Andrew Sparrow, Jamie Grierson and Claire Phipps 

Election 2015 live: Labour will stand up to corporate power, Miliband tells Russell Brand

David Cameron responds to disappointing GDP figures, while Labour sets out its 10-point immigration plan
  
  

Ed Miliband campaigns in the back garden of a Labour party office in Cardiff
Ed Miliband campaigns in the back garden of a Labour party office in Cardiff. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Jamie Grierson's evening summary

Today was about PR versus substance. I’ll leave it to you to decide which prevailed. Serious policy matters came first. Cameron started the day on the backfoot as official figures revealed Britain’s economic recovery slowed more than expected in the first quarter, forcing the prime minister to some how spin bad news for the Tories into a reason to vote for the Tories. He said the figures underlined the fragility of the recovery and the need to stick to the plan in place. Miliband, meanwhile, sought to persuade voters he had a credible plan to deal with immigration.

The big picture

Hardline politics soon gave way to publicity manoeuvres as comedian Russell Brand revealed exactly what he and the Labour leader had been getting up to late last night at the former’s London home. It was an interview, of course, which will be released in full tomorrow. But Brand gave his 9.5 million YouTube followers a teaser of what was to come. Miliband, fired up, arguing that his would-be Government would take the nasty global corporations that Brand despises to task. This was soon followed up by Labour’s latest party election broadcast - an at times stirring, at other times hammy pitch shot by Bourne Identity director Paul Greengrass.

What happened today

Laugh of the day

I couldn’t resist cracking a smile as as the words “Ed Balls” rapidly filled my Twitter timeline at 4.20pm in honour of Ed Balls Day. Here’s the man himself marking the day on Sky News:

Hero of the day

One-year-old Harmonie-Rose Allen lost her arms and legs to meningitis - but later defied the odds and learnt to crawl. The toddler and her family, who now campaign for a meningitis vaccine, met Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg today on the campaign trail.

Villain of the day

Labour’s Keith Vaz has been disturbing the peace in his target constituency Leicester East. Tory rivals have lodged a formal complaint to the council over his use of a loud-hailer during his election campaign.

Tomorrow’s agenda

Russell Brand is expected to release the full version of his interview with Ed Miliband, while the Labour leader and shadow chancellor are expected to be seen shaking off their Ed Balls Day hangovers at a morning press conference on family finances. The prime minister will take the fight for Number 10 to Warwickshire, while Ukip Nigel Farage is addressing the European parliament on the migrant crisis in the Med.

That’s it for me for today. It has been a pleasure. Join the Guardian’s election team tomorrow morning, as we bring you the latest news, reaction, analysis, pictures, video, and jokes from the campaign trail. And Happy Ed Balls Day one and all!

While Ed Miliband rubs shoulders with the rich and famous, fellow Labour politician Keith Vaz is facing the less-glamourous prospect of a noise pollution investigation.

The Press Association reports that the Leicester East candidate has fallen foul of complaints made by political rivals over his campaign car’s loudhailer.

PA reports:

Conservatives in the seat of Leicester East raised a din with Leicester City Council after videoing the loudspeaker-equipped vehicle pumping out messages calling for people to vote for Mr Vaz on 7 May.

The car was filmed at the weekend by Conservative activists who sent the video to the council.

City hall officials confirmed it is an offence to use a loudspeaker in the street, adding that what exemptions exist do not extend to political campaigning.

Anyone in breach of the rules can face a fine of up to £5,000.

Columnist Hugo Rifkind has written a fierce piece on Russell Brand that swerves back and forth between admiration and disdain for the comedian.

Rifkind starts by describing Brand, who interviewed Labour leader Ed Miliband last night for his online series Trews, as a “vexing combination of clever and ignorant”.

He says it isn’t “terribly unreasonable” that Miliband has been interviewed by the anti-politics comedian given that each Trews video is watched by at least 100,000 people and sometimes by millions.

Call me an establishment stooge, but I’d rather live in a world where the likes of Russell Brand went to a potential next prime minister, rather than vice versa, only that’s not the one we’re in.

Rifkind argues that its not correct to regard Brand’s appeal as a “damning indictment of more conventional media and politics”. He says that would suggest there was a “golden age” where parties and media were doing things better.

He must have something, though. Loathe him, disdain him, despair of his appeal, but he has a direct line to parts of the electorate most politicians cannot get close to.

But then Rifkind turns slightly on Brand and the “leery filter” of his Trews series.

His schtick — a mix of charisma, justified outrage and intellectual laziness — seems to me to be a mobbish, populist and ultimately cynical way to look at the world; a filter through which nothing unpopular, complicated or truly brave can pass.

He concludes that this sort of engagement is the “future” and as a result backs Miliband’s decision to get involved.

My colleague Dominic Smith has written this great piece on the Labour-Ukip contest in Hartlepool. He writes:

The last parliament will be remembered fondly by Nigel Farage as the one when Ukip broke into the political mainstream to challenge both major parties, taking its first two seats at Westminster from the Conservatives and coming just a few hundred votes short of giving Labour a black eye in Heywood and Middleton last year.

