GDP figures are expected on Friday. These should be viewed together with Thursday morning's claim that unsecured borrowing is currently rising at 10% a year, and recent evidence that personal borrowing is approaching the level it hit just before the global financial crash. Consumer spending has been propping up growth figures recently.
Labour attempted to shift the debate on to the NHS, with shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth making a number of pledges:
- lift the 1% cap on pay rises for NHS staff.
- move towards public sector wages being agreed through collective bargaining and the evidence of independent pay review bodies.
- require NHS trusts to have regard for patient safety when setting staffing levels.
- reinstate bursaries for students of health-related degrees.
Jeremy Hunt came out and had little to say except that NHS staff are doing an amazing job, nurse training applications will recover when people get used to the fact there are no bursaries, more training places become available when they're no longer government funded, leadership and Brexit are important, Labour is a bit crap... and nothing about NHS funding
Hunt agrees with May that they must "stop ducking" the problem of social care, but neither of them seems to have anything concrete to suggest.
Both Ashworth and Hunt depended on "wait for the manifesto", but it appears the Tories will have a whole week of campaigning, from 8 May, when they can work from a published manifesto while Labour continues to parrot "You'll have to wait for 15 May".
"Where does the money come from?" will keep coming up. I'd hoped that Labour might use some of its recent work to recast public spending generally, but I don't hold out much hope, given John McDonnell's craven proclamation of a "fiscal credibility rule".
Gina Miller the "Brexit campaigner" presented the Best for Britain project. They plan to offer money to approved candidates. As she did more interviews during the day I was less convinced it's a coherent campaign, though information to support tactical voting is useful. If it's right.
Peter Kellner observed that some traditional Labour voters who went UKIP have now moved over to Tories, and that it's very possible Labour will have no MPs in Scotland and the Tories half a dozen.
The Nuffield Trust confirmed that there has been a 25% drop in nurse training appications since bursaries were withdrawn. Their research shows a 14% real terms drop in NHS pay levels since 2010, that NICE safe staffing levels are threatened by a shortage of bodies and skills, and by pressures on staff. They have observed cuts in continuing professional development of nurses, and the gap being filled by agencies and expensive overseas recruitment.
The EU Council meets on Saturday to finalise its mandate to the EU negotiator Michel Barnier who visited Downing St on Wednesday. We should expect stronger demands on EU expat rights and for transparency during the talks. Transparency might be the UK government's sticking point. Where is the British equivalent of Michel Barnier's website?
The Public Accounts Committee published a report on capital funding for schools, from which a headline story on free schools emerged.
"The DfE is spending well over the odds in its bid to create 500 more free schools while other schools are in poor condition. Many free schools are in inadequate premises, including many without on-site playgrounds or sports facilities …
"The department is in a weak negotiating position and commonly pays
well in excess of the official valuation. On average, it has paid 19%
over the official valuation, with 20 sites costing over 60% more."
Please note, as BBC News did, that local authorities are still held responsible for ensuring there are enough school places in their neighbourhoods, but free schools and academies are accountable not to local authorities but to Whitehall.
It's long been thought that a Brexit withdrawal agreement would be relatively straightforward to approve on the EU side - a qualified majority vote in the council and a simple majority in the parliament - while an agreement on a future UK-EU relationship was pretty well certain to be much more complex. As a "hybrid" agreement, it would require unanimity in the council and ratification by each of 27 national parliaments plus a handful of regional assemblies.
Research for the Germasn parliament has concluded that any transitional deal (which even the UK government has begun to admit will be necessary) will itself be complex enough to require this fuller approval process. This would reduce the two years available for negotiation so much as to make even a withdrawal agreement and a transitional agreement very difficult.
It looks as if this will have to be yet another "top priority" on the negotiation schedule, and that an extension to the negotiaions might have to be agreed vey early.
David Cameron has been hard at work again, speaking at a tourism conference in Bangkok. The Guardian reports that Cameron thinks a general election victory would give Theresa May "more time" to deal with Brexit. It would be easier to sign a transtion agreement in 2019 if an election wasn't hovering in the following May, which has been my assumed reason for the election being called from the start.
