at the Aviation View Park in Manchester. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Updated

The Bank of England has today downgraded its growth forecasts for the UK. My colleague Graeme Wearden has more on his business live blog.

IFS says Tories and Labour both planning highest sustained investment spending in 40 years

These are from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the tax and spending thinktank, on the rival Conservative and Labour borrowing plans.

A former BBC Radio Norfolk presenter who said women should “keep their knickers on” while he was discussing a high-profile rape case has been chosen as the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Broadland in Norfolk, the Press Association reports. Nick Conrad, 34, received the backing of the local party on Wednesday to run for the seat held by fellow Tory Keith Simpson, who has stepped down after 22 years as an MP. Simpson held the constituency at the 2017 election with a majority of 15,816.

As the Press Association reports, Conrad was criticised for the comments he made in 2014 during a radio conversation about the footballer Ched Evans, who was jailed for rape before having his conviction quashed and being cleared at a retrial. Conrad said:

What I’m trying to say is that women also have to understand that when a man’s given certain signals he’ll wish to act upon them and if you don’t wish to give out the wrong signals, it’s best, probably, to keep your knickers on and not get into bed with him. Does that make sense?

This week Conrad told the Eastern Daily Press that he had already apologised for what he said in 2014 and that he was apologising again. He said:

I completely messed up, I knew I’d got it wrong and it didn’t demonstrate the fact that I know that it’s the most abhorrent crime. I’ve for many years broadcast very difficult subject matter and I was very disappointed in myself after the reaction flared up on the back end of those comments. I apologise, I learned from it and I moved forward.

Jess Phillips, who is seeking re-election as a Labour MP, posted this on Twitter in response to the news about Conrad’s selection.

Updated

Q: Should Jacob Rees-Mogg be forced out as an MP?

McDonnell says he and Jeremy Corbyn have been on the silent walks to commemorate the Grenfell Tower fire. He recalls Corbyn embracing survivors. That is what MPs should be doing.

He says Rees-Mogg’s comments show how Tories patronise the people. They must be removed from office, he says.

That’s what MPs should be doing, embracing and supporting [Grenfell Tower survivors]. What does it show? It shows they have no idea how we live. They have no idea how ordinary working people feel. And their sense of entitlement, elite, patronising, looks down on us. And when they get power, walk all over us.

And that’s it. The McDonnell Q&A is over.

I will post more from the Javid and McDonnell speeches and Q&As, with reaction, shortly.

Updated

McDonnell is now answering questions from activists at the event.

He says Labour wants to give local authorities the power to control rents. People think that is radical, he says. But it is normal through Europe. And rent controls used to apply in this country too.

McDonnell says Ian Austin is speaking up for Tories because he works for them as a trade envoy

Q: Why have Ian Austin and the Jewish Chronicle both decided that the election choice should not be Labour?

McDonnell does not refer to Austin by name. But, referring to a “former Labour MP”, he says Austin is now employed by the Tories, and so he speaks on their behalf.

He’s now employed by the Tories: what else do you expect him to do in an election campaign where you’re employed by the Tories, you speak on behalf of the Tories. That’s what this was about this morning.

(That is a reference to Austin being a trade envoy to Israel. Trade envoys are unpaid, but their travel costs are covered by the government.)

On the Jewish Chronicle editorial (see 9.28am), McDonnell says he is saddened by this. He says one antisemite in the party is one too many. But he says Labour has done what the Jewish community has asked for in terms of dealing with this problem.

But he says anyone concerned about racism should not be supporting the Tories. He says they won’t address Islamophobia in their own party.

Q: What impact will the remain alliance pacts have on Labour? And why is Labour not part of that?

McDonnell says Labour is heading for a majority. It does not need a pact, he says.

But he says anyone considering a pact with the Lib Dems should consider their record in supporting austerity.

John McDonnell speaking at the Labour rally in Liverpool.
John McDonnell speaking at the Labour rally in Liverpool. Photograph: Peter Powell/EPA

Updated

McDonnell says what he is proposing stands in the best traditions of socialism.