But following solid second places in byelections in Middlesbrough and South Shields in 2013, it made sense Farage chose the north-east seaside town of Hartlepool to declare that Ukip was on a mission to “smash apart Labour’s one party state in the north”.

Here’s some remarks from the Twitter commentariat on Labour’s party election broadcast.

Birmingham Post’s Jonathan Walker

Guardian’s data editor Alberto Nardelli

Guido Fawkes’ Harry Cole

The Miliband Identity - a verdict on Labour's latest broadcast

A suited man sits pensive behind a polished-wood desk in a cavernous office in Westminster.

“I feel that the last four and a half years have been leading up to this moment.”

A ghostly piano refrain lilts over images of the entranced figure as he grasps a fountain pen with forceful intent.

“I feel ready to offer myself as prime minister.”

We can only imagine what the script handed to Bourne Identity director Paul Greengrass for Labour’s latest party election broadcast looked like. But, falling short of including an exhilarating car chase in a Mini Cooper through the back streets of Paris, it’s clear Greengrass has injected as much Hollywood melodrama as he can into the 4 minute 38 second political pitch.

Some of it works. There’s a stir of authentic nostalgia and genuine sentiment when Miliband discusses his father Ralph, as sepia-tinged photographs of the removal-man turned lecturer-in-political science float into view.

He used to talk about his time in the Royal Navy and how its people of all classes, all faiths, all backgrounds, came together in a common cause, a common mission.

I think he thought that’s what you should be aiming for in politics. They saw that politics was a matter of life and death and could have a fundamental impact on people’s lives and that is at the core of my politics.

But some of the film is less convincing.

Perfunctory clips of the Labour leader shaking hands with voters who pledge to back him without a hint of acquiescence, or clutching a mobile phone to his ear with an expression of grave observance, sit uncomfortably with the cinematic soundtrack as it builds into a pulsing crescendo.

Greengrass’s latest movie has its villains - Rupert Murdoch, energy companies and banks are singled out as targets to stand up to - and it has its heroes with Miliband championing the NHS and praising party activists.

And what about the dialogue? In a post-modern moment of self-referentialism, Miliband appears to head off any suggestions he is simply spewing out more political rhetoric as he assures viewers he does not deal in slogans.

This campaign has at its heart the idea that when working people succeed, Britain succeeds. That’s not just a slogan, that is a powerful idea about how this country can change.

And he targets the traditional Labour vote with a final appeal:

This is an election with huge consequences for working people and the future of working people in Britain.

If this was the Miliband Identity, then it’s now over to the electorate to determine if the Miliband Supremacy can become a reality.

Updated

My colleague Patrick Wintour and I have put together this article on the “Mili-Brand” interview. It starts:

Ed Miliband has sought to persuade the comedian Russell Brand that he would stand up to global businesses, in an extract of an interview the famously anti-corporate comedian conducted with the Labour leader.

In the clip, Brand presses Miliband over how far nations can “leverage serious influence” over transnational companies in a globalised world. Miliband concedes that it is difficult but insists that measures can be taken unilaterally.

Here’s some further reaction to Ed Miliband’s decision to appear on Russell Brand’s Trews series from the Twitter commentariat.

From Times columnist Janice Turner

Guardian political editor Patrick Wintour

LSE centre for economic performance director John Van Reenen

Times chief political correspondent Michael Savage

Reaction to the trailer of Russell Brand’s interview with Ed Miliband has started to roll in from the commentariat on Twitter. Some have picked up on a cockney twang in Miliband’s accent as he addresses the comedian.

Here’s Total Politic’s David Singleton

And Buzzfeed’s Alan White

And the FT’s Jim Pickard

Updated

Miliband's identity at heart of new film shot by Hollywood director

I’ll bring you some reaction to the “Mili-Brand” preview in a moment, but first I want to flag the latest party election broadcast from Labour.

Hollywood director Paul Greengrass has taken a break from shooting high-octane action films like the Bourne series to bring you Ed Miliband: A Portait.

Updated

Ed Miliband has insisted he would stand up to big business in an impassioned exchange with comic Russell Brand.

After being spotted last night leaving Brand’s home, speculation has been mounting over what the Labour leader and the anti-politics comedian had discussed.

Brand posted a preview of his interview with Miliband, which will be released in full tomorrow as part of his Trews series, on Twitter.

In the clip, Brand quizzes the Labour leader over how far home nations can “leverage serious influence” over transnational companities in a global climate.

Miliband insists it is possible. “How?” demands Brand.

First of all you have to do it internationally because these companies are mobile around the world. That’s hard but you have to do it.

You’ve got to be willing to act on your own where you can. There are different countries with different ways of dealing with these things, some are more successful than others.

Of course there are ways to deal with it. It doesn’t mean it’s easy, in a world where capital and companies are mobile.

Of course people share your outrage about companies who don’t pay their taxes and it can be dealt with but you’ve got to have a Government that’s willing to say there’s something wrong with this and we’re going to deal with it.

And you’re that Government? asks Brand

“Yes,” Miliband replies.

