Afternoon summary
Nigel Farage has launched the Reform UK manifesto with a number of populist pledges including proposed spending of £141bn a year as the rightwing party seeks to make inroads into Labour heartlands. The IFS has said the plans “don’t add up” and would cost “tens of billions of pounds per year” more than the party claims. Peter Walker and Sandra Laville have their own assessment here.
Here is Archie Bland’s Election Edition, focusing on the Reform UK manifesto, and the spurious costings holding it together.
Labour rules out council tax rebanding in England
In the Sky News leaders special last week Keir Starmer refused to rule out a council tax revaluation in England under Labour. The following day Pat McFadden, the party’s national campaign coordinator, told broadcasters that council tax reform was “not something that we’re planning to do”. This went further in implying that there would be no revaluation under Labour, but did not amount to a proper denial.
Today the party has gone further. In an interview with the Financial Times published today, asked if she was considering a council tax revaluation, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, replied:
It does not really matter whether I think it is sensible or not. Is that where I am going to put my political energy? No.
And, in an interview with LBC this morning, referring to the Reeves interview, Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, said:
We are not going to do council tax rebanding, as the Tories are putting it and suggesting. Rachel Reeves has been clear on that today; she has ruled it out.
Council tax bands in England are based on property values from more than 30 years ago because there has been no valuation since the system was set up by Michael Heseltine, as an alternative to the council tax. The system is regressive, and benefits people in London and the south of England who have seen the value of their homes rise faster than average of the past 30 years.
Campaigners argue that a revaluation would make the system fairer. It could be done without changing the overall amount of income raised from the tax.
The Reeves/Ashworth comments also seem to rule out other changes to the system which could be introduced to make it fairer, such as the introduction of new bands for the most valuable properties, or making council tax proportional to the value of property.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has described the current system as unfair and “increasingly absurd”.
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has said he endorsed DUP candidates Ian Paisley and Sammy Wilson “on a personal basis” and not in his capacity as party leader, PA Media reports. PA says:
Farage’s endorsement sparked confusion last week because of Reform UK’s alliance with Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV), a rival unionist party to the DUP in Northern Ireland.
Reform UK’s co-deputy leader Ben Habib later insisted his party unequivocally backs TUV leader Jim Allister in the general election.
Allister is running as a candidate in North Antrim, where Mr Paisley is also running.
Wilson is running in the East Antrim constituency, where the TUV candidate is Matthew Warwick.
The TUV formed an electoral alliance with Reform UK ahead of July’s poll and is standing in 14 constituencies in Northern Ireland.
Starmer says report saying Tories plan to intensify personal attacks on him show they're 'desperate'
In the Times this morning Steven Swinford said Rishi Sunak was being urged by senior colleagues to be much more personal in his attacks on Keir Starmer. In his story Swinford said:
One cabinet minister said: “Rishi is a really nice and deeply honourable guy. I’m not sure whether he’s uncomfortable instinctively with the personalised attacks but it has been more generalised so far.”
The minister said that one of Starmer’s most difficult moments during the election campaign came when Beth Rigby, the Sky News presenter, questioned him over his endorsement of Corbyn as a potential “great prime minister”.
“He was really uncomfortable,” the minister said. “We need to learn from that and be much more explicit in our approach. This guy has never maintained a consistent position” …
Another cabinet minister said: “[Sunak] needs to make it personal. I think he was very badly affected by D-Day [returning from commemorations early] but he needs to go after Starmer now. Rishi getting us 140 to 180 MPs now would be a good result. I don’t think there are any other options left.”
A senior Tory said: “Starmer has been given a relatively easy ride. The core problem with Starmer is that he is untrustworthy. He is a grifter who has changed his position when it suits his career. Rishi needs to go for the jugular. His natural instincts are not to go for the jugular. That can be useful. But it’s not useful when you’re in a fight to the death. The question is whether the Tories will end up with closer to 100 seats or closer to 200.”
Asked about the report, Starmer said it showed the Tories were “desperate”. He said:
That’s all they’ve got left after 14 desperate years. You get to to the last weeks and their only thing they’ve got left is to attack me personally, I think that tells you everything.”
If they had a record to stand on, they would go into the final two weeks saying these are the brilliant things we’ve done but they haven’t got a record to stand on and if they said they’d done brilliantly people would laugh at them. This is desperate.
Gove says it is 'ridiculous' for Farage to think he can be PM because he's just 'entertainment machine'
Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, has said that it is “ridiculous” for Nigel Farage to think of himself as a potential prime minister. (See 8.59am.)
In an interview with Times Radio, asked to respond to what Farage said about being a realistic candidate for PM by the end of the decade, Gove said:
Ridiculous. Nigel Farage is part of a great entertainment machine. He is not someone who can govern this country.
Reform is a giant ego trip, not a serious programme of alternative change. Nigel Farage provides amusement and diversion. What he does not provide is authority and good governance.
In this country, whoever we vote for in the end, the British people choose authoritative, sensible managers, whether from the left or the right.