McDonnell's Q&A

John McDonnell is now taking questions.

Lucy Powell, the Labour candidate (not an MP now, because parliament has been dissolved) who is chairing the event, urges activists to be “respectful” when journalists ask questions. (In the past journalists have been booed for asking critical questions at these events.)

Q: What is your response to Sajid Javid’s speech?

McDonnell says Javid seems to have become a climate change denier. He has not included this in his letter to the Bank of England.

Under Javid’s plans, the UK would not be able to meet its climate change targets, he says.

He says Labour’s plans do match the scale of the climate crisis. If Labour did not step up to the mark, future generations would not forgive it.

Q: Will these plans allow you to increase your target for building homes?

McDonnell says these borrowing plans will allow Labour to meet its housing targets. Details of those will be published in due course, he says.

Q: Does the next Labour deputy leader have to be a woman?

McDonnell says he is always in favour of a gender balance.

McDonnell says Labour plan to exclude investment from borrowing targets 'common sense'

McDonnell says Labour will exclude investment from its borrowing targets.

Our fiscal rule for the next parliament will exclude borrowing for investment from our borrowing targets. It will mandate us to deliver an improvement in the overall balance sheet by the end of the parliament. So that when we invest in the infrastructure our country desperately needs, it’s recognised both as a cost and as a benefit.

Yes – adding to the government’s debt but also adding to the government’s assets and strengthening our public sector to deal with the future. With the rents on our new council homes and the electricity produced by our public sector energy agencies set against the cost of servicing the debt issued to build them. And a ceiling on that debt servicing cost – in normal times – of 10% of tax revenue.

On this at least there’s nothing radical, just common sense.

McDonnell says the OBR forecasts there were expected to be published today (see 9.05am) would have shown an increase in borrowing.

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s restated forecast, which was meant to be published today, was expected to show tens of billions more borrowing

Because the Tories designed an expensive student loan system that hid the costs off the books.

They got caught out in the end. Too late for the millions who’ve racked up tens of thousands in debt at eye-watering interest rates.

That’s what happens when you design fiscal rules to minimise the costs on one side of your balance sheet. Ignoring the benefits on the other. Labour won’t make that mistake.

McDonnell says Labour will build the tidal barrage proposed for the Mersey.

Key Treasury department to be located in north of England, says McDonnell

McDonnell says he will also base the Treasury department dealing with the national transformation fund in the north.

They will be supported by a national transformation fund unit of the Treasury. I can confirm that this powerful section of the Treasury unit will be based here in the north. At the same time my Treasury ministerial meetings will no longer be solely in London.

Labour’s Treasury ministers will meet outside of London and will have a ministerial office in the north. The centre of gravity, of political gravity, is shifting away from London.

McDonnell says decisions about how this money is spent will be taken locally.

We’ll carve out part of our national transformation fund for a local transformation fund in each of England’s regions with money for the devolved governments as well of course.

And that money will be ringfenced for infrastructure projects decided and developed at a local level, with decisions made transparently and democratically in each region about how their fund is allocated.

And regional offices of government departments overseen by a board of local county and city council leaders, with that board publicly accountable to open meetings of local councillors, trade unions and business representatives.

McDonnell says Labour's national transformation fund bigger than proposed in 2017

McDonnell now explains the components of what he says will be Labour’s national transformation fund.

On the scale of change investment needed I can tell you today that Labour’s national transformation fund will be bigger than we promised at the 2017 election. For areas that haven’t had their fair share for years.

We’ll deliver £250bn of investment here and around the country over the next ten years through our green transformation fund. Upgrading our energy, transport and other networks. To meet our targets and decarbonise as thoroughly and fast as our commitment to a just transition will allow.

But it’s not just the natural world that’s been neglected. So we’ll also commit to an additional £150bn in a new social transformation fund spent over the first five years of our Labour government.

