Who has the best medicine for the NHS?

Labour launches a week of intensive campaigning on the National Health Service today, declaring the NHS is on “life support” and that the Conservatives would “pull the plug”.

The NHS is on life support. Don’t let the Tories pull the plug… pic.twitter.com/Q26GK45Thq

— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) April 19, 2015

On Monday Ed Miliband is expected to attack Prime Minister David Cameron, saying the Tory leader poses a “risk to the very fabric and foundation” of the NHS.

Labour says its £2.5bn spending plans – paid for through measures such as the mansion tax – are the only fully funded proposals for the NHS put forward so far. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats say they will find the £8bn health chiefs say is needed.

Read more: FactCheck – who will save the NHS?

But Labour will accuse the Tories of having an election day “expiry date” for their NHS promises, and will argue that the “NHS will be sunk by a toxic mix of cuts and privatisation”.

The Conservatives have hit back at Mr Miliband, accusing him of “desperate attempts to weaponise the NHS”.

A Conservative spokesman said: “His (Mr Miliband’s) credibility on health is in tatters because he refuses to fund the £8bn the NHS needs.

“By building a stronger economy, we have protected and improved the NHS with 9,500 more doctors, 6,900 more nurses, and 1.3 million more life-saving operations every year.

“There is only one threat to the future of our NHS and that is the economic chaos of an Ed Miliband-SNP government.”

Philip Hammond: We need to target the traffickers

The foreign secretary has responded to the news that over 900 migrants are feared dead in the worst maritime disaster in the history of the Mediterranean.

He said that the crisis, which has seen at least 1,500 lives lost after migrants embark on dangerous crossings in over-crowded unseaworthy vessels in an effort to get from Africa to Europe.

He said that the solution must involve “targeting the criminals” who are organising the movement of these people.

Philip Hammond said the crisis “requires a comprehensive European response” as he arrived for a meeting with his EU peers in Luxembourg.

Climbing the walls: SNP choose off-the-wall venue for manifesto launch

• Alex Thomson Chief Correspondent

Alex arrived in Scotland on the sleeper train this morning and is currently hanging out meeting SNP supporters in the overflow carpark at the Edinburgh climbing centre where the manifesto will be launched in an hour. He sends this report: 

Their problem is there is no room in the overflow carpark. So they line up and leave the cars on the verges, over the pavement – wherever.

All this an hour before the manifesto launch is due to take place.

A woman gets out of her SNP-beflagged VW Beetle: SNP earrings; SNP sports top; Saltire-coloured schemes tartan kilt (is there a Sturgeon tartan?).

Inside the main arena it is METAPHOR CITY – a climbing wall of concrete faces, footholds and handgrips.

Party in the ascendant…climbing the mountain…the rise and rise of Nicola … you get my drift.

You can climb every mountain and come over all Julie Andrews – but you can go Jimmy Cliff and the harder they fall.

So the metaphor feels dangerously mixed to me this side of the poll.

Boris Johnson compares Nicola Sturgeon to a weevil, a temperance campaigner and King Herod

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

Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, on the campaign trail last week

Boris Johnson has gone to town on Nicola Sturgeon in his Telegraph column today, an insight into just how damaging the Conservatives see the SNP connection could be to Labour.

They are attacking hard. And when I say hard, I mean hard.

Boris Johnson compares the SNP leader to a fox given the run of a henhouse, a jewel thief with the keys to the Tower of London and, a more tasteless comparison, King Herod “in charge of a baby farm”.

According to Boris she is also a temperance campaigner running a brewery and a voracious weevil. Ouch. He writes:

 “You wouldn’t get Herod to run a baby farm, would you? It would not normally occur to you to interview a convicted jewel thief for the post of custodian of the Tower of London.

You would not dream of asking a fox to look after the henhouse or a temperance campaigner to run a brewery or Attila the Hun to work as a doorkeeper for the Roman senate – and no one in their right mind would enter into a contract with a bunch of voracious weevils to protect the lovely old timbers in the tower of the local church. Would they?

Any such course of action would be totally nuts. So can someone tell me why in the name of all that is holy there are some apparently rational people who are even contemplating the elevation of the Scottish Nationalist Party to a position of effective dominance in the government of the United Kingdom – an entity that they are sworn to destroy?”