What they don’t do, is go in for the performative politics that Nigel has made such a successful financial career out of.
Gove, of course, once ran the campaign to get Boris Johnson elected PM. And, after Johnson was elected, Gove served in his government.
Reform UK's unfunded tax cuts twice as big as those in Liz Truss's mini-budget, expert claims
Dan Neidle, the campaigner and tax expert who runs a tax policy not-for-profit consultancy, has published an analysis of the Reform UK plans. He claims that because they are unrealistic, they amount to unfunded plans of at least £38bn – which he says is twice as bad as what Liz Truss was proposing in her mini-budget. He says:
Reform UK has published its manifesto. They plan tax cuts which they say will cost £70bn; however our analysis shows that they’ve miscalculated, and the actual cost will be at least £93bn.
Reform UK says it will fund these tax costs with £70bn of savings and additional revenue, but it provides few details. Their proposal to change Bank of England reserve rules is over-stated by at least £15bn, and the cost would likely fall on businesses and consumers, not banks.
These two factors mean that Reform UK’s plans have a total unfunded cost of at least £38bn – about twice the unfunded cost of Liz Truss’ ill-fated 2022 “mini-budget”.
We hope other estimates become available soon, but for the moment this is the only currently available estimate of the impact of Reform UK’s proposals. We asked Reform UK for the calculations they had used; they did not respond.
At his press conference Nigel Farage, the Reform UK, rejected the comparison to with Liz Truss. (See 2.06pm.) But that was on the basis that his plans were propertly costed, a claim not accepted by reputable economists.
Starmer claims Jeremy Hunt letter confirms Tory manifesto plans not fully funded
Keir Starmer has claimed that a letter by Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, to his constituents shows some of the tax cuts in the Conservative manifesto are unfunded.
The Tories say they would fund some of their tax cuts by welfare reform measures that would save £12bn by the end of the decade. In a letter to constituents, Hunt said that he announced “an enormous back to work programme” in the autumn statement last year and that the savings, worth around £12bn, would fund the manifesto tax cuts.
Starmer said today:
What has emerged this morning is truly extraordinary because what you’ve got is no less than the chancellor admitting that the money that they were pretending was available in their manifesto for their desperate policies is in fact money that’s already been accounted for.
So that means you’ve got a manifesto from the Tories which isn’t worth the paper on which it is written because it is completely unfunded.
It is extraordinary – the fact that it has come from the chancellor I think makes it even more extraordinary.
Hunt did announce his back to work programme in the autumn statement, but at the time he did not say it would raise £12bn. Full details of what was planned were unclear because it was not specified how many people would see their benefits cut, or by how much.
In its assessment of the Tory manifesto last week, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said:
The trouble is the policies that have been spelt out are not up to the challenge of saving £12bn a year. Some have already been announced and included in the official fiscal forecasts; others are unlikely to deliver sizeable savings on the timescale that the Conservatives claim.
Parties facing election defeat are inclined to make increasingly unfounded claims about their opponents, and there is evidence of that today from the Conservatives, who are alleging that Keir Starmer would extend voting rights to migrants, EU citizens and prisoners.
In a press release about the Reform UK manifesto launch, a Conservative party spokesperson said:
A vote for Reform risks delivering an unaccountable Labour majority.
That would hand Keir Starmer a blank cheque to raise your taxes, take no action on illegal immigration, and even rejoin the EU, with no way to stop him.
Labour are already planning to lower the voting age to 16, and we can expect votes for migrants, EU citizens, and prisoners to follow. So a vote for Reform won’t mean five years of Labour, it would mean a generation.
In its news release CCHQ provided no evidence to support these claims. At one point Starmer did say he favoured extending to right to vote in general elections to foreigners who had been settled in the UK a long time, but recently he explicitly ruled this out. He has not said anything about extending the right to vote for prisoners. Some prisoners already have the right to vote – as a result of a decision taken by David Cameron when he was PM, complying with a ruling from the European court of human rights.
IFS says Reform UK's plans 'don't add up' and would cost more than it claims 'by tens of billions of pounds per year'
The Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank has published its assessment of Reform UK’s tax and spending plans and it says they “don’t add up”. And they are not just relatively unrealistic, it says. It says the costings are out “by a margin of tens of billions of pounds per year”.
Here is a an excerpt from the analysis.
Reform UK proposes tax cuts that it estimates would cost nearly £90bn per year, and spending increases of £50bn per year. It claims that it would pay for these through £150bn per year of reductions in other spending, covering public services, debt interest and working-age benefits.
This would represent a big cut to the size of the state. Regardless of the pros and cons of shrinking the state, or of any of their specific measures, the package as a whole is problematic. Spending reductions would save less than stated, and the tax cuts would cost more than stated, by a margin of tens of billions of pounds per year. Meanwhile the spending increases would cost more than stated if they are to achieve their objectives …
Even with the extremely optimistic assumptions about how much economic growth would increase, the sums in this manifesto do not add up. Whilst Reform’s manifesto gives a clear sense of priority, a government could only implement parts of this package, or would need to find other ways to help pay for it, which would mean losers not specified.
