Good afternoon. So that was the Labour manifesto – a rare political event at which the protagonist boasts about how little he has to say. “It’s not about rabbits out of a hat, not about pantomime,” Keir Starmer said of the lack of new policy proposals in the document. “I’m running as the candidate to be prime minister, not to run the circus.”
For all that, the manifesto tells us plenty about what a Labour government will look like. More on those clues, and whether or not David Cameron’s mother has wheels, after the headlines.
What happened today
Conservatives | David Cameron has condemned Rishi Sunak’s closest parliamentary aide, Craig Williams, for a “clearly very foolish decision” after the Guardian revealed he placed a bet on a July election three days before it was called. In a brief BBC interview, Williams refused to say whether he had any inside information at the time of his bet.
Plaid Cymru | Labour is offering “more austerity but painted red”, Plaid Cymru leaders have said as they launched the party’s manifesto. Party leader Rhun ap Iorwerth pledged to overhaul the Barnett formula that determines public spending for devolved nations, saying it “has seen Wales lose out to the tune of billions over the years”.
Labour | Party candidates have been told they are doing too much campaigning in their own safe seats and must spend more time in battleground constituencies. The instructions from party HQ have caused friction with candidates concerned about a backlash from supporters.
Analysis: The manifesto that doesn’t do much … on purpose
Anyone running the rule over the Labour manifesto this afternoon is bound to worry about what we might call “the toolmaker dilemma”: there are only so many times you can say the same thing without your audience rolling their eyes at you, even if it continues to be true. And that, of course, is the point.
The Labour manifesto has had every conceivable point of traction or complication sanded down and made as snag-resistant, and even analysis-resistant, as possible. (That didn’t stop the Tories trying a fairly eccentric riff on Starmer as an overpriced Ken doll.) Making a virtue of caution is partly about projecting Keir Starmer as a leader who only makes achievable promises, in contrast to the Tories’ frantic policy generation machine. But it’s also about pissing off as few people as possible when the lead is already large enough for a landslide. Even Philip Collins, who has written speeches for Starmer, called it “a sensible, deliberately flat piece of writing in a political culture that rewards safety … It was not exciting. It was not a revelation. But it will work.”
It is equally true to say that judging manifestos on whether a party has given us (by which we probably mean “journalists”) enough exciting surprises on the day is facile. Theo Bertram, director of the Social Market Foundation thinktank and a former Blair and Brown adviser, suggests that “if today was the first time Labour was announcing GB Energy, rail nationalisation and a new industrial strategy, the manifesto might be regarded as bold“. Fair enough. Here are verdicts on what was in there from George Monbiot, Polly Toynbee and others, and here are Rowena Mason’s main takeaways.
Against all that is the persistent sense Labour have painted themselves into a corner. The oft-repeated theory is that growth will allow the investment in public services that VAT, income tax and national insurance rises will not. If that doesn’t happen, the BBC’s Ben Chu estimates that Labour’s tax and spending pledges amount to about 0.2% of GDP. The Tory equivalent figure is 0.6%; for the Lib Dems it’s 0.8%; and Labour in 2019 was 3.2%.
“Wealth” and “growth” were the keystones of Starmer’s speech. But no matter how hard you lean into those ideas, Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies said this afternoon, “the growth would take time to arrive, and its scale is uncertain”. So there is no getting round it: over the next few years, Labour’s current plans mean either substantial spending cuts in unprotected departments, or substantial increases to borrowing or taxation. (More on all this from Larry Elliott here.)
One of the most interesting bits of reporting from the whole campaign so far was Anna Isaac and Kiran Stacey’s story last week, which hinted at how chancellor-in-waiting Rachel Reeves might try to resolve this problem during Labour’s honeymoon period, when the Tories will still be blameable for everything: a “kitchen sink” approach of telling the country that she has discovered an array of problems upon “opening the books”, and must raise taxes to pay for them. (“These challenges are already perfectly clear,” Johnson says drily. “The books are open. A post-election routine of shock-and-horror at the state of the public finances will not cut it.”)
But even if Reeves does take that approach, the danger is that Labour has missed the opportunity to secure a mandate for larger change – a mandate it could surely have achieved. When, as the pollster James Kanagasooriam said the other day, Labour’s likely large majority is a “monumental sandcastle”, with a very efficiently distributed vote meaning that many of the party’s seats will be held by thin majorities, there are bound to be plenty of voices in the party urging against any move even marginally to the left. And attempts to encourage the likely next government to do more to restore public services will probably be met with a warning that there is no mandate. Thus, as surely as Keir Starmer’s father is a toolmaker, the self-fulfilling prophecy fulfils itself.
