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Labour launched its general election manifesto on Tuesday as Sir Keir Starmer sought to reassure millions of voters across middle England with a pledge of “stability” after years of Tory “chaos”.
Manchester was chosen for the big launch, 48 hours after Rishi Sunak unveiled the Conservatives’ manifesto.
Sir Keir outlined his plan for economic growth and declared Labour to be the “party of wealth creation”.
He declared the party would be “pro-business and pro-worker”, ruling out some tax rises, including on VAT, income tax and National Insurance.
But how - and what’s still at risk of rising or being cut?
For the latest, we’re joined by Evening Standard political editor Nicholas Cecil.
Plus, well-presented data is crucial to help make sense of general election results in the build-up to 4 July, and on the big night itself.
Stats, names, numbers and percentages will come in thick and fast from hundreds of constituencies - and the Evening Standard’s news team is preparing fresh ways to present metrics to our audience.
Interactive maps, charts and graphs will all help reader digest the data and what the results mean for a new government.
There’s also a host of localised search features, brought to life with popping graphics.
Evening Standard business and technology correspondent Simon Hunt tells Mark Blunden about preparation for their data journalism project.
Find the Standard on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you stream your podcasts.
Here’s an automated transcript:
From the Evening Standard newsroom in London, I'm Mark Blunden and this is The Standard podcast.
Coming up in this episode:
The idea really is so that every reader can get out of it, whatever they want, whether it's trying to find out what the national picture is, trying to find out what's happening in London, or going really granular into what's happening in their neighbourhood.
What to expect from The Evening Standard's general election data reporting and the swing-o-meter.
But first:
So let me spell it out.
We will not raise income tax.
We will not raise national insurance.
We will not raise VAT.
That is a manifesto commitment.
Labour launched its general election manifesto on Thursday, as Keir Starmer sought to reassure millions of voters across Middle England with a pledge of stability after years of Tory chaos.
I don't believe it's fair to raise taxes on working people when they're already paying this much, particularly in a cost of living crisis.
Manchester was chosen for the big launch 48 hours after Rishi Sunak unveiled the Conservatives Manifesto.
Keir Starmer outlined his plan for economic growth and declared Labour to be the party of wealth creation.
He said the party would be pro-business and pro-worker ruling out some tax rises, including on VAT, income tax and National Insurance.
But how?
And what's still at risk of rising?
For the latest, we're joined by Evening Standard political editor Nicholas Cecil.
Nick, what were the key takeaways?
It was very much steady as she goes.
There were no fireworks, no big announcement in Keir Starmer's speech, but there were some interesting rhetorics.
So he was stressing that if you elect a Labour government, they will relight the fires of renewal in Britain.
That's his words.
And what he's really saying is he's saying that a Labour government would put economic growth at the heart of its plan and would be a party for wealth creation.
He is also stressing that people's children will actually be better off than they are.
So generation by generation have normally got better off until recently.
And now, current children in Britain are facing a prospect of being less well off than their parents.
So he's vowing to reverse that by getting economic growth, healthy economic growth, to not this anemic 0.1, 0.2 per cent of quarter, but proper economic growth going across the country.
Yourself and our chief political correspondent, Rachel Burford, made some interesting points in your piece today about labour needing to overcome the elusive economic growth and this word ruling out some taxes.
So how is it that they're going to relight the fire?
Let's just see two key questions that remain.
So the first one is, is how would you get this economic growth?
Because if you look back in recent years, we've had the COVID pandemic, we've had Putin's war in Ukraine, and there's been economic and political turmoil over the past few years, at least with various administration, including and particularly this trust is chaotic administration, which lasts only around for 50 days.
So the question is, how do you get the economy revved up and going at a far better speed?
So, so far, that's been elusive in recent years.
And the problem is that if you can't get that economic growth going, how do you pay for everything that you want to pay for?
And the answer is really only two options.
One is more borrowing, which the government always don't want to do, or you've got to raise taxes further, which again, governments don't want to do.
And specifically on taxes, Labour have been very clear that they've ruled out some tax rises, but certainly not all tax rises.
So, for example, they've ruled out increasing national insurance, they've ruled out increasing VAT, they've ruled out increasing income tax, but they haven't been that specific, for example, on capital gains tax.
That may change.
And also they've already introduced some taxes if they get elected, such as VAT on private school fees, abolishing the non-dom status for the very wealthy in the country, and closing loopholes in the windfall tax for oil and gas giants.
So, if you look at those taxes, those taxes aren't hugely controversial, they're controversial to a degree, but they're quite targeted.
To raise large amounts of tax, you have to tax far more people.
Keir Starmer has said he won't raise taxes on working people, but that leaves open still quite a few other options, including a wealth tax or property tax and so on.
So, yes, Labour has sort of closed down this debate over taxes, which the Tories have sort of reignited, but it's still a big question of mark over what will happen if they gain power.