Starmer confirms peer has had Labour whip withdrawn for 'particularly inappropriate' comment about Rosie Duffield
Keir Starmer has confirmed that the Labour peer Michael Cashman has had the whip suspended after accusing the party’s Canterbury candidate, Rosie Duffield, of being too “frit or lazy” to attend hustings.
Speaking to reporters today, Starmer said what Cashman said was “particularly inappropriate and that’s why the support of the whip was withdrawn as it was very swiftly”.
After the backlash to his remarks, Cashman, a former EastEnders actors and MEP, said:
I apologise unreservedly for a post that I put out regarding the Labour candidate for Canterbury. I fully understand any complaints that will be sent to the Labour party.
Updated
Rishi Sunak has said he hopes to hear England fans singing “Hey Jude” at bit more during the Euros.
Speaking to reporters today, he said:
It’s great to see England get our Euros campaign off to a winning start, the whole country is behind them to go all the way.
And when it comes to the chants specifically, I agree [with] what Gareth Southgate has said about that chant in the past, and what we want is to represent the best of our country at these tournaments.
And that means more goals for Jude Bellingham and more singing of ‘Hey Jude’.
Sunak says UK 'on the right track' and claims Tories could still win election
Rishi Sunak has said that he understands why voters are frustrated, but that Britain is now “on the right track”.
Speaking on a visit to a Centrica gas rig in the North Sea, he said:
There’s still two-and-a-half weeks to go in this election, I’m fighting hard for every vote because I believe we can win.
Asked if he understood why people were frustrated and tempted to vote for Reform UK,
Of course I understand people’s frustrations with that, I mean that’s undeniable, and I’ve been very clear that we have made progress but there is more to go.
But the point now is we are on the right track and this election is about the future.
The choice is clear: if you want your border secure and migration down, if you want your taxes cut, your pension protected, it’s only the Conservatives that are going to deliver that for you.
Updated
The Scottish Liberal Democrats launched their manifesto at a farm near Edinburgh, where leader Alex Cole-Hamilton arrived on a tractor in true to Ed Davey-style – and narrowly avoided bumping into one of his candidates.
The Scottish Lib Dems are hopeful of taking a clutch of seats from the SNP in Scotland, including Mid Dunbartonshire, where former leader Jo Swinson was defeated by votes in 2019. Their focus is regaining status as third largest party in Westminster with all the additional status and coverage that brings and which the SNP has put to good use.
This morning’s manifesto was a mix of crowd-pleasers, some of which are actually the remit of the Holyrood parliament – eg faster access to GPs and dentists.
Cole-Hamilton admitted that half an eye is on the Holyrood elections in 2026, telling the BBC: “As soon as this election is over, we will be focusing on the change that is coming for Scotland as well.”
The manifesto includes is a £500m “rescue package for care”, enabling people to be discharged from hospital and creating a carer’s minimum wage, as well as support for Scottish farmers who have been “taken for granted by government in Edinburgh and London”. There is also a 10-year plan to upgrade homes to make them warmer and cheaper to heat.
Q: These plans would make even Liz Truss raise her eyebrows. Wouldn’t they alarm the financial makets?
Farage says he does not accept that. Truss was planning unfunded tax cuts. He says he has set out how his plans would be funded.
He also says, realistically, that he is not going to win the election. But he wants the party to use it to establish a bridgehead to the future, he says.
That’s the end of the Q&A.
Farage says the UK is “skint”. It is “in real economic trouble”. The national debt is now £2.7 trillion, he says. It was just under £1 trillion when the Tories came to power, he says.
Updated
Farage claims Reform UK's plans would benefit poorer communities most
Q: Are you giving people hope, or is this just a list of things to hate?
Farage says people always think he just attracts a protest vote. That is what they said about Ukip.
But people voted Ukip because they believed in what he was saying.
He claims the biggest beneficiaries from the ideas in this document could be people trapped on benefits, or trapped on low incomes.
He goes on:
There is a lot more here, far more here, for those on the lowest end of the income scale than there is for anybody else.
Farage says, in politics, you have to have a vision.
Thirty years ago he was campaigning for Ukip in Eastleigh, he says.
He has had some long-term views “that have been right”. So he is confident of his views, he says.
Q: [From Sky’s Sam Coates] This is deeply unserious, isn’t it?
Farage says it is radical thinking. He says:
It’s radical. It’s fresh thinking. It’s outside the box. It’s not what you got to get with the current Labour and Conservative parties who are virtually indistinguishable, frankly, from each other.
Is this radical fresh thinking on economics? Yes. Is it radical, fresh thinking on constitutional change? Yes. Is it very radical change of the way our education system is currently bringing up our young children? Yes.
Britain is broken. Britain needs reform. That’s what we’re here for.
