Question Time leaders special: Johnson challenged on trust, racism, austerity and the NHS – as it happened

Here is my colleague Heather Stewart and Peter Walker’s story about the Question Time leaders’ special.

The Tories will be delighted by Jeremy Corbyn’s comment about being neutral in a Brexit referendum, some journalists are claiming.

From the Times’ Steven Swinford

From the Spectator’s James Forsyth

From the Sunday Times’ Tim Shipman

Here is some more comment from journalists on Boris Johnson’s performance.

From the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush

From the Atlantic’s Tom McTague

From Business Insider’s Adam Bienkov

From the Spectator’s James Forsyth

From the Herald’s Iain Macwhirter

Here is my colleague Peter Walker’s verdict on the night.

Nigel Farage, the Brexit party leader, is complaining that there were no questions about Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal.

Actually, Farage may be wrong. Although people assumed this would be a Brexit election, and the Tories want to make it a Brexit election, it is not necessarily rolling out quite like that. Much of the campaign hasn’t been about Brexit.

Some clips from the programme.

This is from Richard Leonard, the Scottish Labour leader, on Jo Swinson on Question Time.

Factcheck

Claim: Boris Johnson says the Conservatives are promising 20,000 more police officers and “they are doing this now”.

Reality: the Tories have pledged an extra 20,000 police officers but in reality this is more of a restoration as the party has overseen a cut of just as many officers since 2010. Furthermore, the 20,000 will not appear immediately but will be staggered over three years with 6,000 in the first year.

Factcheck

Claim: Boris Johnson says the Conservatives are building 40 new hospitals over time, and that “we are building six immediately”.

Reality: the Conservatives earmarked £3bn earlier this autumn, saying they would build 40 new hospitals. However, it emerged the majority of the funds would go to just six NHS trusts, which each have a major hospital badly in need of rebuilding and have had plans waiting for approval. In this regard, the prime minister is wrong to claim six new hospitals are being built immediately. A further 21 NHS trusts will get £100m seed funding between them for building works on 34 hospitals they need for 2025-2030.

Q: I’m a physiotherapist, and the removal of the bursary made a real difference to the number of people training. Will you bring it back?

Q: I work in the NHS. Things are getting worse and worse. Why should we trust you to put the extra money in?

Q: We have seen CCHQ changing Twitter handles. Why should we trust you on anything?

Johnson starts talking about being mayor of London. He massively cut crime. There was a 50% cut in the murder rate, he says, and he promised 20,000 more police officers. They are coming now.

He says he promised a big NHS uplift. That is coming.

He has talked to hundreds of doctors and nurses. They can only meet the demand if there is a dynamic economy.

And, coming back to trust, he says the biggest corrosion of trust is caused by parliament’s refusal to vote for Brexit.

His deal is ready to go, he says. If he gets elected, Britain will have not two referendums, but years of growth, he says.

And that’s it. The programme is over.

Reaction and analysis etc coming soon ...

Factcheck

Claim: Boris Johnson said the government built a record number of homes last year and that 57,000 were affordable.

Reality: Johnson is correct that, at 240,000, the number of new homes created was the highest since this data started to be collected almost 30 years ago. However, 12,000 of those homes were conversions from former offices, which are controversial as developers do not have to get planning permission. The government’s record on “affordable housing” is questionable – it brought in a new “affordable rent”, which can be up to 80% of market rents, and many of the new builds he referred to meet this criteria.

Johnson says he is recruiting more staff for the NHS.

The only way to he can do this is by having a strong economy, he says.

Factcheck

Claim: Boris Johnson said that there are “more people in employment than ever before” and that wages are growing faster than at any time in the past 12 years.

Reality: more than 32 million people are in work in Britain, with the employment rate at the highest levels since comparable records began in 1971. Average wage growth has also hit the highest rates in more than a decade, so the prime minister is correct. However, real wages remain below the level recorded before the financial crisis, after a lost decade for pay growth. Unemployment is at the lowest levels since the 1970s. However, the use of zero-hours contracts has risen in the past decade, while the number of people affected by in-work poverty has risen to about 4 million, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Labour are using Twitter heckling during the show too.

Q: Why should I believe your pledge now to hire more GPs when the Conservatives have promised this before, but not delivered?

Johnson says the Conservatives are putting more money in. They are building new hospitals, he says.

Q: How many?

Johnson says it is 20. But over time it will be 40, he claims.

Fiona Bruce says the real number is six.

Factcheck:

Claim: Nicola Sturgeon said Scotland’s deficit “has been accrued under the Westminster system of governance” and claimed it was equivalent to deficits in other parts of the UK outside London. She said: “I don’t control, as first minister, the macroeconomic policies of the UK.”

Reality: Scotland had a deficit in public spending in 2018/19 of 7% of GDP, including Scotland’s notional share of oil and gas receipts, because the Scottish and UK governments spent £12.6bn more than was raised in taxes. Excluding oil receipts, the deficit was £14bn, or 8.5% of Scotland’s GDP. Total state spending in Scotland last year was £1,661 higher per head than the UK average.

The UK’s deficit, including oil and gas receipts, was 1.1%. That is not about macro-economic policy but public spending. Sturgeon seemed to confuse public debt with day-to-day spending. EU rules require applicants for membership to have deficits below 3%. The Office for National Statistics said that in 2018, London, the south-east of England and eastern England all had net fiscal surpluses.

