A summary of today's developments
The Institute for Fiscal Studies spotted that the Conservative manifesto pledge to maintain school funding in England at its current level could actually mean a £3.5bn spending cut. The manifesto pledge is “to protect day-to-day schools spending in real terms per pupil” over the next parliament. But with school rolls shrinking because of the falling birthrate in recent years, that means fewer pupils and less spending on schools overall.
Labour has claimed that the plans in the Tory election manifesto would lead to a “mortgage bombshell” for homeowners because they involve unfunded spending commitments worth £71bn. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said: “The analysis that we have conducted … has identified £71bn of unfunded commitments over the course of the next parliament.“ The consequence of an increase in day-to-day borrowing to fund the commitments made in this manifesto would amount to a second Tory mortgage bombshell, because higher borrowing at this scale would force the Bank of England to increase interest rates.”
The Resolution Foundation, in its instant of the Tory manifesto, also says that the richest fifth of households will benefit most from the plans it contains. It said: “Total tax giveaways announced in the manifesto today amount to £17.2bn a year by the end of the decade. RF analysis of these tax cuts (which excludes the one-off Stamp Duty cut for first-time buyers) shows that the biggest gainers overall are the richest fifth of households, who are set to gain £1,300 on average, compared to the poorest fifth who would gain £150.”
During the BBC’s leaders debate in Scotland in response to a question about whether a possible change in government means the question of independence is off the table, Labour’s Anas Sarwar said this election is not about independence but getting rid of the “rotten Tory government”. Sarwar adds he does not support independence nor a referendum. The Greens’ Lorna Slater believes independence will not be off the table due to the percentage of Scots who support it. The Tories’ Douglas Ross said he doesn’t support independence and believes there has been a “decade of division”. The SNP’s John Swinney says he agrees with Sarwar that it should be up to the people of Scotland to decide whether they want independence.
The Lib Dems’ Alex Cole-Hamilton told the BBC debate that one in 14 GP appointments relate to mental health, which he believes can be addressed by trebling the Digital Services Tax paid by social media companies and investing that money into mental health services.
BBC news presenter Sophie Raworth has pulled out of hosting the head-to-head debate between Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer, The Prime Ministerial Debate, which will now be broadcast on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from 8.15pm to 9.30pm on Wednesday 26 June. The BBC said Raworth has asked to step down as the host of the debate after fracturing her ankle, with Mishal Husain now taking on the role.
Most voters who say the war in Gaza is a priority for them would consider voting for an independent, pro-Palestinian candidate, according to new polling published by Hyphen, an online publication focusing on issues important to Muslims. But the polling, conducted by Savanta, also suggests a majority of Britih Muslims do not rank the Israel-Palestine conflict as one of the top five priority issues that will determine how they vote.
Updated
And that concludes the BBC debate in Glasgow.
When asked about the ongoing conflict in Gaza, Sarwar says he supports a two-state solution, an immediate ceasefire and separating Hamas from Palestine.
Updated
Ross acknowledges that not enough people know about the Barnet Formula in relation to independence.
Swinney says he agrees with Sarwar that it should be up to the people of Scotland to decide whether they want independence.
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Ross says he doesn’t support independence and believes there has been a “decade of division”.
He says there should be focus instead on improving the economy and reforming the NHS.
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Slater believes independence will not be off the table due to the percentage of Scots who support it. Slater says she supports an independent Scotland.
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On a question about whether a possible change in government means the question of independence is off the table for the moment, Sarwar says this election is not about independence but getting rid of the “rotten Tory government”. Sarwar adds he does not support independence nor a referendum.
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On his decision to step down, Ross says this election is an opportunity to send a message to Swinney, who he accuses of failing to answer questions properly.
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Ross reiterates Scotland’s teacher numbers are falling and that Swinney was previously education secretary.
Swinney says it relates to austerity and that there is a fixed sum of money available to the Scottish government. He repeats there will be more austerity from the Tories and Labour.
Sarwar hits back – “Read my lips … no austerity under Labour”.
Updated
Slater says the austerity-making decisions made by Westminster are to blame for the state of the NHS.
She believes an independent Scotland would make a difference.
Updated
Swinney insists: “The austerity we are facing in Scotland is direct product of austerity cuts from the United Kingdom government and Anas Sarwar is going to prolong those cuts within Scotland if his party win the election.”
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Cole-Hamilton cites the case of a nurse who had to wait eight hours for an ambulance. He says one in 14 appointments relate to mental health, which he believes can be addressed by trebling the Digital Services Tax paid by social media companies and investing that money into mental health services.
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On the NHS, Swinney says the health service is under acute pressure due to increased demand and the level of delayed discharges. He says staffing levels and funding in the NHS is at record levels, and that they are prepared to tax higher earners to fund the NHS.
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Sarwar said there will be an immediate injection into the NHS by closing the non-dom tax loophole.
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When asked about long waiting times for an ambulance and to be seen at a hospital in Glasgow, Ross said this situation is replicated across Scotland. He also cites record levels of delayed discharge and patients not having a social care package.
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Anas Sarwar accuses the SNP’s John Swinney when he was education secretary of “shamefully” attempting to downgrade the results of working-class children during the pandemic, and says 173 teachers have lost their jobs due to lack of funding.
Swinney responds that the decisions made are linked to austerity measures made in Westminster and repeats the £18bn worth of cuts estimate.
Updated
On a question about tax breaks for businesses, Swinney said more than 100,000 businesses in Scotland are exempt from business rates. He said the SNP has prioritised investment in the NHS.
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Slater accuses Ross of being disingenuous with the 100,000 jobs figure on the risks of windfall tax. He says the Tories have been cutting taxes for the wealthiest. The Greens propose a tax on the super wealthy.
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Cole-Hamilton said the Lib Dems would reverse the two child cap on child benefit and add £1,000 to the carers allowance. He accuses the Tories of “mismanagement” over the economy.
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It is Douglas Ross’s turn and he says there is an awful lot more that can be done than the Scottish Child Payment. He says the windfall tax risks 100,000 jobs.
Swinney responds that the IFS and other thinktanks have warned about the £18bn worth of cuts.
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Anas Sarwar denies the £18bn worth of cuts claims and said there will be no austerity under Labour.
He condemns the “Tory economic carnage” that has brought higher mortgages and energy bills. Sarwar talks of a pay rise to some groups of workers, a windfall tax for energy giants and investment in jobs of the future.
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Douglass Ross said the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine have affected economies across the globe. He said the UK Conservatives reduced national insurance and made a commitment to reduce it further. He speaks more broadly about better GP access and more investment in local areas.
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When asked by an audience member how the candidantes would reduce the cost of living, John Swinney said the SNP has already helped with free prescriptions for some people, supporting students with university fees and the Scottish Child Payment, which has increased for some families.
He said experts have said there will be £18bn of cuts after the election.
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Hosted by Stephen Jardine, the SNP’s John Swinney, the Scottish Conservatives’ Douglas Ross, Scottish Labour’s Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ Alex Cole-Hamilton and the Scottish Greens’ Lorna Slater will be grilled by the audience.
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In the spin room ahead of the BBC Scotland Leaders’ Debate, which is taking place in the gloriously gothic surroundings of Glasgow University’s Bute Hall, the journalists and party representatives are setting up while EastEnders blares on the big screens, ahead of the live broadcast.
At the last leaders’ debate on STV last Monday, it was pointed out that none of the leaders were actually standing for election at Westminster. That’s changed this week after Douglas Ross enraged Holyrood colleagues by U-turning and announcing he would be standing for Westminster after all – then a few days later made a second surprise announcement that he would be standing down as party leader on 4 July.