Tice claims his plans are costed.
Farage and Tice are now taking questions.
Farage says he does not think it is sensible to view these ideas as Labour or Tory ones. But they are sensible ones, he claims.
Tice says the policies would stimulate growth. That extra growth would also generate an extra £10b for the Treasury a year, he says.
How Reform UK would cut spending by £150bn a year, using the money for tax cuts and extra spending
This chart from the manifesto explains how Reform UK says it could save £150bn a year.
And this is how it says it would spend £141bn a year – £78bn on tax cuts, and £64bn on extra spending.
Richard Tice, the former Reform UK leader, is speaking now. He is going to explain how the party would fund its plans.
He says people in the media complain about unfunded tax cuts. But unfunded spending causes the problem, he says. He says the government spends more than it raises.
Tice refers to the plan he unveiled last week to raise around £40bn by cutting the interest paid on QE reserves. He says within hours he was attacked for this by the banking lobby (which he implies is evidence his plan is plausible).
Next, he turns to net zero policies. He claims that the govenrment could save £30bn a year by scrapping its net zero targets. That would amount to £600, he says.
He says net zero policies are not reducing CO2 emissions, just shipping them elsewhere.
And Tice says the third biggest source of revenue would come from cuts to government spending.
Reform UK has published its manifesto online. It is here.
Farage says the world is in its more dangerous state of his lifetime. He says he was born just after the Cuban missile crisis.
That is why the government should raise defence spending, going from 2.5% of GDP (the Tory target for the end of the decade) to 3% of GDP “as quickly as possible”, he says.
Returing to the NHS, he suggest the UK should follow the French insurance model, as a means of funding it.
Farage ends by talking about benefits. Reform UK wants to cut benefit spending. People talk about scroungers on benefits, he says. But he says that a lot of people on benefits don’t want to be there. They are disincentivised from getting a job, he claims. He says his party’s policies would address this.
Farage says the Tories have allowed immigration to reach record levels. Reform UK would impose a freeze on net migration, he says.
The party would also abandon the government’s net zero policies. He claims they have led to steelmaking ending in south Wales. The government claims that is a good thing, because CO2 emissions go down, even though those emissions just get exported elswhere.
He says Reform UK would end the subsidies for green energy providers that are pushing up bills.
Turning to the manifesto, Farage says Reform UK would push the level at which people start paying income tax up to £20,000.
It would raise the inheritance tax thresholds, so only estates worth £2m or more would pay, he says.
He accuses the government of failing to deliver on Brexit; there are many EU regulations that still apply, he says.
Farage confirms Reform UK wants to change way NHS is funded
Farage says the problems with Wales have occured because there has not been a proper opposition to Labour in the Senedd.
Reform UK would take a different approach, he says.
We’re for controlling borders. We’re for promoting genuine economic growth. We’re for helping the little guy you know, millions of men and women out there trying to get on trying to do their own thing and yet Labour and [the] Conservative party only ever listen to the giant, global corporates.
We’re about trying to restore some trust in politics. You might dislike what we say you might not want to vote for what we say.
And we want to have an absolutely radical rethink of the way in which our public services are run. And yes, that does include the National Health Service.
It’s been very very difficult to have any conversation about the NHS over the course of the 25 years that I’ve been involved in politics without someone pointing and screaming you want to privatise it. All we want is an NHS that is free at the point of delivery that actually works that and how we get there, frankly, I don’t think most people could give a damn about.
Farage is now talking about Labour and its record in Wales.
In Wales people pay more in council tax, he says.
And spending per person on public services is higher in Wales, he says.
But that is not delivering better results, he says.
NHS waiting times in Wales are 50% longer than in England, he says.
He says Welsh eduction has moved in a “leftward, PC, woke direction”, and outcomes are worse than in England, he says.
He says the Welsh Labour government has reduced people’s choices in Wales, for example by ending right to buy.
And he says the crowning example of this is the 20mph speed limit in residential areas.
Farage says he is not going to be rude about other party leaders.
But there is a huge gap in leadership, he claims. People want to be inspired, he says.
There is now the most enormous gap that exists between the two big Westminster parties – and I say Westminster because it is very much Westminster and Oxford University thinking that dominates these places – a huge gap between that and the conversations that I hear being had by families and people around the rest of the country.
Farage says he accepts that Reform UK will not win. The timing of the election came as a surprise, he says.
But he repeats the argument he set out on the Today programme this morning (see 8.59am) about how he wants to use the election to establish Reform UK as the basis for what will be the main, rightwing opposition to Labour at the time of the next election.
Updated
Farage says he has taken part in two seven-party debates.
And he has been struck by how similar Labour and the Conservatives are, he claims.
People do not trust the political parties, he says.
He says that is what he is not calling this a manifesto launch.
Because if I say to you manifesto, your immediate word association is lie. And that is, I think, wholly unsurprising.
Farage claims young people have had their minds 'poisoned' with negative views about Britain
Farage says he feels Britain is broken.