Johnson says he wants to help people with the cost of living.

He says the national insurance cut will save people £100 a year. But once he has achieved his ambition of lifting the national insurance threshold to £12,500 a year, people will save £500 a year.

(The Conservatives have set no timetable for hitting that target, and won’t even confirm to achieving this within a five-year parliament.)

Johnson says he has been PM for 120 days.

He is levelling up education, he says.

He says he massively expanded the living wage when he was mayor of London. George Osborne nicked it from him, he says.

He says he wants to tackle poverty. He wants to give every kid opportunity. He believes there is talent in every part of the country. He wants to unleash that talent.

Factcheck

Claim: Jo Swinson said the Liberal Democrats would increase education funding, stating “you’ve got some schools not opening all day on a Friday”.

Reality: some schools have shortened teaching hours, citing funding cuts as the reason. Earlier this year, the Guardian reported on a school in Stockport that was planning a 4.5 day week, and said at least 25 schools in England had taken similar steps to cut costs.

Factcheck

Claim: Jo Swinson said staying in the EU would mean more money for investing in communities, and that Brexit would “make us poorer, lose jobs, mean less money for the NHS”.

Reality: the National Institute of Economic and Social Research thinktank has said that leaving the EU with Boris Johnson’s deal would mean an economy £70bn a year smaller after a decade. Mainstream economic forecasters have said that Brexit would likely lead to a rise in unemployment and that the public finances would be damaged. The Lib Dems argue there would be a “£50bn remain bonus” for the government finances from staying in the EU. This is in line with forecasts from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, although has been criticised for potentially misleading voters because it adds together five years’ worth of higher taxes.

Q: Why did you say you would be willing to use nuclear weapons?

Swinson says she thinks the world has become more uncertain. She supports the UK having the nuclear deterrent.

Here is the official Lib Dem HQ response to what Jeremy Corbyn said about being neutral in a Brexit referendum.

For the Lib Dems this is a good attack line. But it is not one that Swinson herself as been using in the programme.

Q: You pretend to be progressive. But you have voted against progressive policies. The Lib Dems are a rightwing party.

Swinson says she is not a social democrat. She is a liberal. The Lib Dems are a liberal party. They are internationalist. They are not the same as Labour.

Q: Why can we trust you on fracking?

Swinson says she is against fracking.

Q: You voted for it in the coalition.

Ed Davey, energy minister in the coalition, proposed conditions for fracking, Swinson says. But she says since then things have moved on. She says the Lib Dems are now against it.

Q: Why are you having a go at Corbyn over antisemitism? He has been fighting antisemitism since before you were born.

Swinson says she has spoken to people like Luciana Berger who know all about antisemitism in the Labour party. She will trust them.

Q: Would your conscience be clear if the UK ended up leaving the EU because the Lib Dems split the remain vote?

Swinson says she wants people to be able to vote for a remain party. Labour would negotiate a Brexit deal, she says.

She says Corbyn’s Labour will not win votes from the Tories. So people have to vote Lib Dems, she says.

From the BBC’s Andrew Neil

Q: It is not just about abolishing tuition fees. You could do other things to help.

Swinson says the Lib Dems want to focus on early years education. That is where you can make most difference to social mobility.

Swinson says she will not promise to abolish tuition fees.

She says a lot of promises are being bandied around. But she does not want to make promises that cannot be kept. Look at what the IFS said about Labour’s manifesto, she says.

Swinson ruled out going into coalition with the Conservatives under Boris Johnson. She said he was too extreme; he was now backed by Tommy Robinson.

Jo Swinson is struggling. Here are comments from journalists.

Factcheck

Claim: Nicola Sturgeon said the EU “didn’t make any comment” about what would happen if Scotland voted for independence in the 2014 independence referendum. She also said Spain has “never said it would veto the membership of an independent Scotland” in the EU.

Reality: a lot has changed since 2014, but the European commission president at the time, José Manuel Barroso, said that it would be “difficult, if not impossible” for an independent Scotland to join the EU. The Spanish prime minister at the time, Mariano Rajoy, said his government believed an independent Scotland could only apply to join the EU from outside the organisation as a new state. Both Spain and the EU have new leadership, and circumstances have changed, but Sturgeon’s claim is wrong.

Q: How much influence do you think the SNP would have over English matters if it was supporting a Labour government?

Sturgeon says the SNP would not intervene in devolved matters, except in so far as there might be knock-on effects for Scotland. For example, a trade deal with the US could have an impact on the NHS.

Q: What are you doing about drug deaths in Scotland? There are three times as many as in England.

Sturgeon says it is important to provide context. Scotland had a drug problem in the 1980s. That cohort is now getting older, she says.

Q: Our grandparents fought to defend the UK. How would you defend your desire to break it up?

Sturgeon says her grandmother was from the north of England. She wants Scotland to be self-governing. But Engand and Scotland will always be close. Those ties will continue. She does not believe in Scotland turning its back on England.

Q: Who was it that promised independence would be a once in a generation event?

Sturgeon says circumstances change. If the UK had voted to stay in the EU, she says she thinks she would not be pushing for a second referendum now.