The social transformation fund will begin the urgent task of repairing our social fabric that the Tories have torn apart. £150bn to replace, upgrade and expand our schools, hospitals, care homes and council houses. To deal with the human emergency which the Tories have created, alongside the climate emergency.

McDonnell says there must be 'irreversible shift' in moving decision-taking out of London

McDonnell says decision making has to shift out of London.

To achieve that objective also requires therefore an irreversible shift in the centre of gravity in political decision making and investment in this country from its location solely in London into the north and regions and nations of our country.

Updated

McDonnell says Labour wants to achieve an “irreversible shift” in power.

Our aim as a Labour government is to achieve what past Labour governments have aspired to. An irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people.

This is a reference to an ambition first set out in Labour’s February 1974 manifesto, which promised to “bring about a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families.”

McDonnell says there is an alternative, contrary to what the Tories claimed in the 1980s. This election is about that alternative, he says.

It is a “once-in-a-generation chance to get back on track, remake this country and transform everyone’s lives for the better.”

McDonnell says the Tory attitude in the 1980s, towards Liverpool and other places, was summed up by the phrase “there is no alternative”.

The Tories are always the same. In the 80s it was dole queues and sky-high inflation Now it’s zero hours contracts, universal credit and foodbanks.

And if they win again it’ll be more of the same. Slashing inheritance tax for the richest, despite an ever-deepening crisis in our care homes and a crumbling public transport system. A hard right Tory Brexit smashing a hole in our public finances.

They treat us all with contempt. They think people are stupid. That with Brexit on the agenda, they think we’ll all forget about the past ten years and the prospect of the next five years if they get back.

Updated

John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, is speaking now.

McDonnell was brought up in Liverpool, and he recalls his father working as a docker in the city. Like so many other families, his family moved south after work on the docks dried up.

What happened to the Liverpool docks and to Liverpool is what happened to so many cities and communities across the North and Britain.

Traditional industries declined and little was done to replace them. Old skills were lost and new skills were not invested in. Successive Labour governments sought to engage and invest, only to see their efforts swept aside when the Tories took charge.

Corbyn is introducing John McDonnell. He says McDonnell is someone who has changed the economic debate in this county.

Here is Miatta Fahnbulleh, chief executive of the New Economics Foundation, making the same point in a tweet on the Sajid Javid speech.

Jeremy Corbyn is now speaking at the Labour event in Liverpool. The main announcements will come from John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, who is due to speak shortly, but Corbyn is starting with a general warm-up.

He criticises what Jacob Rees-Mogg said about the Grenfell Tower, and says a Labour government would act immediately to remove Grenfell-style cladding from tower blocks.

There are massive imbalances in the country, he says, between east and west, north and south.

He says Labour’s tax plans will affect the richest 5% of the population. But everyone else will benefit, he says.

These are from the FT’s economic editor, Chris Giles.

Javid says Tories would be able to spend extra £20bn per year on infrastructure under new fiscal rules

This is what Sajid Javid said about how much extra spending would be possible under his new fiscal rules. (See 10.50am.)

The rules that I’ve set out today, which will allow us to borrow more responsibly ... historically we have invested as a country about 1.8% of GDP a year in infrastructure. If you say add a percentage point, and which you comfortably can do [under the rules], that’s about an extra £20bn a year. Over a five-year period, you can easily add another £100bn. We will set out, both in our manifesto and then, if we win, in a future budget, much more detail about what this infrastructure investment looks like.

Sajid Javid giving a speech in Manchester.
Sajid Javid giving a speech in Manchester. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Updated

Q: Isn’t it irresponsible to be using the no-deal headroom when a no-deal Brexit is still a risk?

Javid does not accept that. He says he only used half the headroom there. He says his plans are affordable.

The difference between Labour and the Conservatives could not be bigger, he says.

Anything John McDonnell promises today - it doesn’t matter if it is an extra £1, an extra £150bn, an extra £1tn - it cannot be relied on.

And that’s it. The Q&A is over.