Most crime goes unreported, he says.
And we are in decline culturally, he claims.
I’ve been asked absolutely no doubt that we are in decline culturally. We’ve begun to forget who we are, what our history is, what we stand for.
We’ve put up with the minds of our children, from a young age right through university, frankly being poisoned about what this country is and what it represents.
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK, leader, arrives at the manifesto launch. Or launch of the party’s “contract” with voters, as they call it. They believe the word manifesto is tainted, because it is associated with broken promises.
He starts by talking about himself: “Guess who’s back.”
Farage launches Reform UK's manifesto
The Reform UK manifesto launch is about to start.
There is a live feed at the top of the blog.
These are from ITV’s Anushka Asthana, who posted on X earlier about what we already know about the party’s plans. She suggests it’s the Liz Truss mini-budget on stilts.
Thread: As Reform UK continue to perform well in polls really important they get same scrutiny as other parties. I really scoured their policies for an the ITV interviews prog and here were some things that stuck out: 1/
— Anushka Asthana (@AnushkaAsthana) June 17, 2024
Thread: As Reform UK continue to perform well in polls really important they get same scrutiny as other parties. I really scoured their policies for an the ITV interviews prog and here were some things that stuck out: 1/
Reform UK are offering pretty huge tax cuts. The increase to thresholds for eg. The cost of that is also huge - £70bn in person tax cuts plus a business package. To put in context - Truss’s mini budget package was £45bn 2/
So how will they fund it? One major part is £50bn in govt waste. Is that feasible? Worth pointing out that the @instituteforgov say the entire salary bill of the civil service is £16bn. So a lot of this must be coming from nhs for eg 3/
They say they’ll save £20bn by scrapping net 0. I put to Richard Tice that’s only realistic if you don’t accept that man made climate change will bring big costs (ie a trade off). He said man made climate change is happening but doesn’t disagree w this on their website 4/ pic.twitter.com/LIymMHEvpw
— Anushka Asthana (@AnushkaAsthana) June 17, 2024
They say they’ll save £20bn by scrapping net 0. I put to Richard Tice that’s only realistic if you don’t accept that man made climate change will bring big costs (ie a trade off). He said man made climate change is happening but doesn’t disagree w this on their website 4/
In his answer to the final question, Starmer says a lot of people working in social care have no chance of career progression. And the pay is too low.
A lot of those people go to work in the NHS, he says.
Labour would have a fair pay agreement for social care. That would offer higher pay, and career progression, he says.
He says he has to move on now.
But he ends by saying that, if people have questions that they did not get a chance to ask, they should tell his team and he will try to get back to them.
Or even if they just want to make a point, he would like to hear it, he says.
How Starmer tried to persuade floating voter in Q&A with port staff - by saying Labour will govern in interests of workers
A woman tells Starmer she is an undecided voter. She has to do two jobs to make ends meet. She says she is terrified about the future and “the cost of living going up and up and up”. She asks Starmer why she should vote for him.
Starmer tells her it is for her to decide how she votes. But he goes on:
What I would say is we are determined to change our economy to make sure we never get into a cost of living crisis like this again, because we know what it feels like.
When I was growing up. We didn’t have a lot of money. My dad actually worked in a factory. My mum was a nurse and sometimes we couldn’t pay our bills. In our particular case, we had a phone bill cut off, so I know what it feels like not to be able to pay your bills and that’s the position too many people.
(Interestingly, he does not use the line about his father being a toolmaker – a line that provoked laughter at the Sky event last week, because people in the audience felt they had heard this so often it had become cliche.)
He says Labour’s plans for Great British Energy should bring down bills. But he stresses that would not happen immediately.
He asks the woman if she is renting or has a mortgage. When she says mortage, he says a lot of people are paying more because of the Liz Truss’s mini-budget, and he says Labour will avoid a repeat of that.
He goes on:
The last thing I’d say to you is this, but it is important. Politics is about policies and what we’re going to do to change. It’s also about who do we have in our mind’s eye when we make decisions. And I have in mind in my mind’s eye working people like you are struggling with cost of living crisis …
If we are privileged enough to come in [to government] to serve, we will have you in our mind’s eye.
He ends by telling the woman that it will be her to decide. He seems to be making a conscious effort to sound respectful, and to avoid telling her what she should do.
Updated
Starmer says the UK’s deal with the EU is botched, and Labour wants to negotiate a better one.
Q: A zero-hour contract works for me. What would Labour do about them?
Starmer says some of them are exploitative. People do not know what hours they will work from one week to the next. Labour will ban those, he says.
But for other people those contracts work. Labour would allow those to continue, he says.
Q: What are you going to do to address bottlenecks in infrastructure?
Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, is answering this one.
She references Labour’s plans which she says will create 650,000 new jobs.
Part of the plan involves planning reform, she says. She says Labour will fund more planning officials.
