Natalie Bennett: we need a peaceful political revolution

The Green Party launches their general election manifesto calling for a “peaceful political revolution” to end austerity and “take back” the NHS.

As well as the environmentalist party’s long-standing concerns over the ecology and global warming, it sets out plans to halt the government’s austerity programme, reverse “creeping privatisation” in the NHS and create one million public sector jobs paying the living wage.

Launching the manifesto in east London, Green leader Natalie Bennett is expected to say: “Austerity has failed and we need a peaceful political revolution to get rid of it.

“Our manifesto is an unashamedly bold plan to create a more equal, more democratic society while healing the planet from the effects of an unstable, unsustainable economy.

“This manifesto presents the Green Party’s genuine alternative to our tired, business-as-usual politics. We desperately need a more equal society and the policies we announce today pave the way towards a brighter, fairer future for all.”

David Cameron to put right to buy at heart of Tory manifesto

A Tory government would grant 1.3 million housing association tenants the right to buy their homes, David Cameron will announce today.

The extension of the Right to Buy scheme is a centrepiece of the Conservative manifesto for the general election.

Mr Cameron will say the manifesto offers voters “security at every stage of your life”, with help for those looking for training or a job, trying to buy a home, raising a family or relying on childcare and the NHS.

The extension of the Right to Buy policy represents an effort to revive the Tory dream of a property-owning democracy, after years in which the proportion of people owning their own home began to decline for the first time in a century as increasing numbers of young adults – often described as “Generation Rent” – have found themselves priced out of the market.

General election 2015: do Labour’s sums add up?

Labour launched its 2015 manifesto on Monday and made much of its so-called “budget responsibility lock”.

“Not one commitment requires additional borrowing,” the document claims. “We are the first party to make that pledge and with this manifesto it is delivered.”

Do the numbers actually make sense? Read our Channel 4 News FactCheck to find out.

Front page of the Conservative manifesto

This is the cover of our manifesto. At its heart is a simple proposition: security at every stage of your life. pic.twitter.com/qOQxJGAndo

— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) April 14, 2015

Theresa May: We’re securing people’s future at ‘every stage of their life’

Theresa May has been on Radio 4’s Today programme to explain the Conservatives extension of the Right to Buy scheme to Housing Association tenants.

The home secretary was challenged on comments from the National Housing Assocaiton that the new scheme would only benefit those in housing association homes at the expense of people who have worked their whole lives and paid money to the private rental sector to live.

She said that it was important to offer one set of people opportunities even if you couldn’t offer the same deal to others.

Critics have said that the scheme only benefits people in some of the most secure housing in Britain and does nothing to help those in the volatile private rented sector.

The policy is central to David Cameron’s pitch to the “working people” of Britain, those who were attracted by Margaret Thatcher’s original Right to Buy policy for the country’s council home, which is thought to have helped her secure a third term.

The home secretary also battled Piers Morgan on ITV’s Good Morning Britain sofa when he presented her with a clip of her speech in 2002 in which she warned that the Tories were in danger of being thought of as the “nasty party”.

May said: “I think it’s important for people to look at the characters and the track record of the two people they have got to choose between. There is a very clear choice between David Cameron and Ed Miliband.”

Later on Radio 4 she was challenged again and dodged the opportunity to repeat Michael Fallon’s accusation that Mr Miliband had stabbed his brother in the back by standing for the Labour leadership.

How will the new Right to Buy affect Britain’s housing crisis?

Conservatives extend Right to Buy to Housing Associations

Commentators say that the key is whether allowing people to buy their houses will simply take more houses out of the social housing sector and push up house prices for others or whether new houses will be built to replace them.

Housing Associations have not welcomed the policy and say that they cannot be forced to build. They say that Housing Associations would need compensation for any loss incurred by sales under the new Right to Buy scheme, which she estimates to be between £5 and £20 billion.

Theresa May said that the new policy would also push Local Authorities into selling off their most valuable housing stock and then use that money to reinvest into more homes, a scheme she said would raise £4.5 billion a year.

The Conservatives say that if the housing associations wont use the money to build more money to build starter homes and that they will oblige local authorities to replace houses that local authorities

Theresa May could not explain exactly how new houses would be built but said that the party intended to build 400,000 new “starter homes” in the next Parliament and funnel some of the money into Brownfield projects.