Q: If Scotland votes for independence, it will be treated by the EU as a third state? And what would you do about Scotland’s debt? And what about Spain - they would not let you join the EU as an independent state?

Sturgeon says the EU did not say in 2014 what would happen if Scotland voted for independence. She says their body language may have implied they were not keen, but they did not express a view. And Spain never said it would veto an independent Scotland being in.

She says since 2014 there has been a sea change in attitudes in the EU towards Scottish independence.

On Scotland’s deficit, she says, if you exclude London, it is in line with the deficit for the rest of the UK.

She says, with all its natural resources, Scotland should be able to emulate other small countries that flourish as independent states.

Q: What will you do if London refuses to let you have a second referendum?

Sturgeon says she hopes the people of Scotland will use the election to send a message as to what they want.

Factcheck

Claim: Jeremy Corbyn said that “95% of the population will pay no more whatsoever in tax” under a Labour government.

Reality: the Labour leader is right that income tax will only rise for the top 5%. However, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that this will not raise all of the money needed to fund its plans, and that shareholders in companies will in effect pay more as a result of higher corporation tax. Labour is also planning to reverse changes to inheritance tax and has said it will end the marriage tax allowance.

Q: Have you finally got the chance to get rid of the legacy of Thatcher and Blair?

Q: In your manifesto you say you will abolish the married couples’ tax allowance. That will be a tax cut for people.

Corbyn says he is not doing any deals with any other parties.

He says his taxation policies will affect the richest 5%.

But he confirms that he will end the married couples’ allowance. That discriminates against people who are not married, he says.

And he confirms he would be neutral in a second referendum. “First heard here on Question Time,” he says.

There is another question about Scotland. There do seem to have been quite a few Scots asking questions in the last five minutes.

Fiona Bruce tries to call someone who does not want to ask about Scotland.

Q: You are talking about delaying the Scottish independence referendum. Is the UK like Hotel California – you can check out, but you can never leave?

Corbyn says he does not see an independence referendum as a priority. He would not have one in the early years of a Labour government.

Q: What does early years mean?

In the first two years at least, says Corbyn.

Q: But if it is the priority of the Scottish people, what right do you have to say no?

Corbyn says he is putting forward a programme for the whole of the UK. He is planning a £100m investment programme for Scotland.

Q: There is already a mandate for a second Scottish independence referendum.

Corbyn repeats the point about how his plans would benefit Scotland.

Here is the CCHQ response to Corbyn’s announcement that he would be neutral in a second Brexit referendum.

Q: What do you say about the IFS claim that it won’t just be the richest 5% who pay more in tax under your plans?

Corbyn says he insisted on having costed plans. He says 95% of taxpayers will not pay more under his plans.

Under his manifesto plan, the UK will become more or less “mid-ranking” in terms of the provision of public services.

He is referring to comparisons like the ones in the chart quoted at 3.48pm.

Corbyn says broadband is essential for everyone. We can afford the plan, he says, but we cannot afford not to install full-fibre broadband. We have to invest in it for the whole country, he says.

Factcheck

Claim: Jeremy Corbyn said Labour would ask companies to pay a “little bit more” in corporation tax, that it would be lower than in 2010 and lower than the average for industrial countries.

Reality: the Labour leader is correct that his party’s plan would take the corporation tax rate to levels below 2010 and in line with many industrial nations. The Conservatives have cut the rate from 28% in 2010 to 19% now, one of the lowest levels in the EU. Labour would raise corporation tax to 26% over five years. However, the Institute for Fiscal Studies believes the total value of corporation tax taken by a Labour government would be the highest in the G7 and more than almost anywhere else in the OECD.

Q: What would Labour policies do for jobs, and for young people in Sheffield?

Corbyn says there is a climate emergency and poorer people suffer first. He says that he got parliament to vote to declare a climate emergency.

A member of the audience defends Corbyn’s Brexit stance, saying it is the only sensible position.

Q: Why did you support Evo Morales, who stood down as president of Bolivia after a disputed election?

Corbyn says he met Morales last year. Morales stood down. Bolivia used to be the poorest country in South America before Morales took power. It isn’t now.

Q: Are you happy that Labour is being investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Corbyn says Labour’s processes are being investigated.

Q: What terrifies me is the misogyny that Labour women MPs experience. I’ve seen the video of Ruth Smeeth online. She was heckled out of a press conference, and you were chatting happily to the heckler afterwards. I’m terrified for my daughters. That’s disgraceful.

Corbyn says nobody should suffer abuse, in public or private.

Q: Watch the video.

Corbyn repeats the point about how no one should have to put up with this.

Q: So why were you talking to the heckler like that? Why do Labour female MPs need bodyguards?

Corbyn says he has had many conversations with Smeeth since. He tells the man that he does not know what went on in the conversation.

Corbyn says government plans for broadband are insufficient. Only 10% of homes get access to full-fibre broadband. He will give it to everyone.

Q: Why is this man frightened of Labour being in power?

Corbyn tells the man he cannot understand everything going through his mind. Maybe they can talk about it later, he says.

Jeremy Corbyn takes the stage.

He says it’s a pleasure to be here.

The Tory online heckling has started.

Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, has arrived at the Octagon Centre in Sheffield. Presumably he will be spinning for Boris Johnson.

