David Cameron pledges no hikes to income tax, VAT or national insurance before 2020 (something the Lib Dems have called “yet another gimmick” – and right-leaning newspapers attack Ed over his late night meeting with Russell Brand.
David Cameron has promised that a Conservatives government will introduce a law guaranteeing no rise in income tax rates, VAT or national insurance before 2020.
He will say today that the legislation would be in place within a 100 days of being in office if the Tories win a majority on May 7. Labour immediately dismissed the idea as a “gimmick” and said that it expected VAT to rise under the Conservatives.
The key thing to remember about this give away eight days before the election is that it would only survive in a Conservative majority government – any other possible coalition party would be likely to dismiss such a tax freeze out of hand.
Skeptics also point to the fact that the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government raised VAT from 17.5% to 20% in 2011 despite the Conservatives saying they had no plans to do so before the 2010 election.
The prime minister will say: “When it comes to your tax bill, do you trust the people who taxed you to the hilt when they were in power and still haven’t come clean about the taxes they want to increase next time round?”
Battle for your bank accounts
Both Labour and the Conservatives are making their pitch for the control of our family finances this morning as we approach the landmark of one week to polling day.
Ed Miliband will say that Conservative plans to reduce welfare by £12 billion could leave families with two children up to £2,000 worse off.
At an event in London alongside Ed Balls and Rachel Reeves, Mr Miliband will say: “I am here to reveal the truth: if the Tories get back in on May 8th your family budget is at risk. Another five years of Tory government will mean a plan to double the pace of cuts next year, a plan that puts your family budget, your NHS and our country’s future at risk.”
The Conservatives responded to the speech by saying there was “one guaranteed risk to working people’s finances – Ed Miliband, propped up by the SNP”.
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – DECEMBER 5: Russell Brand pictured during a Book Signing for ‘Revolution’ at Waterstone’s, Picadilly on December 5, 2014 in London, England. (Photo by Alex Huckle/Getty Images)
Labour’s shadow chancellor was on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning defending Ed Miliband’s decision to be interviewed by Russell Brand.
He actually made some very fair points and put John Humphrey’s back in his place. His point was that while it was lovely and traditional, I think he used the word “honour” to appear on Radio 4 it is the responsibility of politicians to answer questions from everyone. He says he and other politicians pop up on Sky, the BBC and the morning television sofas and so why should they not make their argument on Mr Brand’s sofa too?
The problem is that Russell Brand has been a flame for political moths for many months now and not many have resisted taking a pop at the man who is telling young people politics is pointless. And Ed Balls is no exception.
In January Mr Balls said the comedian was a “pound-shop Ben Elton”. A joke that referenced Mr Brand’s own comments that Nigel Farage is a pound shop Enoch Powell.
In Mr Balls defence his comments came after Mr Brand said he was a “clicky-wristed … snidey c***” on a Christmas television show.
Mr Balls laughed it off this morning saying it was what young people would call banter. Interestingly Mr Brand may possibly agree.
The full Miliband Brand interview is expected later today.
Inside the Labour event there are pretend ‘Tories’ and they have been baking. There are plates of cupcakes with ‘Tories secret plan’ embossed with icing. One journalist quipped that he had tried one “and there was nothing in it”.
Then, more ‘Tories’, who were actually two young Labour activists – probably future cabinet ministers – handing out brown envelopes claiming to contain the “Tory Secret Plans”.
Inside, the plan seemed so secret that the notebook we were given was blank – we wondered if Labour written out the Tories ‘secret plan’ in invisible ink? However it turns out you can read the gimmick in digital form here.
And outside the Labour gimmicks were met with Tory gimmicks – six or so Tory Nicola Surgeons waving placards promising to prop up a minority Labour government, increase taxes and take us on a tour of Dante’s circles of hell. (I may have made that last one up).
With just over a week to go the gimmicks mask some desperate politics. Conservatives are now promising to legislate not to raise income tax, VAT or national insurance before 2020. While Labour have gone on the offensive over the Tories failure to specify their cuts to the welfare budget.
So far neither of the parties have much impressed the Institute for Fiscal Studies, nor, according to the polls, the public, and with 8 days to go, it’s going to take more than cupcakes and Nicola Sturgeon masks to break through.
The poll by Ipsos Mori for STV shows that 54 per cent are set to back Nicola Sturgeon’s party on May 7, up two points since January.
According to analysis through the Electoral Calculus website the findings suggests that the SNP could win all 59 Scottish seats.
What is also quite astonishing is that Labour are now just three per cent ahead of the Conservatives in Scotland. A poll result that would have been unthinkable in 2010.
