General election: Johnson appeals to Labour leavers with plan for more state aid for jobs after Brexit – as it happened

Here is my colleague Marina Hyde’s take on what has happened in the election campaign this week.

And here is an extract.

And so to the morning after the night before, when a Channel 4 floor manager is still applying Kleenex to the prime ministerial puddle, and hopefully making his refusal to mop up Nigel Farage a union matter. Where are our dramatis personae? On LBC a single mother has read Johnson’s recently unearthed 1995 Spectator column, in which he tips all over single mothers. What a quaint period piece, from a time when all you ever heard about was single mothers, and not the deadbeat dads that left them to it. The single mother’s voice is wobbling while she asks how he can talk about her family like that when he won’t even talk about his own. Presenter Nick Ferrari asks Johnson how many children he has and whether he plays a full and proper role in all their lives. The prime minister twice refuses to answer.

Meanwhile, whither Stanley Johnson, the father that public life really needs to be abandoned by? By Friday morning, this desperate ligger had already bagged several media appearances out of his son’s C4 no-show. But I imagine Stanley will now have been spirited to the oubliette in which Jacob Rees-Mogg is being kept, after his appearance on Victoria Derbyshire’s BBC programme. Here, Johnson Snr’s reaction to being told that one viewer had called his son Pinocchio was: “that requires a degree of literacy which I think the great British public doesn’t necessarily have. They couldn’t spell Pinocchio if they tried.” A line somehow redolent of that deathless Donald Trump quote: “I love the poorly educated.”

As my colleague Martin Belam reports, Stanley Johnson, the prime minister’s father, told the BBC earlier that he thought most people were not literate enough to spell Pinocchio. He was responding to criticism of his son’s own Pinocchio tendencies.

In the comments LostinBruges has asked for examples of the EU state aid rules that Boris Johnson believes prevent the UK government intervening to help a British company.

LostinBruges

29 November 2019 2:38pm

@ Andrew Sparrow

Bit confused here. Maybe you can help. Which EU state aid rules would currently stop the UK from helping an important UK company? A few years ago STX the french ship builder was temporarily nationalised to save jobs and put it back on its feet, it was then sold to an italian company with the French state keeping a 33% share. All this was done under EU rules.

So when Mr Johnson is talking about EU rules stopping this and Journalists like Mr Islam are backing him up on twitter posts, which EU state aid laws are they refering too?

This is what the Conservative party says on this subject in the briefing note to sent out to journalists explaining the new policy.

EU state aid law imposes a number of restrictions on the support that the UK can provide to industry. The treaties in principle prohibit ‘any aid granted by a member state or through state resources in any form whatsoever which distorts or threatens to distort competition by favouring certain undertakings’, which might have an affect on trade between member states (TFEU, art. 107(1). Aids must be approved by the EU institutions to be lawful (TFEU, art. 108).

This law is notoriously vague. It means the UK government may have to wait months or years for a decision by the European commission. The state aid rules have a chilling effect on government support for industry. An example of this will suffice: the government decided, in response to the steel crisis four years ago, that it would provide aid to certain firms. On 28 October 2015 it was announced that energy intensive industries ‘will be exempt from the policy costs of the renewable obligation and feed-in tariffs, to ensure that they have long-term certainty and remain competitive’ (Sajid Javid, Update on UK steel industry: written statement - HCWS410, 17 December 2015). As a result of EU state aid rules, however, the government was prohibited from implementing its policy until approval was given by the European commission. The commission notified the government of its approval on 17 December 2015 (Sajid Javid, Update on UK steel industry: written statement - HCWS410, 17 December 2015). There was therefore a 50 day lag between the government applying for approval and European Commission giving it. According to the manufacturers’ organisation, the EEF, ‘the [aid] package is worth approximately £45m per annum to the steel sector. In total it is worth approximately £300m a year to the Energy Intensive sector’ (EEF, 17 December 2015). On this basis, it can be calculated that the 50 day delay as a result of the EU’s state aid rules cost the steel industry £6.2m and energy intensive industries as a whole £41.1m.

What is striking about this example is that it suggests Johnson wants a new framework that would give the government a bit more flexibility over state aid - not the opportunity for intervention on a much grander scale than anything allowed now.

From my colleague Heather Stewart.

My colleague Matthew Weaver is covering the London Bridge incident on a separate live blog.