Shelter say that local authorities have been lax and slow at replacing and building new houses and would welcome any new laws and polices that would force them to do so.

However they say that 26,184 social rented homes sold through right to buy since it was revived and only 2,712 have so far been replaced.

The policy is also a direct pitch to English voters – housing policy is devolved in Wales and Scotland.

Labour have attacked the plan as “uncosted” and “unbelievable” and argue that home ownership is at it’s lowest point for three decades.

They say that last year the scheme raised just £100m and has predicted costs of £4.5 billion.

The Lib Dems make the point that was put to Mrs May this morning, that the policy will only benefit the “lucky few” and lead to “longer waiting lists for homes and fewer social houses.”

Conservative Manifesto: What we expect to see

David Cameron buys sausages on the campaign trail yesterday

The Conservatives will launch their manifesto at 11am this morning near Swindon.

We already know to expect a series of policies, but there are likely to be a few more surprises aimed at wooing disaffected voters who have been tempted by Ukip and wavering Labour voters.

Right to Buy: Thatcher’s scheme will be extended to apply to housing association tenants. Labour and the Lib Dems say that policy will do nothing to solve Britain’s housing crisis.

Personal income tax allowance: to be raised to £12,500 by end of Parliament. The Liberal Democrats are frustrated as they say this was their policy that they sold to the coalition and the Conservatives are now taking the credit.

Minimum wage linked to personal tax allowance: The pledge means that if minimum wage rises higher than expected workers on that salary will still be exempt from paying income tax.

End inheritance tax on properties worth up to £1 million: The Conservatives say that this will take the family home out of tax. Critics say that the average family home is worth less than half £1 million.

£50,000 threshold for 40p rate by 2020: They say this will stop the ‘fiscal drag’ which is bringing teachers and nurses into the 40 per cent tax bracket.

£8 billion investment in NHS: The conservatives have pledged that they provide the £8 billion that Simon Stevens says is necessary to plug a funding gap in the NHS. However Labour point out the Chancellor was asked 18 times how he would fund the figure on the Andrew Marr show this weekend and gave no answer.

Rail fare freeze: The Conservatives have promised to freeze fares in real terms for five years. The Labour party say this is an unfunded pledge, but they have promised to freeze them for one year and have explained how this will be funded.

£100 billion on four trident submarines: The party has publicly promised to commit to 4 submarines. Labour have matched the pledge as long as “experts” say that four are necessary.

Strikes: 40 per cent support from union members will be needed for strike action to be legal

YouGov poll: Labour 1 point lead

Green Manifesto launch

Marginal seats poll shows Thatcher’s Finchley could go Labour

A poll of Conservative-held marginals has shown the Tories trailing or tied with Labour in five of the 10 seats surveyed.

Finchley and Golders Green in north London – where Margaret Thatcher was once MP – is one of three seats where Labour is now ahead, according to the poll by Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft.

The poll gives Labour a two-point advantage over the Conservatives in the constituency – still well within the margin of error.

Ukip countryside policy: immigration is a bigger problem than second home owners

Ukip’s deputy chairman has insisted immigration is a bigger issue for Britain’s housing crisis than second home ownership – while acknowledging she has “two and a third homes”.

Suzanne Evans said uncontrolled immigration had to be stopped to ensure there is “any countryside left for ourselves and others to enjoy” and to relive pressure on housing demand and services.

The senior Ukip figure also accused the Conservatives of showing more “hatred for the countryside” than Labour as she unveiled the eurosceptic party’s housing plans.

Ukip has pledged to prioritise bringing back into use around 300,000 empty properties in Britain and “incentivise” developers to build one million homes on brownfield sites by 2025.

Ms Evans said this would take place “long before we even begin to consider allowing the destruction of our precious greenbelt”.

May, Morgan and Osborne to speak at Conservative launch

Some more detail about the Conservative manifesto launch is emerging. Nicky Morgan, George Osborne and Theresa May will speak at the election launch alongside David Cameron.

Boris Johnson, meanwhile, will keep away and campaign in London

Inflation is at 0 per cent for the second month running

This will be a boost for the Conservatives this morning. However Labour dismiss the figures as being down to a “few months of falling world oil prices” whcih “won’t solve the deep-seated problems in our economy”.

Our plan for working people gets another boost today with good news for family budgets – Inflation at zero for second month in a row.