Starmer says the port needs to be adapted for floating offshore wind. There is a global competition to build these turbines, he says. He says Labour would take tough decisions to ensure the UK can win this race.
Keir Starmer is doing a Q&A with workers in Southampton.
He says Labour wants to use its national wealth fund to channel investment into ports like this.
Updated
Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, has unveiled his party’s election battle bus at an event in South Queensferry.
Faisal Islam, the BBC’s economics editor, was impressed by the turnout for the meeting of Labour’s infrastructure council this morning. (See 11.19am.)
NEW 👀
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) June 17, 2024
Shadow Chancellor Reeves is hosting her “British Infrastructure Council” this morning - some of the biggest investors - intriguing that they are meeting mid-election campaign… include CEOs of Lloyds, M&G, Santander and top execs from Blackrock, CDPQ, etc.
Shadow Chancellor Reeves is hosting her “British Infrastructure Council” this morning - some of the biggest investors - intriguing that they are meeting mid-election campaign… include CEOs of Lloyds, M&G, Santander and top execs from Blackrock, CDPQ, etc.
The sitting Government wouldn’t be able to do this because of purdah. And while all attendees say they are doing so in an “independent advisory” capacity, it seems quite a statement to sit with the shadow Chancellor a fortnight before the General Election.
Reeves and shadow Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds will also say they will hold a Global Investment Summit in the first 100 days, should the party win next months General Election
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have been campaigning in Hampshire this morning. Stefan Rousseau from PA Media took this picture of them on the train.
SNP calls for social tariff to provide cheap energy bills for people who are poor, disabled or elderly
The SNP has called for a social tariff that would guarantee cheap energy bills for people who are poor, disabled or elderly.
In a speech this morning, John Swinney, the SNP leader, said that his plan for a social tariff would be included in the SNP’s manifesto when it is published on Wednesday. He said the document would take “the traditional left-of-centre politics of our country” and apply it to the challenges facing Britain.
And Swinney said it wanted the social tariff concept extended to broadband and mobile phone bills.
Swinney is first minister of Scotland, and his government decides what happens in Scotland in policy areas that are devolved. But energy policy is largely a matter for Westminster, and the SNP manifesto will include matters reserved to London.
In a speech this morning in Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides, Swinney suggested that people on the social tariff should pay at least half what other people pay for their energy. He said:
We believe that there are certain things that every citizen should have access to as a right. Healthcare free at the point of need, a social security safety net, pensions for older people, and free education including free university tuition.
But it is time that we recognised that these rights need to go further, to reflect the realities of the modern world.
Energy is the perfect example. The whole country has been hammered by high fuel bills. And in the Western Isles, we have the worst fuel poverty levels in Scotland.
The UK government has the powers over fuel bills and we need to see real action – so our manifesto will confirm the SNP’s plans to extend the safety net to fuel.
That should be done through the introduction of a ‘social tariff’ for energy bills – that means that if you are on a low income, disabled or elderly, you get discounted fuel bills. Campaigners have backed a half-price tariff and that seems like a good start to us. And we believe the costs should be met from a combination of general taxation and by top slicing the profits of energy companies making massive amounts of money at the expense of ordinary people.
And, arguing for a social tariff for broadband and mobile phone charges, Swinney said:
Connectivity – fast broadband and good mobile phone connections – are critical to modern life. In fact, in rural Scotland and the Isles, it is critical to the whole future of the economy.
As more and more people work from home at least part of the week, often you literally cannot do your job without a decent internet connection. That’s why, to help people get jobs, keep jobs and keep more of their hard-earned cash, there should be a social tariff for broadband and mobile charges too.
Scotland's first minister John Swinney, on the SNP campaign trail in Stornoway today, stresses the need for a social tariff, so the SNP can "commit to people who are elderly or disabled that they are free of the burden of energy costs in our society".
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 17, 2024
🔗 https://t.co/aC64W7WIG0 pic.twitter.com/gXn2DjKJJU
Reeves tells business leaders Labour manifesto has 'your fingerprints all over it'
Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, told business leaders at an event this morning that the Labour manifesto had their fingerprints all over it.
At a meeting of Labour’s infrastructure council, set up by the party last year, Reeves said:
I really hope that when you do read it, or if you read the section on the economy, that you will see your fingerprints all over it.
Because the ideas that we’ve set out in that manifesto on how to grow the economy are based on so many of the conversations I’ve had with businesses and investors over the last three years.
Shapps ducks question about whether Sunak was wise to call election now
Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, was also on the Today programme this morning. If, as the polls suggest, the Conservatives party loses badly, one question the Tory post-defeat inquest will address will be whether Rishi Sunak was right to call the election now. Shapps implied this morning he thought Sunak made a mistake.
Asked by Mishal Husain if it was a good idea to call an election now, Shapps replied:
It’s a decision only a prime minister can make.
Asked, again, if it was a good one, Shapps sidestepped the question.