Updated

Russell Brand releases preview of Miliband interview

The number of women standing in this general election for each party, compared with five years ago, has risen in all but one of the seven main parties, according to data from PA. Only Ukip has seen a decline. Here’s a rundown of the figures:

Conservatives: 167 (compared with 158 in 2010)

Labour 213 (192)

Lib Dem 163 (134)

Plaid Cymru 10 (7)

SNP 21 (17)

Green 214 (108)

UKIP 78 (83)

Miriam Gonzalez Durantez has warned that a minority Conservative or Labour government risks being “constantly blackmailed” by the SNP or Ukip, while only the Liberal Democrats can bring stability.

Campaigning in the key Lib Dem target seat of East Dunbartonshire, with incumbent and business minister Jo Swinson, Nick Clegg’s wife said:

It is very clear that this is not an election that is going to be won by anybody, the only ones that guarantee a stable government anchored in the centre are the Lib Dems.

If people do not want to have a government that is constantly blackmailed by the SNP or by the right wing of the Tory party with Ukip, there is a very easy answer. It is that easy - they just have to vote Lib Dem.

Gonzalez Durantez went on to say it was a “pity” her husband had not become prime minister after the 2010 election, saying he could have done “even better things” had he been in charge of the country.

Praising the Lib Dem “dream team” in coalition, she said: “If you look at the record they have, shared parental leave, more apprenticeships, stabilising the economy, the amount of things they have done with 56 MPs. Imagine if they had more.”

She particularly stressed the party’s role in the economic recovery, saying “one of the main things the Lib Dems have done for women is to help stabilise the economy”, adding: “Women suffer when you take your eye off the ball of the economy.”

Gonzalez Durantez, a successful lawyer, was visiting Scottoiler, a female-run business in Milngavie, East Dunbartonshire, which makes lubrication systems for motorcycles. There she and Swinson launched the Lib Dems’ five-point plan to create more opportunities for womem, which aims to bring about a “dad revolution for shared parental leave” as well as expanding free childcare provision and flexible working.

The Evening Standard has splashed on Ed Miliband’s after dark visit to the home of comic Russell Brand.

David Cameron was in north London earlier insisting the slowdown in economic growth underlined the need to stick to the existing strategy.

Here’s a video from PA of his comments:

Those IFS criticisms of the three main parties in detail

We’ve already written about today’s Institute for Fiscal Studies report, about the main parties’ tax and benefits plans (pdf), but it really is worth digging into the detail of the report. It contains some fairly damning criticisms of all three main parties.

It is worth pointing out that not all criticisms have equal weight. In his public comments, Paul Johnson, the IFS director, has been particularly critical of the fact that the Tories have refused to reveal proper details of their plans to cut welfare.

Here are the key criticisms.

Two IFS criticisms of all three main parties.

  • The IFS suggests all three main parties are making bogus claims about how much they can raise through tax avoidance crackdowns.

By far the biggest apparent revenue-raising proposals from each of Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats are ‘clampdowns’ on tax avoidance and evasion. They claim they will raise, in today’s terms, £4.6 billion, £6.7 billion and £9.7 billion a year respectively from such policies. Yet none of the parties has proposed specific measures that would increase revenues by these sorts of amounts. One might think of these revenue targets as, at best, aspirational, yet the parties’ fiscal plans rely on achieving them. It is not helpful to the public debate to pretend that raising such sums is easy, certain or necessarily painless.

  • The IFS says that keeping the triple lock on pensions, as all three main parties propose, will be expensive, and could have an “absurd” consequence.

As the OBR has pointed out, continuing with the triple lock indefinitely is expected to be expensive, coming at a price of 0.8% of national income by the early 2060s (£15 billion in today’s terms). And as we have pointed out elsewhere, it has the curious feature that in the long run the level of the single tier pension will depend not just on how prices or earnings grow over time but on whether years with high price growth were also years with high earnings growth. That is absurd.

One IFS criticism of a joint Tory/Lib Dem proposal

  • The IFS says raising the income tax threshold to £12,500 - which the Tories and Lib Dem both propose - will not help the 44% of people who don’t pay income tax. It also says it will disproportionately help the well-off.

In part because so many people do not pay income tax, and in part because the biggest gainers are two earner couples where both can benefit from the higher allowance, increases in the personal allowance benefit those in the middle and upper-middle parts of the income distribution the most.

Three IFS criticisms of Labour/Lib Dem ideas

  • The IFS says Labour and Lib Dems are not proposing to raise the higher-rate tax threshold and that this will drag more people into the higher-rate band.

Neither Labour nor the Liberal Democrats are proposing to raise the higher-rate threshold. If it merely keeps pace with inflation, the number of higher- rate taxpayers could hit nearly 6.5 million by 2020–21, 1.5 million more than now and double the 3.2 million there were in 2010–11. The ‘no reform’ option actually represents a radical, albeit gradual, change in the nature of the income tax system.

  • It says that both parties plan a mansion tax, when it would be simpler to raise money from high-value properties just by reforming council tax.

Setting up an entirely separate tax is unnecessarily complicated: a sensibly reformed council tax would already entail much higher bills for the most valuable properties, whilst ironing out anomalies in the taxation of less expensive properties in the process.

  • It says that Labour and the Lib Dems’ plans to save money from means-testing certain pensioner benefits would raise very little.