— George Osborne (@George_Osborne) April 14, 2015

Green manifesto launch: ‘end disastrous policy of austerity’

Natalie Bennett is speaking at a theatre / arts space in Dalston. Slightly different from Labour’s choice of the Coronation Street set.

This is the vision that sees the end of the “disastrous policy of austerity”, she says, which is “exciting increasing numbers of Britons”.

In 2010 one in 100 chose to “go green” now, she says the polls say as many as 1 in 20 choose her party – this is the “Green Surge”, she adds.

Voters have seen what just one Green MP can achieve she says, and now want to see what more could do.

The first pledge in the manifesto is to increase government spending by £177bn, or 20 per cent by 2019.

read it in full here

Unlikely to see a description of the earth in another manifesto this week

The Greens say that other parties have not focused on climate change. This is the description of “the third planet from the sun” on page 13 of the manifesto.

Greens: We’ll have low borrowing funded by ‘wealth and Robin Hood tax’

Brian May launches Green Party badges in Brighton yesterday

Michael Crick has challenged Natalie Bennett on her incredibly low borrowing prediction of £21 billion a year. She says the borrowing is so low because money will be raised through “wealth tax” and “Robin Hood” taxes.

She said: “Of course what you are missing from the equation Michael is the income side which is the fact that as I said in my speech we have to make big multi-national companies ad rich individuals pay their way and we have set out in back there the details of that.

“We are talking about cracking down on tax avoidance and evasion and we are really looking at restoring HMRC, the staffing of which has been slashed away, to help achieve that. we have go t the wealth tax which can be bringing in 25 billion by the end of the Parliament, we have got the robin Hood tax, £20 billion by the parliament – the figures are all set out there.

The fact is we need to balance this society so these multi-national companies and rich individuals pay their way in a way they simply aren’t at the moment.

Michael is denied a follow up by Natalie Bennett and the chair who move on.

Green Party policy breakdown

Increase public spending by 20 per cent (£177bn a year)

Increase minimum wage to £10 an hour

Introduce ‘wealth tax’ on top 1 per cent, “Robin Hood tax” on financial transactions to  fund free social care for over 65s

Cut emission by 90 per cent by 2030

Scrap tuition fees and increase school spending

Renationalise railways

Lower voting age to 16 and raise criminal responsibility from 10 to 14.

£4 billion a year extending free local transport to all young people and students

40% of all board members of public companies to be women

Abolish the TV licence

Increase the NHS administration budget by 9% and increase overall budget £12 billion partly funded by an increase in tobacco and alcohol taxes

Improve hospital food and end mixed sex accommodation in hospitals

By 2019 #GreenManifesto would make kids more helpful: they’ll go to park “promising to pick up some milk at the Post Office on the way back”

— Martha Finlay (@MarthaFinlay) April 14, 2015

Conservative teaser video: ‘When Labour left power it left a note. It read: “there is no money”

Local Government Network say Conservative Right to Buy is ‘bad policy’

Margaret Thatcher hands over the deeds to the council house belonging to the King family of Milton Keynes in 1979

Interestingly according to the latest polling Milton Keynes South is now a close Labour/Conservative battleground.

Local Government Network, a thinktank, has come out against the extension of the Right to Buy policy. Director Simon Parker said:

Forcing councils to sell-off their highest value properties is simply bad policy. Money should not be taken from hard-strapped local authorities to fund a central pot to compensate housing associations for the Conservatives’ decision to introduce Right to Buy with high discounts to their tenants.

Shelter says the plan is ‘another nail in the coffin’ for affordable housing.

We have already seen an outright failure to replace like for like the homes sold under right to buy, with only one new affordable home built for every five sold.

Extending the scheme to housing associations may benefit a lucky few, but does little to help the millions of private renters struggling to cope with sky high housing costs and instability. And, with the current track record, will mean there’s even fewer affordable homes left for future generations.

Miliband given a tough time in Loughborough

Miliband praises company for having good jobs with good wages. Worker murmurs 'they're not' pic.twitter.com/qL0S25aNZ5

— Sam Lister (@sam_lister_) April 14, 2015

The Labour leader is speaking  at Brush Traction in Loughborough where he is talking defence, immigration and jobs.

What to expect from the Conservative Manifesto

In case you missed it, here is our roundup from earlier.

