YouGov poll suggests Tories on course for comfortable general election victory – as it happened

Some significantly more minor, though still interesting, points from this evening’s poll:

YouGov says few “big beasts” would be likely to lose their seats if the vote were held today. But it identifies the Conservative MP, Zac Goldsmith, as being in particular danger, as well as the shadow environment secretary, Sue Hayman, and the shadow Scotland secretary, Lesley Laird.

While the poll suggests Boris Johnson could comfortably retain his seat if the election were held right now, the margin of error identified by YouGov allows for an extremely narrow Labour victory in the same scenario.

It suggests similar of other cabinet ministers, including the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, Robert Buckland, and the Scottish secretary, Alister Jack, as well as the international development secretary, Alok Sharma.

None of them is predicted to be in any serious danger. Like Johnson, YouGov rates each of them as “likely” to hold their seat. But, were the results out by the most extreme margins of error YouGov has allowed for, election night could be less comfortable than each would hope.

The poll predicts that the environment secretary, Theresa Villers, could have an even greater fight on her hands, were the vote held right now. YouGov projects the race in her constituency to be one of the closest, rating it a “tossup”.

The result of YouGov’s constituency by constituency model makes seductive reading for the Conservatives and grim reading for Labour.

Can you believe it?

What YouGov has in its favour was its success last time: Nine days before the last election, the firm predicted Theresa May’s Conservatives would lose their majority and end up with just 310 seats.

In fact, the party got 317 but it came at a time when few other pollsters were predicting anything other than a May win.

What YouGov has against it is that it has been polling people over the past week, when regular polling firms would aim for the last couple of days. And, during an election campaign, every day matters.

A week ago, neither party manifesto was out, the leaders debate hadn’t happened and the antisemitism row hadn’t surfaced. More importantly, while the Conservative squeeze of the Brexit party has come early in this campaign, the Labour squeeze of the Lib Dems is perhaps not yet complete.

There are some things in the forecast that look curious. Labour is not forecast to gain any seats at all, which will surprise party workers in some targets where it has dozens on the ground, such as Southampton Itchen (Con maj 31), Hastings and Rye (Con maj 346) and Chingford and Woodford Green (Con maj 2438).

But it will hit home in the critical “red wall” band that runs very roughly from north Wales to the Humber, where Labour insiders are already deeply concerned, with some party workers reporting a sharp fall in those willing to say they will back the party.

The modelling suggests the Conservatives will gain seat after seat in Britain’s smaller cities and large towns: Wrexham (Lab maj 1,832), Derby North (Lab maj 2,015), Great Grimsby (2,565), despite the residual presence of the Brexit party.

Even West Bromwich East, previously held for Labour by Tom Watson with a majority of 7,713, is projected to change hands, and interestingly most of the seats projected to switch are straight Conservative versus Labour battles. In only a handful, such as Kensington in London, does a Lib Dem revival split the anti-Tory vote.

Jeremy Corbyn is set to unveil more proposals in the Labour’s “Green manifesto” tomorrow, telling supporters at a packed rally in Cornwall this evening: “I’ll let you into little secret, it’s brilliant”.

Speaking at the event in Falmouth to promote the party’s “Green Industrial Revolution”, the Labour leader said the 2016 Paris climate agreement did not go far enough. He told hundreds of cheering supporters:

I want to lead a Labour government that next year will host the next climate change conference, and which will be much stronger than Paris.

Our government will be one that will be very environmentally conscious, it will bring about a net zero emissions. Our government will work on the world stage to achieve that as well.

Labour’s “Green Industrial Revolution” includes a 10-year Green transformation fund, costing £25bn a year, and dedicated to renewable and low carbon energy, transport, biodiversity, and environmental restoration.

It promises to create 1m green jobs in the energy sector and through nationwide home refurbishments.

The idea is to tackle climate change while creating jobs through insulation upgrades, offshore wind and carbon capture. The jobs will also come from hydrogen and tidal energy expansion, port infrastructure, tree-planting, flood defences and plastics recycling.

With just two weeks until the election, Corbyn warned supporters:

Everything is going to be thrown at us in the next two weeks. Every bit of abuse that the right wing press can find. Every bit of abuse that the wealthiest in our society can throw at people that want to bring about real change.

Chris Curtis, YouGov’s political research manager, said the pollster’s election MRP model suggests the Tories’ projected gains could come at the expense of Labour in northern England and the Midlands.

As expected, the key thing deciding the extent to which each of these seats is moving against Labour are how that seat voted in the European Union referendum. In the seats that voted most strongly to Leave in 2016 (60% or more in favour of departing the EU), the swing to the Conservatives is over 6%.

This is allowing the Tories to overturn quite substantial majorities in places like West Bromwich East, the seat held until recently by Tom Watson, and Don Valley, the seat currently held by Caroline Flint.