Hugo Dixon from the anti-Brexit website InFacts says Boris Johnson was wrong to claim in his press conference earlier that the UK needs to leave the EU to abolish the tampon tax. (See 11.35am.)

On an icy afternoon in Ruchill, north Glasgow, Labour candidate Pam Duncan-Glancy is explaining the particular travails of canvassing a constituency that is 80% tenements from a wheelchair. She’s aided by a stalwart and well-wrapped team of activists, but also notes how many people are willing to come down their stairs to speak to her in person: the mark of a wider culture change she hopes.

One of the stories of the campaign so far for Duncan-Glancy has been undecideds - according to YouGov, 17% of 2017 Labour voters say they are unsure how they’ll vote this time around which is crucial in this key marginal, where the SNP’s Patrick Grady won by a majority of 1,000 two years ago.

Undecideds fall into two camps, she says: those who previously voted for the SNP but have concerns about education, the NHS and other services run by the SNP government from Holyrood; and those who are disgusted by the behaviour of the Tories, Boris Johnson’s “humbug” insult, Jacob Rees-Mogg reclining on the Commons benches and so forth. This is the “scunnered” crew, and the challenge is to persuade them to vote at all on 12 December.

Faisal Islam, the BBC’s economics editor, says that if Boris Johnson really does want a tariff-free, quota-free trade deal with the EU before the end of next year, then he may have to abandon the “buy British”/state aid plans announced today. (See 12.45am.)

PD is the political declaration.

Q: What causes the excessive error in the forecasts of election results?

1. Sampling/computing errors?

2. Methodological errors (wrong assumptions in choosing samples)?

3. People not truly decided until the moment they mark the ballot paper?

4. People saying a plain lie about how they are going to vote?

Have the four points above been quantified, in order to compute the correct tolerance error? Or is the tolerance error itself being subject to a wild and unquantifiable error? Anthony, Maidstone

Pollsters say their results are right to within three percentage points – on either side – 95% percent of the time. That means if the Conservatives are polling at 40% then the actual proportion of Tory support will be somewhere between 37% and 43% 19 times out of 20. When you think about it, this leaves a lot of get out.

Sampling errors have caused problems in the past when, despite their best efforts, pollsters have not generated a model properly representative of the British population – 2015 being one of the best examples. But estimating turnout by demographic groups is probably harder still.

Lying is not considered an issue so much, but people do not always say what they are going to do, or remember correctly how they voted last time (the latter creates an issue for generating representative samples). More important are genuine, last-minute changes of opinion. There was a big movement to Labour in the final stages of 2017, and because polls work back a couple of days, it was not properly picked up.

Q: How do the results of previous election-period opinion polls from the major agencies compare with what actually happened? It strikes me that the answer to this question, on an agency-by-agency basis, might give a hint towards showing any institutional bias within the pollsters’ organisations. Stephen, retired lecturer, Bexhill

Pollsters have made a variety of mistakes, although in their defence a movement of one or two percentage points can have a real impact on the final result.

In 2017, the Conservative vote share was overestimated and the Labour vote share underestimated by most pollsters, and rolling averages reflected this. Some final polls predicted a Tory lead of 13 points, when in fact the gap to Labour was 2.35 points. The 14-day rolling average predicted an eight-point lead. But Survation, for example, predicted a one-point gap.

Is there an anti-Labour bias then? The reverse happened in 2015. Poll trackers had David Cameron’s Conservatives one point ahead going into the election. But the Tories won by 7.5 points in the end. So it is hard to see any long term institutional bias.

In my view, it is best to focus on the polls taken in the last three-four days before an election, and ignore 14-day rolling averages – and look for any evolution in the trend. The late move is the one that counts.

Max Wakefield, the director of campaigns at the climate charity Possible – which kickstarted the campaign for there to be a climate debate – has described Michael Gove’s appearance at the Channel 4 studios last night as political theatre.

Wakefield said he approached the Conservatives a number of times asking them to take part in the debate and that, on the occasions they replied to his emails, the party made it clear they would not take part. One Tory response, which Wakefield tweeted, said they would not be attending because they thought environmental issues “should be in the policy mainstream – they cut across everything we do and as such should not be cut off in a separate silo”.

“It was a dead cat,” said Wakefield of Gove’s appearance, referring to the political communications strategy of creating a dramatic distraction from a topic that is causing a party damage.