From Jeremy Corbyn

More from Sky’s Lewis Goodall

More video from Sheffield. This is from Sky’s Lewis Goodall.

Laura Pidcock has tweeted a picture of the Labour team ready for spin duty at the Question Time leaders’ special: John Trickett, herself, Shami Chakrabarti and Andy McDonald.

And Labour’s Jon Trickett says the pro-Corbyn singing from the crowd outside can be heard in the green room, where leaders are getting ready for the Question Time special.

Here is the spin room at the Sheffield venue.

Labour’s Laura Pidcock has also been tweeting video of the pro-Corbyn crowd outside the venue for the BBC Question Times leaders’ special.

There is a big crowd of Labour supporters waiting outside the Octagon Centre in Sheffield, where the BBC Question Time leaders’ special is taking place, according to Momentum, the pro-Corbyn organisation.

And Labour’s Jon Trickett, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, has tweeted some video.

Speaking to reporters on a visit to Bassetlaw district general hospital, Boris Johnson said that leaving the EU would allow the Conservatives to implement their plan to impose an extra 3% stamp duty on foreign buyers (see 7.43am) without having to leave out EU nationals. He explained:

What we’re doing is putting a 3% increase in stamp duty for foreign buyers.

Now, one of the advantages of getting Brexit done is that you can then do it in a non-discriminatory way between all international buyers – because previously you couldn’t do it with people coming from the 27 other EU countries.

As we come out of the EU we’ll be able to levy that increased stamp duty on all international buyers.

I want our market to be open – I want people to be able to buy stuff in the UK – but it is only reasonable when international buyers come in and buy property that they should make a contribution to life in this country.

And we will use that 3% stamp duty to help tackle the problems of homelessness. I think it is the right thing to do.

From the Times’s Steven Swinford

The latest edition of the Economist out today has some grim polling for Labour in it. It has commissioned various constituency polls and this week it is running one from Great Grimsby, a Labour-held seat (Melanie Onn won with a majority of 2,565 in 2017) that voted leave by more than 70%. The poll shows the Conservatives 13 points ahead. As the Economist points out in its write-up (paywall), constituency polling tends to be more unreliable than national polling (and national polls themselves have had a poor record of late). But this is still a striking result from a place that has been Labour for 74 years and is 45th on a list of Tory target seats.

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish National party leader, and Jo Swinson, the Liberal Democrat leader, have arrived at the Octagon Centre in Sheffield for the BBC’s Question Time leaders’ special.

Michael Ashcroft, the former Conservative deputy chair who has become a polling specialist, has been conducting focus groups during the election and has published a write-up of the most recent three he has organised. They were all conducted in Labour-held, leave-voting seats in Wales (ie, the sort of seats where the Tories think they have the best chance of winning).

Among other things, Lord Ashcroft says his participants weren’t impressed by Labour’s plan for free, full-fibre broadband.

Labour’s promise of free broadband for all had cut through to an unusual degree, albeit to what might charitably be called a mixed response. Many of these previous Labour voters thought it sounded like an odd sort of priority: “I might nationalise certain essential things. But I’m not desperately sure I would nationalise wifi”; “There are people sleeping in cold homes, kids without warm clothes, families on the breadline. I just don’t think this is top of the list”; “I work six days a week to provide my family with the necessities to live with. Broadband is a luxury, not a necessity. You have to work for it, you don’t get given it. If you don’t want to graft or pay your dues, that’s cool, but don’t expect to get it for free.”

They also tended to see it as a transparent bribe, and not a particularly believable one: “It’s trying to go after first-time voters, because for teenagers, wifi is everything. So for people who haven’t looked into it and haven’t paid taxes, if they’re going to have something like that for free it’s a vote winner”; “The government is paying, so we are”; “It would be like two megabytes a second, then you have to upgrade”; “Nothing is going to be free. Is it unlimited? It will be something like, the broadband is free, but the router is £5,000. They’re going to make the money back somehow”; “Next they’re going to promise you three years of Greggs or something.”

Some also worried about what state-run broadband would actually be like: “Slow. Unreliable”; “They’d be able to listen down every Alexa in every house”; “It screams ‘state-owned internet’ to me. It’s not going to be North Korea, but it does scream ‘control’”; “It would be like Big Brother, with all your personal details and social media profiles and everything else. Would you want that in a government-owned business?”

Focus groups normally only comprise a dozen or so people and, without knowing how participants have been selected, it is hard to know how representative they are. But yesterday the Times published some polling (paywall) suggesting that voters are sceptical about Labour’s ability to deliver not just free broadband, but some of its other headline promises too.

Yesterday the Institute for Fiscal Studies published its analysis of the Labour manifesto. As we reported, it said it did not believe Jeremy Corbyn would be able to implement his spending plans with only the richest 5% of taxpayers paying more. Corbyn himself and John McDonnell have both been rejecting this criticism today. (See 8.22am and 10.46am.)

Today the Resolution Foundation, a rival economic thinktank, has published its own analysis of the manifesto plans. It’s by Torsten Bell, the RF’s chief executive, and a former Labour head of policy under Ed Miliband, and it’s long, but well worth reading.

Bell says that, although Labour is planning a “huge” increase in the size of the state, under the manifesto plans government spending as a proportion of GDP would only end up roughly in line with Germany’s.