Updated

Q: Can you commit to the Northern Powerhouse Rail scheme in full?

Javid says this is just the kind of plan that he wants to see for the north.

He does not want to make an announcement about that today.

But he says it would be “comfortably” affordable under the plans he has announced.

Labour can “spray money around like confetti”, he says. But that does not mean anything if they are going to crash the economy.

Q: How much would you borrow for investment?

Javid says historically the country has invested 1.8% of GDP per year for infrastructure. He says taking that to 2.8%, which would be affordable, would give you an extra £20bn a year.

Q: Swing voters have suffered cuts for 10 years. Why shouldn’t they go with Labour?

Javid says increased infrastructure spending can only happen with a strong economy. If you “crater” the economy, that will not be possible. He says Labour’s investment numbers are meaningless. John McDonnell is talking about £150bn in investment. He might as well talk about £1tn. These numbers are meaningless.

Q: Do you still want to reform stamp duty?

Javid says he will not comment on particular taxes today.

Updated

Javid claims Tories will cut taxes, and Labour will raise them

Sajid Javid is now taking questions.

Q: Does this mean you won’t be able to afford tax cuts?

Javid says there will be scope for tax cuts.

Q: Are you not guilty of doing what you accuse Labour of : increasing borrowing irresponsibly?

No, says Javid. He says the difference between the two parties’ approaches is “the difference between night and day”.

Under the Tory plan, debt as a proportion of GDP would come down over the course of the parliament, he says.

He says Labour has just conjured up a new £150bn fund, on top of the £250bn one already planned.

He says he does not know if Labour will have fiscal rules. But if they do, they will not meet them.

He says Labour will have to raise taxes. There will be a “tax bombshell” under Labour, he says.

Updated

Sajid Javid, the chancellor, is still speaking. He is now attacking Labour’s economic policies.

He says Labour would “ruin your finances”, raise tax and “saddle the next generation with debt”. He says every single Labour government in history has left this country with an economic crisis.

He says the last Labour government took 13 years to undo the economic legacy left to it by the Conservatives. A Jeremy Corbyn government would only take 13 months, he says.

He says Labour wants to renationalise companies, without paying market rates of compensation.

And he singles out Labour’s plans to make big companies allocate up to 10% of their shares to workers in “inclusive ownership funds”. He says this would take £300bn from companies.

That is not socking it to to the rich. That is stealing private investments. And who owns those investments? Your pension funds.

Updated

And these are from Faisal Islam, the BBC’s economics editor.

These are from Torsten Bell, a former Labour adviser who is now chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, an economic thinktank, on Javid’s new fiscal rules. (See 10.31am.)

Javid sets out new Tory fiscal rules, setting cap on investment at 3% of GDP

Javid says the Tories are “taking the government forward from a decade of recovery to a decade of renewal”.

He summarises some of the government spending announcements since Boris Johnson became prime minister.

Public services were a lifeline for people like him when he was growing up, “and we must nurture them”, he says.

But he says that does not mean the party believes in an “ever-expanding state”.

He says when he became chancellor there was £27bn of “headroom” that he could use for spending. He used half of that, he says.

He says it is possible to borrow at negative interest rates. So it makes sense to borrow.

He says today he is announcing new fiscal rules, so that the government can borrow, but without being irresponsible.

He says his first rule will be to have a balanced current budget.

He says in his first budget, in the new year, he will announce plans to level up the whole of the country. There will be more money for new schools and hospitals, and for better broadband.

We will borrow some more to invest, but we know all too well what happens if debt gets out of control.

He says the second rule is that the government will only borrow to invest. That means:

  • Javid said under the Tories investment will not exceed 3% of GDP. He says the average in the past has been 1.8%, and so this is a big increase.

He says his third rule is that, if debt interest starts to rise significantly, the borrowing limit will be reviewed.

Updated

Sajid Javid's speech on the economy

Sajid Javid, the chancellor, is giving a speech on the economy in Manchester.

He says the biggest fear that business has is a government led by Jeremy Corbyn.