[The Conservatives] rang Channel 4 at about 5pm on the day before the debate trying to persuade them to take Gove, so they were obviously recognising that it was causing them some damage [to be seen to be ducking the debate] … That didn’t work.

They clearly decided to pivot to trying to divert as much attention as possible and generate a story, which was a distraction from the narrative at hand.

They sought to build a narrative in which they were the victims being taken down by a conspiracy between a leftwing opposition leader and a leftwing broadcaster. It’s depressing enough that they didn’t want to do the debate and so shameful, frankly, that they actually sought to undermine it happening at all. It was political theatre.

Just over 15 minutes left to ask any questions you may have on opinion polls. Send them in to us here.

Q: What efforts have been made to improve the polling companies’ methods since the last election and referendum. I’m reminded of conversations around “herding” of pollsters towards the end of each vote. Will Grey, 27, IT professional, Leeds

Some aspects of polling methodology are uncontroversial – the companies are good at weighting their samples so they are in line with the demographics of the population. They also tend to ask a standard question, usually: “In the general election to be held on 12 December, which party will you vote for?”

But other factors are hard to control for. Pollsters like to include an accurate sample of how people voted in the last election, except people don’t always remember who that was (this “false recall” may have the effect of artificially boosting Labour’s vote, read more on that here).

Pollsters also struggle with predicting turnout via various demographic groups, which has contributed to errors in the past. And finally, some pollsters find ways of making adjustments that reflect little more than “gut feel”. ICM, for example, used to make adjustments to allow for “shy Tories” – people who intended to vote Conservative but would not say how they had voted.

At this election, some companies, such as YouGov, are producing Conservative leads of 13 points. But others, such as ICM, are producing seven-point leads. Why the discrepancy? Their samples are constructed differently. If the figures start to bunch up in the final days, people will rightly ask if herding is going on.

Q: What is push-polling, and what does the law say about it? How do I identify whether a telephone call I might get is canvassing/push-polling rather than “market research” or legitimate polling that is independent of political parties? Mandy, Shropshire

Push-polling is where people are asked a highly restricted set of questions to produce a desired answer. It is not illegal but it can be highly misleading – much like a bar chart on a Lib Dem leaflet. Anybody being approached by some purporting to conduct a poll should ask them which firm they work for, who is paying for the poll, and study the questions keenly to check they are open-ended and not forcing respondents into a simple conclusion.

Here is Jonathan Portes, economics professor at Kings College London and a government economist, on the Conservative party’s state aid/procurement announcement.

Neil Hanvey, who was sacked as the Scottish National party’s candidate for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath yesterday after admitting posting anti-semitic social media content, has confirmed he is still on the ballot for the election.

Hours after posting a statement on Twitter offering an unequivocal apology for his “dreadful errors of judgement”, he posted a statement on his campaign Facebook page late on Thursday night to say he was still standing for election. He said:

I can confirm I will still be standing for the Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath constituency as a candidate! My policy commitments remain & I am unequivocally dedicated to the constituency and constituents. Please keep a look out for further content over the coming days.

Hanvey insisted on Thursday he did not realise the posts were antisemitic or offensive. After saying earlier he fully supported the SNP’s decision to suspend him, he liked Twitter messages calling the SNP’s decision “ridiculous” and told one of his followers: “I’m still a candidate Emma, you can still vote for me… pass it on…”

Until his dismissal as the SNP’s candidate, Hanvey was clear favourite to defeat Lesley Laird, the Labour party’s shadow Scottish secretary, who had won back the seat from the SNP in 2017 with a very narrow 259-vote majority. The deadline for nominations was on November 14, so the SNP is unable to field an alternative candidate.

Q: My question is about ‘hidden’ voters: I’d guess that the demographic of ‘people who refuse to answer polls’ and ‘people off the grid’ could skew differently than the general population. Of course they’re absent from polling results. How significant is this omission? (I do wonder if this was an element in forecasting the 2016 US election). Deborah, Canadian expat, Germany

I’m not sure this is a big deal to be honest. I would imagine that people who refuse to answer polls or are off the grid are also people who don’t vote in elections. Turnout at the last UK general election was 69% so that leaves 31% who didn’t choose to vote. That’s a lot of people: the total electorate is 45.8m and the non voters, about 14.2m.