[Labour] has said it would take the ‘tough’ decision to withdraw winter fuel payments from those paying higher and additional rates of income tax. That would save a paltry £100 million – less than 0.1% of the pensioner benefit bill – and come at the cost of greater complexity in the tax system. The Liberal Democrats would also remove the free TV licence from those aged 75 and over, saving a further £15 million.

Four criticisms of Tory plans

  • The IFS says that Tories plan welfare cuts worth £12bn, which would be “extremely challenging”, but that the party has failed to explain where most of those cuts would fall.

The Conservatives have been talking about saving £12 billion from the social security spending for a long time. It is disappointing that no further details have been spelled out in their manifesto.

  • It says there is no good economic or social justification for the inheritance tax cut the Tories propose.

It is also hard to see the economic or social question to which the Conservatives’ proposed additional IHT allowance for housing is the right answer, and it is striking that they are proposing this despite Treasury advice that ‘there are not strong economic arguments’ for the policy. Offering additional IHT relief for owner-occupied housing can only increase the distortions in the tax system both in favour of owner-occupation and against trading down. Tax incentives which effectively lock older people into bigger and more expensive properties do not look helpful.

  • It says increasing the higher-rate tax threshold would only benefit the rich.

Increases in the higher-rate threshold, as proposed by the Conservatives, will only benefit higher-rate taxpayers who are typically located towards the top of the income distribution.

  • It says the Tory plans to cut pension tax relief are potentially unfair.

The Conservatives would like to reduce the annual allowance for those with taxable incomes over £150,000 so that it falls from £40,000 to £10,000 by the time income reaches £210,000. Why someone earning £150,000 should be able to save £40,000 in a pension while someone earning £210,000 should be able to save just £10,000 is unclear.

Six criticisms of Labour plans

  • The IFS says the Labour plan to limit the uprating of child benefit will save “literally nothing”.

As far as working-age benefits are concerned, Labour proposes to cap uprating of child benefit at 1% in the current year and next year. The saving in the current year, which has already started, is zero and the likely saving next year is also zero.

  • It says introducing the 10p tax rate would be pointless.

[Introducing the 10p rate] would remove one small complication from the system and replace it with another. Abolishing the transferable allowance would provide enough cash to implement a 10% band a mere £260 wide, worth a princely 50 pence a week to most income tax payers. There is no point in introducing such a band. Virtually the same result could be achieved, only very slightly more simply and progressively, through raising the tax-free allowance.

  • It says taking the top rate of tax back up to 50p might not raise much money.

The proposed reintroduction of the 50% additional rate of income tax would clearly leave those with annual incomes over £150,000 worse off. The extent to which it would raise any additional revenue is unclear. HM Revenue and Customs’ central estimate, signed off as reasonable by the OBR, was that cutting the additional rate from 50% to 45% would cost just £100 million. Raising it again might raise this much, it might raise substantially more, or it might actually cost the exchequer revenue. We genuinely cannot be sure.

  • It says Labour’s plans to cut pension tax relief would make the system more complex, and introduce a “cliff edge”.

Their way of phasing out higher-rate relief would create a substantial ‘cliff edge’ – some people would become significantly worse off as the result of a pay rise – and would increase complexity. More fundamentally, it is hard to see why it should be ‘unfair’ for those above £150,000 to get tax relief at their marginal rate but not ‘unfair’ for higher- rate taxpayers to do so.

  • It says Labour’s plans would make corporation tax unnecessarily complex.

One oddity of the Labour proposal is that it would maintain a small profits tax rate of 20% such that corporation tax rates would be 20% on profits up to £300,000, 21.25% on profits between £300,000 and £1.5 million and 21% on profits above £1.5 million. That is not a sensible tax schedule.

  • It suggests that Labour is trying to raise too much from the bank levy.

Labour is also proposing yet another increase in the bank levy aimed at raising an additional £800 million. That would be the ninth increase since the levy was introduced in 2011. There are plausible economic reasons for having special taxes on banks, to reduce the risk they can pose to financial stability, as a charge for the effective insurance that ‘lender of last resort’ facilities provide, and to stand in place of VAT given that financial services are, under European law, exempt from VAT. That does not mean changing rates every year and continuing to try to raise ever more revenue from the bank levy is economically sensible.

That’s all from me for today.

My colleague Jamie Grierson is taking over now.

Updated

The Lib Dems have created an educational interactive quiz to mark the most important day in our political diary:

Do you know your Ed from your Balls?

Russell Brand has released a video about the election today. But it is about Nigel Farage, not Ed Miliband.

The BBC has released the running order for Thursday’s Question Time event with the three main party leaders.

Ed Miliband has just wrapped up his People’s Question Time event in Barry. He ended by urging people to support Chris Elmore, the Labour candidate for the Vale of Glamorgan. Elmore was a trained butcher, Miliband said (more than once). That was better than an untrained butcher, he added.

Natalie Bennett, the Green party leader, is still out of action, having lost her voice. So Amelia Womack, the Green deputy leader, was speaking on her behalf in Bristol, where she said the Greens would reverse welfare cuts and double child benefit. “The Green party isn’t just opposed to cuts – we believe in doing more, much more, to redistribute income within our society,” Womack said.