Like the IFS, Bell thinks Labour would not be able to achieve its goals without all taxpayers, and not just the richest, having to pay more. But his overall verdict on the manifesto is balanced and judicious. Here is an extract from his conclusion.

Labour’s 2019 manifesto is simply huge in the changes it proposes. Individually many are not out of line with other northern European countries. But taken together, they are a big step change from the plans Labour proposed just two years ago and more radical than anything we’ve seen in the UK for a generation (Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 manifesto proposed far fewer changes). That is clearest when considering the proposed increase in the size of the state. But it is true also on proposals for deep economic reform – from our labour market to corporate governance and a big increase in public ownership.

With high inequality and stagnant productivity, none of us should be satisfied with the status quo. Indeed, there are very strong reasons for thinking that an increase in the size of our state and reform of our economic model are priorities for Britain. But despite having quite so much in it, Labour’s manifesto is lacking some crucial ingredients for any would-be government wanting to embark on that journey.

First, prioritisation among such a long list of promises would be key.

Second, for any economic reform of this kind to last, much broader coalitions for it would need to be built than Labour has currently been able to secure (in contrast, see for example what the New Zealand Labour party has been able to do on collective bargaining).

Third, more honesty about the difficulties involved would be needed. For example, such an agenda would have to involve much more of a focus on wealth taxes. And while more can be raised from the top, the reality is we will all need to pay higher taxes if we want a state the size of Germany’s that delivers not just free social care but free broadband ...

Labour hopes its hugely radical programme will refocus the election campaign on domestic policy issues and away from Brexit alone. That may or may not happen, but what is certain is that if Labour forms the next government, the party is going to have one hell of a to-do list. And, as we all know, a long to-do list risks becoming something very different – a wish list.

This, from Labour’s candidate in Tooting, Rosena Allin-Khan, must be one of the most creative campaign videos of the election. Provided you’ve seen Love Actually, of course ...

On Monday the Guardian published a powerful article by the journalist Peter Oborne criticising the media for letting Boris Johnson get away with lies. Oborne has spent most of his career writing for the Tory press (he was a political columnist for the Daily Mail until recently, and he was political editor of the Spectator when Johnson himself was editor) but he is also something of an iconoclast and has become a fierce critic of his old boss’s dishonesty. He helps to run a very good website, boris-johnson-lies.com, cataloguing “the lies, falsehoods and misrepresentations of Boris Johnson and his government”.

Oborne’s Guardian article included this intriguing paragraph.

A big reason for Johnson’s easy ride is partisanship from the parts of the media determined to get him elected. I have talked to senior BBC executives, and they tell me they personally think it’s wrong to expose lies told by a British prime minister because it undermines trust in British politics. Is that a reason for giving Johnson free rein to make any false claim he wants?

This claim caused some surprise. John Simpson, the veteran BBC world affairs editor, posted a tweet saying he had never heard anyone at the BBC express this view. This morning Oborne posted his own tweets, saying it was Tony Hall, the BBC director general, who was queasy about calling Johnson a liar.

In response, the BBC simply referred to a letter in today’s Guardian, from the BBC’s director of editorial policy and standards, David Jordan, saying that although the BBC will call out lies, it does not label people as liars because “that’s a judgment for audiences to make about an individual’s motives”.

Good afternoon. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Mattha Busby.

I’ll be here for the rest of the day, including to cover the BBC’s general election Question Time, featuring Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn, Nicola Sturgeon and Jo Swinson all being quizzed by the Question Time audience in Sheffield. Fiona Bruce will be chairing.

The two-hour programme starts at 7pm.

We’ve got three weeks to go until the election, but local council byelections are still taking place and there were six last night. Britain Elects has the results. They will be very encouraging for the Conservatives.

My colleague Hilary Osborne has this factcheck on whether earning £80,000 means you earn more than 95% of the UK population, after a member of the Question Time audience cried foul last night.

He claimed he was not in the top 5% of earners, although he earned more than £80,000.

The verdict: a salary of more than £80,000 a year does put someone in the top 5% of earners, even if they do not necessarily feel wealthy.

The Telegraph’s Christopher Hope raises a pertinent question after the Brexit party proposed to allow referendums if more than 5 million people wished to vote on something.

Meanwhile, after Nigel Farage said his party was committed to the NHS and that it needed more money, Business Insider’s Adam Bienkov has reposted this old clip of him advocating a move to an insurance-based system.

This is from PA Media on the Brexit party’s contract launch.

Nigel Farage has called for a cap on immigration, a 50% cut in the foreign aid budget and the scrapping of HS2 as he set out the Brexit party’s policy platform for the general election.

Launching the party’s “contract with the people”, Farage said all the party’s demands were underpinned by the need to secure a “clean-break Brexit” with the EU.

While he acknowledged they were not seeking election as the next government, he said they were committing to achieving the Brexit which people voted for in the 2016 referendum.

“A clean-break Brexit can shape the future of our economy and society,” he said.

“It will give us the freedom to shape our future by taking immediate control of our own laws, borders, money, fishing and defence.”