Q: Is there any proper evidence that opinion polls influence voting intention, rather than inform? Joe H, doctor, Chelmsford

Lots. One of the ironies of opinion polls is that political parties use them to successfully persuade people to vote against the anticipated outcome. Look at the last two elections. In 2015, polling was predicting a hung parliament, and David Cameron and Conservative Central Office successfully persuaded the British public to vote against what had been perceived to be a likely outcome: a Labour/SNP coalition.

Something similar happened in 2017, when the an important segment of the British public, anticipating a large Conservative majority, chose to support Labour in the last 48 hours of the campaign. The real question is whether something similar will happen this time, given that the polls are showing Boris Johnson will win an overall majority. Polls help create an underlying narrative and often change voter behaviour – and in my view there’s no problem with that.

This looks good. My colleague Kate Proctor is hosting the Politics Weekly podcast, and this week she is marking the 100th anniversary of women reporting from Westminster. The episode includes contributions from Rachel Reeves, Harriet Harman, Julia Langdon, Carolyn Quinn and Kate McCann.

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

Q: How can the polls take account of the huge surge of registrations to vote in the past few days? What effect do you think these new voters will have? Colin Hynson, self-employed writer and publisher, Norfolk

There have been 3.85m applications to register since the election was called at the end of October, up 31% on 2017. Those registering are disproportionately young – 2.58m, or 67% of the total – reflecting the fact that younger people tend to move around more and need to ensure their registration is up to date. In itself, that uplift should benefit Labour somewhat: at the last election, according to Ipsos Mori, 62% of 18-24s voted Labour and 56% of 25-34s. In each case the Conservative share was 27%. But don’t forget that, the Conservatives are far ahead amongst older voters – 61% at the last election.

Q: If the polls are again mistaken, will the Guardian review its policy of how it covers political polling? Mat, works for a university, Birmingham

That’s a decision that would be above my pay grade, but we have reviewed our policy on polling in the past. We used to write regular news stories that led on polling, and we no longer do that now. We are well aware that pollsters have had a mixed track record of predicting the final results, but if treated critically there is nevertheless valuable information contained within them, not least because the political parties will be seeing similar data themselves. My task as election psephologist is to look at what the polls are saying and provide some kind of analysis and context; we are cautious about over relying on any one poll and prefer to look at averages and context.

Many of your questions so far have been about how people are selected for opinion polls and whether they should be banned.

Q: Everything. Who is selected? By phone? By landline only? By people willing to answer an unknown caller? By party? By age? By previous responses? Laura, retired

Polling companies have abandoned phone polling because people no longer pick up the phone to answer questions. Instead they have developed panels of online respondents – yes, people are paid modestly. When a poll is conducted, pollsters take a sample of 1,000 people (deemed enough to get a reasonably accurate result) from the overall panel.

The sample is intended to be statistically representative of the British population, and sometimes, for example, when enough young or old people can’t be found, adjustments are made to ensure the weighting is correct. Selections are made by gender, age, social class and by past voting record. It tries to be an exact science but the question for every polling firm is this: have they recruited the right panel, from which their samples are drawn?

Q: Do you agree with me that public polls should be banned during election campaigns, as they are in other countries? They seem to be so politicised and are deployed by parties and some companies to sway people’s opinions rather than record those opinions. Michael, Midlands

Attractive as it might sound, I can’t agree that public polls should be banned during campaigns. What that would mean is that political parties, lobbyists, businesses, hedge funds even could carry out polling, and keep the results to themselves. The public has a right to know. Much better to keep publishing and for people to take an appropriately sceptical view of the results.

Some countries do have bans, but they are for a short period – France, I think, bans them for just the day before an election, although I am unsure what purpose that serves. In Britain, they are banned on election day itself, which does make sense, although even then some hedge funds have in the past conducted their own polls, arguably giving them a head start.

Michael Gove winds up. He says Johnson has been on the platform for 45 minutes. He claims that Johnson has taken more questions at this news conference than any other politician during the campaign.

(It may be true that Johnson answered more questions at this event than Jeremy Corbyn has answered at a single event. But during the campaign as a whole Corbyn has been better at submitting himself to questioning from journalists. He has almost certainly held more events that have involved Q&As with the media.)

The event is now over. I will post a summary soon.

Q: What is your approach to screening cooperation with China?

Johnson says there is a balance to be struck between being open to trade, and not doing anything that might compromise national security.

I’m very, very far from a Sinophobe.

Q: Will fuel duty go up under the Tories?

Johnson says he has “no intention” of raising fuel duty. He says Labour would introduce huge tax rises.