He says the fundamentals of the economy are strong.

The IMF forecasts that next year the UK will grow faster than France, Italy, Germany and Japan, he says.

Here is my Guardian colleague Owen Jones, who of course is a prominent and active Jeremy Corbyn supporter, responding to Ian Austin’s announcement that he is backing Boris Johnson.

IFS questions whether Labour would be able to implement its 'absolutely enormous' increase in investment as quickly as it plans

In his speech later today John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, will say that Labour would spend £150bn over five years through a “social transformation fund” on items such as schools, hospitals, care homes and council houses.

This is in addition to Labour’s plans to spend £250bn over 10 years through a green transformation fund.

The Labour party press notice with details of the plan is here. And our overnight story about the plan is here.

On the Today programme this morning Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said this would be an “absolutely enormous increase” on what the government spends on investment. It would take the UK from near the bottom in international league tables on investment to near the top. He said the plan did raise questions about how much borrowing might have to rise, and about how it would be paid for. But he suggested that the main short-term problem might be whether or not it would be possible for government to spend so much so quickly. He explained:

The real question, in the short run, is would it be possible sensibly to spend this scale of money. Moving to a world in which you’re doubling [spending] within a year or two, I would suspect, is actually just physically impossible to get there that quickly.

Do we really have tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of construction workers, lying idle at the moment, who would be able next week or next year or even in a couple of years to start doing this? I think the answer is almost certainly no.

It obviously takes a long time to go through the planning and sorting out things. If anyone’s ever had to sort out an extension to the house or something, they know that getting the building started isn’t something that happens next week. If you’re talking about hundreds of hospitals and windfarms or whatever else you’re doing, you need to do this gradually.

Paul Johnson.
Paul Johnson. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/The Guardian

Updated

In an interview on the Today programme this morning Nigel Farage, the Brexit party leader, dismissed reports that around 20 of the 600-odd candidates he is fielding in the election have decided not to stand. He said he was still committed to standing candidates all over Britain, and he went on:

I’ve never fought an election at which at the last minute candidates didn’t pull out because they realise firstly the full responsibility of doing it and secondly they are coming under a huge amount of pressure.

Updated

Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem leader, has joined Ian Austin in attacking Jeremy Corbyn for his record on antisemitism, tweeting this front-page editorial addressed to non-Jews from the Jewish Chronicle.

Updated

All the major newspapers in the north of England are today backing the plans set out in the first Manifesto for the North.

In a Guardian article, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, explains what this campaign is about. Here is an extract.

The publication of the first Manifesto for the North, resulting from the recent Convention of the North, simply can’t be ignored. It is a positive intervention into an otherwise highly divided political debate. It sets out the terms for a new political settlement, around which all political parties can and should unite, and upon which a badly divided nation might begin to heal in the long term. Crucially, it asks the government to make rebalancing the economy a formal HM Treasury objective, to deliver transformational investment for the north. In the past, it has been all too easy for talk of the north-south divide to be labelled “northern whinging” and relegated to the margins of national political debate. But that won’t be possible this time. First, our “power up the north” call, championed by our newspapers, is a positive, self-confident ask for the power to do more for ourselves, rather than just a plea for resources. Second, it is backed by heavyweight analysis from a commission led by the former head of the UK civil service, Lord Kerslake, which has found that the north-south divide in England today is as stark as the east-west divide in Germany in the early 1990s.

And here is Burnham’s full article.

Updated

Sturgeon says Boris Johnson should apologise to Scots for 'chaos' he has subjected them to

Ahead of Boris Johnson’s visit to Scotland today, Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister and the SNP leader, has called on him to apologise for what he has done to the people of Scotland. She said:

The only thing Boris Johnson should be coming to Scotland to do today is apologise for the chaos he and his party have subjected us to for years.

He is a prime architect of the Brexit vote and the utter shambles it has now led to.

A vote for the SNP is a vote to escape Brexit and to put Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands – not Boris Johnson’s.