The policy document calls for:

• Scrapping the BBC licence fee.
• Allowing citizens to call referendums if 5 million people agree.
• Abolishing inheritance tax.
• Investing £2.5bn in fishing and coastal communities.
• Giving businesses zero-rate corporation tax for the first £10,000 of pre-tax profits.
• Abolishing privatisation in the NHS.
• Establishing 24-hour GP surgeries.

My colleague Peter Walker was at the event and has highlighted an apparent absence of costings in the party’s manifesto.

Earlier, Scottish Labour unveiled a pledge to provide free meals for every pupil at every state secondary and primary school throughout the year.

Richard Leonard, Scottish Labour’s leader, said:

It cannot be right that in the fifth biggest economy in the world, one in every four children in Scotland is living in poverty. After a decade of Tory austerity and SNP complacency, it is time for real and radical change.

But it’s not enough to only provide free school meals to those on low incomes. We need a plan that tackles the stigma that can prevent some children accessing free meals and the barriers that we know eligibility and registration create.

A recent YouGov poll put Labour at 12% in Scotland – that is the lowest ever, and may well be an outlier, but the party is running third in nearly all polls, while Leonard is little known to voters. In short, this is a retail offer to voters long on aspiration.

Elsewhere, my colleague Severin Carrell is at the launch of the Scottish Labour party’s manifesto.

Asked whether he would stay in politics if the Brexit party fail to win any seats, or give up and spend more time in the US, Farage says he is “absolutely committed to the complete reform of our political system”.

Farage then outlines the party’s tree-planting proposals, as reported by my colleague Kate Proctor yesterday.

Farage welcomes the apparent movement within Tory party policy towards supporting an Australian-style points-based system, but criticises a failure to commit to “reducing numbers”.

He claims that the Conservatives have no intention of reducing the number of migrants coming to the UK because many of the party’s “big business backers want as much cheap labour as they can possibly get”.

The Brexit party leader says that the UK has a “population crisis directly as a result of policies since the late 1990s” and calls for a hardline approach to immigration. He suggests immediately deporting those who arrive in the UK clandestinely.

The Brexit party’s plans would be paid for by £200bn of savings by cutting the foreign aid budget, ceasing EU payments and a suggested scrapping of the HS2 project, according to Farage.

He also says £7bn could be claimed back from the European Investment Bank and claims HS2 is a project costing £100bn to benefit “just a few thousand people”.

“We would want to save that money,” he says, adding that he would “stop sending” £13bn to the EU every year and proposes also cutting the foreign aid budget, which is currently set at 0.7% of GDP.

He says the Brexit party would introduce a “citizens’ initiative”, triggering a referendum if 5 million people sign a valid register calling for a public vote on a particular issue.

Farage calls for a constitutional convention to work out what sort of written constitution the country needed and adds that civil servants should also be made to declare their political neutrality.

He proposes to scrap VAT on fuel bills after a “clean-break Brexit” and to stop companies earning less than £10,000 a year from paying corporation tax.

The party would “cut the cost of living” by removing VAT on domestic fuel bills, which he says would save the average family £65 per year.

“It’ll take a big weight off the mind of many struggling small companies.”

Alluding to his claims of being offered a seat in the House of Lords by the Tories in exchange for keeping quiet, Farage – attempting to furnish his self-described anti-establishment credentials – says the appointments and honours system borders on corrupt.

We are sickened in many ways by the system of political patronage that we see in this country. Frankly I do think the way appointments to the House of Lords and indeed other honours are used borders on corruption and the House of Lords is now no longer fit for purpose and we think it needs to go.

Farage says the party decided to call the document containing their policy proposals a contract because a word association test with “manifesto” arrived at the word “lie”.

He says the Brexit party has already changed the landscape of politics and criticises the lack of discussion during the election run-up on the withdrawal agreement and the terms of Brexit.

The debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson on Tuesday “exposed fact that Labour do not have a party-wide position on which way it would campaign”, he declares, before saying that the prime minister indicated a change of direction recently – which led to the Brexit party standing down candidates.

He said we will leave in 2020, but more significantly that he’s going to negotiate a super Canada plus plus deal without alignment [with the EU] and that is progress, because if we leave the European Union and we find ourselves aligned in everything from financial services to fisheries we have not actually left.

We took that promise, and said OK, on the basis of that, we will concentrate firepower against Labour and the remainers, and that is exactly what we are doing.

Be in no doubt, we want a clean break from the political institutions of the EU and you can get that with a Canada-style trade deal just as you can get it leaving on WTO terms.

In an apparent slight to the Liberal Democrats, Pugh says the Brexit party does not present itself as being able to form the next government, but stresses it can lead the agenda.

He says many of the people in the Brexit party – which will field 274 candidates – heading up policy areas have real-world experience and it is hoped their policies will become mainstream.

Citing the concept of a clean-break Brexit, regional infrastructure investment and the cancellation of HS2 – which is now being reviewed – Pugh says the party has been influential.

He calls for no extended transition and for Boris Johnson to stick to his Brexit commitments.

Pugh then claims that the party will set out proposals to be budget neutral over five years and highlights what he said is a figure of £1.8tn in outstanding debt that the UK owes. He adds that servicing that debt costs £40bn a year – constituting most of defence budget.

“The magic money tree has been shaken hard and is now fairly bare,” he says. “The spending commitments of the two main parties are not going to be delivered.”