Q: Will you meet Donald Trump next week?

Johnson says he will be hosting the Nato meeting next week, and looks forward to meeting all Nato leaders.

Q: Last night you said you had not lied in your political career. But didn’t you lie to Michael Howard about having an affair?

Johnson says he does not set out to mislead people. When he sets out to do something, he delivers. That is why he is so upset about the failure to deliver Brexit.

Q: Do you still think the institution of the monarchy is beyond reproach?

Johnson says, in his view, the monarchy is the Queen. He implies that is what he was talking about when he said the monarchy was beyond reproach in the ITV debate. He says that is not the same as talking about the royal family.

Q: Why won’t you give MPs the chance to repeal the foxhunting ban?

Johnson says he does not want to bring back foxhunting. He wants to champion animal rights. He thinks it is wrong that people aren’t able to ban shark fin soup. That should be banned. You cannot do it under EU law. And you cannot ban the shipment of live animals either under EU law. What is Labour’s policy on this, he asks.

Q: Can you give an example of a business over the last decade that you would have saved with state aid?

Johnson says he does not want to address this.

It would not be fair on individual companies, Michael Gove claims.

Q: Is it all over for Jacob Rees-Mogg in your government?

Johnson says any commentary on this would be seen as his “measuring up the curtains” before an election victory.

Q: You say you are confident of being able to get a deal. Will you end no-deal planning?

Johnson says no-deal planning was thoroughly useful. It convinced the EU the UK was serious about leaving. He says these plans should be kept in a state of readiness. They will remain “extant”, he says.

Q: You said when you became PM you would fix the crisis in social care. Now you are saying you want to discuss the problem with Labour. Isn’t that political cowardice?

Johnson says this is a “huge national crisis”. The government is putting more into the NHS, he says. But it is the interface between people leaving hospital and needing social care that creates the problem. The government will put an extra £1bn every year into the system to address this. He says he is reaching out to Labour.

Q: Do your state aid plans imply a North Korea Brexit?

Johnson says he believes in competition. But there are distortions sometimes introduced by the EU rules. Outside the EU, the government may be able to speed things up in relation to planning processes. And with school buses, or buses for the disabled, there may be advantages from being outside the EU.

Q: Have your views on single mothers changed since 1995?

Johnson says he has addressed this.

Q: Will the new state aid rules be devolved?

Johnson says policy in this area will remain national policy.

Q: The EU won’t give you a zero tariff, zero quota trade deal if you want to diverge from EU rules. Why do you think you will get a deal?

Johnsons says that under trade deals you have committees to arbitrate when there are disputes. But it should be a committee of equals.

Q: Do you favour bringing back more children born to Isis suspects to the UK?

Johnson says these cases pose difficult questions. The government is doing what it can.

Q: You have blamed everyone for the failure to deliver Brexit. Are any of you willing to take responsiblity for the fact that you started this project without a plan?

Johnson says this is a great project. It is a tragedy that parliament has blocked it.

Gisela Stuart says the alternatives offered to Brexit, including Labour’s alternative, is just a version of remain.

• Labour’s proposed Brexit is just a version of remain, claims Gisela Stuart.

Michael Gove says he takes full responsibility for his actions. But so should the MPs – Labour and Conservative – who said they would honour the referendum result, and then blocked it.

Q: If you fail to get a trade deal by the end of 2020, will the UK end the transition period and leave without a deal? In the past you have made derogatory comments about single mothers. Why should they vote for you?

Johnson says he has written millions of words. People can cull them and distort them.

He says Brexit will allow the UK to cut VAT on tampons.

And the government will be able to do other things too, like introduce free ports.

He asks how Britain would benefit from the Brexit deal Labour is planning. The UK would not be able to take back control, he says. He says he has a great deal.

Coming back to his plans, he says the UK will be able to begin negotiating trade deals as soon as the UK leaves the EU.

Johnson and his colleagues are now taking questions.

Q: Will you take responsibility for any damage to the economy from a no-deal Brexit? Would you run a more interventionist government? And are you running scared of the Andrew Neil interview?

Johnson says he is here, submitting himself to questions. He says John Pienaar, who asked the question, is a formidable interviewer.

He says he is confident he will be able to negotiate a trade deal with the EU by the end of next year. The UK is “in a state of grace” because it is already aligned to EU rules. That will make it easier, he suggests. He says a trade deal has never started from this point.