"I wonder if you think this was a good time for an election?"@MishalHusain asks Grant Shapps, Defence Secretary, who says it was a decision for the prime minister.#R4Today
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) June 17, 2024
Asked about Nigel Farage, Shapps also made it clear that he isn’t one of those Tories angling to see him join the party. Asked if he could imagine Farage defecting to the Tories if he is elected as a Reform UK MP, Shapps replied:
Anyone is welcome to be a Conservative, but you can’t be Conservative if you belong to another party, and if indeed you stand against the party, so that’s how Conservative membership and indeed membership for all parties works.
If you want to renounce your own party and cross the floor, then of course we look at those cases on an individual basis. But, to be clear, there is only one outcome of people voting Reform in this election, to give Keir Starmer a supermajority.
Asked if he thought he might lose in Welwyn Hatfield, where he had a majority of 10,955 at the last election, Shapps said he ‘always accepted” he had a marginal seat
The YouGov MRP poll suggests Labour will beat Shapps by 47% to 29%. The Survation MRP has Labour winning by 40% to 31%.
Farage claims Reform UK let down by vetting company after candidate resigns over backing BNP in past
Nigel Farage suggested Reform UK had been let down by a professional vetting company this morning as he dealt with questions about the latest example of someone with a history of expressing extremist views being selected as a candidate.
He was responding to the news that Grant StClair-Armstrong has resigned from the party after it was discovered he had previously encouraged people to vote for the far-right British National party. But StClair-Armstrong remains on the ballot paper as the Reform UK candidate in North West Essex, where the business secretary Kemi Badenoch is defending her seat.
Daniel Lavelle has the story, which was broken by the Times.
Asked about StClair-Armstrong, Farage told the Today programme:
This particular case is a chap in his 70s, who 20 years ago said he was thinking of voting BNP as a protest vote, he was never a member of the BNP.
However, we don’t find that acceptable. Now, we did put in place – with quite a well-known political figure, who runs a professional vetting company – we put in place something, we spent a great deal of money on getting that vetting done, it wasn’t done, and I’ll talk more about that over the next couple of days.
With a short general election every party is having problems with candidates.
In fact, StClair-Armstrong wrote a blog urging people to vote BNP in 2010, 14 years ago, not 20 years ago.
Reform UK has regularly had to remove or reprimand candidates over extremist views.
Best for Britain publishes guide for anti-Tory tactical voting
Best for Britain, a campaign group aiming to fix the problems caused by Brexit, has published a tactical voting guide for people wanting to use their vote in such as way as to ensure the election of the smallest possible number of Conservative or Reform UK MPs.
These are from Peter Walker, who was at the launch event this morning.
I'm at an event hosted by Best for Britain, who are putting out a guide to tactical voting to best oust the Tories. They recommend tactical voting:
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) June 17, 2024
Labour in 370 seats
LD in 69
Green in 3
SNP in 7
Plaid in 2
and 'vote with your heart' in 181 pic.twitter.com/7dvg1kVucO
I’m at an event hosted by Best for Britain, who are putting out a guide to tactical voting to best oust the Tories. They recommend tactical voting:
Labour in 370 seats
LD in 69
Green in 3
SNP in 7
Plaid in 2
and ‘vote with your heart’ in 181
Hear are what they call 'Potential Portillo [in 1997] moments" based on latest MRP polling, if people vote tacticallly. pic.twitter.com/PwTNaEypWv
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) June 17, 2024
Among other seats they think could potentially fall to tactical voting are Maidenhead. Yes - Maidenhead. Theresa May's former seat. pic.twitter.com/9hQbbThNl7
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) June 17, 2024
And here is a slightly wishful thinking list of Conservatives who could, in theory, be removed by tactical voting. pic.twitter.com/T258BFLQy1
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) June 17, 2024
Do remember that these are just one group’s best recommendations, and that inevitably some of them will be bitterly disputed by other opposition parties.
Best for Britain has commissioned their own large-scale polling (22,000 people) suggesting just under 40% of all voters would consider voting tactically to get rid of the Conservatives (while 14% would do so to keep the Tories).
Farage claims Trump not to blame for his supporters storming US Capitol to try to overturn 2020 election result
The idea of Nigel Farage become prime minister before the end of the decade (see 9.28am) may seem ridiculous, but it is less ridiculous than the prospect of Donald Trump becoming next US president would have sounded at the time of the 2012 presidential election.
In his Today interview Farage was asked about his support for Trump, and he only half defended him over his actions after he lost the 2020 presidential elections, when Trump refused to accept the result of the election and incited a mob that attacked the US Capitol in an attempt to the election result being confirmed.
When Justin Webb put it to Farage that Trump tried to overturn a democratic election result, Farage said: “That’s a matter of opinion.”
Asked to give his opinion, Farage replied:
What happened on January 6 should not have happened. Of that, there’s no doubt whatsoever. Did [Trump] actually urge people to storm the Capitol Building? No, he didn’t … He said ‘Go in peace’ to the protesters, but they didn’t.