Five years ago the Conservatives wee 26 per cent behind Labour north of the border.
The party launched this Ed Miliband focused election broadcast last night:
Asked on This Morning why he didn’t make mention of the economy or the deficit the video is about what makes him “tick” and what he “cares about”, a personal take. He says that the first page of the manifesto sets a triple lock on the deficit.
At the Donald Dewar Centre West of Glasgow Sunny Jim has arrived at a pensioners’ centre.
The rain is teeming down. There’s a leaden sky frowning down on us.
But ScotLab boss Jim is perma-sun mode.
I admire his dedication to the cause.
He says today’s STV poll giving the SNP almost every seat in the land (yup….really) is handing the keys of No 10 to Cameron. Oh and by the way he may well be right in so saying. Still time to turn things round he smiles, polls don’t give the full picture and so forth, as he laughs and jokes his way around the room.
Who are we to dispute it?And things are so bad now for Labour in Scotland that even a handful of seats might just save Sunny Jim from a job which looks like one long career-suicide note.
Dancing with pensioners this morning, the guy is indefatigable – I tell him he seems to relish underdog status. There is something almost heroic in all this, against all the odds, all the polls, all the evidence.
He chats to pensioners here with genuine ease in front of pitiless lenses keenly eyeing up signs on the walls saying Emergency Exit.
I’d suggest real Jim Murphy comes across far better than TV JM.
It’s a knife-edge photo-op that could go wrong but the man seems genuinely at ease and enjoying it all.
Russell Brand has just released his video with Ed Miliband. Overall it was what we expected, quite awkward, shouty at times but generally trying to present an alternative style of political interview.
Two things that struck me –
Ed Miliband couldn’t resist mirroring Brand’s unique accent dropping from time to time into a sort of mockney, street. my favourite example was the Labour leader admonishing Brand about 12 minutes in: “It ain’t gonna be like that, right, it ain’t gonna be like that”.
Ed Miliband neutralised Mr Brand after a time. It started a bit shaky and seemed like it might descend into two blokes shouting about “trans national corporations”, “towers of money” and Rupert Murdoch, as time went on though the Labour leader started to calm down Brand leading him on to topics he favoured.
Zero hours contracts, media plurality (to an extent), getting the Tories out. he was especially good when he told Brand he wasn’t looking for the euphoria of Obama or Blair. He just wanted to get in and change things, he said.
Mr Brand ended the video with as close an endorsement as Ed Miliband could have hoped for, saying the Labour leader “he understands the way that media works now, the way that the country feels at the moment, the way that people felt hat he was prepared to talk to us at the trews.”
A major election cock-up in Hull. The council has sent out a large batch of postal ballot papers in the Hull East constituency which have omitted the names of the Labour candidate Karl Turner (the sitting MP) and the Green candidate Sarah Walpole.
The problem was brought to Turner’s attention this morning when postal voters started phoning his office to enquire why he wasn’t standing for election again. He says his office has now had about 100 calls. He subsequently alerted the Green Party, he says.
Hull council say the problem only affects 484 postal ballots, sent out to voters who had registered for postal votes only in recent days. But that figure seems on the low side if Turner has had 100 calls today. The returning officer has started recalling the ballot papers and will issue new ones. “It’s an error which the Hull City council returning officer assures me they’ve dealt with speedily,” says Turner. “Hopefully, everything will be fine.”
But everything may not be fine. What of postal voters who returning one of the incorrect ballot papers and has now gone on holiday until next week thinking they have actually voted?
Polls currently suggest that Turner will almost certainly be re-elected with a big majority. For the Green candidate, Sarah Walpole, the cocked-up ballot papers may make the difference between losing her deposit and keeping it.
It’s thought that most of the almost 6,000 postal ballots in Hull East were printed correctly.
The returning officer is due to make a statement later today.
Update: There is now news on Twitter that the printer’s van containing all the ballot papers for the Eastbourne constituency has been stolen.
According to Ladbrokes a man in Glasgow, who Ladbrokes describe as a retired accountant who is described by staff as ‘well-groomed, wealthy and well-informed’ placed the bet in a city centre branch this afternoon.
The bookmakers say that he first inquired about the odds and then pulled £30,000 in cash, all in £50 notes, out of his pocket and placed the bet on a Cameron straight win at odds of 7/1.
250,000 ballot papers have in fact gone missing in East Sussex, covering TWO seats – Eastbourne, and Hastings and Rye, as well as ballot papers for the local elections in Eastbourne. A printers’ van carrying the papers has been stolen.