David Cameron is yet to appear in Swindon but journalists and activists are being treated to a soundtrack of Florence and the Machine and Jackie Wilson’s “Higher and Higher”

George Osborne is now speaking, he says this is “unashamedly a manifesto for the working people of Britain”.

Michael Crick: Green taxes could see more flights

Michael is in  Dalston for the manifesto launch this morning, he sends this update:

Green Party Brian Heatley adviser admitted to me after today’s manifesto launch that their tax on aviation fuel, which is designed to raise an extra, and very ambitious £16 billion a year by 2019, might actually encourage more flying as airlines got out of their way to obtain aviation fuel outside the UK.

David Cameron: We are a ‘buccaneering and can do country’

The Telegraph reports that Mr Cameron will announced that working families with three or four-year-old children will get 30 hours of free childcare a week under a Conservative government. That trumps Labour’s 25 hours.

David Cameron has said “a good life is there for everyone willing to work for it” and that Britain is a “buccaneering and can do country” which goes down well.

He says we are “on the brink of something special” and says the Conservatives must be left to “finish what we have done”.

Good government starts with “great leadership” and “holding firm”. He says George Osborne held firm over cuts, Theresa May held firm on deportations and Iain Duncan Smith held firm over welfare reform.

“This is what we offer: Strong leadership not weakness”.

He makes a big point of Isis. He has met the families, he says, he has seen the reports and he needs the strength to make the big decisions. He is trying, again, to cast Ed Miliband is weak in the face of his strong prime ministerial duties.

Gary Gibbon is with the Conservatives in Swindon he sends these photos.

David Cameron says the manifesto is ‘thick with plans’ for ‘the good life’

Mr Cameron is making a pitch for the audience, staring down the camera.

He says that for him the best moments of the last five years have not been the pomp and ceremony of big meetings with world leaders but instead it is “the meetings with the couples with the keys to their first home, the meetings with the apprentices learning their first trade, the people knowing the satisfaction of a days work after years on the dole – that is what I mean by a good live.

“Families secure, the peace of mind that comes from a good job, the security of knowing that your children are getting a great education.”

He says the manifesto is “thick with plans” to help people achieve a “good life”.

David Cameron: ‘The dream of a property owning democracy is alive and well’

Mr Cameron tells the Swindon audience: “We have three new commitments to make to the working people of Britain. part of having a good life is having a home of your own, its not about assets and appreciating values it is about someone standing here with the keys in their hand thinking this place is mine.”

The Conservatives have committed to building a home owning democracy for generations, he adds. He says when the most expensive council houses fall vacant local authorities will be forced to sell them to build affordable housing in the same area. He does explain exactly what “in the same area” means.

He will use the money to get “diggers in the ground” for 400,000 new homes and “radically expand” the Right to Buy your council house.

He says that raising a family is a rewarding and “sometimes completely exhausting” journey.

Conservative 30 hours of childcare offer

David Cameron has announced that working parents of 3-4 year olds given 30 hours of free childcare a week. he says it comes on top of the tax free childcare policy which they say will save families £5,000 in total.

Mr Cameron said: “So we say to the working parents of three and four-year-olds: £5,000 of savings for you only with five more years of Conservatives in government that’s for working people in our country.”

However according to the Family and Childcare Trust Childcare Costs Survey families are now spending £1,533 more on childcare this year than they did in 2010 due to rising nursery costs.

The return of ‘sunny Dave’?

Nick Watt of the Guardian when he asks the Prime Minister if he Samantha Cameron see themselves as the Tom and Barbara of Britain or the Jerry and Margot.

He also asks if this is this a return to the “sunny Dave” of 2010 after what some have described as a negative campaign?

“I’ll leave that for Samantha to tell me privately later. Looks what I would say is the greatest sunshine there can possibly be is for more people to find work for people to have their own money to spend as they choose” he says.

But he doesn’t deal with the suggestion that he is being “sunny Dave” after the negativity of next week.

Ukip accuse Conservatives of stealing their policies

The Liberal Democrats will have something to say too. They say that the idea of raising the personal allowance (which the minimum wage will be tied to) was their idea and the Conservatives have nicked it.

Conservative manifesto in full

read it in full here

Cameron: The only poll I am interested in is the one on polling day

Gary Gibbon quizzes Mr Cameron on the Right to Buy policy announced as the centerpiece of the manifesto today.