He congratulates the party for polling 17%, and then playsa sombre election broadcast which primarily attacks Labour before Nigel Farage takes to the stage.

Someone has forgotten to turn off an instrumental version of Kanye West’s hit song Power, as the Brexit party’s Yorkshire MEP Jake Pugh gets the event under way.

If the track had played with the lyrics, you would have heard:

I’m living’ in that 21st century
Doing something mean to it
Do it better than anybody you ever seen do it
Screams from the haters, got a nice ring to it
I guess every superhero need his theme music

Meanwhile, in Nantgarw ...

Jeremy Corbyn said he would “right one of the wrongs of history” by granting sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

The UK’s refusal to end its occupation of the Indian Ocean archipelago is expected to be marked by protests outside the UK high commission in the Mauritian capital, Port Louis. The protest is organised by those who were forcibly deported more than 40 years ago and their descendants.

The government has defied a UN deadline to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius by today.

Speaking to reporters at a campaign even in Stoke-on-Trent, Corbyn was asked whether a Labour government would accept the UN’s ruling on the sovereignty of the islands.

He said:

Yes, absolutely. I’ve been involved in the Chagos campaign for a very long time. What happened to the Chagos islanders was utterly disgraceful. [They were] forcibly removed from their own islands, unfortunately, by this country. They need a full apology. They need adequate compensation. They’ve had some, but I don’t believe it’s sufficient.

And I believe the right of return to those islands is absolutely important as a symbol of the way in which we wish to behave in international law.

So yes, we will carry that out. And I’m looking forward to being in government to right one of the wrongs of history.

Chris Moncrieff, one of the most respected lobby journalists of his generation, has died. He was 88.

The former political editor of PA, who was hailed as “the one journalist who mattered” by former prime minister Tony Blair, died in hospital on Friday morning after a short illness. his family said.

He retired after 32 years at Westminster in 1994, but returned to work the next day and continued to contribute to the agency until his death.

Pete Clifton, PA’s editor-in-chief, said: “Moncrieff was the ultimate news agency journalist: great contacts, always close to the action, working some epic hours and obsessed by getting stories out before everyone else.

“He had no interest in any political agenda or viewpoint, just making sure he was first to write about it.”

Plaid Cymru is launching its manifesto in Nantgarw. Steven Morris is there and will report back soon.

The Lib Dem leader, Jo Swinson, was confronted in Glasgow this morning by a young voter who challenged her about her role in the coalition government and the impact of its austerity policy.

Scottish Labour has unveiled a pledge to provide free meals for every pupil at every state secondary and primary school throughout the year as a curtain-raiser before publication of its Scottish election manifesto later this morning.

Labour’s pledge, which it says will cost up to £231m a year as well as an upfront cost of £25m in new equipment and infrastructure, is being presented as its solution to a decade of austerity under successive Conservative and Scottish National party governments.

Labour has sought to partly blame the SNP for passing on Tory spending cuts in local government and frontline services – a charge Nicola Sturgeon’s government rejects. Scottish councils already spend £120m a year on meals during the school year, after deducting payments by those able to pay, taking the putative year-round costs to £310m.

Richard Leonard, Scottish Labour’s leader, said:

It cannot be right that in the fifth biggest economy in the world, one in every four children in Scotland is living in poverty. After a decade of Tory austerity and SNP complacency, it is time for real and radical change.

But it’s not enough to only provide free school meals to those on low incomes. We need a plan that tackles the stigma that can prevent some children accessing free meals and the barriers that we know eligibility and registration create.

Leonard said the funding would be provided by a UK Labour government’s massive expansion in state spending, neatly highlighting a paradox about the general election in Scotland. Like the vast majority of domestic policy areas, education policy and local government funding are entirely devolved to Holyrood.

The domestic policy battles being fought by Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson, say over NHS funding or policing or social care, have little direct relevance to Scottish parties. And Leonard’s school meals policy requires Labour to win two successive elections: firstly on 12 December for Westminster and then in May 2021 for the Scottish parliament.

Opinion polls for the Westminster election are unfavourable for Labour but downright hostile at Holyrood level. A recent YouGov poll put Labour at 12% in Scotland – that is the lowest ever, and may well be an outlier, but the party is running third in nearly all polls, while Leonard is little known to voters. In short, this is a retail offer long on aspiration.

McDonnell suggested that Labour would allow a return to secondary picketing.

Under Labour’s manifesto the party committed to removing “unnecessary restrictions on industrial action”. Asked on the Today programme whether that meant restoring secondary picketing, McDonnell said: “We will make sure that people have the right, as in the ILO [International Labour Organisation] conventions to withdraw their labour. Yes ... I believe any workers should have the right to withdraw their labour.”

But asked again whether that meant a return to secondary picketing, he said: “No, we’re not. We’re creating a new climate in this country, which is based upon a stakeholder economy where we all recognise we’ve got a stake in this economy.”

He added: “The idea is that we’re democratising the economy and providing people with a greater range of basic rights.”

On Today McDonnell again challenged the IFS’s claim that Labour could not assert that only the rich would pay for its spending plans.

Using the same phraseology he used on Sky, McDonnell said:

I have a greater respect for the IFS. I just think they’ve got it wrong on this one.