On his visit to Scotland today, Boris Johnson should apologise not just for the Brexit mess he has created, but also for a decade of Tory austerity that has caused so much misery for so many.

Nicola Sturgeon.
Nicola Sturgeon. Photograph: Ken Jack/Getty Images

The Jeremy Corbyn rally tonight is in Manchester, not in Scotland as it initially said in the post at 8.58am. I’ve corrected that. Sorry.

OBR cancels plans to publish revised borrowing forecasts

One other item that was meant to be on the agenda for the day (see 8.58am) was the Office for Budget Responsibility publishing revised borrowing forecasts. Here is the story my colleague Larry Elliott wrote last week about how these were expected to show the public finances in a worse state than when the forecasts were last published in March.

But now the OBR has said it has cancelled plans to publish this document, because the cabinet secretary has decided it would not be compatible with election “purdah” rules (which are meant to stop the civil service making announcements during the election period that could affect the result). This is from Sky’s Ed Conway.

Updated

Agenda for the day

Here are the main election items in the diary for today.

10am: Unite for Remain holds a press conference in Westminster to announce details of the 60 seats where the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and the Greens will operate a pact, standing down in favour of the party with the best chance of winning.

10am: Sajid Javid, the chancellor, gives a speech on the economy.

11am: John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, gives a speech giving details of the party’s plans for a £150bn social transformation fund.

1pm: Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem leader, campaigns in Somerset.

7.30pm: Jeremy Corbyn speaks at a rally in Manchester.

And Boris Johnson is campaigning in Scotland.

Updated

Rebecca Long-Bailey is now being asked about Ian Austin’s declaration that he is urging voters to support Boris Johnson. The Today programme plays a clip from its earlier interview with Austin.

Long-Bailey says:

I’m very sad. Ian did great work as an MP ... He doesn’t like Jeremy, that’s pretty clear.

She says urging people to back Johnson is “absurd”. She says she hopes that, if Jeremy Corbyn becomes PM, Austin will come round to backing him.

Q: Austin says Corbyn isn’t a patriot.

That’s wrong, says Long-Bailey. She says Corbyn is a patriot.

Q: Austin says you have not done enough on antisemitism.

Long-Bailey says initially the party could have responded more quickly, but a lot has changed recently. She says rules have changed and there is now auto-expulsion for these cases.

Q: Are you worried that other people who support Tom Watson’s position in Labour will join him in leaving?

I hope not, she says.

She says she does not accept that description that Watson and his supporters are “moderates”. She says she would like to think everyone in the party is moderate.

Rebecca Long-Bailey.
Rebecca Long-Bailey. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA

Updated

Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Matthew Weaver.

Rebecca Long-Bailey, the shadow business secretary, is on the Today programme now. She is explaining Labour’s plans for a £150bn social transformation fund.

Asked whether borrowing costs would go up, Long-Bailey says it makes economic sense for governments to invest in this way.

Q: But it also makes sense for government’s to maintain a reputation for fiscal responsibility. Some economists think this will be impossible now given the scale of your borrowing?

Long-Bailey does not accept that. She says Labour’s policy would increase GDP (national wealth). Unlike the Tories, Labour believes in using the power of government to assist in this.

Updated

Senior Conservatives continue to highlight Ian Austin’s attack on Corbyn and endorsement of Johnson.

Theo Bertram, a former adviser to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, sees a pattern here...

Updated

Ian Austin has recorded a video for his local Express and Star on why he thinks Dudley North constituents should back Boris Johnson.

Updated

Tory MPs have seized on that interview by Ian Austin and his endorsement of Boris Johnson and attack on Jeremy Corbyn.

Boris Johnson is heading for the north-eastern Scottish constituency of Moray, where Scottish Tory MP Douglas Ross unseated the SNP’s Westminster leader Angus Robertson in 2017, in one of the most shocking results of that election night.

You can read more about the constituency here.

