Tuesday 9 May 2017

The "Every day seems like the last" election - day 21

The BBC came out to tell us about TV "debates".

Tuesday 9 May: Theresa May and her husband Philip interviewed together on the One Show.
Wednesday 31 May: Mishal Husain chairs a seven-way debate with senior figures from the Conservatives, Labour, the SNP, the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru, the Green and Ukip.
Friday 2 June: David Dimbleby hosts a Question Time leader special with May and Corbyn facing audience questions consecutively.
Sunday 4 June: Dimbley hosts a second Question Time leader special with Tim Farron and Nicola Sturgeon.
Andrew Neil will also be conducting a series of one-to-one interviews going out on BBC One at 7pm with May, Corbyn, Farron, Sturgeon and Paul Nuttall.

 At first some of it looked high value, but then...


The pre-manifesto pledges kept coming - Tories waking up their "tens of thousands" pledge on immigration, Labour talking about junk food advertising  and car park charges!  But the progressive alliance didn't seem to be getting anywhere - Labour and the LibDems not playing, Caroline Lucas for the Greens pleading.  There is a handful of local initiatives, the latest with the National Health Acton party against Jeremy Hunt (Conservative, South West Surrey, majority 28,556).


Tories

May was out at another standard campaign meeting in Harrow West (Gareth Thomas, Labour, majority 2,208), with candidates from London and the southeast leaping obediently to their feet when #MrsME entered the room.


Laura Kuenssberg reminded us of what we've been discussing from the start.



May: we remain committed to reaching 100,000 but I won't say when and I won't commit to ending free movement at Brexit.  She maintained that Corbyn wants to keep free movement as it is, for which there seems to be very little evidence.

Here are extracs from a couple of Tory manifestos.




Labour and the LibDems criticised the immigration proposal for being inflexible, unachievable and unfair as you'd expect.  Some Tories don't like it but won't say much. The Institute of Directors said

"A target is a poor substitute for a proper immigration policy. All parties should instead see Brexit as an opportunity to come up with a new system that is good for the economy, but also addresses voters’ concerns.

"The next government must improve the education system so young people are ready to fill roles in developing industries, and workers of all ages can re-train as needed to find fulfilling jobs. This is the only sustainable way to reduce the demand for skills from abroad."

Asked about the nurses' pay cap, May responded with her "Some nurses have had big rises because of progression pay", avoiding, of course, the point that every new intake of nurses at low grades is poorer than the last.

One of the questions she answered concerned the le Touquet agreement on border controls between the UK an France - an odd thing to explore in a campaign Q&A.  What had she talked about with Macron the night before?




The stump mantra is evolving.

"A vote for me and my team is a vote to secure strong and stable leadership through Brexit and beyond.

"A vote for me and my team will strengthen my hand in the Brexit negotiations.

"A vote for me and my team will lock in economic security for our whole country.

"The alternative is to risk making Jeremy Corbyn our prime minister ...

"We must take nothing for granted, leave no stone unturned, no door un-knocked on.

"It is only by working flat-out, every day, from now to 8 June that we can gain the trust of the British people and earn their support on polling day."

She had earlier suggested she wanted a mandate as strong as Macron's, (a 66% vote share seems unlikely in this country), though of course the intended structure of the talks doesn't include country-to-country negotiation.


Labour

John McDonnell attracted criticism yesterday when he responded positively to Andrew Marr's Sunday questions on Karl Marx, but he was also criticised by former Corbyn adviser Richard Murphy for being not left-wing enough.  Murphy is no longer one of the crowd, but lamented McDonnell's restraint.  Don't forget that McDonnell is proud of quoting his record of balancing the books at the GLC under Ken Livingstone.

Labour have adopted a Philip Davies/UKIP policy - ending NHS parking charges.  They feel they have to say how they'll fund it, this time by increasing insurance premium tax on private healthcare insurance.  Last month, a Freedom of Information request by Unison revealed some hospitals are charging staff, including nurses struggling with low wages, nearly £100 a month to park, resulting in reports of nurses having to rush out in between appointments to move their cars and avoid fines.


Jeremy Corbyn is enjoying his first general election as Labour leader, and he wants to "make something very clear":  he intends to remain in the job, even if he doesn't win.  "I was elected leader of this party and I’ll stay leader of this party," Corbyn told BuzzFeed News during his visit to Leamington Spa, referring to himself again as "Monsieur Zen".




News from France



Following news from the Macron camp that there did appear to be a Russian angle to the leaks of emails, and that campaign staff had been subverting the attackers, we were told that Facebook is moving to suppress fake news during the election.  You might wonder how they hope to close certain newspapers down, but...





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