He’s believed to be the first party leader to step down during a UK election campaign … and the expectation is that other party leaders here tonight will be very keen to make hay of this.
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The leaders of Scotland’s five main political parties are about to debate on the BBC. You can follow along here.
Our economics editor, Larry Elliott, has examined the sums in the Tory manifesto, and asked ‘do they add up’?
A survey of voting intentions of 448 voters in the constituency of Hartlepool for The Economist by WeThink puts Labour on 58%, Reform UK on 23% and the Tories on 10%.
In 2021 the Tories won the Hartlepool by-election, with a Conservative MP, Jill Mortimer, elected for the first time in the current constituency’s history.
Earlier, a Sky News poll from YouGov showed the Conservatives have fallen to 18%, down one point on last week. Reform have increased by one point this week to 17%.
Labour is still ahead with a 20-point lead on 38%, but have lost three points over the past week, while the Lib Dems rose four points to 15%.
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The Conservative Party manifesto contains a commitment to creating a temporary Capital Gains Tax relief for landlords who sell properties to their tenants.
Graham Boar, Partner at UHY Hacker Young, the national accountancy group, said this risks creating a major tax loophole.
“The proposed CGT relief for landlords selling properties to tenants will be ripe for abuse unless the law is drafted very carefully.
“There’s a risk that landlords selling properties will structure them as tenancies leading to sales, avoiding huge amounts of Capital Gains Tax.
“A landlord could also sell a property ‘on credit’ to a tenant, who could then sell it on with no gain and pay back their debt to the landlord. Either way, HMRC would miss out on huge amounts of tax.
“Drafting the law in a way that avoids the risk of tax avoidance is likely to make it very complex and difficult for taxpayers to understand. Nobody wants to see an even more complicated tax system in the UK.”
Conservative peer and former minister Lord Jo Johnson believes the Conservative party’s prospects are “desperately grave” and his party is heading towards “a very heavy defeat” at the general election, adding he believes today’s manifesto will not “change things dramatically”.
Speaking on Tonight with Andrew Marr on LBC, the brother of former PM Boris Johnson said he believes “the country is looking for a change and Keir Starmer and his shadow frontbench are doing a good job at appearing unthreatening to the people who are going to get them in.”
The Institute for Fiscal Studies’ director, Paul Johnson, who earlier cast doubt on the Tories’ claim they could deliver £12bn welfare reforms to fund tax cuts (see post at 13.56), has been speaking further about his issues with the manifesto.
He said their plans were “problematic” because they rule out reforming taxes such as council tax and capital gains tax.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s PM programme he said: “One of the most sort of frustrating parts of the manifesto actually is not what they say they will do, or what they say they won’t do.
“Not only are they saying they won’t raise the main rates of income tax, national insurance and VAT, but they are ruling out all sorts of changes to council tax, taxation of pensions, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, all sorts of things where frankly there needs to be reform, and there needs to be change.
“And I presume that part of the reason they’re doing that is to try to get the Labour party to agree with that level of commitment not to do stuff.”
He added: “They are not telling us how they would either actually cut government spending on local government or social care or the justice system or whatever it is, but neither are they telling us where they would find extra money to avoid those cuts. This is all ... against a slightly implausible baseline.”
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One of the UK’s most senior civil servants, Alex Chisholm, has been revealed as the new UK chair of the energy company EDF, after having previously run the department that struck a deal for it to build a new nuclear power station.
Chisholm was permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, and before that led the business department, which worked on the government deal for EDF to go ahead with the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in Somerset. The agreement was struck in 2016 with UK bill payers bearing the cost of the construction over a 35-year period.
The long-delayed project’s costs have soared from an estimated £18bn to at least £31bn and it is due to be completed in 2031 – about 14 years after EDF thought it would be up and running.
Chisholm said his appointment came “at a time of great change and opportunity in the energy sector”.
“EDF continues to invest in nuclear, wind, solar and battery infrastructure to offer customers secure, clean and affordable electricity,” he said. “I look forward to getting to know all parts of the company, and to helping EDF serve the needs and priorities of the UK.”
Caroline Lucas says political rule book should be 'torn up' because current system 'obstacle to securing liveable future'
Caroline Lucas, who is leaving Westminster after 14 years as Britain’s first Green party MP, is giving a speech tonight reflecting on the lessons she has learnt fighting for change.
She is expected to argue that, over the past decade and a half, the national debate on the environment, and climate, has changed significantly. She is expected to say:
Slowly at first, and then quite quickly, things changed.
We went from an era where Cameron as prime minister could dare to dismiss environmental concerns as ‘green crap’, to an era where net zero is now a legally binding commitment and we managed to build a cross-party political consensus to such an extent that parliament came together to declare a climate emergency.
And as depressing as it is to see the Tories now setting light to that consensus in their desperate lurch to the hard right, I don’t think we should underestimate just how much, collectively, over the last 14 years, we have in fact succeeded in changing the conversation.
I’m under no illusions that that was down to my efforts as one lone voice.
But I do think it’s down to the efforts of so many voices in our movement that has just grown and grown, and because people took action in the face of the fossil fuel lobby – and in the face of a politics that didn’t care.
It’s no longer just specialist environmental groups speaking out.
It’s not just left wing or right wing, young or old.
It’s the whole of our society coming together to exert pressure on the government to act.
But she will also argue that further change is needed, and that that will require breaking the rules determining how politics is conducted. She is expected to say:
I believe the current political rules are an obstacle to securing a liveable future.
And that until the rule book is torn up, we must all be alert to the possibility that, rather than being the agents for the real change to which we all aspire, we are in fact colluding in maintaining the status quo.
I remember one of my greatest fears about becoming an MP was being institutionalised.
I recall the time in my very early days when I was fulminating against some procedural outrage, that Margaret Beckett took me aside and said, very kindly, “you’ll get used to it”.
I promise you I never have.
Perhaps it’s happened a little, but I leave feeling that one of the things I am most proud of is resisting that every day.
The rules of politics are there to be broken.
If we’re to make more progress in the next 14 years than we have in the last 14 then, rather than being dictated to by the rule makers, you must all become rule breakers too.
Whether that’s backing political reform to break up the power of the two-party system.
Or supporting those who put their bodies on the line in the climate fight
Or organising within communities that have been held back by a failing government.
Let’s do the hard thing that we often struggle with on our side of politics: seek allies in our struggles, rather than trying to find enemies in our midst.
That’s all from my for today. Nadeem Badshah is now taking over. He will be covering tonight’s BBC Scotland leaders’ debate, which starts at 8pm.
Here is an election extra podcast, with Heather Stewart explaining what’s in the Tory manifesto.
Total school spending in England could fall by £3.5bn a year under Tory manifesto plans, IFS says
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has spotted that the Conservative manifesto pledge to maintain school funding in England at its current level could actually mean a £3.5bn spending cut.
The manifesto pledge is “to protect day-to-day schools spending in real terms per pupil” over the next parliament.
But with school rolls shrinking because of the falling birthrate in recent years, that means fewer pupils and less spending on schools overall.
Luke Sibieta of the IFS explains:
While this is billed as protection, with pupil numbers falling by 400,000 up to 2028, freezing spending per pupil in real terms would, in practice, mean a £3.5bn cut to total school spending. A reduction in the overall schools budget on this scale has not been delivered since the mid-1970s, and were it to be delivered it would almost certainly require a reduction in the workforce and potentially school closures too.
The mention of “day-to-day” spending also implies that capital funding, required to replace or construct school buildings, is also vulnerable to cuts – as it was in 2010 when the Conservatives came to power.