He tells Mr Cameron that “just about every housing expert” says Governments have a terrible track record of replacing the stock when it is sold off “why on earth should it be different next time?”

Mr Cameron says that some recent council houses in central London have been sold off for more than a million pounds and that has led to “not one house being built but a dozen”.

The Prime Minister has also said that he’s not that interested in polls, because different polls can always be pointed to in campaigns but the key thing is setting out what you want to do and why you want to do it.

He is quizzed on why he won’t go into detail on the £12 billion of welfare cuts, asked why he can be “so clear on the nice stuff and so unclear on the nasty stuff”.

The prime minister says that the coalition managed £20 billion of cuts in the last parliament and “we are saying we need £12 billion in this parliament”.

He says that the party has set out the biggest change of freezing working age benefits, such as unemployment benefit, but doesn’t give any more detail on cuts we have not heard about before which would be needed to get close to the £12 billion figure.

Right to Buy for Housing Associations was in 2005 Conservative manifesto

Read that in full here.

Meanwhile in Dalston…

Cameron says Britain is a buccaneering, can do country

8 things you might have missed from the Conservative manifesto

• Georgia Graham georgia.graham@itn.co.uk

Develop 5G mobile phone connection, although much of the country is waiting with baited breath for 4G

Freeze the licence fee and defend free media

Ban wild animals from circuses and protect the cultural right of religious slaughter such as halal

Scrap the human rights act

Give parliament chance to repeal the Hunting Act with a free vote on a government bill

Bigger links with the NFL. George Osborne is a big fan.

Housing associations could launch legal challenge if forced to sell off houses

When the policy was initially floated housing associations said that it would financially cripple them and that they would be forced to fight it in the courts if necessary.

The Independent is quoting a story from three months ago in trade publication Inside Housing. In it Tony Stacey, chair of a group of 100 housing associations and chief executive of South Yorkshire Housing Association,said that he would “definitely” launch a challenge.

“I would definitely challenge it legally. This is so fundamentally critical to us. It would shoot up to the top of our risk map if it was confirmed. We are duty bound morally to fight it in any way we possibly can,” the Placeshapers chair told the publication.

Other housing association chief executives are quoted as saying they “would be surprised” if a legal challenge did not happen because the policy would risk the viability of the entire social housing sector.

Labour highlight IFS reaction to Conservative plans

FactCheck: Are the Tories exaggerating their NHS spending record?

Patrick Worrall explains:

In a BBC radio interview this morning, Theresa May was asked where the Tories would find the extra £8bn they have promised to spend on the NHS by 2020.

There is still no specific answer. The party have not pointed to a particular saving or tax rise that would cover this promise.

But Mrs May urged us to look at the Conservatives’ record on health spending over the last parliament.

She said: “If you look at the track record over the last five years, as I say, in 2010 we committed (to) that real terms increase in funding in the NHS every year. We have delivered on that.”

That’s not what the Institute of Fiscal Studies, among others, think really happened. The IFS has UK-wide real spending falling slightly between 2010/11 and 2011/12. So there wasn’t a “real terms increase in funding in the NHS every year”.

It’s true that real spending is expected to go up over the whole five years of the coalition – but by less than the £8bn the Tories have committed to spending in a single year by 2020.

This is a line the Conservatives have repeatedly stuck to in the last few days: if you doubt whether we will keep our £8bn promise, just look at our track record.

On Saturday Jeremy Hunt said: “If you look at the last five years we actually inherited an economy that was contracting, we’ve actually been able to put in real terms more than £7bn of extra funding into the NHS on an annual basis so we’re saying we are absolutely confident that we can put about the same again.”

If you think, as we do, that “on an annual basis” sounds like “every year”, this is completely untrue. It’s about £7bn over five years, not every year. And that’s according to government figures – the IFS thinks health spending has risen by less than the claimed £7bn.

So the scale of NHS funding the Conservatives have secured while in government is a lot less than what they are promising to spend in the next parliament.

Simon Hart MP: The first 2015 voter?

• Michael Crick Political Correspondent

Simon Hart, the sitting Conservative MP for Carmarthen West & Pembrokeshire South, lays claim to be the very first voter in the 2015 general election.  Mr Hart received his postal vote in this morning’s post, around 8am,  and voted straight away – for himself – before he’d even had a chance to read his party’s manifesto.