The only silver lining for Labour is that there are still 30 seats where it is currently 5% or less behind the Tories. If it can manage to squeeze the gap over the coming fortnight it may be able to paste over the cracks in their so-called red wall. But, with just two weeks to go, time is running out for Labour.

The prime minister has faced an awkward encounter with a group of nurses in Cornwall as they grilled him over his promise to boost NHS nursing numbers:

Having stood down at the dissolution of parliament, Dominic Cummings was briefly reinstated to help the prime minister on the government’s response to the flooding that hit the Midlands and northern England earlier this month.

The Cabinet Office revealed the move to the Lib Dems’ Brexit spokesman, Tom Brake, in a letter dated Friday 22 November. Brake had written to the Cabinet secretary, Sir Mark Sedwill, seeking clarification on Cummings’s status, citing “media reports Dominic Cummings has been in more regular communication with campaign staff over the last week”.

The Cabinet Office’s response read:

As with the significant majority of special advisers, Mr Cummings resigned from his role following the dissolution of parliament.

During the government’s response to flooding, some special advisers, including Mr Cummings, were reinstated on a temporary basis to provide support to the prime minister and he and others have since left. This is routine practice in such circumstances.

A number of other special advisers have, in line with the code of conduct for special advisers and with the agreement of the prime minister, remained in their roles, for example, where there is an ongoing need for their support in government work.

As set out in paragraph 18 of the code of conduct for special advisers, however, those who remain in post to work on government business must ensure that they do not use official resources for party political purposes and that any participation in the campaign is in a special adviser’s own time and outside office hours.

All special advisers are aware of the requirements in the code of conduct.

Jeremy Corbyn has again stopped short of apologising to the UK’s Jewish community for antisemitism within Labour’s ranks. Asked by the Press Association if he would apologise for such incidents, as well as his handling of the issue, the Labour leader said:

The degree of antisemitic activity in the Labour party is very, very small. Anybody committing antisemitic acts is breaking party rules and they are appropriately disciplined and sanctioned. All those rules came in since I became leader and indeed the latest regulations came specifically on my own request.

Jennie Formby, our general secretary, has written a substantial article in the Jewish News today making clear the party deeply regrets and is very sorry for what happened before the new rules came in and obviously I support everything that she has said on that.

Pressed on whether that was as good as a personal apology, Corbyn said:

I have spent my life fighting racism in every conceivable form in our society. I don’t want anyone to go through the hurt that Jewish women went through on the trains a few weeks ago, that Muslim women go through on our streets.

I have made it very clear that our party will not tolerate racism in any form or antisemitism in any form and our party obviously deplores it and regrets what happened to those people who received that abuse and they have received the appropriate sanctions within the party, some of whom have been expelled.

The prime minister’s senior aide, Dominic Cummings, has resigned as a special adviser, according to a Cabinet Office source.

Cummings, who was a senior figure in the Vote Leave campaign before starting as an adviser to Boris Johnson in July. His appointment at No 10 came only four months after he was found in contempt of parliament for refusing to appear before MPs investigating false news stories during the EU referendum campaign.

Earlier today, he published a blog post warning pro-Brexit voters that a Conservative victory is not yet in the bag (see 5.16pm).

Responding to a query about whether or not the publication of the post constituted a breach of the general election purdah rules imposed on special advisers, a Cabinet Office source confirmed Cummings had “resigned following the dissolution of parliament ... along with the majority of special advisers”, on 6 November.

While his resignation is understood to be a formality, it had been reported that Cummings intended to stay on as Johnson’s adviser, with the Tory election campaign being run by Isaac Levido.

It is unclear what role, if any, Cummings will play if Johnson is returned to Downing Street after the election.

Boris Johnson is “scared” of facing up to an interview with Andrew Neil, Labour has claimed, after its own leader’s bruising encounter with the BBC journalist on Tuesday.

The broadcaster clarified earlier today that it had not secured an agreement with the prime minister for him to take part in its series of interviews with party leaders, as many had expected (see: 3.37pm) he would. Ian Lavery, the Labour chair, has said:

Boris Johnson backed out of a head-to-head debate with Jeremy Corbyn on Sunday, he is refusing to take part in the party leaders’ climate crisis debate tomorrow and now this.

He’s running scared because every time he is confronted with the impact of nine years of austerity, the cost of living crisis and over his plans to sell out our NHS, the more he is exposed.

A Labour source has indicated this evening that the party was led to believe Johnson was to face Neil next week.

The latest edition of the Guardian’s Politics Weekly podcast has gone out. You can listen here:

This week, Heather Stewart is joined by Polly Mackenzie, James Morris, and Andrew Gimson. Plus: Kate Proctor calls in from the Labour campaign trail and Peter Walker explains why the Lib Dem campaign is struggling.

There have been a lot of polls now suggesting the Conservatives are on course for at least a decent majority. This is not necessarily helpful - if supporters think victory is in the bag, they might not turn out - and that probably explains why Dominic Cummings, the PM’s most influential policy adviser, has written a post on his blog with advice to Vote Leave reporters. Here is the key extract.