Why Labour says there's £71bn black hole in Tory manifesto (but not same as earlier £71bn black hole Labour identified)
Labour has now sent out its document costing the spending plans in the Conservative party’s manifesto. It says there is a £71bn black hole in the plan. But this is not the same as the £71bn black hole in the Tory plans identified in a Labour document published much earlier in the campaign. That black hole was a black hole in annual spending by the end of the decade, involving some very dubious assumption including the premise that the Tories would abolish all employees’ national insurance from next year. (See 4.44pm.) The new black hole involves a different set of assumptions, and in some respects it is much more realistic. It only includes the 2p cut in national insurance announced by Rishi Sunak, not his long-term aspiration to get rid of it entirely.
But, like the Tories, Labour is inflating its black hole figure by cumulating deficit figures (and over five years, not four years, as they Tories were doing).
Labour says there would be an £11bn block hole in year one, but that over five years the annual total black holes (£11bn, £10bn, £16bn, £16bn and £17bn) add up to £71bn, rounded up.
Here are the latest figures from Labour’s new document.
It is not entirely clear whether or not it is just a coincidence that the two different costings exercises have produced a £71bn figure. But if a party is using a figure for political messaging, it helps not to change it.
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It felt like the executives at Sky News were enjoying having a pop at ITV when the channel announced the format for its leaders special programme, with a live studio audience, in Grimsby on tomorrow at 7pm.
Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer will face questions from @BethRigby and members of the public during Sky News' special leaders' event.
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 11, 2024
👉 #BattleForNo10
📍 Grimsby
⏰ 7pm on Wednesday
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233, YouTube
Read more ➡️ https://t.co/KNlG8JkoLl pic.twitter.com/02KLcBbhgA
The channel has announced that for the debate both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer will each be grilled by political editor Beth Rigby during a 20-minute interview before taking questions from the audience for 25 minutes. A coin toss will decide who will go first.
The move is a move away from the rapid-fire format used in the first leaders debate on ITV last week, which saw each leader given 45 seconds to hold forth on key topics such as tax, the cost of living crisis and immigration.
Criticism was widespread, reflected by the broadcaster Andrew Marr who quipped: “I thought it would be impossible to find a format worse than Prime Minister’s Questions; I was wrong.” An amusing viral video made by Darren McCaffrey captured the frustration of the debate’s viewers:
WATCH: This is excellent, sums up #ITVDebate and the frustrations around it incredibly well pic.twitter.com/QFNoxBSlKv
— Darren McCaffrey (@darrenmccaffrey) June 5, 2024
In an apparent swipe at ITV Sky News boss Jonathan Levy said:
People said they wanted to hear more from Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, so Sky News is giving them more time … Each candidate. 45 minutes – not 45 seconds.
The leaders event will take place between 7.30pm and 9pm with special programming before and after led by Sophy Ridge.
Sky said Grimsby was chosen because its new Grimsby and Cleethorpes constituency “is complex and likely to be a key battleground in the election”.
Labour claims Tory manifesto plans would require more government borrowing, pushing up mortgage rates
Labour has claimed that the plans in the Tory election manifesto would lead to a “mortgage bombshell” for homeowners because they involve unfunded spending commitments worth £71bn.
Speaking at a briefing in London, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said:
The analysis that we have conducted … has identified £71bn of unfunded commitments over the course of the next parliament.
The consequence of an increase in day-to-day borrowing to fund the commitments made in this manifesto would amount to a second Tory mortgage bombshell, because higher borrowing at this scale would force the Bank of England to increase interest rates.
The result would be an increase in the average mortgage totalling £4,800 over the course of the parliament.
Labour published a document at the end of last month claiming that the Tory plans involved unfunded spending commitments worth £71bn a year by the end of the decade. Here is the chart from the document justifying that figure.
The Labour claim about a Tory £71bn spending black hole (annually) was seen by commentators as having as little or even less credibility than the Tory claim about a Labour £38bn black hole (over four years). One reason for that is Labour were assuming the Tories would abolish employees’ national insurance entirely from 2025. That is not what the Tories are planning, and it is almost impossible to Rishi Sunak trying to cut taxes so drastically so quickly.
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Most people who say Gaza is key issue would consider voting for independent, pro-Palestinian candidate, poll suggests
Most voters who say the war in Gaza is a priority for them would consider voting for an independent, pro-Palestinian candidate, according to new polling published by Hyphen, an online publication focusing on issues important to Muslims.
But the polling, conducted by Savanta, also suggests a majority of British Muslims do not rank the Israel-Palestine conflict as one of the top five priority issues that will determine how they vote.
And it suggests that 63% of British Muslims plan to vote Labour, down just 1 point from November last year. Only 12% plan to vote Conservative, down 7 points from last autumn.
Some 21% of British Muslims say the Israel-Palestine conflict will be the most important issue in determining how they vote, and 44% say it will be a top five issue. The equivalent figures among the population as a whole are 3% and 12%, the poll suggests.
Among those who say this is a top five concern, 86% of Muslims, and 64% of the nationally representative group, say they would consider voting for an independent candidate campaigning on the issue.
In an analysis of the findings for Hyphen, Lewis Baston, the polling expert, says there are mixed messages in the polling for Labour. He says:
In theory, there is great potential for independent candidates campaigning on the issue of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Of the 44% of Muslims who ranked the conflict in their top five issues, the vast majority (86%) said they would consider voting for a pro-Palestine independent. That would amount to 38% of Muslim voters in total; coupled with support from non-Muslims who feel strongly about Israel/Palestine, that is enough to be in contention in several parliamentary constituencies with significant Muslim populations.
But this requires credible independent candidates, of whom there is a limited supply, and understanding how many independents might actually be elected requires specific seat-by-seat knowledge of local campaigns and communities. The poll also suggests that, even though there are strong views on Gaza, Labour’s advantage on other issues – and the party’s image of listening to and representing Muslims — may enable it to resist the challenge of independents in many constituencies with big Muslim communities.
Beyond the issue of Palestine, the poll gives Labour cause for hope. The rest of the issue agenda is working so strongly against the Conservatives that even Muslims who feel strongly about Gaza seem likely to vote Labour because of other concerns, as will non-Muslim voters – particularly if there is no strong independent standing locally.
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Mishal Husain to chair BBC's Sunak/Starmer debate, after Sophie Raworth pulls out due to fractured ankle
BBC news presenter Sophie Raworth has pulled out of hosting the head-to-head debate between Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer, The Prime Ministerial Debate, which will now be broadcast on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from 8.15pm to 9.30pm on Wednesday 26 June.
The BBC said Raworth has asked to step down as the host of the debate after fracturing her ankle, with Mishal Husain now taking on the role.
Raworth had to pull out of the London Marathon in April after 20 miles after seriously injuring her ankle.
Meanwhile…. I had a great 20 mile race. Missed the last 6.2 miles 🤦♀️ First DNF. Or DMB (Did My Best) when my ankle
— Sophie Raworth running… (@Raworthontherun) April 22, 2024
blew up. 🤷♀️ See you London Marathon 2025 … pic.twitter.com/OYHbsgxDCh
She said:
The injury I picked up at the London marathon has now been diagnosed as a fracture in my ankle. I was only told this last week during the D-day commemorations. I’m now on crutches, in a boot and non-weight-bearing for some time.
Mishal Husain is a fantastic presenter and will be brilliant at moderating what is a really important debate for both the two leaders and the BBC. I’m delighted she is doing it.
Husain, who hosted the BBC’s first debate with representatives from seven parties on Friday, said Raworth had worked at a “remarkable” pace in recent weeks despite her injury. She said:
I can’t see myself ever stepping into her running shoes but she can count on me for this, as the two prime ministerial candidates face each other for their last television encounter.