Here is John Harris’s latest Guardian election video.

Asked about his decision to give an interview to Russell Brand, Miliband says that the election is hugely important, and that he will go anywhere, and engage with anyone, in an effort to persuade them that voting matters.

Updated

The People’s Question Time is still going on, and Miliband has just criticised the Tories for the way they have mismanaged the introduction of personal independence payments, the new disability payments. They claim to be compassionate and competent, but the PIP reforms show they are neither, he says.

Updated

BBC Daily Politics defence and security debate - verdict

The Daily Politics debate on defence and security actually had a few great moments, in that participating candidates were forced off-script and either flapped about or - in the case of the Green Party’s Rebecca Johnson - had a moment of refreshing candour. Here’s my highlights:

  • The Tories’ Labour-SNP Trident warning doesn’t really stand up

Fallon faltered heavily when he was asked if the Conservatives would support a minority Labour government in renewing Trident. The Tories have warned that the SNP, who are in favour of scrapping Trident, would hold Labour to ransom over the UK’s nuclear stockpile. But presenter Andrew Neil appeared to flummox Fallon when he asked why a Labour minority Government couldn’t count on the Tory vote on Trident - regardless of what the SNP want. The defence secretary scrambled together a flaky argument, trying to highlight the importance of voting in a Tory majority to avoid such a scenario taking place.

The only way to be absolutely sure about our nuclear defence is to conservative. Our aim in this election is to have a majority Conservative government when you don’t have to have that question. You can avoid that question. We’re not planning to lose the election. The country needs to avoid the uncertainty of that question by voting for a majority Tory government.

But Coaker failed to offer a convincing position on Trident either, when he appeared to change Labour policy on the deterrent once again by promising to provide a fleet of four submarines - a figure that has altered frequently in the last few years. Fallon seized on this:

This has been all over the place. First you said three or more. Today you’re saying four. Previously you’ve said everything is up for review, which is it?

  • The Tories won’t commit to spending 2% of GDP on defence but neither will Labour

Fallon infuriated Neil when he refused to answer a question on committing to spending 2% of GDP on defence, as called for by Nato. The presenter accused Fallon of “tap dancing”. “I ask you what you’ve had for breakfast and you tell me what you had for lunch,” Neil said. The defence secretary was asked whether he would commit to 2% spending and repeatedly focused on what the Tories had already spent, rather than what was to come. Eventually, he capitulated somewhat, saying:

The actual percentage number for each of the next three spending review years will be set in the autumn.... We can’t commit now to the exact total for the three following years of the current year but we’re already spending 2%.

But then Coaker refused to say if Labour would meet the Nato requirement either. “It would help this election if either of you answered the question,” Neil said to the rather sheepish looking political rivals.

  • The Green Party website and manifesto should not be confused as one and the same

Neil put Green Party defence spokeswoman Rebecca Johnson to task over comments made by her party leader Natalie Bennet that it is “acceptable” to be a member of a terror group like al-Qaida or Islamic State “as long as you don’t engage in criminal acts”. He also read a statement from the party website that says:

It should not be a crime simply to belong to an organisation or have sympathy with its aims.

Johnson said the Green Party is “completely opposed to any violent terror acts or violent terror organisations” and said the website and party manifesto are two separate entities. So then, in a frankly refreshing moment of political honesty, she disowned the statement.

Q: Do you disown that statement in the website?

A: Personally, yes.

Updated

As the focus swings back on the economy it’s back in the blue overalls for Osborne, speeches from Miliband, Clegg and Farage, while Miriam Gonzáles Durántez tries out a new bike in Scotland. Here’s a link to today’s election photo highlights.

Jim Murphy warns SNP would hold a second independence referendum

Fair play to Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy: whatever the polls are predicting, rain or shine (and there was a lot of rain in Glasgow this morning), he’s bouncing about on the campaign trail like a Celtic Tigger.

Today he was visiting a building site in the Labour/SNP battleground of Glasgow East – Scottish Labour are hosting a load of campaign events there, and one wonder how sitting MP Margaret Curran’s less visited contemporaries feel about that. Today Curran and Murphy were joined by shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint to talk about Labour’s energy price freeze policy, and to continue with Scottish Labour’s theme of the week: that a vote for the SNP would take Scotland on the road to a second referendum. Murphy said:

A lot of people, whether they were yes or no in the referendum, have a sense of ‘what do we want to do over the next few years – do we want to repeat the last two or do something different?’ We know from the doorstep that a lot of people who did vote yes in the referendum did believe that it was once in a lifetime. You can spend the next few years trying to do what’s happening here [indicating to the building site he was visiting] - 100,000 new homes, a higher minimum wage, the abolition of exploitative zero hours contracts - or you can rerun the last two years over the next two years.

Murphy said he’d be using this argument especially with the third of voters who are still undecided - “there’s never been an election where there’s a third of voters still undecided with less than ten days to go” - and using the remaining time to be “positive, upbeat, not shrill”.

Would an endorsement from Russell Brand help? Murphy laughed: “Russell Brand doesn’t have a vote in Scotland! If Russell Brand is going to come off the fence from his well-practiced, passionate abstentionism of the past then that would be great. We’ll see what comes out of his YouTube channel after his interview with Ed Miliband last night.”