You will see many polls in the coming days. Some will say Boris will win. Trust me, as someone who has worked on lots of campaigns, things are much tighter than they seem and there is a very real possibility of a hung parliament.

Without a majority, the nightmare continues. All other MPs will gang together to stop Brexit and give EU citizens the vote. It’s that simple.

Talking of MRP models (see 4.05pm), Best for Britain, the anti-Brexit group, has also commissioned its own MRP analysis, from Focaldata, and it suggests that the Conservatives could be on course for a majority of more than 80.

But Best for Britain is using the data to encourage tactical voting and it says that if 117,314 or more pro-EU voters were to vote tactically, then the Tories could be denied a majority.

Here is an extract from the Best for Britain news release.

Our data predicts that the Conservatives could win up to 366 seats, having been boosted by roughly three-quarters of the Brexit party’s vote share where the Brexit party have not fielded a candidate. Under this scenario, Labour would win 199 seats, Lib Dems would win 17 seats, SNP would win 44 seats, Plaid would win 4 seats and the Greens would win 1 seat.

A result like this would translate into a majority of around 82. The press notice goes on:

However, if 4,000 or less pro-EU voters use their vote tactically in Best for Britain’s 57 target seats, the Conservatives would be reduced to 309 seats – a dozen short of a majority. Labour would win 244 seats, SNP would win 52 seats, Lib Dems would win 21 seats, Plaid would win 4 seats and the Greens would win 1 seat ...

Despite the boost received by the Conservatives from the Brexit party, there is still a substantial number of seats where tactical voting could be decisive. There are 165 seats where fewer than 5,000 tactical votes would be enough to prevent the Conservative party winning the seat (compared to 131 at the beginning of the election campaign). In 27 of these it would take fewer than 2,000 tactical votes.

Best for Britain is encouraging people to vote tactically in accordance with the recommendations on its tactical voting website.

However, as I reported in a post on Monday, there are at least four other tactical voting websites which in some cases make different recommendations.

The National Education Union - the merged NUT and ATL teachers’ unions - has released polling it commissioned of 1,000 voters with school-aged children in England, showing that 38% of parents plan to back Labour, compared with 33% for the Conservatives, 11% for Lib Dems, 9% for the Brexit party, and 4% for the Green party (excluding don’t knows).

The polling breakdown showed a sharp division by age: 41% of those aged 18-34 backed Labour but just 27% of those aged 35-54. While only 15% of the younger group would vote Tory, support doubled to 30% among the older group.

The polling was carried out by Deltapoll last week as the parties unveiled their manifestos and education pledges. The NHS was named as an important election issue by 55% while education was mentioned by 28%, close to the 29% who named Brexit as a key issue. Some 54% of parents agreed funding for their local schools was insufficient.

Mary Bousted, the NEU’s joint general secretary, said:

This election is about much more than Brexit, as demonstrated by this poll of parents. Education is cutting through, with parents now ranking it almost as important as Brexit.

The poll showed one surprising result: Labour was the most popular party among parents with children at private schools, despite its manifesto policy of adding VAT to school fees. Some 42% backed Labour while 30% backed the Tories, although the poll appears to significantly over-represent the proportion of parents with children at private schools.

Charles Clarke, who was home secretary when Tony Blair was prime minister, told Emma Barnett on Radio 5 Live earlier that, if there were a hung parliament, Labour could ditch Jeremy Corbyn as leader. He explained:

There are only two alternative outcomes of this election – one is a Conservative overall majority which for various reasons I think would be disastrous for the country, and the other would be a hung parliament in which you have to construct a government between Labour, the SNP, the Lib Dems, whoever is involved in that hung parliament.

And as one of Labour’s current advisors Bob Kerslake said the other day, in such a negotiation about a hung parliament, not only the policy programmes and so on are up for discussion, as they are in any such debate, but also the personnel issues – the leadership of the government, the prime minister and the key offices of government too. I believe the Liberal Democrats and the DUP have been very clear they couldn’t accept Jeremy Corbyn as the leader of a hung parliament.

Clarke also said he thought Corbyn’s refusal to apologise to the Jewish community in last night’s interview with Andrew Neil was “disgraceful”.

These are from the Financial Times’ Sebastian Payne

The Scottish Conservatives have suspended their general election candidate for Glasgow Central following complaints about Islamophobic language.

Flora Scarabello will have support for her campaign withdrawn, following the submission of a complaint to the party’s central office about the alleged use of “anti-Muslim language”. It is being reported that the details emerged in a private phone call, which was recorded and sent to party officials.

While the complaint is being investigated, Scarabello will have her party membership suspended. The deadline for removing her as a general election candidate has passed, meaning there is no option but for her name to still appear on the ballot paper.

A spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives said:

We take allegations like this extremely seriously. There is no place in the Scottish Conservatives for anti-Muslim language, or any other form of racial or religious discrimination. As such, we have immediately suspended the candidate and the complaint will be thoroughly investigated.

Alison Thewliss won Glasgow Central for the SNP in 2017, with a 2,267 majority over Labour. The Tories were a long way behind in third place.

Jeremy Corbyn has posted this from the train taking him to Cornwall for an election rally tonight.

From the LBC’s Theo Usherwood

More from my colleague Peter Walker on Michael Heseltine’s speech.

Here is the latest election polling from YouGov. As usual, it is worth stressing that conventional polling badly underestimated the Labour vote at the 2017 election.

But there was one polling exercise that did very well two years ago. YouGov produced a model for the election using multilevel regression and post-stratification (MRP), a technique that involves trying to work out how Britain will vote on a constituency by constituency basis, using data about the demographic composition of each constituency and polling information about how particular demographics are likely to vote. The model predicted a hung parliament. When it was published, in the middle of the 2017 campaign, this was seen as so unlikely that it was widely dismissed, but it turned out to be the best polling guide to the final result.

We will find out what the YouGov MRP model is saying about the 2019 result tonight, when the figures are published in the Times.

Michael Heseltine, the former Conservative deputy prime minister and pro-European who is backing the Liberal Democrats at this election, is speaking now at a Lib Dem event, my colleague Peter Walker reports.

Nick Dearden, director of the campaigning group Global Justice Now, has written an article for Open Democracy about what we’e learned from the leaked dossier about the UK-US trade talks. Here’s an excerpt.

The papers show US officials pushing Britain to an ever-harder Brexit position, clear that they don’t want Britain to be a “satellite of the EU” in the way Switzerland is. They even threaten that if the UK continued to push certain EU positions in international forums – something the UK is still bound to do – it could undermine negotiations on a US trade deal.

Papers from the time of Theresa May’s ‘Chequers plan’ are illuminating because the administration is clearly furious at May’s promise of long-term alignment with EU standards, which would prevent the dilution of British food regulations which US agribusiness hopes to benefit from. US negotiators saw this as a “worst case scenario” and threatened to raise it with Trump ahead of his UK visit.

One of the most significant changes which Johnson made to May’s Brexit deal was a weakening of the alignment to EU standards, suggesting US bullying worked. But it’s particularly worrying that economic modelling seen by the trade officials showed this was likely to be good for the US, but much less so for “UK welfare and GDP gains”.

And here is the line-up for the BBC seven-party debate on Friday night.

We knew that Boris Johnson would not be turning up. But Jeremy Corbyn and Nigel Farage are also giving it a miss too, and so it does not really count as a leaders’ debate.

(Caroline Lucas isn’t a party leader either, but she is an ex-leader, and arguably she has a higher profile than the two Green co-leaders, Sîan Berry and Jonathan Bartley.)

From the BBC’s Nick Eardley

Q: You say the Labour allegations about the NHS and a UK-US trade deal are nonsense. So why was the NHS being discussed at all?

Johnson says it is nonsense to say the NHS would be part of a trade deal. He says Labour is trying to distract attention from the problems with its Brexit policy.

He says Labour is showing a vacuum of leadership on antisemitism and on Brexit.

That’s it. The event is over.

A questioner says hello to Johnson in Cornish. He replies with a word of what sounds like Cornish – to applause from the audience.

Q: Cornwall council has lost £370m since 2010. Is it right, then, to be putting £2bn into a pot hole fund?

Johnson says he thinks some of that pot hole money will go to councils.

Q: Are you sorry for the state of the NHS in Cornwall?

Johnson says he has seen the pressure the NHS is under. People do an incredible job, but they are under huge pressure.

He says Truro is getting a new maternity unit.

He says Labour’s plan for a four-day week would be “catastrophic” for the management of all public services, including the NHS.

Johnson says his party backs his Brexit deal. He goes on:

There has never been such an outbreak of harmony in the Conservative party.

That gets a round of applause.

Johnson jokes about Michel Barnier asking Jeremy Corbyn whether anyone in Labour would back the Brexit deal that Corbyn proposes to negotiate with the EU.

Johnson says Jeremy Corbyn made it clear in his Andrew Neil interview yesterday that taxation would go up for everone.

He also claims that, under Labour, the UK’s credit rating would go down. As a result borrowing would cost more, he says.

Johnson says the Tories see a “balance and a symmetry” between having fantastic public services and having a market economy.

The Tories are the only party in that believes in the market economy, he says.

Johnson refers to his photocall at Goonhilly Earth Station earlier today. He jokes about wondering whether those satellite dishes could detect the missing element in Labour’s Brexit policy - ie, Jeremy Corbyn’s stance.

(Actually, there isn’t a mystery about Corbyn’s stance any more. He has confirmed he would be neutral.)

Boris Johnson is doing a campaign event in Cornwall.