On state aid, he says the ramifications are felt everywhere. He says councils that try to run bus services for pupils, and then try to charge, fall foul of state aid rules because they are deemed to be in competition with other providers.

Boris Johnson is speaking now.

He says this election is an opportunity to get Brexit done. Then the government can unleash the UK’s potential.

He says, if he gets a majority government, he will bring the withdrawal agreement bill back before Christmas.

(Presumably that means getting MPs to give it a second reading before Christmas.)

And Johnson says the UK will be able to leave the EU by 31 January, “no ifs, not buts”.

Sky’s Rob Powell has more on Boris Johnson’s throat-cutting gesture during the LBC phone-in.

Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Jedidajah Otte.

Here is some reaction to the Boris Johnson LBC phone-in from political journalists and commentators.

The Scottish National party leader, Nicola Sturgeon, is on BBC Woman’s Hour. If she had the option of supporting a Jeremy Corbyn-led government, would she support it? Her party is not in favour of a formal coalition, she says, but she could never allow herself to do anything that could aide Boris Johnson, hinting that she might consider propping up Labour, if that kept Johnson out of power.

She “deplores” Corbyn’s lack of leadership in regard to antisemitism, Sturgeon says. If you are concerned about Corbyn, wouldn’t progressive SNP MP’s be the better option? Sturgeon asks.

What does she say to the nearly 40% of Scottish leave voters? These voters were probably frustrated by austerity, and she would tell them that these issues needed to be addressed.

He would give Corbyn a calculator for Christmas, so he can realise the extent of the debts he would be racking up with his plans, Johnson says.

Asked about a recent claim Johnson made about being “made of Greggs”, Ferrari asks the PM how much a sausage roll costs. “I give up,” Johnson says. “£1.90?” he guesses eventually.

He has also eaten vegan sausage rolls, Johnson says. And that’s it.

Asked about the nationwide cladding crisis resulting from the Grenfell distaster, Johnson says the government was working “as fast as they can” on making buildings safe, and that he’s planning to look at the issue from “top to bottom”. “What does that mean?” Ferrari intervenes. He never liked this type of cladding, the PM says, but fails to give an answer containing any figures, research or detailed approaches the government might be considering.

Should Corbyn apologise for antisemitism in his party?

Johnson says he thinks it’s “incredible” that Labour had “moved so far to the left” and “sticks up for Hamas, or Tehran, Putin”.

He is deeply sorry for the offence caused by his remarks about Muslim women. Is he sorry about using those words [eg letterboxes] or the offence caused? Ferrari asks.

Johnson answers a different question for the umpteenth time. “So you stand by these words,” Ferrari states.

How come Johnson is prepared to comment on other people’s children if he isn’t prepared to talk about his own? Ferrari asks. “How many children do you have? Are you fully and wholly involved in all their lives?”

“I don’t think this is what the nation wants to hear,” Johnson says, after a lengthy attempt to deflect.

Is there another Johnson on the way? he is asked. The PM struggles again, stammers a few lines about getting Brexit done.

The PM pledges that his government would not raise any income tax, VAT and national insurance contributions, and will cut business rates in the first budget.

The caller says her children suffered stigma caused by comments made by Boris Johnson about single mothers at the time.

A caller says she is a single mother and doesn’t appreciate comments about single mothers he made in a Spectator column in 1995.

These are 25-year-old quotations from “before I was even in politics”, Johnson says, and just another attempt by the Labour party to distract from the reality that they have no Brexit plan. He means no disrespect to anyone, he says.

The quotations are “absolute distortions of what I said,” Johnson adds, then promptly switches to bashing the Labour party.

Why should I vote for you if you can’t even debate the climate change? a caller asks.

“I can’t do absolutely every debate,” Johnson says. This government is committed to getting carbon-free by 2050, he says.

What about his response to the flooding, Ferrari asks? His government is “absolutely second-to-none in Europe” on issues relating to the tackling of climate change, the PM says. He has “absolute sympathy” for the flooding victims, he adds.

Ferrari accuses him of missing all sorts of important meetings. Johnson declines to answer.

“We want to be a world leader in climate change,” he says.

Johnson promises new apprenticeships to help young offenders with their rehabilitation. Ferrari asks what companies these apprenticeships would be with. Johnson names one, but seemingly doesn’t know the names of any others.

The police have to be given the authority for stop and search in order for people to be deterred from carrying knives, he says.