Miliband says the Tories tried to “gerrymander” parliamentary boundaries through boundary changes.

Some 7m are not registered to vote, he says. That is a “scandal”.

And he says he is not in favour of proportional representation for the House of Commons.

Miliband tells the event in Barry that he is in favour of Lords reform. Labour wants an elected senate of the nations and the regions, he says.

The House of Lords is “one of the most antiquated institutions in all of the Western world”. Most of its members come from the south of England, he says.

Updated

Miliband says we are “selling the younger generation short” by letting them leave university with £44,000’s worth of debt.

Russell Brand hits back at David Cameron

Russell Brand has hit back at David Cameron. (See 1.45pm.)

At his People’s Question Time, Miliband says he accepts that, on balance, the impact of immigration is positive.

But that does not take into account how immigration impacts on particular workers and communities.

He says there is nothing wrong with expressing concerns about immigration. Some people refuse to accept immigration is an issue, while others just want to shut immigration out. He says Labour’s position is different; it favours immigration, but with proper controls.

Umunna says Tories can't be pro-business if they are anti-worker

Chuka Umunna, the shadow business secretary, told an Usdaw conference today that the Tories could not be pro-business when they were anti-worker. He said:

I say to the Tories, who waste no time is denigrating our trade unions at every turn, you can’t be pro-business if you are continually beating up on the terms and conditions of working people and on the organisations that represent them.

Because it is through all stakeholders - government, business and our trade unions - working together that we will build that better future.

He added:

We need you to be bringing the expertise and insight of those who are literally on the shop-floor into the strategic decision making of firms which I know you are already doing, and we need businesses willing to engage with you.

Updated

Q: Would you keep the work capability assessment test?

Miliband says Labour will reform the way the test operates. But he agrees with the idea that if people can work, they should.

Ed Miliband's People's Question Time

Ed Miliband is holding one of his People’s Question Time events in Barry.

Before taking questions, he starts with an opening statement.

The election offers a choice between two views: the Tory view, that Britain only succeeds when those at the top succeed; and the Labour view that Britain only succeeds when working people succeed.

He is now running through the pledges on Labour’s pledge card. Here is a picture of the old, five-pledge card. Yesterday Labour added a sixth pledge, “the biggest house building programme for a generation”.

Our BritainThinks focus group’s verdict on the campaign

What do the real voters think? We have 60 in five key seats giving their view throughout the campaign as part of our polling project with BritainThinks. They each have an app and are telling us what they think of stories as they crop up.

Here are some of their thoughts on the recent campaigning – on celebrities catching the political bug, local campaigning, and manifesto promises:

Growth figures and their impact on the election - Analysis

My colleague Philip Inman has written an analysis of the GDP figures and their impact on the election. It is well worth reading. Here’s how it starts.

What a gift to Labour. With just a few days to go before the general election, official figures have shown that Britain’s growth rate halved in the first three months of the year. And without the huge boost from lower oil prices to consumer spending and the transport sector, the economy could be heading back into recession.

Such is the lopsided, unequal character of Britain’s recovery that the Office for National Statistics put the spotlight on the hotel, restaurant and distribution sectors as among the fastest growing. A 1.2% increase in the last quarter compares with a 2.2% collapse across the entire construction industry and a minuscule 0.1% increase in manufacturing.

In a comment BTL, Olopocram asked me whether I agreed. Broadly, I do, but I would offer two caveats. First, I don’t think any single set of economic data on its own can make much difference during an election campaign.

And, second, I think there is some ambivalence about the way economic factors affect voting intention. In theory, good growth figures should be good for the incumbent government, and poor growth figures bad. But there is also some evidence that, when the economy is doing badly, that actually helps the Tories - because they are most trusted to sort it out. Don’t just take my word for it; this is what Ed Miliband said in 2012.

In good times people turn to left-wing parties but in bad times they say ‘Leftwing parties can’t necessarily make those tough decisions, we’ll turn to the right’.

Channel 4 News’ FactCheck blog looked into this and concluded that he was right. It wrote:

The graph shows that Labour has indeed never been voted in when the economy has been in trouble – in fact it has never swept into Number 10 with economic growth running below 2 per cent.

Today’s 0.3% growth figure just covers the first three months of 2015. The annualised figure is 2.4% - meaning we’re still above the 2% benchmark identified by FactCheck. But if growth continued at this rate for the rest of 2015, we’d be stuck with growth of just 1.2%, which, according to FactCheck, would take us into Tory election victory territory.

Updated

Green Party defence spokeswoman Rebecca Johnson has personally disowned a statement on her party’s website, which appears to condone supporting a terrorist organisation.

The statement reads: “It should not be a crime simply to belong to an organisation or have sympathy with its aims, though it should be a crime to aid and abet criminal acts or deliberately fund such acts”.

Put under pressure on the Daily Politics by presenter Andrew Neil, Johnson said the statement was on the website but did not form part of the Green Party’s manifesto.

Q: Do you disown that statement?

A: Personally, yes.