There will be a live feed at the top of the blog shortly.

These are from David Henig, a former UK civil servant specialising in trade policy who now runs the UK trade policy project for the European Centre for International Political Economy thinktank, on the leaked dossier about the UK-US trade talks.

These are from some journalists who have had a chance to look at the leaked documents about UK-US trade talks released by Labour this morning. Generally, they think they are not quite as incriminating as Jeremy Corbyn implied.

From Sky’s Ed Conway

From ITV’s Robert Peston

From the BBC’s Faisal Islam

From the Independent’s Benjamin Kentish

Q: Just how radical is the Labour party manifesto – when compared to both traditional British politics, and to other European countries? Tom Bacon, freelance journalist in the entertainment sector, Ormskirk

Hi Tom. So Jeremy Corbyn was right when he told my colleague Kate Proctor earlier this week that his plans wouldn’t put the UK significantly out of line with other European countries, in terms of tax and spending and the size of the state.

But it’s the speed of the transformation that is so striking: the manifesto envisages a radical transformation of the economy and the role of government, in just five years. As director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies Paul Johnson put it, “this would be the biggest set of spending increases, and the biggest set of tax increases, and the biggest set of borrowing increases we’ve seen in peacetime history”.

Q: What does the nationalisation of Openreach mean for the thousands of people currently working for Openreach’s competitors? There seems to have been no mention of this, with the implication being that given there will be no need for competitors of British Broadband, that their job losses will be the price to pay for ‘free’ broadband. Sam, West Midlands

Good question, Sam. My colleague Peter Walker actually asked about the fate of those companies at the launch event for the broadband policy. The answer he was given was that they could continue to provide add-on services, such as subscription TV packages. But you’re right, the expectation would be that their broadband operations would wither away (while BT Openreach – renamed British Broadband – would expand its operations significantly, presumably).

Q: I’m aware that Labour are planning to decriminalise abortion – which I am wholly supportive of. However, I’m not clear on whether this also changes the law on the latest a woman can legally terminate? Many Tory supporters I know are posting pro-life website claims that abortion will be made legal at any point during pregnancy even when the baby is fully developed. I do not believe this to be true but struggling to find the details on the changes labour intend to make to abortion law and would like clarification. Nicole, Hertfordshire

Hi Nicole. I’m really interested (and concerned) to hear that that’s out there, because it’s not true. The only reference to abortion policy in the manifesto says: “We will uphold women’s reproductive rights and decriminalise abortions.” There is no reference to any plan to review the current policy. Thanks for asking that one.

Just under 15 minutes left to ask any questions you may have on the Labour manifesto. Send them in to us here.

Q: I have teenage grandchildren, one hoping to start higher education next year. Please can you clarify the Labour position on student grants – both for maintenance and tuition fees. Will there be means testing? If Labour takes over government after the election when would any new arrangements for student finances be introduced? Muriel, Preston

Hello Muriel. Labour has said it will abolish tuition fees for all students – beginning immediately, so for those starting university in autumn 2020 – and bring back maintenance grants for the children of families on lower incomes.

Q: Have Labour published any deeper details on what the £1bn public health investment might break down into? Health inequalities presumably need to be a focus. Joel, 30, working in the charity sector, Essex

Hi Joel. So yes: the manifesto says a Labour government would make reducing health inequalities a clear target of public policy.

The £1bn planned increase in public health funding is part of that, and they say they would recruit 4,500 more health visitors and school nurses – and take a series of other steps on everything from increasing breastfeeding support for new mums, to widening the scope of the sugar tax to tackle obesity.

To try and make the target stick, they also say they would introduce a new Future Generations Wellbeing Act: a law aimed at forcing the government to check the impact of all new policy on health inequality; and a new obligation on NHS agencies to cooperate with directors of public health.

Nicola Sturgeon has said the Scottish National party would have “no great objection” if Jeremy Corbyn was replaced as Labour leader, and hinted strongly she would support that if it helped form an anti-Tory coalition at Westminster.

The SNP leader said she “didn’t get to choose who leads the Labour party” but repeated several times at the launch of her party’s election manifesto she was no fan of Corbyn’s.

Asked whether the SNP would support replacing Corbyn as party leader if there were moves to do so at Westminster, to build a cross-party coalition with Labour, she said:

I don’t choose the leader of the Labour party. I have said if I did choose the leader of Labour party I wouldn’t choose Jeremy Corbyn, so that probably gives you the answer to that question. If Labour wanted to change its leader, I wouldn’t have any great objection to that [but] I’m not in charge of that decision.

The Labour adviser Lord Kerslake suggested earlier this week that Corbyn’s resignation as leader and a deal on staging a second independence referendum could be the price exacted by the Lib Dems and SNP for forming a post-election coalition.

Opinion polling suggests Labour is well short of winning enough seats to form a majority government, increasing speculation that Corbyn will have to strike deals with other opposition parties to block Boris Johnson from forming the next government.