The council say they will print new ballot papers on coloured paper, to distinguish them from the ballot papers which have gone missing.
Jon Snow will be live from Leeds tonight a panel of five politicians will face an audience of 200 young people, fielding questions on what the youth vote feels has been neglected in this election campaign.
Watch live from 7pm on Channel 4 and follow on Twitter using the hashtag #whyvote.
Jon meeting the locals at Kirkgate Market in Leeds
This is Jon’s reaction in the market when a local woman when up to him and said “you’re not one of those bloody Labour politicians I hope”
Getting down with the kids at Leeds University
Selfie time with a student
In a piece endorsing Labour for the election is this analysis of Ed Miliband. The magazine endorsed Mr Miliband’s leadership bid in 2010, but with friends like these…
His five years as opposition leader have revealed severe limitations and strategic weaknesses. He has never succeeded in inspiring the electorate and has struggled to define himself. His narrow rhetorical and ideological focus on political economy has left him unable to reach the aspirational voters required to build a broad electoral coalition.
Finally, even after the SNP’s victory in the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, which we predicted, he remained complacent over Labour’s decline in Scotland, where he is even less popular than David Cameron. It is the surge in support for the SNP, which has positioned itself to the left of Labour, that has definitively ended Mr Miliband’s hopes of winning an absolute majority.
This is interesting. Ashcroft polling in Thanet South suggests that Nigel Farage could be kept out of Westminster by Labour voters lending their votes to the Tories. Labour’s vote has steadily slipped in polls in the area while the Conservative support has been rising, eventually overtaking Ukip.
Earlier this month a former Conservative party candidate for Sheffield Hallam wrote to people in the area telling them to vote for the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, in order to prevent a Labour win.
John Turner, who runs the returning officers’ organisation – the Association of Electoral Administrators – has just estimated to me that around 3 million people will now have cast their vote in the 2015 General Election – by postal ballot.
If that’s true then it amounts to ten per cent or more of the likely total turnout.
So time is running out for the politicians to persuade increasing numbers of voters.
Experts reckon that in 2015 more than 20 per cent of votes will be cast by post, a higher proportion than ever before.
Our digital editor Jon Laurence is at the Corn Exchange in Leeds with the team. They are about to be joined by Hillary Benn, Sam Gyimah, Brian Paddick, Amelia Womack and an invited audience of young people. Hashtag to take part is #whyvote.
Tune in here for a live stream or to Channel 4 tonight at 7pm.
The Gillibands could have been Wales’ answer to the Milibands
When I was at secondary school in Manchester two leading and very outspoken members of the debating society were a pair of twins – Chris and John Gillibrand.
Today I learnt that Chris Gillibrand is standing for Ukip in the Dwyfor Meirionnydd constituency in north Wales, where Plaid Cymru parliamentary leader Elfyn Llwyd is standing down.
Now I learn that among the contenders to succeed Llwyd as Plaid candidate was Chris’s brother John, a vicar. Unfortunately John Gillibrand wasn’t picked, but what a family contest that would have been.
The Oldie magazine says that most of the ideas from this election are so familiar it feels like they hail from 1850
“A battle of cliches” – that is how the election is described in The Oldie. And veteran political pundit Simon Carr, writing in the same magazine, says: “I’ve found it hard to get out of bed for the election. The torpor is not entirely the result of age and alcohol. So much of what we hear has been used before – some of it in the Fifties, and some in the 1850s.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement for our political leaders.
… so that he won’t be able to come to the European Parliament any more.
The president of the European Commission has offered his support to the Ukip leader ahead of his speech to the European Parliament.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker speaks with Nigel Farage today
Mr Farage tweeted: “As I walked into European Parliament just now, Jean Claude Juncker wished me good luck for #SouthThanet as it means I won’t be here anymore!”
The #Torytank is making waves on Twitter today after Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, was snapped sitting astride one at campaign stop earlier today. And she’s not the only one who’s taken up the offer of a photo shoot on the military vehicle.
The Scottish Conservative Leader Ruth Davidson gets behind the wheel of a Tank at Auchterhouse Country Sports in Dundee today.
The original: Margaret Thatcher, then Chairwoman of the Conservatives, sits on a tank of 7th regiment of the Royal Signals in Hereford, January 23, 1976
Nigel Farage poses for a photograph on top of a Chieftain tank at the Heywood Tank Museum in Heywood, Greater Manchester last year
Use the hashtag #whyvote to get involved.