Updated

Nate Silver was Panorama last night with his election predictions. We have not yet established who the British Nate Silver is, but Lewis Baston, a psephologist, is a possible contender. He has just updated his election forecast in a report for Westbourne Communications (pdf) and he is predicting a tie - with Labour and the Tories both on 272 seats.

Here are his figures.

Conservatives: 272

Labour: 272

SNP: 51

Lib Dems: 28

Ukip: 3

Others (GB): 6

Northern Ireland: 18

Baston’s forecast has changed since January, when he had Labour on 302 seats and the Tories on 269. He explained:

My expectations have changed in very few seats in England and Wales since I looked at the electoral map in January. The big change is that rather than melting away, the SNP’s big lead in voting intention in Scotland has snowballed.

In January it still looked possible that it was a post-referendum bubble, but it is clear that even if the SNP fall short of sweeping the entire country, they stand to gain a swathe of seats and the better the SNP do, the worse for Scottish Labour. Nicola Sturgeon’s honeymoon with the Scottish electorate shows no sign of coming to an end, and she has increased her standing during the election campaign.

My colleague Jessica Elgot has sent me this.

The Greens have launched a new campaign video on the back of strong polling for their candidate in Bristol West, after an poll by Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft showed a 21% jump in support for Darren Hall.

Following the party’s viral ‘Change the Tune’ boyband-themed video, this offering is decidedly more sober, focusing on selling the potential of a larger “Green grouping” in Parliament and combating ‘vote green, get blue’ fears of left-wing voters.

In Bristol West, former RAF engineering officer Hall appears to be closing the gap with Labour’s candidate Thangam Debbonaire, who is still the favourite, with the incumbent Lib Dem Stephen Williams slipping to third place

Hall himself told the Guardian he voted Lib Dem in the last election and said he believed the majority of his votes are coming from that party. Some potential voters are concerned about costing Labour seats, he admitted. “We argue that a single extra Green MP in Parliament can make a massive difference, unlike just another Labour MP.

“Caroline’s been brilliant at pushing the social agenda of the party in Parliament, now I really want to take on the environmental battle,” he added.

“The only wasted vote is a vote for something you don’t believe in,” Lucas says in the video. “More and more I’ve heard people saying: No, I’m going to vote with my heart. Because unless you start that process, things will never change.”

Updated

SNP defence spokesman Angus Robertson reiterates his party’s call to scrap the UK Trident programme on Daily Politics. This has been a thorny issue in the election campaign as many claimed the SNP would hold Labour to ransom over the future of the UK’s nuclear stockpile - something the party’s leader Nicola Sturgeon has denied would happen. Robertson said:

We oppose the renewal of Trident nuclear weapons. It can’t be right to cut the conventional defence capabilities we need while we’re spending a fortune on weapons of mass destruction which can never be used.

Updated

Here’s a Guardian video of David Cameron criticising Ed Miliband for giving an interview to Russell Brand.

Good afternoon, Jamie Grierson here. I’m tuning into the Daily Politics election debate on defence and security. Michael Fallon the Conservative defence secretary, Vernon Coaker the Labour shadow defence secretary, Liberal Democrat Sir Nick Harvey, SNP’s Angus Robertson and the Green Party’s Rebecca Johnson all appear.

Updated

Sinn Fein calls for referendum on gay marriage in Northern Ireland

Martin McGuinness has demanded a Northern Ireland-only referendum on gay marriage equality.

The deputy first minister of Northern Ireland made the call during an election phone in on Radio Ulster at lunchtime.

While drumming up support for Sinn Fein’s 5 MPs defending their seats and the other party candidates across the region, McGuinness said it was time the people decided on the issue. He predicted that the electorate would vote “overwhelmingly” in favour of gay marriage equality just as they will across the border in the Irish Republic next month.

His support for such a referendum came less than 24 hours after a Sinn Fein motion in favour of legalising gay marriage in the province was defeated in the Stormont Assebly by 49-47 votes.

Lunchtime summary

What we see from today’s figures is, while this government has been trying to run a victory lap, they’ve been leaving the British people behind. And what these figures illustrate is that, far from the economy being fixed, they are further proof that there are big problems in our economy, big problems [with] the cost of living crisis that so many people are facing. I think that’s why we need a better plan, a better plan that puts working people first.

  • Miliband has defended his decision to grant an interview to Russell Brand, saying that it is important to challenge the view that voting does not matter. But Cameron has criticised Miliband over this. Speaking at an event this morning, Cameron said:

[Brand] says don’t vote, that’s his whole view, don’t vote, it would only encourage them or something. That’s funny, it’s funny. But politics and life and elections and jobs and the economy is not a joke. Russell Brand’s a joke. Ed Miliband, hang out with Russell Brand, he’s a joke ... I haven’t got time to hang out with Russell Brand. This is more important, these are real people, this is what the election is all about.

  • Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, has said that the Labour vote in the north of England is as soft as “a rotten window pane”. (See 12.02pm.) He has also said that the worst nationalist/racist attitudes were to be found in Scotland. (See 11.53am.)

Updated

Miliband says GDP figures show economy has not been fixed

Here is more from what Ed Miliband has been saying at his event in Cardiff.