Jonathan Munro, Deputy CEO of BBC News, said:
Mishal did an outstanding job on Friday [chairing the seven-party debate] – the BBC is very fortunate to have such a wealth of talent to draw upon. We’re wishing Sophie a speedy recovery; it seems it’s not only football managers who need to worry about foot injuries!
In the section on Wales, the Conservative manifesto says:
We will expand our backing drivers’ bill to cover Wales, reversing Labour’s blanket 20mph speed limit by requiring local consent for 20mph zones and giving local communities the legal right to challenge existing zones.
In a thread on X, Ben Summer from WalesOnline says this is misleading. It starts here.
NEW: The Tories have promised to scrap the 20mph policy in Wales. Only one issue: They can't, and they know it.
— Ben Summer (@bm_summer) June 11, 2024
THREAD 🧵
NEW: The Tories have promised to scrap the 20mph policy in Wales. Only one issue: They can’t, and they know it.
And here are some of his posts where he explains that the Tories are not planning just to ignore devolution.
The Tories aren’t planning to repeal devolution by brute-forcing the policy through - but this is where it gets more confusing. After we pushed them on it, the Tories clarified the plan ISN’T to automatically try and get the legislation through in Wales
Instead they would pass the bill in Westminster and ask for a legislative consent motion from the Senedd - effectively, permission - to expand it to Wales.
This was previously used for post-Brexit legislation but it would be pretty unlikely the Welsh Government would agree to it
So within about an hour we’ve gone from “we will expand our Backing Drivers’ Bill to cover Wales, reversing Labour’s blanket 20mph speed limit” to “The UK Government will work with the Senedd to pass a motion to show their support”
A bit different.
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The Conservative manifesto’s headline promise for education is to keep spending on England’s schools at its current level – which is another way of saying that schools wouldn’t be hit by the spending cuts proposed elsewhere in the manifesto.
But even that commitment only extends to pupils up to the age of 16. The manifesto pledge won’t protect colleges or sixth forms, while the other new pledges are minor or cost-free, including a new law to ban mobile phones in schools (see 2.27pm), another law to mandate a minimum of two hours PE per week – already in the national curriculum – and a promise to build 15 new special schools.
School leaders said they were underwhelmed by the offer. Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said:
This is a collection of recycled policies with nothing new to say about how the Conservatives would deal with the shortage of funding, teachers and the crisis in special educational needs provision.
The pledge to protect day-to-day school spending in real terms per pupil is the bare minimum. In reality the costs that schools actually face are often higher than inflation and they are starting from a point of seeing budget cuts over the past 14 years.
Richest 20% of families will gain most from tax cut plans in Tory manifesto, says Resolution Foundation
The Resolution Foundation, in its instant of the Tory manifesto, also says that the richest fifth of households will benefit most from the plans it contains. It says:
Total tax giveaways announced in the manifesto today amount to £17.2bn a year by the end of the decade. RF analysis of these tax cuts (which excludes the one-off Stamp Duty cut for first-time buyers) shows that the biggest gainers overall are the richest fifth of households, who are set to gain £1,300 on average, compared to the poorest fifth who would gain £150.
And this is how it sums up the plans.
The tax and spend pledges announced today sit on top of already announced tax rises worth £23bn, and an implied £21bn cut to unprotected departments (given today’s commitment to increase defence spending), all of which would be needed for an incoming Conservative government to meet its key fiscal rule of having debt fall as a share of the economy in five years’ time (a rule reaffirmed in the manifesto).
This would leave the next parliament as a whole as one of modest tax rises, major spending cuts, and heroic efforts on the part of both HMRC and DWP to find £6bn of extra tax avoidance and benefit cuts in nine months’ time. The Foundation cautions that even if this were to be achieved, if key fiscal risks – such as lower productivity growth – become fiscal reality then this could blow another £17bn hole in these plans.
Resolution Foundation thinktank says Tory plans for tax cuts funded welfare savings struggle to pass 'plausibility test'
The Resolution Foundation has also published a swift analysis of the Tory manifesto plans. The RF and the IFS are the two leading thinktanks on public spending and the verdict from the RF is much the same as the IFS’s (see 1.56pm) – it says it is not convinced the plans pass the “plausibility test”.
This is from Mike Brewer, interim chief executive at the Resolution Foundation.
The Conservatives have trebled down on making employee national insurance rate cuts the centrepiece of their manifesto. This is a welcome focus for cutting taxes compared to the alternatives being mooted, but it’s a stark reversal from autumn 2022, when then Chancellor Sunak proposed raising it to 13.25 per cent to fund social care.
Furthermore, given the weak state of the public finances, these fresh tax cuts rest on already announced tax rises, heroic efforts to reduce tax avoidance, and £33bn of combined cuts to disability benefits and public services that will be extremely challenging to deliver. That may explain why there is scant detail on these cuts.
There are big questions over whether doubling down on firm tax commitments, funded by pledges to massively cut spending in record time, really passes the plausibility test, or whether this approach answers the big economic challenge Britain faces on growth.
The unspoken issue looming over this manifesto is that it will only take a small dose of bad economic news for these plans to fall foul of the fiscal rules, and for a future Conservative government’s tax and spend plans to have to return to the drawing board.
The previous chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, Torsten Bell, recently left the thinktank to stand as a Labour candidate. But the organisation is not partisan; its president, David Willetts, is former Tory minister.
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This is from the Sun’s political editor Harry Cole, who has just been at the Tory briefing on the manifesto.
Tory manifesto authors just did a briefing.
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) June 11, 2024
Told this “requirement” for schools to follow advice on banning mobiles in classrooms would be a law change.
But manifesto stops short of anything near what campaigners want in a smartphone ban for under 16s… spokesman says… pic.twitter.com/qslbFGEBbZ
Tory manifesto authors just did a briefing.
Told this “requirement” for schools to follow advice on banning mobiles in classrooms would be a law change.
But manifesto stops short of anything near what campaigners want in a smartphone ban for under 16s… spokesman says…
Here is a take on the manifesto from ITV’s Robert Peston.
Sunak’s election strategy is old-fashioned. It’s a promise (bribe) of tax cuts for pretty much every demographic: employees, the self-employed, families with children on above-average incomes, pensioners, and first-time house buyers. His hope is that significant numbers of…
— Robert Peston (@Peston) June 11, 2024
Sunak’s election strategy is old-fashioned. It’s a promise (bribe) of tax cuts for pretty much every demographic: employees, the self-employed, families with children on above-average incomes, pensioners, and first-time house buyers. His hope is that significant numbers of them, who may be thinking of voting Labour or Reform, will instead put an X next to the Tory candidate’s name, once they are in the privacy of the polling-station cubicle and where no one can ever know what they’ve done. “It’s a slightly cynical bet on human nature” said one of his closer ministerial colleagues. He’s right. But as I put to the PM in my question at the Manifesto launch, the strategy only works if voters believe the actions of the Tories in government for 14 years, where they’ve been raising the burden of taxes to levels we’ve not experienced since the late 1940s, are an anomaly, and should not be seen as a signifier of things to come. It is all about the credibility of jam tomorrow, and the credibility of Sunak as the jam maker
Welfare charities have expressed alarm about the proposals in the Tory manifesto to save £12bn from benefit cuts.
Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, said:
The PM’s commitment to increasing the number of families receiving child benefit is welcome but reducing entitlements to disability benefits and increasing sanctions in our social security system will make some of the worst-off families even more insecure.