In Leeds we have Hillary Benn for Labour, Sam Gyimah for the Conservatives, Brian Paddick for the Lib Dems, Amelia Womack for the Greens, Nathan Garbutt.
The debate in Leeds is already getting under way. They are discussing Trident.
A forest of hands have just gone up when Jon Snow has asked the young people who would support Labour but for their support for the continuation of Trident.
Jon challenges Mr Benn whether Britain is safer than Sweden where all plans for weapons of mass destruction were scrapped in mid-1970s
Maybe we face differnt threats to those that Sweden faces, Mr Benn says.
Brian Paddick, for the Lib Dems, says that Trident should be seen as “big ticket item” parts of which could be scrapped to avoid harsh cuts to welfare.
Jon asks the audience how many people have read a manifesto at all. Almost every hand goes up. A few sheepish hands admit to reading none.
“Mr Blue Sweater” asks why he is voting why he should vote when things don’t happen that politicians promise. He’s asked to explain what policies haven’t happened – he says that he thought he would be able to afford to go to uni and then the deal changed and fees went up.
Another man stands up. He says if he is angry you still have to vote. Even if you spoil the ballot he says at least it will show that you care.
Brian Paddick, for the Lib Dems says that not voting is like going to the pub, having a whip round and then having no choice about what drink you get.
A young woman counters him and says why don’t young people learn about voting and why it matters?
Sam Gymiah, the Conservative junior minister says that people learn it in citizenship class. Massive laugh for citizenship classes there, obviously not a massively respected subject in this room.
Amelia Womack for the Greens says that Russell Brand makes a good point, he doesn’t say don’t vote. He just thinks he doesn’t have anyone to vote for.
Rosie asks what are you going to do about people stuck in jobs that they don’t want because they need to take just any job to pay back all the debt that they owe.
Rosie: We are stuck in jobs we don’t want, if we have one
Amelia Womack for the Greens says end internships. She says that they are an exploitation of the workforce. She says that zero hour contracts are outrage against the workers rights people have fought and died for – and that she meets women who are too worried to have children on such contracts because they won’t get maternity pay.
We are back on generation rent now. The audience demands what we are going to do about the lack of housing for young people – Miss Geddes demands what the parties are going to do about people like her who might become homeless because of changes to housing benefit.
Ryan Lockwood asks why we don’t cut immigration to sensible levels? If we had sensible levels, he says, then we would know how many hospitals to build, how many schools to build. Without limits, he says, we have no idea how many people we should be building for.
This young man says that the internet has given us more chances for electoral reform, so that constituency votes matter. He says the current system favours the older people in society who have MPs in their pockets. If you want to attract the young people you have to reform the system.
This woman asks why we aren’t talking about what Britain, in previous centuries, has taken from the world, not just what Britain can take from the world.
Why aren’t we looking at drug prohibition, this young man says, like Portugal. he says politicians don’t talk about it because they are too scared of not getting elected.
This woman said she is disgusted with the rhetoric around blaming immigrants. She says that most immigrants are in poverty and should not be blamed for the country’s problems.
Caught up with Nicola Sturgeon today in the SNP HQ in Edinburgh.
She and her team are dismissive of the idea they’ll win every seat in Scotland at the general election but they know they’re on to something big.
I asked if given the potential SNP hegemony she might consider relaxing the SNP’s message discipline a little. She said there was no control freaked and the Scots would never tolerate such a thing. I said MSPs didn’t seem to challenge their leader in Holyrood in contrast to the Commons. The SNP leader said I needed to turn up more often.
Message discipline may be about to take a turn anyway for the SNP, the price of success. Look down the list of potential MPs (which is the entire list if you believe the MORI/STV poll today) and you see plenty of people not used to toeing the line.
I put it to Nicola that she also has a party membership much of which is brand new. They have joined in the excitement and aftermath of the referendum campaign. Some, a senior SNP source acknowledged, are driven by anger, others by joy and hope. But will they want a referendum a lot earlier than she would like?
A senior SNP figure says there have been extensive efforts to “get to know” the new base and he judges they’ll be just fine waiting for 15 to 20 years for another vote.
All potential problems of success for Nicola Sturgeon … Labour would kill for the luxury of having to ponder them.
There seems to be a mixed bag after the panel discussion with young people but did the politicians do enough to convince them?
Here’s what some of you thought:
A Leeds University survey found that 55 per cent of students are still unsure about who to vote for on May 7, but will this debate change young people’s minds?
The Conservatives have sought to up the ante in the campaign, saying they will enshrine into law their pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT in the next parliament. Paul Mason explains:
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