Where is Jacob Rees-Mogg? Ferrari asks. What did the PM say to him after he made widely criticised derogatory comments about the victims of the Grenfell tragedy? The PM doesn’t answer and digresses again, but is eventually cornered.

“I’m not going to go into my conversations with colleagues,” the PM says, clearly thrown by Ferrari’s insistence that he answer this question.

The next caller asks Johnson about his plans for social care.

We’re putting £1.5bn in, and another billion every year for the next five years.

Johnson is pressed about a statement he made a few weeks back, in which he expressed that he doesn’t think anybody should have to sell their home to get social care. How will it then be funded? Ferrari asks. Johnson grumbles and mumbles for a bit. “You don’t know, do you? […] You don’t have a clue!” Ferrari says. “I don’t have this figure now, no,” Johnson says.

Ferrari quizzes the PM on misleading pledges about building “new” hospitals, when really some of them will only be rebuilt. Johnson says that he feels a rebuilt hospital is a new one.

The nurse who called in says the PM’s comments have “done nothing” to convince her that she should keep going to work. Johnson sighs.

Johnson asks callers to compare the “635 Tory MPs determined to get Brexit done” with a Labour shadow cabinet in which virtually every MP except Corbyn is opposed to Brexit.

The next caller is a Waspi woman and a qualified nurse of 34 years. How can the PM convince her that he’ll deliver tens of thousands of new nurses as promised?

The PM says he doesn’t know about Corbyn’s £58bn pledged for paying off Waspi women.

Why did he misrepresent the 50,000 new nurses figure? Ferrari asks. He says there are 19,000 nurses now who want to leave. There are a further 31,000 that we wish to recruit.” He has to admit only 31,000 of the 50,000 pledged ones will be new.

If you had one option only, would you rather be PM or leave the EU? the PM is asked. He’d get out of the EU, Johnson says, after a brief moment of hesitation.

January 31st is still the exit deadline, and Britain will “definitely” be out by then, he says.

When asked how many trade deals the government had on the table so far, the PM first says he doesn’t know, then says “I imagine around a dozen”. He is asked to name about four. He says India, Australia, New Zealand and China are all possibilities, and is derided by presenter Ferrari for “whispering” into the microphone.

Boris Johnson will be taking questions of callers on LBC Radio shortly.

The education secretary Gavin Williamson told the Today show that the Conservatives would put an extra £10m into Ofsted, the education watchdog, to strengthen the quality of inspection.

When asked whether he regretted that a Conservative government previously had cut Ofsted’s funding significantly, by 52% in real terms between 2000 and 2017, Williamson said he didn’t believe this had been a mistake, and that the Tories had simply been “dealing with an economic crisis the last Labour government had created”.

Asked whether the Tories were “threatening” Channel 4, Williamson said that was not the case, and that his party was simply raising a “perfectly legitimate” complaint. He said that whoever would form the next government would review Channel 4’s public licence in 2024, and denied that the Conservatives had issued a licence review threat in retaliation.

“The government has no plans [...] in terms of changing what Channel 4 does,” Williamson said, but added that the broadcaster’s ice sculpture stunt was “a gimmick” and “a shame”.

Labour just tweeted a list of 60 questions that should be answered by Boris Johnson during his press conference this morning, the party argues.

Questions range from ‘Do you still think that the way to deal with advice from a female colleague is to “just pat her on the bottom and send her on her way”?’ to ‘Do you still call gay people “tank-topped bumboys”?’.

Stanley Johnson, the PM’s father, said he exchanged messages with his son last night, and that substituting him with Michael Gove would have led to an interesting discussion about an urgent matter. “Are you saying that Michael Gove is not a leader?” Stanley Johnson told BBC Breakfast. “Why play schoolboy games with ice sculptures?”

He said he wasn’t “privy” to where the PM had been last night, and stated that the melting ice sculpture row sadly overshadowed a “majorly important debate”.

“Mr Gove was a very valid substitute,” he said, adding that any PM might have more important things to do, and that Gove was “probably the best environment secretary this country has ever had”.

The Conservatives’ formal complaint to Channel 4 claims the Tories were “deprived of representation” when the channel refused to let Michael Gove fill in for the PM.

The broadcaster had decided to put up ice sculptures in place of Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, who both failed to turn up for last night’s climate debate between party leaders.

Gavin Williamson, the education minister, told BBC Breakfast the broadcaster had “slammed the door” in Michael Gove’s face, and accused Channel 4 of bias.