And Paul Carberry, chief executive of Action for Children, said:
Today’s manifesto launch shows the Conservatives remain stalled on child poverty. It offers little to ease the desperate plight of millions of children growing up in the shadow of austerity, the pandemic and economic uncertainty.
The Conservatives’ plan to save £12bn by making welfare reforms looks set to hugely impact disabled people and those with mental health conditions who face barriers to work, causing yet more needless hardship for families with children. Higher earners would gain from changes to child benefit and national insurance, while families in poverty would remain trapped.
Garnham and Carberry also both criticised the Tories for not including in the manifesto a pledge to get rid of the two-child benefit cap.
IFS says Tories unlikely to raise £12bn from welfare reforms they say will fund their planned tax cuts
The Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank has published an initial response to the plans in the Tory manifesto. It’s from Paul Johnson, its director. He says that he doubts the welfare reforms proposed will deliver the £12bn savings needed for tax cuts, and that the manifesto is “silent on the wider problems facing core public services”.
Here is an excerpt.
The Conservatives have promised some £17bn per year of tax cuts, and a big hike in defence spending. That is supposedly funded by reducing the projected welfare bill by £12bn; cracking down on tax avoidance and evasion; and saving billions from cutting civil service numbers, reducing spending on management consultants, and “quango efficiencies”. Those are definite giveaways paid for by uncertain, unspecific and apparently victimless savings. Forgive a degree of scepticism …
Spending on health-related benefits has ballooned – a doubling in the number of new claims for disability benefits each month compared with 2019.
So it is right to identify this as a challenge to address. 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. The hope seems to be that, since spending on disability benefits is rising rapidly, one can simply “reform disability benefits” and hold spending down. But halving the number of people that successfully apply for disability benefits from its current level would not be easy and would need definite, clear policies that require difficult decisions. These are not stated.
What Tory manifesto says about leaving, or not leaving, European court of human rights
This is what the Conservative manifesto says about leaving the European court of human rights (ECtHR) – or, rather, not leaving it.
We will run a relentless, continual process of permanently removing illegal migrants to Rwanda with a regular rhythm of flights every month, starting this July, until the boats are stopped. If we are forced to choose between our security and the jurisdiction of a foreign court, including the ECtHR, we will always choose our security.
This goes no further than what Rishi Sunak has been saying for months, and will disappoint Tories pushing for a much stronger commitment to possible withdrawal.
As Pippa Crerar points out, it is not even particularly clear what Sunak is saying.
Rishi Sunak, asked whether Tories would withdraw from ECHR, says he's been "crystal clear".
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) June 4, 2024
"If I'm forced to choose between securing our borders and our country's security or a foreign court, I'm going to choose our country's security every single time."
Not entirely sure…
Rishi Sunak, asked whether Tories would withdraw from ECHR, says he’s been “crystal clear”.
“If I’m forced to choose between securing our borders and our country’s security or a foreign court, I’m going to choose our country’s security every single time.”
Not entirely sure that *is* crystal clear
Keir Starmer says he won’t pull out of international agreements because he doesn’t want UK to be “pariah” on global stage.
How Tories would cut taxes by £17bn by end of decade, with savings from welfare reform and tackling tax gap
Here are the charts from the costings document published alongside the Tory manifesto explaining where they would cut taxes, where they would spend more, and how they would save money.
How Tories would cut taxes by £17.2bn a year by end of decade
How Tories would save £18bn a year by end of decade from welfare savings and tackling tax gap
Other Tory plans to spend and save money
Overall summary of impact of Tory plans
Tory manifesto 'a recipe for five more years of chaos,' says Labour
Labour says the Tory manifesto is a recipe for more chaos. Giving his party’s response, Pat McFadden, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, said:
This Conservative manifesto is a recipe for five more years of Tory chaos.
After 14 years in power, the prime minister’s desperate manifesto published today is stuffed full of unfunded spending commitments.
The prime minister that was brought in to be the antidote to the chaos of Liz Truss has instead become the next instalment of the same thing.
Updated
Man arrested after objects thrown at Nigel Farage during campaign event
A 28-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of public order offences after objects were thrown at Nigel Farage when he was campaigning, PA Media reports. PA says:
The Reform UK leader was on top of a party battle bus in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, this morning, when a cup was thrown, narrowly missing him.
A man in a red hoodie could be seen shouting from a work site below, before reaching into a bucket and throwing something else, which also missed.
Workmen appeared to then haul the man from the site and he ran off, before police officers tackled him.
South Yorkshire police said: “We have arrested a 28-year-old man on suspicion of public order offences following disorder in Barnsley town centre today. It is believed that the man threw objects from a nearby construction area. A suspect was quickly detained and remains in police custody.”
Farage said he believes the objects were some wet cement and a coffee cup.
He posted the footage on X, formerly Twitter, saying: “My huge thanks to South Yorkshire Police today. I will not be bullied or cowed by a violent left-wing mob who hate our country.”
Farage had been warned by police not to get off the bus.
It comes after Victoria Thomas Bowen, 25, was charged with assault by beating and criminal damage when a milkshake was thrown over Mr Farage as he left the Moon and Starfish Wetherspoons pub in Clacton-on-Sea in Essex on Tuesday last week.
Updated
Q: What is on offer for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)?
Sunak says the Tories are proposing more SEND school places.
And that is the end of the launch.
More reaction and analysis coming soon.
Q: [From Steph Spyro from the Express] Can you put a figure on how many flights will leave to Rwanda every month, and how many people will be on them?
No, says Sunak. He says he cannot give that information for operational security reasons. But he says the flights are ready to go, and an airport is on standby.
He says Starmer just says he will “smash the gangs”. But a slogan is not a policy, he says.
Q: [From Harry Cole from the Sun] You says you will process more asylum seekers. But the evidence suggests, if you speed up dealing with applications, more get accepted. Isn’t this policy the same as the Labour one, that you describe as an amnesty? And why are not not proposing ECHR withdrawal?
Sunak says the grant rate for asylum applications was down last year.
He says you also need a deterrent; Rwanda allows that.
And, on the ECHR, he says he would not have given ministers the power in the Safety of Rwanda Act to ignore ECHR rulings if he was not prepared to use it.
He says other EU leaders are adopting similar plans.
Normally Keir Starmer is in favour of EU alignment, he says. But on this he “has not got the memo”.
Q: [From Sky’s Beth Rigby] Polling suggests people think you are more likely to put up taxes than Labour. Haven’t you blown it?
Sunak says he is proud of his record as chancellor. He took bold action to protect people during the pandemic, he says.
He says he was also right to argue against Liz Truss’s unfunded tax cuts. (He does not refer to her by name, but he talks about the argument “two summers ago”.)
Q: [From Ben Riley-Smith from the Telegraph] What do you say to those who argue these plans are not bold enough?
Sunak claims these plans are bold. All that is on offer from Labour is “a blank sheet of paper”. He say they are not offering any single bold ideas. He proposed national service. Not everyone likes the idea, but it has energised the conversation, he claims. He says Labour is not offering anything comparable.
Labour would put up taxes by £2,000. “I will fight to the last day of this election campaign to make sure that does not happen,” he says.
Sunak claims tax burden would be 1% lower under Tory plans than otherwise forecast
Q: [From Jason Groves from the Daily Mail] You are targeting the self-employed. Do you think white-van man will save you? And will the overall tax burden go down?
Sunak claims the tax burden will be 1% lower in every year under these plans, compared to what was forecast in the spring budget.
And he says the self-employed are important, because they take risks.
Q: The Tories have been pushing up the tax burden to levels it has not reached since the 1940s. Why should anyone believe you when you say you will cut tax?
“Because we already have,” says Sunak.