Even so, Corbyn has repeatedly ruled out any pacts or deals, rejecting Sturgeon’s demands that he empower Holyrood to stage a fresh independence vote in late 2020. Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem leader, has repeatedly stated her party would never do deals with a Corbyn-led government.

At the SNP manifesto launch this morning, Sturgeon was asked by Channel 4 News about the attacks on Corbyn’s suitability as prime minister by Ephraim Mirvis, the chief rabbi, and whether that gave her pause for thought about propping up a minority Labour government. She replied:

I deplore Jeremy Corbyn’s lack of leadership on the issue of antisemitism and I don’t condone in any way, shape or form that failure on the part of him and of the Labour party to eradicate that from their ranks.

But she said the SNP would exercise its duties at Westminster responsibly, pressing for its policy goals to be adopted by the next UK government. “We will not be signing any blank cheque to Jeremy Corbyn or to any leader of the Labour party.”

Some of you have been sending in your questions about the Labour manifesto which I will be answering until 1.30pm. You can share your questions with us via our form here.

Q: Labour has often hinted at electoral reform. Is there any commitment to scrapping the first past the post system for general elections? Daniel, 46, geologist, Leamington Spa

I’m afraid, not, Daniel. Labour’s manifesto says it will “take urgent steps to refresh our democracy”, and commits to a series of specific changes, including abolishing the hereditary principle in the House of Lords and lowering the voting age to 16; but there is no mention of voting reform.

It does say the reboot of democracy will be guided by a UK-wide constitutional convention, led by a citizens’ assembly. Its appears to be mainly focused on the balance of power between Westminster and the rest of the UK; but perhaps voting reform might emerge as a recommendation? That’s as close as the manifesto comes to the issue.

Q: Has Labour made any indication that they would have a gender balanced cabinet? Eric Ekong, 28, software engineer, London

So I haven’t seen Jeremy Corbyn make that commitment explicitly, Eric, but he has repeatedly highlighted the gender balance in his shadow cabinet, and contrasted that with the Conservatives’ more male-dominated top team. So while he hasn’t committed to keeping everyone in the same jobs if he got into Downing Street, I think it’s highly likely he would maintain a balance.

Many of your questions so far have been about how Labour will pay for free education and how EU citizens will be affected by Brexit.

Q: One of the most popular ideas in the Labour manifesto is free education for all. Where would the money to back up the abolition of tuition fees for undergraduate and postgraduate courses come from? And how would that affect the economy given the astronomical fees that students currently pay/get a loan from? Carina Nicu, 27 years old, research technician at the University of Manchester, Manchester

Hi Carina, you’re right that abolishing tuition fees and restoring maintenance grants is the single most costly measure in the manifesto, at £13.6bn a year by the end of the parliament.

Labour says almost half of that, £6.4bn, will be offset by the savings from getting rid of the current system (it’s costly to administer, and many students have their fees written off anyway). They would also argue that ensuring kids from lower-income households are not deterred from going to university would have wider social/economic benefits – though of course it wouldn’t just be these students who would benefit.

Labour haven’t earmarked specific taxes to pay for each spending measure – but their biggest money-raiser is increasing corporation tax, which is expected to bring in a whopping £23.7bn a year within five years. The impact of that on the wider economy is contested: Labour say they’re just taking it back to 2010 levels, and the 26% rate still won’t be high by international standards.

Critics say it will deter foreign investment – and that part of the cost will ultimately be passed on to customers and workers, as well as wealthy executives and shareholders.

Q: Are there any concrete measures for EU nationals living in the UK (in the context of Brexit) in the Labour manifesto? Sabrina

Hi Sabrina. Yes: the Labour manifesto reiterates the party’s longstanding commitment to uphold the rights of EU citizens already in the UK to remain here.

And it goes a bit further, saying a Labour government would get rid of the legal requirement to register under the EU settlement scheme. It would instead become a “declaratory system”, under which EU citizens could register if they wished, but it wouldn’t be a requirement for continuing to live and work here, the manifesto says. (It doesn’t say how that would work for employers wondering if a particular individual has the right to be here). Labour would also expand the right of all migrants to bring their families to the UK.

As for freedom of movement, that would depend on what happens with Brexit.

I’m Heather Stewart, political editor of the Guardian, and will be answering your questions about the Labour manifesto today. I covered economics at the Guardian and Observer for 15 years before transferring to Westminster in 2016 – initially in a job share with Anushka Asthana. Since then I have covered a referendum and now two general elections.

If you have a question you can send it to us by filling in the form here.

The Guido Fawkes website has published what it says are full versions of the documents released by Labour today.

The campaigning group Global Justice Now has welcomed the release of what it is describing as leaked documents. The organisation released the original, heavily redacted version of these papers that were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. These were the papers Jeremy Corbyn was brandishing during the ITV debate last week.