In quotes released before the visit, Johnson hammered home his warning that Jeremy Corbyn “would spend next year dancing to the SNP’s tune, wasting the year with two divisive referendums - one on the EU and one to give up on our union. Only a vote for the Conservatives will stop the SNP’s plans to break up the UK.”

It’s a message that may well resonate in Euro-sceptic Moray, home to one of the few remaining active fishing ports along the north-east coast. In 2016 this electorate delivered the narrowest margin of victory for the remain vote anywhere in the UK, falling just 112 votes short of ruining Scotland’s unanimous pro-EU tally.

In advance of the visit, first minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon called on Johnson to apologise to the people of Scotland for Brexit and austerity.

She said: “On his visit to Scotland today, Boris Johnson should apologise not just for the Brexit mess he has created, but also for a decade of Tory austerity that has caused so much misery for so many. He should also come clean on his Brexit deal and his plans for a no-deal exit in barely over a year’s time if a trade deal cannot be agreed. That would be a disaster for Scotland and the rest of the UK, and it underlines the huge threat the Tories pose.”

Rebecca Long-Bailey, the shadow business secretary has urged Labour to remain a “pluralist party” following Tom Watson’s announcement that he is quitting politics.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, while Austin was interviewed on Today, Long-Bailey paid tribute to Watson’s record.

She said:

Tom was a big figure and commanded a lot of support and respect within the party from people from all wings at the party, not just those who are supposedly on the middle of ground.

But we’ve always been a pluralist party. And it’s important that we stay that way, that we represent views right across the centre/left spectrum. Ultimately the Labour Party was created to bring together aspects of the centre/left to make as a credible force to defeat the Conservative Party. And hopefully, that’s what we’re certainly going to do for the next 30 40 50 years.

Long-Bailey, who is often tipped as a possible successor to Corbyn, was asked if she would be standing to become the new deputy leader.

She said: “It’s not something that I’m considering at all at the moment.”

Asked if she was ruling herself out from a position Labour has indicated should be held by a female MP, Long-Bailey said:

It is not something that has even entered my mind at the moment at all. We’ll make that decision and candidates will put themselves forward, I’ve no doubt we’ll have a range of really great candidates after the 12th of December because Tom will be our deputy until after the general election.

Updated

Austin added: “I think their [Labour’s] economic policies would make our country worse off not better off. I think they would chase away investment. I think they would put businesses and jobs at risk. I think Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit policy is a completely fantasy.”

Tom Watson 'appalled' by Labour's antisemitism problem under Corbyn, claims Ian Austin

Austin described Tom Watson’s decision to stand down from politics as “enormously significant”. He said:

If Tom thought that Jeremy Corbyn was fit to lead our country and fit to form a government, would he really be standing down?”

Anybody who has spoken to Tom knows what he thinks about Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. More importantly, they know how appalled he is, like so many other people, by the scandal of antisemitism that has poisoned the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

Austin also revealed that he would not be standing as an independent candidate in his constituency of Dudly North as he had previously indicated.

Updated

Former Labour MP Ian Austin urges voters to back Boris Johnson

Former Labour MP, Ian Austin, has called on voters to back Boris Johnson in the election saying his former party would make the country worse off.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4 Today programme Austin said:

I’m not a Tory but I wouldn’t say Boris Johnson is unfit to be our prime minister in the way that I say that about Jeremy Corbyn.

UPDATE: Here are more quotes from Ian Austin talking about Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson in the interview. Austin said:

Look, the public has to make this choice. The British people have to decide this. Lots of traditional Labour voters are going to be grappling with this question.

If they have got to face up to that, then I don’t think people like me should have the luxury of running away from it.

What Jeremy Corbyn has done to the Labour party, I don’t want him to be able to do that to the country ...

The country faces a big choice - there are only who can be prime minister on December 13 and that’s Jeremy Corbyn or Boris Johnson. And I think Jeremy Corbyn is completely unfit to lead our country and lead the Labour party.

I joined the Labour party as a teenager ...so it has really come to something when I tell decent traditional patriotic Labour voters that they should be voting for Boris Johnson at this election.