He says he was right to help people during Covid, and to help people with energy bills when prices went up.
But now the government is cutting taxes. People are getting a tax cut worth £900 on average. And the UK is an attractive place for businesses, he claims.
Q: What are you plans to prevent the cuts that services like prisons face in the future?
Sunak says day to day spending will rise. But he says there is also scope for efficiency savings. He says he does not want taxes to go up when efficiences can fund them.
The Conservative have now published the manifesto on their website.
Q: [From Chris Mason from the BBC] What is in this manifesto which will shift things in favour of the Tories, when nothing else has?
Sunak says the country had to deal with Covid. Now he is looking to the future, he says.
And he rattles through the main manifesto pledges again.
Updated
Q: [From George Parker from the FT] Do you think you have let down the north of England? And do you think there is reckoning coming?
Sunak asks Parker if he heard the speech from Ben Houchen.
He says Teesside was an area neglected by Labour. Now the area is getting investment from levelling up funds. The freeport is delivering skilled jobs.
Sunak is now taking questions.
He starts with GB News.
If he was expecting a soft question, that was a mistake.
Q: [From Christopher Hope] You say you will be bold. So why not be bold and commit to leaving the ECHR?
Sunak repeats the line about being willing to put national security ahead of ECHR membership.
Updated
Sunak says he accepts people are 'frustrated' with Tories, and with him personally - but claims Labour would be worse
Sunak says he is “not blind to the fact” that people are “frustrated” with the party, and with him personally.
But the Tories are the only party with big ideas about how to make the party better, he says.
He says Keir Starmer is asking for a blank cheque, “when he has not said what he will buy with it or how much it will cost you”.
Under Labour, there would be more immigration and higher taxes, he claims.
And he claims Starmer wants to “change the rules” of the game so they stay in power. They want to give 16 and 17-year-olds the vote, not because they want them to do adult things like serve on a jury, but because it will help keep Labour in power.
And if Labour win, they could be in power for a long time, he says.
He says the country need a clear future. This manifesto will deliver it.
Sunak says the Tories have halved violent crimes.
And he claims English children are now the best readers in the western world because of Michael Gove’s reform.
And he says government is much more diverse than it was. The party may not have got everything right, “but that is a record I am mighty proud of”, he says.
Sunak claims Labour left Britain “on the brink of bankruptcy” when it was last in power.
He claims Labour’s welfare reforms were devoted to disguising how many people were out of work.
And he claims much of Labour’s extra health spending went on higher wages and more bureaucracy.
Sunak says it is important for people to feel safe.
The Tories will recruit new police officers, he says.
And they will protect women by amending the Equality Act to make it clear that sex means biological sex, protecting single-sex spaces.
This prompts one of the loudest rounds of applause so far.
Sunak says the Tories will switch child benefit to being assessed on how much a family earns, not how much an individual earns.
And any family earning less than £120,000 will continue to qualify, he says.
Sunak says the Tories would deliver 1.6m new homes in the next parliament, by speeding up building on brownfield land “and by scrapping defective EU laws”.
And he confirms they would abolish stamp duty entirely for first-time buyers, on properties worth up to £425,000.
He claims the Tories “are the party of the property-owning democracy in this country”.
Sunak says Tories would abolish main rate of self-employed national insurance
Sunak says the Tories believe in lower taxes.
And they do not think people should be taxed on work twice.
That is why they want to cut national insurance gain. And he says by 2027 national insurance will have been halved. That will be worth £1,300 to the average worker, he says.
That means the further 2% cut proposed in the manifesto would be implemented by 2027.
And he says the Tories would abolish the main rate of national insurance for the self-employed.
We will scrap, entirely, the main rate of self-employed National Insurance.
— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) June 11, 2024
A tax abolished, enterprise encouraged. pic.twitter.com/w9qKMpUMqi
Sunak repeats the claim that Labour would increase taxes by £2,000 per family.
He does not say this is an estimate for how much extra families might have to pay cumulatively, over four years.
But he does not claim this is a Treasury estimate – perhaps mindful of Simon Case’s warning. (See 10.11am.)
Sunak repeats a line used by Penny Mordaunt in her TV debate on Friday – claiming the only thing GB stands for in Labour’s GB Energy plans is greater bills.
Sunak says under the Tories flights to Rwanda will leave.
And, if forced to choose between the jurisdiction of a foreign court, including the European court of human rights, and national security, the Tories will always choose national security, he claims.
This is what Sunak has been saying for some time.
Nadine Batchelor-Hunt from Politics Home has posted what the manifesto says about the ECHR on X.
NEW: Tory manifesto doesn’t commit to leaving ECHR, just hints at it - as Sunak did in the debate last week
— Nadine Batchelor-Hunt (@nadinebh_) June 11, 2024
Also promises a “relentless, continual process” of deportations to Rwanda with a “regular rhythm” pic.twitter.com/rkseJtu8jy
Beth Rigby from Sky News has posted another excerpt from the manifesto.
CONSERVATIVE MANIFESTO: Here’s the measures. The headline is another 2p off National Insurance. Will have halved it from 12% at beginning of year to 6% in April 2027. Says next step on long term ambition to abolish NI ‘when financial conditions allow’ pic.twitter.com/r4dWXKkown
— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) June 11, 2024
Sunak says the Tories have a clear plan for the future.
The Tories would increase defence spending to 2.5% if GDP, funded by civil service cuts, he says.
But he says Labour will not commit to that because they would rather keep the “bloated” civil service at the level it is now.
Now is the time “for bold action, not an uncertain Keir Starmer as prime minister”.
Rishi Sunak is speaking now.
He says Formula One is is an example of British excellence.
And he says Brad Pitt is filming near here – partly because of tax incentives for the film industry. Britain is truly the creative capital of Europe, he says.
“We Brits can outcompete the best in the world,” he says.
The Tories are proposing tax cuts worth £17bn, the manifesto says. This is from ITV’s Robert Peston.
This is how Sunak says he will fund £17bn of proposed tax cuts. Much of today’s task is to assess whether his revenue-raising plans are credible. There will be scepticism because generating welfare savings are never easy and cracking down on tax avoidance after years of doing so… pic.twitter.com/CtARJCw5Y5
— Robert Peston (@Peston) June 11, 2024
Houchen says freeports are located in poor areas. They are delivering real levelling up, he says.
He says Sunak also set up a Treasury campus in Darlington. That would not have happened without Sunak, he says. He says the civil service wanted to go to Manchester. In fact, they wanted to stay in London, but if they had to go anywhere, it was Manchester.
And he says the Treasury is now recruiting local people to work there. That means the region is getting a voice.
He claims this was opposed by Labour.
And Labour has no plan, he claims. He claims Labout wants to borrow more than £38bn, but won’t say how it will do that.
(This is a reference to the Tory costing of Labour’s plan that Labour has dismissed as bogus.)
Houchen ends by claiming Labour would deliver “Armageddon” if it is elected.
Ben Houchen says he has known Rishi Sunak since he was a backbencher.
Sunak did “fantastic work” supporting the country during Covid as chancellor.
He is a man who absolutely cares about people in the country, Houchen says. He claims that could not have been done by anyone else. Sunak is a man of detail, attention and hard work, he says.
Houchen says when he was first elected in 2017 Teesside was never mentioned in the media. It had wall-to-wall Labour MPs. They took the place for granted, and got complacent.
Over the last seven years, the region has been transformed. Teesside has benefited from the UK’s largest freeport, which could not have happened under Brexit, he says.
(Freeports were allowed when the UK was in the EU, but the government argues the post-Brexit ones have tax benefits not available under EU rules.)
Keegan says education has been transformed under the Tories.