And the manifestos, other main areas, young people, NHS, education, law and order and immigration, any firm detail?
There wasn't a great deal of change or anything huge that we didn't know before.
There was a bit more specific about helping young people.
So Keir Starmer, he's got two teenage children, so he understands how the world is seen through their eyes.
So a lot of children and young people look at older generations and see that they may well be better off, they might own their own home, they might have a decent pension and so on.
So Keir Starmer in his speech was reaching out to young people and stressing that if there was a Labour government, they will be more of a priority than under the current government.
And any surprises?
There was nothing particularly new.
There was some rhetoric to appeal to Labour activists and so on.
But overall, Keir Starmer's central pitch is towards middle England, because that is where elections are won or lost.
So if you're on the Labour left, who do you vote for?
You might go green, but then you might end up with a Tory government.
You might go and live there, but then you might end up with a Tory government.
So there's less space for people on the left of politics to go.
But to win an election, you need to win the centre ground.
And so that's very firmly where Keir Starmer is.
Let's go to the ads coming up, getting data ready for general election night with the ES News team.
Why not hit follow in the meantime to give us a rating.
Welcome back.
Well presented data is crucial to help us make sense of general election results on the big night.
Stats, names, numbers and percentages will all come in thick and fast from hundreds of constituencies.
And the Evening Standard's news team has been preparing fresh ways to present metrics to our audience.
They've been plotting interactive maps, charts and graphs for readers to digest the data and what the results mean for a new government.
There's a host of localized search features brought to life with popping colourful graphics.
Evening Standard business and technology correspondent Simon Hunt is preparing the project to go live soon at standard.co.uk ahead of the 4th of July.
And Simon joins me in the newsroom now.
What can you tell us about what Evening Standard readers can expect with election analytics on the website?
I think if you look at journalism years ago, data journalism doesn't really have a huge role.
And I think the pandemic changed that a lot.
I mean, I can remember when it first struck, everyone seemed to be sharing that statistic of COVID cases and the charts and graphs moving around.
And I think ever since then, most news publications have woken up to the value of data journalism.
We have already done this with the mayoral election a few weeks ago.
We found that that was definitely a big boost in sort of engagement and readership, and there was lots of reader interest in it.
And so we're keen to find different and sort of interesting and novel ways to introduce that election data to readers.
So we've got quite a lot of different things, still trialing a few different things at the moment.
We're hoping to release an electoral interactive map of all of the constituencies in London, looking at the key battlegrounds, the areas that were only won by quite small vote shares back in 2019 that looked like they're up for grabs, either by Labour or the Lib Dems.
And also those areas that have been of particular interest, either because a well-known incumbent who's served in those constituencies for years will be stepping down, and there's a question about who will replace them.
What can visitors expect from the interactive element?
One of the big advantages of the data stuff we're doing this time round is, obviously, with news reporting, you can only report about one particular thing.
And, you know, you can talk about sort of big picture trends, and certainly we're going to cover that in our data as well.
But what we want to do with the interactive part of the charts and graphs and maps is personalize it to the particular user who's engaging with it.
So, for example, with our map, you'll be able to click on your particular constituency, find out what's happening in your area and how that's going to change.
In our charts and graphs, you'll be able to search for your particular candidate or your particular area.
And so the idea really is so that every reader can get out of it whatever they want, whether it's trying to find out what the national picture is, trying to find out what's happening in London or going really granular into what's happening in their neighbourhood.
How is it going to look and is it going to be available with the same experience on all devices?
Our readership is sort of very diverse in terms of where people consume the news.
So quite a lot of it is mobile, is tablet.
People who read news on their computers is probably a declining share.
So when we're thinking about building charts and maps and even things like swingometers, which I'm a big fan of, we want them to be interactive and we want them to be able to work with people's smartphones and their tablets when they read.
That's a lot of fast moving data.
What are some of the technical challenges in getting it presented in a digestible form?
The biggest challenge really is speed.
So if you look at the mayoral election, there were 14 different constituencies that had to declare, and the system was sort of set up by the London Assembly on the day, such that no declarations would take place simultaneously.
And that meant from my perspective, it was fairly straightforward because you've got one declaration happening after the other, and I can very easily collect the data constituency by constituency.
When you've got the general election, of course, that's a completely different picture, and it's way more complicated and way more chaotic, and you've got 650 seats with no clear sense of which is going to declare first and what all are they going to declare in.
And there might well be five different places or ten places declaring at the same time.
And so I think the key thing will be looking at the top level picture.
How many seats have been won by which parties?
There's much more election coverage in the Evening Standard newspaper and online at standard.co.uk.
We're back on Friday with a special edition for you.
It's part one of our general election mini-series called A Week's A Long Time in Westminster.
All the news, analysis and political gossip from the Evening Standards Parliament team.