I can’t believe it has come to this but that’s where we are.

Updated

University lecturers are giving students five minutes at the start of their lectures to register to vote as a nationwide campaign gets under way to ensure that students’ voices are heard in the forthcoming general election.

The move was condemned by some on social media as “brainwashing”, but according to the universities’ regulator, the Office for Students (OfS), institutions now have a duty to facilitate the electoral registration of students.

Dan Elphick, a music lecturer, was among those to flag up his efforts to encourage student votes, when he said he was setting aside five minutes of his lecture time to allow students to register online, adding: “I see this as being a vital part of their education.”

The initiative has been supported by the University College Union (UCU), which represents university workers, and is being replicated by lecturers elsewhere in the country before the 26 November deadline for registration.

This is delightful and features this excellent picture of Tom Watson at Glastonbury in 2017.

A keen music fan, Tom Watson tried to never miss a Glastonbury.
A keen music fan, Tom Watson tried to never miss a Glastonbury. Photograph: Nigel Roddis/EPA

Updated

‘Watson quits’: how the papers covered it

Boris Johnson heads north today, travelling to Scotland for campaign events.

Johnson kicked off the Conservative election campaign yesterday with a speech in Birmingham that he hopes will give his party some positive momentum after a series of damaging gaffes in recent days. These include Jacob Rees-Mogg’s suggestion that victims of the Grenfell Tower fire lacked common sense and Alun Cairns, the Welsh secretary, having to resign over his knowledge of a former aide’s role in allegedly sabotaging a rape trial.

Johnson came out swinging at Corbyn, whom he accused of planning tax rises to fund “deranged” nationalism; at parliament, which he said was “paralysed, blocked, generally incapable of digestive function, as an anaconda that has swallowed a tapir”; and without naming him, at Nigel Farage, as the Brexit party leader has refused requests from pro-leave Tories to stand down Brexit party candidates in their seats. “I’ll see you at the barricades,” Johnson told supporters.

Good morning and welcome to the first day of the official election campaign. It has not yet been 24 hours since Boris Johnson visited the Queen, dissolved parliament, and formally announced that a general election would take place on 12 December, and already we have seen high drama.

On the Labour side this came as Tom Watson announced last night that he will step down as deputy leader. Watson – who has spent 35 years in full-time politics, and has represented West Bromwich East as its MP since 2001 – has repeatedly clashed with Jeremy Corbyn, including over the Labour leader’s Brexit stance and handling of antisemitism.

His departure is likely to reignite the debate about the direction of the Labour party under Corbyn after one senior Labour figure said Watson’s announcement had led to “a great sense of desolation and abandonment sweeping the moderates” in the party.

Watson insisted his resignation was “personal, not political” and said he would “spend this election fighting for brilliant Labour candidates and a better future for our country”. Corbyn thanked Watson, saying: “Few people have given as much to the Labour movement as you have.” For his part Watson says he has a lot of irons in the fire, including training to become a gym instructor and a book about weight loss coming out in January. Here he is, talking about his plans for life post-politics.

Meanwhile today, Sajid Javid and his Labour shadow, John McDonnell, are both set to give speeches in the north-west of England.

Javid is expected to hammer Labour on the economy, saying the Tories won’t “let Labour off the hook like last time”. In 2017, the Conservatives’ claims that Labour was relying on a “magic money tree” to fund its lavish spending pledges fell flat when Theresa May’s party failed to publish costings of its own policies. But Javid will signal the Tories’ determination to attack Labour on the economy relentlessly over the next five weeks – although unlike two years ago, the government is touting a series of multibillion pound spending pledges of its own.

Meanwhile McDonnell will announce a £100bn “social transformation fund” to “repair the fabric that the Tories have torn apart”.

As usual, you can get in touch with me via Twitter and email (kate.lyons@theguardian.com). I’ll have the reins of the blog for the first hour or so before I hand it over to my excellent colleagues.

Day one, off we go.

Updated

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