But all of her colleagues could tell the same story, she says.
She says that is what Tories do; they identify a problem and fix it.
She introduces the next speaker, Ben Houchen, the Tory Tees Valley mayor
Rishi Sunak launches Tory manifesto
Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, is first speaker at the Tory manifesto launch.
She says she is not a typical Tory. She grow up in Huyton, Harold Wilson’s consitutuency, and she left school at 16 to do an apprenticeship.
Because of the Tories’ “clear plan”, 90% of schools are now good or outstanding.
And now you can become a doctor, a lawyer or even a secretary of state with an apprenticeship, she says.
Updated
Starmer confirms Labour would ban sale of high caffeinated energy drinks to under-16s
Today Keir Starmer has been promoting Labour plans to ban the sale of high caffeinated energy drinks to under-16s. In a news release the party said:
Dangerously high caffeinated energy drinks containing over 150mg of caffeine per litre will be banned from sale in retail outlets and online to under 16s, as it has become clear to health and education experts that the current caffeine labelling system is failing to prevent young children from purchasing these drinks. The ban will be in line with current labelling rules and enforced through trading standards.
This morning Starmer singled out the Monster energy drink as a particulal problem. He said:
Just to give you a sense of that, the caffeine in that is the equivalent of several espressos, which is why it’s having such an effect on children’s behaviour. Talk to anyone who’s in a school and they’ll tell you what the problem is.
But also it’s got a very detrimental effect on their teeth. As I said in some of the clips earlier, I was genuinely shocked and angered to learn that more children go to hospital to have their teeth taken out, six to 10-year-olds, than any other operation.
I was aghast when I heard that and I say to anyone, I defy anyone who says we’ll just walk past that problem because I’m not prepared to walk past it.
.
Momentum, the leftwing Labour group set up when Jeremy Corbyn was leader, is not happy about Keir Starmer’s jibe about Corbyn’s manifesto.
Labour's 2019 manifesto was fully costed.
— Momentum 🌹 (@PeoplesMomentum) June 11, 2024
Keir should know, he stood on it as a member of the shadow cabinet.
How about stopping attacking your own side during an election @Keir_Starmer? https://t.co/krOtXpre0V
Labour’s 2019 manifesto was fully costed.
Keir should know, he stood on it as a member of the shadow cabinet.
How about stopping attacking your own side during an election @Keir_Starmer?
Rishi Sunak is about to speak at the Tory manifesto launch.
He is at the Silverstone racing circuit. Here he is posing for a photograph with activists earlier.
Tory Help to Buy scheme may push up house prices, Institute for Fiscal Studies says
In their manifesto the Conservative are proposing a new version of the Help to Buy scheme. (See 9.26am.) This morning the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank has published a short analysis of the proposal, saying it could help developers, as well as buyers, by pushing up prices.
Here is an extract.
The interest-free period is in effect a government subsidy for home purchases. The intent is that this subsidy will make it easier for buyers to afford a property. But there are pitfalls here too: Evaluations of the first Help to Buy equity loan scheme found that a substantial minority of those who used it did not need its support to buy a property.
And not all of the subsidy ends up benefiting the buyer; in previous iterations of Help to Buy some of the subsidy instead benefited developers in the form of higher sale prices and profits.
In some parts of the country, the [previous] Help to Buy scheme did increase construction of new-builds in the short-term. But in areas where housebuilding is more difficult – like London – the subsidy instead pushed up prices with a limited effect on the number of new homes.
While a policy that expanded credit but did not increase housing supply could still help to meet a goal of increasing home ownership for younger people, the overall desirability of such policies will depend on their wider effects too.
Starmer accuses Sunak of having 'Jeremy Corbyn-style manifesto, a recipe for chaos'
Keir Starmer has accused Rishi Sunak of building a “Jeremy Corbyn-style manifesto”, as the Tories prepare to launch a policy offering peppered with promises of tax cuts and government support schemes.
The Labour leader was on Teesside this morning on a campaign stop just an hour before the prime minister launches his party’s manifesto in Silverstone.
Whereas the Tories are planning to make eye-catching promises such as cuts to national insurance and a new “help to buy” scheme, the Labour one will be more low-key, with officials saying it will contain nothing that hasn’t previously been announced.
Starmer criticised the Tories, comparing Sunak to the former Labour leader, in whose shadow cabinet Starmer once served. He said:
They’re building a sort of Jeremy Corbyn-style manifesto where anything you want can go in it, and none of it is costed. It’s a recipe for chaos.
That’s why I say it is a Jeremy Corbyn-style manifesto, which is load everything into the wheelbarrow, don’t provide the funding, and hope that nobody notices the money isn’t there.
Updated
UNHCR investigating fresh human rights abuse claims in Rwanda, court told
The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, is investigating new allegations of abuses in Rwanda, the high court was told yesterday, just weeks before the first flight to the east African country is due to take off on 24 July, if the Conservatives are re-elected.
UNHCR was given permission to intervene in a new legal challenge to the Rwanda policy brought by a Sudanese torture survivor threatened with forced removal there. His case is that his asylum claim should be considered in the UK and he is calling for Home Office guidance that officials should not consider the risk of refoulement of those sent to Rwanda – being forcibly returned to their home country where their life may be in danger – to be quashed.
A judge has granted UNHCR permission to prepare a dossier before the first Rwanda flight can take off. The court heard that the UN agency was aware of at least seven cases of refoulement from Rwanda in 2023 and further cases this year.
Former Scottish Greens co-leader Robin Harper joins Labour
The UK’s first-ever Green parliamentarian has joined Labour – with Robin Harper insisting Keir Starmer’s party is the “only party with a plan for combating climate change”, PA Media reports. PA says:
Harper, who has been campaigning for Labour in Edinburgh South in the run-up to next month’s general election, said the vote was a “now-or-never opportunity to remove the Tories from power”.
He said: “Only Labour is able to do this across the UK and only Labour has a plan to halt environmental destruction.”
Harper was the UK’s first-ever elected Green parliamentarian when he became an MSP for the Lothian region in 1999, representing the region at Holyrood until 2011. He served as co-convener of the party in Scotland between 2004 and 2008, but left the Greens in 2023.
Douglas Ross admits he's quitting as Scottish Tory leader partly because colleagues angry he's trying to stay in Commons
Douglas Ross has conceded that his decision to say he will quit as Scottish Tory leader after the election was partly prompted by how his MSP colleagues reacted to his surprise decision to seek another Westminster seat.
Ross told BBC Radio Scotland that he had “listened to concerns from colleagues that they wanted the leader of the Scottish Conservatives to be based in Holyrood” after his surprise announcement yesterday that he was standing down as party leader after the election.
Ross announced he would stand down as leader after the election amid growing internal pressure over his multiple roles in the party – he was MP, MSP as well as working part-time as a football match official for the Scottish SFA - and fresh allegations about improper expenses claims.
When it was put to him that he had massively misjudged how his MSP colleagues would react to his decision last week to put stand as the Tory candidate in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, Ross replied: “I think it’s fair to say I’ve listened to their concerns.”
Ross insisted that all his expense claims related to his work as a MP after the Sunday Mail reported that a Tory whistleblower had claimed that Ross had submitted 28 parliamentary expense claims relating to his football refereeing work.
Asked if he had concerns that the detail had been leaked from within his office, he said: “It’s for others to defend their own actions. I’m coming forward and being very open and honest.”
Asked if the prime minister was upset he had decided to announce he was leaving in the middle of the campaign, he said he had had a “very good conversation” with Sunak yesterday.