Webb said it Trump did not mean ‘Go in peace’. He then asked Farage if he approved of Trump’s efforts to get Mike Pence, the vice president, to refuse to certify the election that Joe Biden won. Farage replied:
No, I don’t approve of objecting to elections, even though I object to much of what’s happening in our system with postal vote corruption and many other things.
Asked if he accepted Trump lost the 2020 election, Farage said:
I think he lost it because the law did nothing to prevent ballot harvesting etc.
Updated
Farage says he's aiming to be credible candidate to take over as PM at next general election
In his Today interview Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, restated his ambition to take over as leader of the opposition to Labour in the next parliament. He said that by the time of the next election he wanted to be the person most likely to replace Keir Starmer as PM.
He told the programme:
This is our first big election as a party. Our plan is to establish that bridgehead in parliament and to use that voice to build a big, national campaigning movement around the country over the course of the next five years for genuine change.
Asked by Justin Webb if that meant Farage was aiming to be a credible candidate for PM in 2029, Farage replied:
Yes, absolutely.
I think the disconnect between the Labour and conservative Westminster-based parties and the country, the thoughts, hopes and aspirations of ordinary people, are so far apart from where our politics is. And the funny thing is they show no signs of changing.
I was in those seven-way debates, one on the BBC, one on ITV, and the more that Angela Rayner argued with Penny Mordaunt, the more they sounded the same. There are no real, fundamental differences between these two parties.
Farage also said that, when he decided to stand as a candidate and to take over as Reform UK leader, he was making a “minimum five-year commitment” to build this movement.
Asked if he was committed to leading “a centre-right coalition” taking on Labour at the time of the next election, Farage replied: ‘That’s absolutely right. That’s our ambition and we believe it is achievable.”
Many commentators would query whether any movement led by Farage would be described as “centre-right”. For reasons explained here, the terms radical right or far right might be more accurate.
Some Tories would like see Farage playing this role as Conservative party leader (assuming he would be allowed to join). Some of his Reform UK colleagues just want to replace the Conservative party. Farage himself has suggested the two parties could merge in what he has called a reverse takeover. In the Today interview he was not asked about the exact mechanism by which he envisaged leading a rightwing opposition in five years’ time.
Labour would try to improve UK’s post-Brexit trade deal with EU, says Reeves
Labour would try to improve elements of the UK’s trade deal with the EU, Rachel Reeves has indicated, saying also that most financial services companies have “not regarded Brexit as being a great opportunity for their businesses”, Peter Walker reports.
Reform UK switches focus to attack Labour as Nigel Farage restates aim to be main opposition leader by 2029
Good morning. Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is launching his party’s manifesto (which he is not calling a manifesto, but a “contract” with voters instead) this afternoon, and the location is indicative of an interesting shift in his campaign strategy. Reform UK is a very rightwing, anti-immigration party, much of its support comes from people who voted Conservative in the past, and when Farage announced two weeks ago that he was going to take over as party leader and stand as a candidate, he justified this primarily on the grounds that the nation had been let down by the Tories.
Today he is launching his manifesto in Merthyr Tydfil in the South Wales valleys, an old mining area where the vote has traditionally been rock-solid Labour, and he says he is there because he wants to focus his attack on Keir Starmer’s party. In a statement released in advance, he said:
One of the reasons we are launching our Contract with the people of Britain in Wales is because it shows everyone exactly what happens to a country when Labour is in charge.
Schools are worse than in England, NHS waiting lists are longer than in England, Covid restrictions were even tighter than in England and now Welsh motorists are being soaked by literally hundreds of speed cameras to enforce the deeply unpopular new 20mph blanket speed limit in towns and villages.
Since devolution, the Welsh have been ignored by the London political establishment and let down by the Labour administration they elected.
Meanwhile, the Tories have been the official opposition almost solidly since 2016 and have achieved zilch, which probably explains why we are neck-and-neck with them in the polls in Wales.
So, if you want a picture of what the whole country will be like with a Starmer government and a feeble Conservative opposition, come to Wales and then hear us unveil a better future for all of Britain.
Until now Labour has not been too bothered about the increase in support for Reform UK because, overwhelming, that seems to be hurting the Tories a lot more. But with two and a half weeks of the election yet to run, it is possible that, if Reform UK changes it messaging, that could change.
Farage has been on the Today programme this morning where he half-defended Donald Trump over his role in the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 and insisted that he could be a viable candidate to be prime minister at the next general election, perhaps in 2029. I will post the highlights shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: The Best for Britain campaign group publishes its tactical voting recommendations for the election.
Morning: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is campaigning in Devon and Somerset.
10am: John Swinney, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, gives a speech in the Outer Hebrides.
11am: Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, are on a visit at at port the south east of England. Starmer is doing a Q&A with workers.
Morning: Rishi Sunak is on a visit in East Yorkshire.
1pm: Nigel Farage is launching the Reform UK manifesto (which they not calling a manifesto, but a “contract” with voters) in Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales.
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