SNP manifesto launched: Stronger for Scotland

Alex Thomson is there waiting for his allotted question. He send this update:

“You have question six Alex.”

Eh? Am I supposed to go now and ask what Question Six is?

I think the SNP aide was trying to be nice in letting me know I would get a question but it is hardly the free-for-all anyone ask anything which press conferences surely should be about.

So the Tories won’t even let you hold the microphone. Labour do let you hold it and risk the dreaded follow-up. Which way will the SNP go?

It is the burning question if this pre-programmed “campaign” on which the cross-party spinners are heading for a landslide.

Two positives – I didn’t need to ask Labour’s Jim Murphy a supplementary because he actually answered my question .

And Nicola Sturgeon – as I have seen – is anything but afraid to get into the streets of Scotland and selfie her way to success.

Sturgeon: My vow is to make Scotland stronger at Westminster

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

Nicola Sturgeon’s introduction doesn’t need much explanation. Under the SNP Scotland will be stronger in Westminster, she says.

This will please the Conservatives who have decided that Nicola Sturgeon is their chosen stick to beat Labour with. David Cameron is in Crewe this very morning warning of the dangers of SNP control in England.

Nicola Sturgeon’s introduction references a “real alternative to the paid of austerity” pointing to an end to the bedroom tax and a higher minimum wage – both of which put them on the same page as Labour.

However she is clear on trident, one of the places Labour and the SNP are likely to diverge. Sturgeon says that “the previous resources of our country” should be “invested in building a better future for our children, not on a new generation of nuclear weapons.”

She also places herself at the centre of a possible “anti-Tory majority” after the election which could work together to keep the Conservatives out.

This is the other side of the coin that the Conservatives are campaigning on. They warn that voting Labour will give you a SNP controlled left wing government with an influential sector bent on independence.

The SNP say that voting for them is the only way to keep the Tories out and to keep Labour to the left. Labour will be wanting to distance themselves from this argument, but they are currently struggling. They can’t completely rule out some sort of power sharing deal with the SNP as it is possible that the only way they could manage a majority after May 7 is to join forces.

So they stick to parroting out the “we are fighting for an overall majority” line and try and keep their distance.

In her speech Nicola Stugeon is carrying on her theme of a pitch for Westminster – she has been ever present on Britain’s tv screens and Debates, interviews and most recently the Andrew Marr show – although she and David Cameron would not share a sofa.

She tells the gathered SNP supporters she wants to make a pledge to people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Even though you cannot vote SNP, “your views do matter to me.”

David Cameron: SNP and Labour will lead the UK ‘into ruin’

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

The prime minister is speaking in Crewe, and taking the opportunity to claim that a Labour-SNP administration would cause the economy to “head into ruin again”.

He says: “Make no mistake, if Labour and the SNP get into power, you are going to see an alliance between a party that wants to spend, borrow and tax more with a party that wants to spend, borrow and tax even more.

“It might be a match made in heaven for them but it is a match made in hell for the British economy. You would see our deficit climbing up again spending on welfare soaring again businesses crushed again, jobs lost again with Labour and the SNP, our economy will head into ruin again.

He adds: “Time and again Ed Miliband has refused to rule out a deal with the SNP.

“He simply says he’ll ‘see what happens’. He doesn’t even want to talk about it because we all know what it would mean.

“Not a clean coalition agreement decided in the first couple of weeks – but permanent, messy chaos, negotiating day by day, vote by vote, favour by favour.”

Although the high-vis audience appears to still be on the fence.

Nicola Sturgeon: Why wouldn’t David Cameron share a sofa with me?

Nicola Sturgeon has said she wanted to share a sofa with David Cameron so they could have had a “quick debate” side by side.

Instead, she says, David Cameron spent the final moments of the appearance on the Marr show “nodding along to the music” at the end of the show.

Ed Balls: SNP deal is question for after election

Meanwhile Ed Balls is being quizzed on the possibility of the deal, which he doesn’t rule out.

He said: “We will have to wait and see what the election result is going to be. We are fighting very hard for a Labour majority.”