Pembrokeshire Council sent out ballot papers to registered postal voters yesterday, and are among the first local authorities to do so.  Most councils are expected to despatch postal votes this week, though many will wait until next week.  The choice is up to them.

It’s reckoned that about 20 per cent of votes in this election will be by post, the highest ever figure in a British election.  “I’m claiming I’m the first,” Hart tells me.  “Or at the least the first MP to vote for himself.”  Interestingly, postal voters in the Carmarthenshire half  of Hart’s constituency don’t get their ballot papers until early next week.  “It’s makes it more difficult campaigning,” Hart says, “as you have to work up to two different postal vote days.”

Right to buy: There is no better dream than the chance to own your own home, even if you never actually get the chance to

• Jackie Long Social affairs editor

Manifestos are often more about dreams than the detail. And what better dream to offer than the right to buy your own home. Let’s face it , it worked beautifully for the Tories the first time they offered it up under Mrs Thatcher.

Today David Cameron held out the promise to an estimated 1.3 million families with his own version of Right to Buy , extending it to housing association properties. It’ll cost around 18 billion pounds and will be funded by effectively forcing councils to sell off thousands of their most expensive properties.

Now independent analysts have already starting questioning the maths and in an angry blog the chair of the National Housing Federation. David Orr, has said such a scheme simply isn’t workable. The suggested discounts mean housing associations would not have enough left from sales to rebuild – and all are agreed that the current housing crisis will not be solved until substantial rebuilding takes place. It’s worth bearing in mind, that the average wait for a three bedroom house in Westminster is now 12 and half years.

But does any of this matter? Tory strategists are banking on the answer to that being a no. They hope – know? – that this will be a vote winner with working class voters in key constituencies.

As a former council house girl who grew up in the seventies and eighties I well remember the desperation people felt to “own their own home” and how alluring the right to buy was to many , even if they still couldn’t afford to buy once the policy came in. As I said, it’s often more about the dream than the detail.

Housing association tenants could have the right to buy, what about generation rent?

Neil MacDonald, economics producer, explains how the Conservatives pledge doesn’t offer much for the young professionals increasingly giving up the dream of a home of their own. He reports:

David Cameron says he’s keen to keep the dream of a property owning democracy alive. Unfortunately, this year’s English Housing Survey shows that dream is dying for 25-34 year olds.

Ten years ago, 60% of that age group were owner occupiers while just 20% were private renters.

Last year, just 30% were owner occupiers while around 45% were private renters. And the chart on page 15 shows the trend looks pretty well set to continue.

At the risk of stating the obvious, young people aren’t buying because house prices are too high for them. The chart from the Nationwide below sets out the problem – it shows the relationship between house prices and earnings over thirty years.

House prices became less and less affordable in the booming mid-2000s. Then slumped in the great recession. But the housing market was rescued by the Bank of England slashing interest rates to 0.5% and leaving them there for six years. So we’ve managed to combine a sharp economic slowdown with house prices remaining expensive:

Conservative manifesto: sober, but with some cross-dressing

• Gary Gibbon Political Editor

This was a much more subdued affair than Labour’s razzmatazz yesterday. No booming music, no swinging boom cameras. Even the re-mix of the 80s classic “right to buy policy” got only polite applause in the room.

The Tories didn’t want to look triumphalist and want to play what they see as their good management card – sober, responsible, all that. Their man, David Cameron (Lynton Crosby believes) doesn’t have to tell voters he is “ready”, something the Australian thinks was a mistake by Ed Miliband at his manifesto launch yesterday. But in case you didn’t get the point, Mr Cameron did talk about “strong leadership”.

There were retail offers in the Tory manifesto and some smoke and mirrors too. The iron-cast law ensuring that the personal allowance goes up with the minimum wage is a re-branding of a policy the Tories already had announced – a promise to put the personal allowance up to £12,500 by 2020.

Tories insist it is more than just a re-announcement with a fanfare flourish. They say it will bind in future governments to do the right thing and raise the personal allowance to make sure workers on the minimum wage don’t pay tax.

But the Resolution Foundation estimates that 60 per cent of workers on the minimum wage now don’t pay income tax. Lots more pay national insurance but the Tories chose not to touch that. This could end up being the end of all talk of merging national insurance and income tax.