In a news release, Global Justice Now also offered its own summary of what these documents show. Here it is in full.

The US pushing lower food standards on Britain post Brexit, including allowing imports of chlorine-washed chickens, less nutritional labelling on foods, and less protection for regional food like stilton cheese. The US offered to help the UK government ‘sell’ chlorine chicken to a sceptical British public and stated that parliamentary scrutiny of food standards is ‘unhelpful’.

The US banning any mention of climate change in a US-UK trade deal.

US officials threatening UK civil servants that they would undermine US trade talks if they supported certain EU positions in international forums.

The US suggesting a ‘corporate court system’ in a US-UK deal, which would allow big business to sue the British government, in secret and without appeal, for anything they regard as ‘unfair’. Recent similar cases have included suing governments for trying to phase out use of coal.

US officials pushing a far reaching proposals on the digital economy, giving big tech companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon sweeping freedoms to move and use our online data, which would make taxation and regulation of these companies more difficult and prohibit Labour proposals for a public broadband service.

Threats to public services like the NHS, via sweeping services liberalisation. The British government would need to exclude everything not subject to liberalisation in order to protect public services, while bringing formerly public services like the mail, or rail companies back into public ownership would be much harder.

US officials making a further threat to NHS in terms of medicine pricing policy, with special concern about Brits paying more for cancer medicines which the US feels Britain doesn’t pay enough for. Trade negotiators have received special lobbying from pharmaceutical corporations as part of the trade talks.

US officials demanding US experts and multinational corporations are able to participate in standard-setting in Britain post Brexit.

A promise by both sides to keep talks secret from the public.

I will be focusing on the Labour revelations about the UK-US trade talks, and their implications for the NHS, for the next half an hour or more, and will pick up what was said at the SNP manifesto launch later.

But if you want to watch it, there is a live feed here.

This is what Boris Johnson posted on Twitter this morning, less than an hour before the Labour announcement.

Here is the full text of Jeremy Corbyn’s opening statement about the leaked documents that he says show the NHS is “on the table” in UK-US trade talks.

The leaked documents obtained by Labour do not seem to be available online, or in a digital form.

Here is some more about what they say from journalists at the press conference who have seen the hard copies.

Q: Could you clarify if you have evidence that ministers knew the NHS would be up for sale?

Gardiner holds up the documents again. He says it does not take six meetings and 500 pages to say the NHS is not for sale. This documentation shows that the answer has been yes.

He says he does not think there is any doubt about this.

George Hollingbery, the international trade minister, met with officials to discuss this, he says.

Q: Would Labour reverse existing privatisations? And what would that cost?

Corbyn says the Health and Social Care Act encourages more privatisation in the NHS. This has led to private sector companies suing the NHS for contracts they don’t get. He says this is unbelievable. Every penny spent on this is taken away from patients’ needs. He says he wants to reverse that.

He says he wants to bring everyone working for the NHS back into the NHS family. He is determined to “defend and rejuvenate” the NHS.

Q: It is clear from your interview last night that the claim that people earning less than £80,000 won’t pay higher tax under your plan is not true. Will you stop colleagues saying that?

Corbyn says it is clear from Labour’s grey book that people earning less than £80,000 won’t pay more in national insurance or tax. (He says tax, but may be referring to income tax.)

The press conference is now over.

Q: Was Lord Kerslake right to say, in the event of a hung parliament, your leadership would be on the agenda?

Corbyn says there are no talks with other parties. He is fighting to win it. He is not fighting to form a coalition.

Q: Isn’t it the case that the Americans will always want to put everything on the table?

Corbyn says these documents show that the two sides are starting to exchange treaty text. That suggests an agreement is close, he says.

He says Labour would not accept investor protection provisions.

Gardiner says Labour would not accept ISDS (investor state dispute settlement) provisions, or ICS (investment court system) provisions, a more modern alternative.

He also says Labour would not accept a negative list procedure. This is an arrangement that would mean everything would be open to competition, unless otherwise specified. He says this system does not protect countries from competition in the event of new services coming into existence.

Gardiner says other countries are adopting this approach to trade deals too.

Q: Was yesterday the worst day of our campaign so far?

Corbyn says he loves campaigning. Yesterday was another day when he went out to listen to people. He is horrified by what people tell him about inequality.

At the news conference copies of the documents are now being handed out to journalists.

Corbyn raises some specific points from the UK-US trade talks.

He says page 43 shows how the Americans offered to give the British their lines to use to defend chlorinated chicken.

And he says page 17 shows how the Americans refused to allow a mention of climate change in the deal.

At the event Labour has just shown a short film featuring Jeremy Corbyn challenging Boris Johnson in the ITV debate last week over private meetings between UK and US officials about including health in a trade deal.

Adam Price had more to say about growing up gay in Wales in this BBC Breakfast interview.