At the weekend Angela Eagle, the shadow leader of the Commons said that she was open to speaking to parties like the SNP if Labour failed to get a majority.

12 hours to register to vote

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

To vote at the UK general election on Thursday 7 May, you must register to vote by today, Monday 20 April.

In England, Scotland or Wales, you can register to vote online at gov.uk/register-to-vote.

In Northern Ireland, visit our Register to vote in Northern Ireland page to download a registration form.

It takes about 5 minutes and you will need you national insurance number.

If you don’t do it, you won’t be allowed to vote.

Once you’re registered take a look at the first in a series of Jon Snow’s short, expert, explainer videos on the key issues of the election and why voting actually matters when it comes to the things that you care about.

Nicola Sturgeon: It is entirely offensive to compare me to Herod in charge of a baby farm

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

The SNP leader responds to comparisons Boris Johnson made this morning.

She has also been asked why the English are scared of her, but she says she doesn’t think they are. In fact, she says, she is inundated with people from around the UK asking her if they can vote for the SNP, not the actions of a terrified nation.

Before answering questions Ms Sturgeon had to warn her faithful SNP supporters not to boo the media of Westminster she has been so readily courting.

Alex Thomson is there and sends this update:

Increasingly creepy thing where party leaders have to remind the audience not to barrack the media for asking difficult questions.

First – media should be able to handle any stick they give.

Second – slightly odd Sturgeon and Miliband (possibly others) have been told by their spinners to put out this warning.

Stage-managed election? We are a ‘Conservative rent a crowd’

Michael Crick and Tim Bouverie are in Chester speaking to the ‘normal people’ turning out to meet David Cameron this afternoon. Seems he’ll be expecting a friendly reception…

Tim Bouverie sends this report:

David Cameron is talking about the threat the SNP could be to other parts of the UK this morning. He’s saying that a Conservative Government would review the affect of Scottish decision making on the rest of the UK on an annual basis. He’s been speaking in Crewe, a campaigning stop which must be a sign of concern for the Conservatives.

It is 87th on Labour’s list of target seats – the Tories memorably won it in a 2008 by election – and it marks the beginning of a days campaigning for the Prime Minister in seats under threat from Labour.

Meanwhile George Osborne is in the West Country visiting yet more Liberal Democrat seats and underlining the Conservative strategy of targeting vulnerable constituencies of their coalition partners.

They are not optimistic about taking many of Labour and think their best chance of a majority is shoring up their key vote and taking as many seats from the Lib Dems as possible in the South West.

NHS: the Labour claim that ‘didn’t stack up’

• Victoria Macdonald Health and Social Care Correspondent

The NHS has always been fertile ground for statistics.  Percentages of patients waiting, being operated on, staff vacancies.

But the danger is they can be open to interpretation or just plain wrong.  And so at the Labour launch of its new NHS poster we had been sent a press release which said a survey of Tory councillors showed that more than a quarter were “willing to admit they support further charging and privatisation”.

By this morning, this claim had been reduced to a passing mention in the press conference. Because it didn’t stack up.  The Conservatives’ rebuttal team was in full flow, pointing out there are over 8,000 councillors in the UK and that only 115 responded to the survey.

For maths nerds out there, that means just 1.4 per cent of elected councillors responded.  And, so the Tories claim, the six they say support cuts to the NHS “constitute less than 0.07 per cent”.

Follow @vsmacdonald on Twitter

David Cameron is running 45 minutes late because of a wayward helicopter

• Michael Crick Political Correspondent

David Cameron and George Osborne at Arriva Traincare in Crewe

David Cameron’s itinerary today. Having been in Crewe this morning he is now at least 45 minutes late for his next event, and much of that delay is because his security people could not identify a helicopter whizzing overhead at the second location where he was due… they finally discovered it was Sky News.

One would have hoped that the security services these days would have ways of identifying low flying aircraft in substantially under three-quarters of an hour.

MPs edit attack posters to declare support for gay marriage

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

Labour and Conservative would be MPs are turning the tables on a campaign by a pressure group which campaigns to “defend traditional marriage” and against gay marriage.

The pressure group has printed leaflets naming MPs that voted for the legislation telling voters to use their vote for “true marriage” in May.