Read the verdict in full

Foreign policy: the ignored debate of election 2015

• Lindsey Hilsum International Editor

Labour and the Conservatives are committed to Trident, but to what end?

Is British aid effective? Is the balance of forces in the British military right for the 21st century? Is there really nothing we can do about the unfolding tragedy in Syria? Could we at least admit a few more Syrian refugees?

These are the non-issues of the British election, the critical questions that won’t be debated – read her blog in full here.

Harriet Harman: The Conservatives don’t stand up for working families

Labour’s deputy leader has reacted to the manifesto:

The Conservative Party have not and will not stand up for working families. It is working people who have paid the price of the last five years, with higher taxes and wages down £1,600. And it is working people that will pay the price of the Tories’ desperate campaign.

“Yesterday Labour showed that it was the party of change and the party of responsibility with a fully funded manifesto that does not require any extra borrowing. The Conservative manifesto today shows once again that working people can’t afford five more years of the Tories.”

Liberal Democrat election manifesto tomorrow

Miriam Clegg has been out helping erect tents with some Guides in Stockport ahead of the Liberal Democrat manifesto launch tomorrow.

Nick Clegg, meanwhile, has been at Cradle Hill Primary School in East Sussex with Norman Baker.

Labour have taken the opportunity to knock down the manifesto before it is published.

Lucy Powell, the vice-chair of Labour’s general election campaign, says that: “You can’t trust the Lib Dem manifesto. They have broken their promises and backed the Tories all the way.”

George Osborne loves a brew

The Chancellor made sure to enjoy his tea with a new Right to Buy family in a big Union Jack mug this afternoon.

He’s got previous during this campaign. Just a normal bloke who loves a brew.

Conservatives draw the ire of business as they stick with net migration target

• Neil MacDonald Economics producer

The Conservative decision to stick with its target for annual net migration in” the tens of thousands” – a target they missed by a mile during the last parliament – is attracting criticism from some business groups.

The Engineering Employers Federation likes the talk about putting the public finances on a sound footing but it says “the mood music on immigration continues to concern businesses who require access to critical skills from overseas.”  The London First business group also think the Conservative “focus on competitiveness is undermined by rhetoric on immigration”.

And its not just business groups who think migration is good for growth.  Just last month, the official Office for Budget Responsibility revised UP its expectations for long run net migration – it now expects a level of 160,000 a year rather than tens of thousands.  (see the bottom of p.39 here).

And because of those higher expected migration levels, the OBR also raised its forecasts for employment, economic growth and tax revenues.  So will any of that happen if the Conservatives manage to achieve their net migration target this time round?

Don’t vote for Nick: Who needs enemies, eh?

Owen Temple, Lib Dem Candidate in north west Durham, makes his feelings about his party leader painfully clear

Priceless Lib Dem leaflet: ‘you shdn’t vote’ for Nick Clegg cos he’s ‘not interested in yr local area’ pic.twitter.com/SJoOxAwypC

— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) April 14, 2015

@KateEMcCann @paulwaugh I also like the way he’s used an ‘x’ – the universal symbol of voting for someone in an election. — Sean Kemp (@Sean_Kemp) April 14, 2015

Meanwhile Nick Clegg is handing out sorbets on the campaign trail, containing the warning “may contain nuts”.

Nick Clegg handing round Lib Dem “sunrise sorbets”. pic.twitter.com/bQ1z97iQ2E

— David Hughes (@DavidHughesPA) April 14, 2015

Ask old people to give up their big houses if you want to free up housing stock, experts warn Tories

• Neil MacDonald Economics producer

More reaction on the Conservative manifesto and housing from Danny Dorling, Professor of Geography at Oxford University and highly regarded critic of the UK housing market. You can see him set out his views to Paul Mason last year here.

​Today, Professor Dorling says one of the key issues in Britain’s housing crisis which politicians don’t like to talk about is the need to encourage older people to downsize.

“Our housing stock is mostly based on an era when people died at age 70 or earlier. Now people are living into their 80s or 90s. That’s great, but they are usually staying on for some time in family homes when it might be better to move to smaller properties.

“The question is how you help them to do that. Often those smaller properties have yet to be built. Even if they are built one of the issues with the recently proposed Conservative reforms of inheritance tax is that it could further discourage people moving out of their big family home.”