In his Today interview Robert Jenrick was also asked about this specific complaint about Islamophobia in the Conservative party. A deputy chair of Stourbridge Conservative association resigned in protest at the attitude taken by fellow Tories when interviewing a Muslim who wanted to stand as a council candidate.

In response to a question about this incident, Jenrick said:

Well that’s the first I’ve heard of that allegation, if that’s correct, and it’s extremely serious and deserves to be investigated and action deserves to be taken.

Robert Jenrick, the housing secretary, told the Today programme this morning that the findings of the inquiry into racism in the Conservative party will be published. He said:

We want to be a party that has no tolerance whatsoever of racism, prejudice or discrimination of any kind.

I want to see by the end of this year, as the prime minister’s promised, a thorough review of prejudice and racism and discrimination within the party.

This will be a very thorough investigation led by independent individuals and the findings of it will be put into the public domain. So yes, I hope it will lay out the facts with regard to the Conservative party’s record on discrimination of any kind and we will take the steps that are required.

The Conservatives have said they will launch the inquiry before Christmas. But they don’t seem very keen on launching it before polling day – perhaps because they are worried that the terms of reference will provoke complaints, either from party members who feel they go too far, or from non-members who feel they do not go far enough.

Kirsty Blackman, the SNP’s deputy Westminster leader, has suggested that a change of Labour leader could be one of the demands made by her party in exchange for post-election support for a minority government, as Jewish leaders in Scotland warned Nicola Sturgeon against making any post-election pact with Jeremy Corbyn.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme, Blackman was asked if the SNP would demand a change of leader if it were to work with Labour, having been so critical of the party’s handling of antisemitism charges. She replied:

We’ll look at all of the possible demands there are. There are massive problems with Jeremy Corbyn, he has not dealt with the antisemitism properly and he should have done.

Asked about the chief rabbi’s comments yesterday, she said:

I believe that there’s problems with antisemitism in the Labour party, absolutely, and that they have not dealt appropriately with them. And also that [Corbyn] should have apologised when he was on the news yesterday.

Asked if she it was appropriate to support a leader who has acted that way, she said that the choice for English voters was “between the devil and the deep blue sea”.

We don’t have a say over how the Labour party chooses their leader. I don’t think it’s a brilliant process and Jeremy Corbyn is not the leader we would choose.

Pressed on how Scotland could “escape Brexit” by voting SNP, Blackman also resurrected the idea of an “all-nations lock” on a second EU referendum, proposed by Labour, meaning that if Scotland voted to remain as it did in 2016 this would act as a veto on Brexit.

This morning, Paul Edlin, president of the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council, warned Nicola Sturgeon would be doing “a deal with the devil” if she were to help Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street.

Nia Griffith, the shadow defence secretary, joined the ranks of Labour MPs calling for more action within the party for addressing antisemitism.

Speaking during a BBC Wales Live debate last night, she said:

I would say absolutely that we need to apologise to our colleagues within my own party who have been very upset but to the whole of the Jewish community as well that we have not been as effective as we should have been in dealing with this problem and it is a shame on us, it really is, and it is something that I am very, very ashamed of and it is something that we absolutely must put right.

How the papers covered it

Our full wrap of the newspapers’ front pages is here.

Good morning, politics-watchers. I hope you’ve all had better sleeps than the one I imagine Jeremy Corbyn had last night after a bruising day for the Labour leader.

The antisemitism accusations – which came on the day Labour was seeking to brand itself as the party of equality and compassion through the launch of its race and faith manifesto – dogged the party all day, and look as if they will be difficult to shake, after Jeremy Corbyn’s interview with Andrew Neil last night in which he repeatedly resisted calls to apologise to the Jewish community. The Guardian’s religion correspondent, Harriet Sherwood, spoke to Jewish community leaders and heard that while plenty of Jews in the UK would say the chief rabbi does not speak for them, many, probably most, agree with the thrust of his unprecedented intervention in the election campaign.

After a difficult day, the Labour leader will be aiming to steer the conversation back to safer ground, by making a “major statement” on the NHS in Westminster in the morning and then heading to Falmouth where he will address a climate change rally.

Boris Johnson will also be hoping to move away from talk of faith, after comments by the prime minister likening Muslim women who wear veils to “letterboxes” or “bank robbers” resurfaced. The chancellor, Sajid Javid, was asked about the comments yesterday and refused to condemn them. Johnson later dismissed criticism by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). The MCB has also released a report urging parties to tackle racism and Islamophobia to win the support of Muslim voters, which particularly singled out the Conservatives and “sections of the media” for “growing Islamophobia”.

The prime minister will be in the south-west today, setting out plans for new phone masts and shared infrastructure to strengthen phone signals in rural areas. Again, will this be enough to make voters forget about Johnson’s comments? We’ll see.

Thanks for reading along with us today, I’ll be at the helm of the blog for the first hour, you can get in touch with me on Twitter or via email (kate.lyons@theguardian.com).