However Conservative Sarah Wollaston and Labour’s Alison McGovern have posted pictures of the posters on Twitter saying that they are proud of their decision.

Defence minister Anna Soubry, who also posted a picture of the leaflet online, said she was “proud to have voted for equal marriage” and that “doing the right thing matters more than winning and selling out.”

David Cameron speaks to Italian Prime Minister over migrant drownings in the Med

Sinn Fein: ‘I’ll bet you £20 the DUP don’t hold the balance of power’

• Andy Davies Home Affairs Correspondent

At Sinn Fein’s election manifesto launch this morning the longest round of applause followed the shortest statement of the day. Gerry Adams, the party’s president, was asked whether there were any circumstances in which Sinn Fein’s MPs would consider ending their policy of abstentionism and taking up their seats in the House of Commons.

The quickfire response amounted to just one word:”No.” The audience of politicians and activists lapped it up, laughing briefly then clapping enthusiastically. It’s a question they’ve faced repeatedly in recent weeks.

As for talk of the DUP potentially being courted post-election to prop up an incoming minority government, and thus ‘holding the balance of power’,  the Sinn Fein leadership sounded contemptuous. “Other parties portraying themselves as kingmakers,” claimed Martin McGuinness, “were grossly over-exaggerating their involvement”.

“What if you’re wrong about the DUP?” I asked him later. “Andy,” replied McGuinness. “I’ll bet you £20 the DUP don’t hold the balance of power.” He’s confident.

ICM poll puts Conservatives 2 points ahead of Labour

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

Guardian/ICM:

CON 34%, LAB 32%, LDEM 10%, UKIP 11%, GRN 5%

Earlier today the latest Populus poll came out with the direct opposite – Labour up two points on the Conservatives. The Ukip vote appears to be holding up better in the Populus poll too.

Update: Ashcroft poll shows the Conservatives 4 points ahead.

The national poll, carried out 17-19 April: CON 34%, LAB 30%, LDEM 10%, UKIP 13%, GRN 4%.

We are expecting a YouGov poll at 10.30pm.

What it does show is that the elections are close. Votes matter, and the last chance to register to vote is today. You can register here until midnight.

Testing the mood in Scotland’s Labour heartlands

• Alex Thomson Chief Correspondent

They call the numbers three times a week at the Dalkeith Miners’ social club.

Mining coal has long since disappeared here and the local pit went back in the 70s, before Scargill and Thatcher started at each other.

But it remains – by tradition – serious Labour country and we wanted to ask those voters to assess the mood on the day the SNP launched its manifesto.

So to calling the numbers. Around thirty punters for bingo this morning. Most happily say – and agree – that whichever politician you vote for they will break their promises.

So I felt any manifesto wasn’t going to play well…

Of course these are elderly and retired and a very specific sector of the voting public but that’s the point: these days in Scotland even in the former mining country Midlothian you have to seek out your guaranteed die-hard Labour vote .

“I don’t like Nicola Sturgeon,” says one bingo player. “Mouthy,” they added, recoiling slightly, shocked at the description that just popped out.

Another: “It was always really Labour around here – my family we’re all Labour – – but you know I’m not so sure this time around.”

Her friend puts her straight: “Dalkeith’s Labour. Always has been. Will be this time around.”

Not sure if you’ll register to vote?

Here Alex Thomson looks at the alternative, and it’s not pretty.

Nick Clegg: I want a Lib Dem education secretary

Nick Clegg arrives at a school earlier today

On a day when the SNP are nabbing all the headlines, the Liberal Democrat leader is making his pitch for coalition, telling journalists on his battle bus that he wants a Lib Dem in the influential position of Education Secretary in another coalition.

The Liberal Democrats have David Laws, the Schools Minister, who has gone into rather public battles with Michael Gove, the former Education Secretary, over free schools.

In the future Mr Clegg says he doesn’t want to waste any more time “dealing with zany ideological gimmicks”.

Instead, he says: “It would be a good thing for Liberal Democrats to run education policy on our own terms.”

YOLO! Ed Miliband adopts a new political philosophy

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

The Labour leader was asked whether he knew what Yolo meant in an interview and appeared very excited by the prospect of a new philosophy to live his life by.