Few surprises on health in today’s Conservative manifesto

• Victoria Macdonald Health and Social Care Correspondent

And here we are again, back to this £8bn extra for the NHS by the end of the decade. Without wanting to sound like a stuck record, this £8bn that the Conservatives have today pledged to meet and that Labour has steadfastly refused to guarantee, is increasingly meaningless.

Firstly, both the Health Foundation and the King’s Fund say it is a bare minimum.  It is not where the parties should stop, it is where they should begin.

Secondly, it is predicated on the Five Year Forward View making the savings of £22bn through system changes and better prevention.

Thirdly, it is based on a level of productivity that the NHS has not been able to meet in recent years.  According to recent analysis from the Health Foundation, NHS hospitals have only improved their productivity at an average rate of 0.4 per cent over this parliament.

The Five Year Forward View, from Simon Stevens at NHS England, suggests productivity improvements at 2-3 per cent.

As for the rest of today’s health pledges from the Conservatives, there are no surprises. Again, as with Labour, everything has been trailed endlessly.

read in full here

Lovely weather for an election manifesto

If UK plc is putting the skids on spending, that’s bad news

• Siobhan Kennedy Business Editor

Amid all the political backstabbing and accusations of unfunded this and unfunded that, a very worrying development seems to have occurred. Worrying, that is, for the British economy. So unsure are Britain’s chief financial officers about the outcome of the general election that they’ve started to rein in spending.

More than half – 63 per cent – of those questioned by Deloitte, the accounting firm, rated the level of uncertainty facing their business as above normal. They see post-election uncertainty, policy change and an EU referendum as the greatest threats to UK business.

READ IN FULL HERE

‘Do you think people are stupid?’ – Tory candidate grilled in radio interview

Conservative candidate Priti Patel has endured a tough interview about her party’s manifesto with the BBC’s Eddie Mair.

The PM presenter said the Institute for Fiscal Studies had said that while the manifesto included details of the “good stuff” the Tories were promising, there was nothing about the “bad stuff”.

Ms Patel was asked where spending cuts would be made and how the £8bn extra a year for the NHS would be funded.

She said her party’s £30bn “consolidation” would mean £13bn of savings across government departments, £12bn of welfare cuts, and £5bn saved from clamping down on tax avoidance and evasion – and that the extra money for the NHS would come from “having a strong economy”.

Asked if she thought “people are stupid”, she said: “No, we don’t and I think that’s absolutely the wrong assertion to make…”

Fact heck Q&A: the Tories’ right to buy plan

It’s the one big “rabbit-out-of-the-hat” idea from the Conservative election manifesto – and a promise that revisits one of Margaret Thatcher’s most famous policies.

A Conservative government would extend the “right to buy” your council house at a heavy discount to people who live in housing association properties.

About 1.3 million households are being dangled a carrot worth more than £100,000 for some, paid for by selling off the most expensive council houses.

But critics are lining up to cast doubt on the economics of the scheme. Here’s what we know so far…

READ IN FULL HERE

Cameron promises ‘good life’ as he launches Tory manifesto

• Gary Gibbon Political Editor

The Conservatives have launched their manifesto, with David Cameron proclaiming the “good life” was finally at hand.

Top of their promise list is extending Mrs Thatcher’s right to buy scheme for housing association tenants.

Michael Gove speaks to Jon Snow on social housing, tax and the NHS

• Jon Snow Presenter

Conservative chief whip Michael Gove says the big promises in today’s Conservative manifesto “are funded”, but that the party is “not going to have a coalition” if it wins over 11,000 voters in swing seats.

What they’re not telling you: housing

• Paul Mason Economics Editor

The Conservatives today put housing at the centre of their manifesto launch – extending that Thatcher era Right to buy.

But as Paul Mason reports, the real issue is why are homes in such short supply.

Green appeal: what drives their supporters?

• Michael Crick Political Correspondent

Would the Green party put the Queen in a council house?

Apparently not – but that was the argument Michael Crick ended up having with some Dalston hipsters…

He was there to gauge public feeling on the day of their manifesto launch – where they unveiled their plan to increase public spending by 27 per cent.

Greens party’s Natalie Bennett: We need to recycle society’s wealth

The leader of the Green party of England and Wales, Natalie Bennett, talks to Matt Frei as the party launches its general election manifesto.