Paul Nuttall really knows how to tell them. "I'm like Ghandi," he says, on the basis that his party's "integration agenda" (rejected by a good number of his own party) will be acknowledged when everybody else catches up.
It's nothing to do with the election as such, but I listened to Radio 4's Costing the Earth, and it's certainly something to do with our poor planning within the EU and our unpreparedness for surviving outside.
The last PMQs of the poarliament was reviewed by the Guardian's Andrew Sparrow: May resorted to carpet-bombing Corbyn with the the “strong and stable” leadership stuff. Her message discipline is outstanding, and conventional wisdom has it that you cannot repeat these slogans too often (although May seems to be testing that theory to destruction.)
May argues that she has no need to join TV debates because she debates with Corbyn every week at PMQs. I'm not sure even her own side agree that PMQs is any kind of debate, let alone an adequate one to replace the TV events which polls tell us are actually popular with voters, giving them a view of the leaders in action. Not everybody gets to see more than the odd 15-second clip on the news.
My view of PMQs - questions and answers, head to head.
Now Corbyn has backed out of any TV debate in which Theresa May does not take part. It's a better argument then May's - a debate between opposition leaders doesn't help people choose between a Tory and a Labour government - but it will still be seen as chickening out. Will this help May to kill off debates altogether for a couple of elections?
Then this one came up for further consideration tomorrow.
Please note, as BBC News did, that local authorities are still held responsible for ensuring there are enough school places in their neighbourhoods, but free schools and academies are accountable not to local authorities but to Whitehall.
It's long been thought that a Brexit withdrawal agreement would be relatively straightforward to approve on the EU side - a qualified majority vote in the council and a simple majority in the parliament - while an agreement on a future UK-EU relationship was pretty well certain to be much more complex. As a "hybrid" agreement, it would require unanimity in the council and ratification by each of 27 national parliaments plus a handful of regional assemblies.
Research for the Germasn parliament has concluded that any transitional deal (which even the UK government has begun to admit will be necessary) will itself be complex enough to require this fuller approval process. This would reduce the two years available for negotiation so much as to make even a withdrawal agreement and a transitional agreement very difficult.
It looks as if this will have to be yet another "top priority" on the negotiation schedule, and that an extension to the negotiaions might have to be agreed vey early.
David Cameron has been hard at work again, speaking at a tourism conference in Bangkok. The Guardian reports that Cameron thinks a general election victory would give Theresa May "more time" to deal with Brexit. It would be easier to sign a transtion agreement in 2019 if an election wasn't hovering in the following May, which has been my assumed reason for the election being called from the start.
May has finally admitted in public that Brexit won't be finished by 2020.@BBCWorldTonight— Ed Wilson (@eddwilson) April 18, 2017
Paul Nuttall really knows how to tell them. "I'm like Ghandi," he says, on the basis that his party's "integration agenda" (rejected by a good number of his own party) will be acknowledged when everybody else catches up.
It's nothing to do with the election as such, but I listened to Radio 4's Costing the Earth, and it's certainly something to do with our poor planning within the EU and our unpreparedness for surviving outside.
The last PMQs of the poarliament was reviewed by the Guardian's Andrew Sparrow: May resorted to carpet-bombing Corbyn with the the “strong and stable” leadership stuff. Her message discipline is outstanding, and conventional wisdom has it that you cannot repeat these slogans too often (although May seems to be testing that theory to destruction.)
May argues that she has no need to join TV debates because she debates with Corbyn every week at PMQs. I'm not sure even her own side agree that PMQs is any kind of debate, let alone an adequate one to replace the TV events which polls tell us are actually popular with voters, giving them a view of the leaders in action. Not everybody gets to see more than the odd 15-second clip on the news.
My view of PMQs - questions and answers, head to head.
Now Corbyn has backed out of any TV debate in which Theresa May does not take part. It's a better argument then May's - a debate between opposition leaders doesn't help people choose between a Tory and a Labour government - but it will still be seen as chickening out. Will this help May to kill off debates altogether for a couple of elections?
Then this one came up for further consideration tomorrow.
Tomorrow's Times front page: Drug giants threaten to quit Britain pic.twitter.com/svLHxYIW0c— The Times of London (@thetimes) April 26, 2017