Will Milimania end the way Cleggmania did?

• Cathy Newman Presenter

If we didn’t all know how the story of Cleggmania ended five years ago, I might be tempted to start sounding off about Milimania. I refer most recently to the somewhat implausible spectacle of Ed Miliband being mobbed by a hen party, describing him alternately as “adorable” or “lovely”.

Implausible because this is the man who has been roundly mocked by the media for everything from gobbling a bacon sarnie to giving money to a homeless lady. So it does seem rather puzzling that he’s now getting the kind of reception to which Nick Clegg became accustomed before the bubble burst and he threw in his lot with David Cameron.

What’s going on?

David Cameron campaigns on a tiny table

David Cameron gives a speech to school pupils and party activists outside Sandy Moor free school

Polls show even Lib Dem collapse is not helping Labour in Scotland

• Matthew Moore Producer

Nicola Sturgeon launches the SNP manifesto earlier today

The latest round of Scottish constituency polling from Lord Ashcroft underscores the scale of the problem facing Scottish Labour.

They trail the SNP in two more seats. This time in the east side of the central belt. Worryingly for Labour both are seats in which they traditionally had to fight off the Liberal Democrats.

In Edinburgh South Ian Murray won by 316 votes in 2010. Mr Murray is now trailing the SNP candidate by 3 points. In Edinburgh North and Leith the SNP have opened up a huge 14 point lead.

The figures come with added significance as the Edinburgh region voted NO in last year’s referendum but that doesn’t seem to have halted the rise of the SNP in these parts.

Tories are playing dangerous gaming bigging up SNP, former Scottish Secretary warns

Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond in Gordon, the seat Salmond hopes to take at May’s election for the SNP

Lord Forsyth has accused David Cameron of having ‘shattered’ the pro-UK alliance in Scotland.

The senior Tory peer has used an interview in The Guardian to warn that the Conservatives tactic of emphasising SNP support as a way of damaging Labour in Scotland is a “short term and dangerous game” that threatens the future of the UK.

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean accused Mr Cameron of having “shattered” the pro-UK alliance in Scotland and stirring up English nationalism after the Scottish independence referendum last year.

He has also said the Conservatives were partly responsible for the rise of the SNP after helping to prop up Alex Salmond’s minority government from 2007 to 2011, a move that gave Tory voters “permission” to support the SNP to keep out Labour.

SNP manifesto launch: you can take the mountain metaphors too far

• Alex Thomson Chief Correspondent

Hm… You can take the metaphors too far, too easily. So the SNP launches its manifesto in the International Climbing Centre outside Edinburgh today and half of me is all Julie Andrews and “Climb Every Mountain” …. Party in ascendency… Scaling the heights ….You can continue this.

Then again there is Jimmy Cliff and “the harder they come, the harder they fall”. And many more along those lines. Tricky stuff. And in any case the symbolism of this place is tarnished by Wikipedia telling us it has had a rather troubled financial history. Over-inflated ideas about its prospects.

But the effect is undeniably impressive. I write this stuck in traffic as the large crowd tries to leave the launch. Nicola Sturgeon isn’t the greatest orator for all that she is thought by many to be the most effective politician in the UK right now.

READ MORE

David Cameron profile: Gary Gibbon speaks to the Conservative leader

• Gary Gibbon Political Editor

I caught up with David Cameron in the back of his battle bus heading from the Midlands into Wales. It’s a bus that normally takes travellers from Dover, under the Channel, to meet up with the Orient Express train in France.

It’s been repainted and reconfigured for the election with seats around tables for his entourage and the media pack and at the back the PM’s own den with sofa and a saloon bar door giving privacy.

Outside as the traffic whizzes by nobody toots their horn, there’s no abuse, no cheering either. The prime minister’s heavily branded bus moves from one fairly sterile event to another, where his words are recorded by cameras, reading off autocue whilst the electorate get on with their lives.

Talk to him a few months ago and you heard someone who thought it would fall his way; the other guy was unelectable and the economic lead too strong. Now not so much.

READ DAVID CAMERON’S FULL PROFILE HERE

David Cameron challenges SNP over devolution with the ‘Carlisle Principle’

• Michael Crick Political Correspondent