Yes, the top 5% will pay a bit more. The 95% of earners will not pay an increase in income tax rates or in VAT, or in national insurance, but we are we’re being straight with people. We are reversing some of the corporation tax cuts that have been given away by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats over the last 10 years.

He added:

It is not inevitable that when you increase [corporation] it lowers wages or increases prices.

The IFS needs to look at the structural changes in the economy we’re making ... because we’re democratising the way in which these corporations work and are more accountable, they will actually invest in their companies, instead of being driven by short-term profiteering and shareholder interest only.

They will think for the long term, invest and grow the economy and that’s what’s happening elsewhere across Europe ... they have longer term decision-making.

The leader of Plaid Cymru, Adam Price, has said Labour must back an investment programme for Wales if it is to secure his party’s support in the event of a hung parliament, PA reports.

The party is launching its manifesto on Friday with a call for the Westminster government to allocate an additional 1% of GDP to invest in “green infrastructure” over the next decade, allowing Wales to spend an additional £15bn on green jobs, transport and energy.

Price said Jeremy Corbyn would have to adopt the programme if Plaid Cymru – which had four MPs in the last parliament – were to help him enter No 10.

“It has to be this investment programme. That has to be the key. Fair funding for Wales,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

“We want to make those investments in Wales. We don’t want them done by, as Labour is suggesting, creating state-owned monopolies based outside of Wales. This is not much better than privately owned monopolies based outside of Wales.”

As I mentioned earlier, Plaid Cymru will be launching its policies today with a promise for a £20bn “green jobs revolution”. It will also be calling for another referendum on Brexit.

As one of the pro-remain MPs, Plaid has struck a deal with the Lib Dems and the Greens, in which they will stand aside for each other. It means the party will get a clear run in seven seats. Under the deal, the Lib Dems will have clear air in three seats in Wales and the Greens in one.

This foray into political ads from the Sun is getting a fair amount of traction on Twitter this morning.

Nigel Farage is hoping to enlist the help of Donald Trump in a global campaign to plant billions of trees to capture CO². The Brexit party leader, a friend of the US president, is due to make the announcement in Westminster on Friday as his party launches its version of an election manifesto.

You can re-watch Farage’s interview with Donald Trump below.

What else is happening today?

It’s going to be a busy Friday for all the party leaders:

• The PM will campaign in Nottinghamshire, Corbyn will be in the Midlands.
• Jo Swinson will campaign in Glasgow after announcing yesterday that a Lib Dem government would commit to building 300,000 new homes a year.
• Scottish Labour, Plaid Cymru and the Brexit party are all scheduled to launch their policies today.
• A BBC Question Time special with the four major party leaders will air at 7pm. The one-off episode will be filmed in Sheffield, in which Johnson, Corbyn, Jo Swinson and Nicola Sturgeon each have half-an-hour to debate with a live studio audience.

Boris Johnson will be out on the campaign trail in Nottinghamshire today, no doubt trashing Labour’s manifesto as unworkable, but also revealing a plan for a higher stamp duty rate for non-UK residents. The election pledge is most likely designed to link foreign purchasers to inflated property prices. Under a new Johnson government, they would pay an extra 3% stamp duty. It will apply to companies and individuals, and also to expats wanting to move back home. According to the Conservatives, as many as one in eight new London homes were bought by non-residents in 2014-16.

The Conservatives estimate the measure will raise up to £120m, which would be directed at programmes to tackle rough sleeping.

The stamp duty move follows Labour’s manifesto pledge to build 150,000 council and social homes a year by the end of the next parliament.

And at least one candidate is up early pushing the Tory line on housing. Robert Jenrick, the Tory candidate for Newark, who is standing for re-election, says “more homes of all types are built under @Conservatives”.

In a moment I’ll bring you up to date on all the day’s comings and goings with events planned for most parties, but first, let’s have a quick look at the front pages … where Labour’s manifesto is front and centre.

Given the reaction of the business community, I’m going to include some bonus business pages in today’s press coverage roundup.

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the general election. I’m Alison Rourke and I’ll be steering you through this early part of the day before handing over to colleagues.

As Labour embarks on its big sell of the party’s manifesto, Jeremy Corbyn will be out and about in the Midlands today. He’ll be urging people to register to vote this morning, before next Tuesday’s deadline to get on the electoral roll (applications must be submitted by 11.59pm that day).

He will tell people in Stoke that people need to sign up to achieve real change and “make sure their voice is heard”. According to Corbyn, a whopping 9 million voters are still not registered.

“We want to make the next five days the biggest voter registration drive that our country has ever seen,” he will say.

If you missed out on the detail of the manifesto, you can catch up here. My cheatsheet guide includes a huge investment in social housing, education, health, providing universal free broadband, a 5% pay rise for public sector workers, the nationalisation of rail, water and mail, and new powers to allow councils to take control of bus services. Total cost: £82.9bn.

There’s plenty of analysis from the Guardian’s experts and comment writers on the manifesto, including from Richard Partington (businesses say manifesto will suppress innovation and smother growth), John Crace (Corbyn has gone for broke).

It will all provide fodder for when Corbyn, Boris Johnson, Nicola Sturgeon and Jo Swinson appear tonight a special edition of the BBC’s Question Time.

So, as your captain says before takeoff: sit back, relax, and enjoy the (Friday) ride.