McDonnell denied that the party had made a change in strategy. Labour’s “Brexit strategy’, he said, was negotiating a “sensible and credible” deal, while also ensuring that “people have the option of remain”, within six months there would be a referendum.

He said the party’s pitch to leave voters would be to give people hope. “If you think things are alright at the moment, you vote for the Conservatives,” he said. “But I don’t think people do think things are alright at the moment.”

Hi there, I’m taking over from my colleague Kate Lyons now.

John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, is on BBC Radio 4’s Today show this morning, talking about Labour’s regional manifestos, which are being launched today. Number one priority in Labour’s efforts to regenerate the local economy across the country and tackle regional inequality, McDonnell said, was tackling climate change. Alternative energy sources would have to be pushed and dependency on fossil fuel phased out, he said, promising “massive investments in on- and off-shore wind”, “9000 turbines, 100 000 jobs”, and huge investments in electric cars, which would lead to 32.000 new jobs. 20.000 jobs would be created via investments in solar power, McDonnell said.

Overall Labour would be investing £250bn over ten years. Asked what he would tell critics doubting the credibility of these plans, McDonnell said the IFS “attacked us for being too ambitious.”

“Yes, we can,” McDonnell said.

The day ahead

On the Labour side of things, Jeremy Corbyn is currently not scheduled to make any appearances on Friday but the shadow transport secretary, Andy McDonald, will be in the east Midlands as the party launches its regional manifestos targeting local issues. The Scottish Labour leader, Richard Leonard, will be in Livingston to discuss the party’s package for young people.

Boris Johnson is expected to hold a press conference in London on Friday morning. Expect ice jokes.

Johnson has also declined an invitation to a leaders debate tonight in Cardiff, as have Corbyn and Farage. But leaders of the Lib Dems, SNP, Green and Plaid parties will attend a BBC seven-way debate alongside representatives of the Conservatives, Labour and the Brexit party.

The Lib Dem leader, Jo Swinson, will be in south Wales to discuss safety issues with senior members of the Muslim and Jewish communities and will then attend the BBC debate.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats are launching their manifesto in Edinburgh.

The Guardian can also reveal 11 wealthy American donors who have given a total of more than $3.7m (£2.9m) to rightwing UK groups in the past five years, raising questions about the influence of foreign funding on British politics. The groups are here.

In the wake of the Brexit vote, some of the ultra free-market thinktanks, which have received funding from the groups, have gained exceptional access to the heart of Boris Johnson’s government, as the investigations team unpacks in today’s long read.

Our north of England editor, Helen Pidd, has been to Morecambe to pen the latest of out constituency profiles. The seat of Morecambe and Lunesdale is natural Labour territory yet it has a Tory MP, David Morris, and Helen found that many Labour-leaning voters were not convinced about Jeremy Corbyn. “He does come across as a man of integrity and honesty, but not strength,” says Tracy Kohl, who runs a help centre for the many people in the area struggling with the impact of nine years of austerity.

Good morning and welcome to the election live blog. The first action of the day is likely to involve the fallout from last night’s leaders’ climate debate on Channel 4 in which the producers inserted a melting ice sculpture in place of Boris Johnson when the Tory leader pulled out of the programme. Channel 4 refused to allow Michael Gove to substitute for Johnson, prompting the Conservative party to suggest that it could review the channel’s remit if it retains power on 12 December.

As for the debate itself, leaders of the other parties vied to prove their crisis-fighting credentials. Our environment correspondent, Fiona Harvey, writes today that the biggest loser was Johnson for failing to turn up, but also noted that Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson appeared to be outflanked by Jeremy Corbyn on what what was once one of her party’s strongest suits. Also today, children across the UK are striking from school for climate action.

The other main stories this morning are:

• Tory candidates have been given a detailed dossier on how to attack Labour and Liberal Democrat rivals, which contains numerous rehashed and potentially misleading claims.
  
• The BBC is demanding the Conservatives take down Facebook adverts featuring footage of its journalists Laura Kuenssberg and Huw Edwards.
  
• The Conservatives have pledged to boost Ofsted’s power to inspect schools
• Sikhs in the Conservative party have been critical after the leadership failed to take action against former minister Philip Dunne after he told a rival at a hustings that he was “talking through his turban”.
  
• And Gary Younge writes today about how, given Britain’s history, it’s no surprise that racism still infects our politics