These are problems for another day, and they will certainly return. What we know for now is that the last major set-piece of the campaign has passed without incident, or prospect of changing the course of the race. That’s exactly how Labour wants it.
Winner of the day
Has to be Dawn Butler, whose reworking of So Solid Crew’s 21 Seconds as a get-out-the-vote track has the vanishingly rare political quality of actually being quite funny and cool … I think? Aim off for the fact that I’m 40 and remember summer 2001 fondly.
Loser of the day
Older Labour MPs who gave up their seats on a promise of a peerage – and, according to the journalist Michael Crick, didn’t know that the manifesto would impose a new age limit of 80 in the House of Lords.
Creepily intense political greeting of the day
It’s Rishi Sunak and hard right Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, at the G7 summit in Bari. The video is arguably even weirder.
What’s at stake
After Douglas Ross became what is thought to be the first leader of any party to step down in the middle of a UK general election campaign, the Scottish Tories are in turmoil – and there are rumblings that a reckoning may be more generally overdue. In this fascinating piece, Libby Brooks sets out the circumstances lending weight to the argument that the Scottish Tories should “split from the UK party entirely – particularly given its likely rightward tack after its widely anticipated defeat on 4 July – and reform as a new centre-right party more attuned to the Scottish political landscape”. She goes on:
The idea has “never been more pertinent,” says Andy McIver, former Scottish Conservative adviser, podcaster and consultant who helped Murdo Fraser [the party veteran who stood against Ruth Davidson in 2011] hone his pitch.
“Back then the Tories were in third place at Holyrood with no prospect of getting into government and nothing has changed. Scotland is unique in having two parties of the centre left who trade power.”
McIver argues that the increase in support in intervening years came largely from “transactional Tories” who believed that party was best-placed to protect the union. With independence “off the table”, he suggests it is time to consider again what a centre-right grouping in Scotland would look like.
Quote of the day
If my mother had wheels she’d be a bicycle – I don’t answer questions beginning with the word if.
David Cameron, when asked on Sky News what he’ll do next in the event of a Labour victory
Number of the day
***
27%
Proportion of voters who now know that Keir Starmer’s father was a toolmaker, up from 11% in April.
Dubious photo opportunity of the day
Some real political animals visit parliament to protest Labour’s proposed ban on trail hunting.
Andrew Sparrow explains it all
The pick of the posts from the king of the live blogs
12.44 BST | There is a gap between the amount Labour plans to raise from extra taxes (£7.4bn, rounded up) and the amount of extra spending it plans (£4.8bn).
Labour is reportedly saying that the projected extra tax revenue is higher than the planned extra spending because it is being cautious.
But, by coincidence (or not?), the gap between the two figures is very close to the £2.5bn cost in this financial year of the two-child benefit cap.
Labour has refused to commit to removing the cap, which is a major contribution to child poverty, on the grounds that it has to take hard choices and that it will only make promises it can afford.
But Pat McFadden, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, gave an intriguing answer when asked about this by Amol Rajan on the Today programme this morning. Rather than talking about the policy directly, McFadden mentioned Gordon Brown and he told the programme:
I remember when [Brown] was shadow chancellor in the run up to the 1997 election, and he was very careful about what to promise and he was right to be careful.
But I also remember another thing; when he became chancellor and he had the power to change things, he had a fantastic record on child poverty. And we share the ambition when elected to attack child poverty and do more about it.
Follow Andrew Sparrow’s politics live blog every day here
Read more
Listen to this
Starmer and Sunak face audience in Grimsby – Politics Weekly Westminster
Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey discuss how Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak performed at the Sky News special leaders’ event
What’s on the grid
Tonight, 8pm | BBC Question Time comes from Edinburgh and features Douglas Ross, Anas Sarwar and Kate Forbes.
Tonight, 8.30pm | Another seven-party debate, this time on ITV with Julie Etchingham.
Tomorrow, 5pm | Deadline to apply for a postal vote. You can do it here.
Tomorrow, 7.30pm | Keir Starmer interviewed by Nick Robinson on BBC One as part of Panorama’s pre-election series.