Updated
Overseas voters urged to register to vote in election before next week's deadline
Millions of British overseas, who have been abroad for more than 15 years, are being urged to register immediately to vote in the general election by the Electoral Commission.
The register for the 4 July election closes on Tuesday next week but the Commission says so far only 100,000 long term overseas residents since the law changed.
After a decades-long battle led by the now deceased Harry Schindler and latterly the campaign group Brits in Europe, the 15-year rule which blocked long-term overseas residents was dropped, giving long term residents who missed out on countless elections and the Brexit referendum the chance to vote again for the first time.
“We know that there are eligible voters all around the world, so we are calling on anyone with friends and family abroad to help spread the word, and let them know to register before the deadline,” said Craig Westwood, director of communication.
Applications can be made online at gov.uk/register-to-vote before 11.59pm on Tuesday 18 June.
Applications will need to provide details of the address they lived in the last time they were registered or their parents address if they have not voted before.
The deadline for a postal vote is 5pm on 19 June, and for proxy vote it is 5pm on 26 June.
The government’s daily voter register dashboard shows hundreds of overseas voters have been registering every day since January but as soon as the election was called by Rishi Sunak it jumped to thousands per day.
• This post was amended on 11 June 2024. An earlier version said that the deadline for a postal or proxy vote is 5pm on 26 June. That is the deadline for a proxy vote; however, for a postal vote the deadline is 5pm on 19 June.
Updated
Cabinet secretary Simon Case hints Tories could be doing more to uphold civil service impartiality in election campaign
Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, has urged the Conservative party, and all political parties, to protect the impartiality of the civil service during the election campaign.
He made the point in a letter to Richard Holden, the Conservative party chair, which could be read as an implied rebuke for the way the party has presented Treasury research into how much Labour policies might cost.
In the ITV debate last week Rishi Sunak said “independent Treasury officials who have costed Labour’s policies and they amount to a £2,000 pound tax rise for every working family”. The following day Labour released a letter from the permament secretary at the Treasury, James Bowler, written before the debate took place, saying ministers should not present the total figure they were using as the cost of Labour’s plans as an official Treasury number because it included costings not made by officials.
Labour said this provided Sunak was lying in the debate.
In an attempt to defend the PM, Holden wrote to Case asking him to confirm that some of the costings were produced by Treasury officials and that the Bowler letter did not say Sunak lied.
For reference, the letter I sent the Cabinet Secretary pic.twitter.com/c0YDq3114m
— Rt Hon Richard Holden (@RicHolden) June 11, 2024
It would have been surprising if the letter had said Sunak lied in the debate, because it was written before the debate took place. Labour’s contention is that it showed that Sunak had lied.
This morning Holden published the reply he received from Case.
NEW: I have received a response from the Cabinet Secretary.
— Rt Hon Richard Holden (@RicHolden) June 11, 2024
He has confirmed that 21 costings of Labour’s policies were produced by civil servants from HM Treasury and other relevant departments.
Contrary to Labour's claims he also confirmed that the letter from the Treasury… pic.twitter.com/qNnb5E9lPj
While Case is not directly critical in the letter, the tone implies some irritation at the fact he was being asked to confirm something obvious from a letter already in the public domain.
He confirms the Bowler letter did not mention Sunak by name – but he does not contest the Labour claim that it shows what Sunak was saying in the debate was untrue.
And Case suggests Holden and his colleagues could be doing more to uphold civil service impartiality. He says:
Upholding the impartiality of the civil service is a duty rightly shared by both the civil service itself and all political parties.
I would therefore be grateful for your ongoing assistance, and that of your counterparts in other parties, in protecting our impartiality during the election period.
Updated
Rishi Sunak to publish Tory manifesto as party ads warn of Labour getting ‘massive’ majority
Good morning. Rishi Sunak is publishing the Conservative party’s manifesto later, and there is some reasonably positive coverage in some of the right-leaning papers this morning.
The Express is splashing on Sunak’s plan for a further 2p cut in national insurance.
DAily Express: Up the workers! #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/bHcfx8DDBm
— George Mann (@sgfmann) June 10, 2024
And the Daily Telegraph and the Times are splashing on stories that say tax cuts will be combined with measures to help people buy homes.
The Daily Telegraph: Sunak offers tax breaks to landlords #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/iGH4xyFqz4
— George Mann (@sgfmann) June 10, 2024
The Times: Tories offer lower taxes and help for homebuyers #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/98to0YQhfS
— George Mann (@sgfmann) June 10, 2024
In their Times story, Steven Swinford and Oliver Wright say:
Sunak will also unveil a new package of support to help people get onto the housing ladder after admitting that it has become harder to buy a home under the Tories.
A £1 billion scheme would help first-time buyers with government-backed mortgages to allow them to buy a home with just a 5 per cent deposit. The plan, modelled on the Help to Buy scheme that closed last year, could be used for all home purchases of less than £400,000. The previous scheme had a threshold of £250,000 outside London and £450,000 in the capital.
Sunak will also announce that the Tories will permanently abolish stamp duty for first-time buyers purchasing a property for up to £425,000. He will say that it is part of the Conservatives’ plans to build an “ownership society, where more and more people have the security and pride of home ownership”.
And, in his Telegraph story, Ben Riley-Smith says Sunak will “promise to scrap capital gains tax for landlords who sell their property to tenants. The scheme would last two years.”. (The paper describes that as a tax break for landlords, but it sounds more like a tax break intended to stop people being landlords, and to ultimately benefit people wanting to buy.)
At the Guardian, we are splashing on a story reporting that all these promises are too tame for Tory rightwingers, who want something much stronger on immigration and the European convention on human rights.
The Guardian: Tory right plans to give Sunak set
— George Mann (@sgfmann) June 10, 2024
of demands if manifesto falls flat #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/UMcEbJpEED
The publication of the manifesto is being seen as the one of the three last scheduled events with the potential to change the course of the election. The others would be the publication of the Labour manifesto on Thursday, and the BBC Sunak/Starmer debate on Wednesday 26 June. (This view is driven more by Tory wishful thinking, and the media’s desire to pretend the outcome of the election is still uncertain, than a realistic assessment. In reality, these set-piece events normally don’t make that much difference. In 2017 Theresa May did blow up her own campaign when she published her manifesto, but that was an exception, and a tribute to her extraordinary hopelessness as a campaigner.)
In truth, though, as a story in the Financial Times reveals, the Conservative party has started to admit in its online social media advertising that Labour is on course for a landslide. In their story George Parker and Lucy Fisher report:
The Conservatives have begun warning voters online that Labour could win with a landslide in the July 4 UK general election, sparking accusations that the ruling party is in effect conceding defeat.
Tory social media advertisements published since Friday have been urging people against voting for the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK, warning that backing those smaller parties could give Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer a “massive majority”.
Another Tory ad said voting Lib Dem or Reform would “hand Keir Starmer a blank cheque” and leave “nobody holding [sic] to account on your behalf” …
The Conservatives have launched about 40 new Facebook and Instagram ads focusing on a Labour landslide since last Friday, when Sunak issued an apology for leaving D-Day commemorations in France, a move that sparked a furious backlash from Tory candidates.These contrast with previous Tory ads that issued warnings such as “vote Reform, get Keir Starmer” but did not imply that a vote for Nigel Farage’s party would boost an assumed Labour majority.
Here is two examples of adverts warning of a “massive” Labour majority that the FT highlights in its report.
Here is the agenda for the day.
11.30am: Rishi Sunak launches the Conservative party’s manifesto at Silverstone racetrack.
1pm: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is campaigning in Ashfield with Lee Anderson, the former Tory MP who is the party’s candidate in the constituency.
And Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is campaigning in the south west of England.
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