  • Miliband said today’s GDP figures showed that the economy had not been fixed.
  • He defended his decision to give an interview to Russell Brand, saying it was important to challenge those who did not think voting changed anything.

Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, has been looking at the figures in the IFS brieifing that I flagged up earlier. (See 12.32pm.) She has issued this statement:

The IFS report shows that the Conservatives will cut taxes for the better off, and fund it with cuts to benefits and tax credits for the very hard-working families they claim to champion.

With one in five earning less than the living wage, millions of working people depend on a proper welfare safety net to make ends meet.

This is not dealing with abuse, it’s ripping the heart out of a welfare safety net that any of us might need.

Updated

IoD welcomes Labour's decision not to set a net migration target

The Institute of Directors does not often issue press releases praising Labour. But here is Simon Walker, its director general, welcoming Ed Miliband’s decision to reject net migration targets.

Ed Miliband is right to rule out net migration targets. Putting an arbitrary figure on the number of people you think should be arriving in the UK every year is not the stuff of serious policymaking. The target has damaged our reputation overseas and put off the very people we should be welcoming into our country, including entrepreneurs and students.

Businesses value – and need – access to a highly-skilled and international talent pool in order to compete in the global economy. As the parties have recognised in their manifestos, part of the long-term solution is to address our skills gaps at home. But growing businesses need engineers, developers and scientists now and the UK will always benefit from being able to attract people with different skills, backgrounds and experiences from across the world.

Balls suggests Labour would not accept Clegg's 'red line' demand for deficit reduction timetable

Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, has suggested that Labour would not accept Nick Clegg’s proposed “red line” on the deficit - Clegg’s demand for a “clear timetable” for paying of the deficit. (See 7.04am.) Balls said:

What we are not going to do is sign up to faster plans which would end up meaning huge cuts to police or defence or our public services. He [Clegg] was the guy who came into coalition at the beginning of this parliament and then broke all the promises that he made. I don’t think Nick Clegg’s promises are worth the paper that they are written on.

Updated

David Cameron was mocking Ed Miliband earlier for his use of his lectern. (See 10.47am.)

That has not stopped Miliband getting it out today. He has been using it in Cardiff.

Here’s today’s Guardian three-minute election video. It features Hugh Muir and Zoe Williams discussing the contribution Russell Brand could make to the election.

Miliband defends his decision to meet Russell Brand

Ed Miliband has defended his decision to give an interview to Russell Brand.

IFS figures show how Tory tax and benefit plans favour the well-off and penalise the poor

Here is the full report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies on the parties’ plans for tax and benefits (pdf). It runs to 69 pages.

And here are the slides from the presentations at the news conference this morning.

On Tory and Labour tax plans (pdf)

On Tory and Labour benefit plans (pdf)

Some of the charts are pretty striking. Here are three showing who Conservative plans will disproportionately benefit the well-off, and penalise the poor.

This chart shows the distributional impact of the Tory plan to raise the basis rate allowance, and raise the threshold for the 40p rate.

This chart shows the distributional impact of those income tax changes, plus the changes to pension relief (which takes money just from the richest taxpayers).

And this chart shows the distributional impact of the benefit cuts proposed by the Conservatives.

TNS poll gives Tories 1-pt lead

TNS has a new poll out, giving the Tories a 1-point lead.

Here is an extract from the news release.

A new poll by TNS UK shows that voter intention figures are as follows:

    • LAB 33% (-1), CON 34% (+2), LIB DEM 7% (-1), UKIP 15% (0), GREEN 5% (0), OTHER 5% (-1)

Commenting, Jamie Willard, Director at TNS UK, said, “Despite the noise and bluster the polls are not breaking for either the Conservatives or Labour. As polling day approaches, attention is turning to what happens if no party secures an overall majority.”

Farage says Labour's vote in the north as soft as 'a rotten window pane'

Here is more from Nigel Farage’s speech, from my colleague Dominic Smith. Nigel Farage said the Labour vote in the north was as soft as “a rotten window pane”.

Nigel Farage was speaking at Hartlepool’s Grand Hotel this morning. He was introduced by Jonathan Arnott, Ukip MEP in the north-east. He said that the region had been “forgotten, ignored, overlooked” by government, and stressed that Ukip are the “main challengers to Labour in the north of England”.

He then introduced Philip Broughton, the Ukip candidate for Hartlepool as the “other future Ukip MP” along with his party leader. He said he’s fighting to protect local hospital services and accused Labour of “not caring” about the NHS.

Farage believes Ukip can win a parliamentary seat in the north-east and will be the biggest party in the region by 2020.

Speaking to around 70 Ukip members, Farage said Westminster politicians view the region as a “plaything” where outside candidates can be parachuted in with few complaints. The Ukip leader said his party’s strong showing in the Heywood and Middleton, Middlesbrough and South Shields by-elections prove that they can pose a strong challenge to Labour.

Ukip are hoping for a victory in Hartlepool. Farage said: “The Labour vote is incredibly soft. It’s like a rotten window pane, all you have to do is push and the whole thing caves in.”

“Scotland was a one-party state for years and we’ve seen how the SNP have destroyed that. Nothing is forever,” he added.

He began his speech by rejecting Chuka Umunna’s remarks that Ukip were infected with “the virus of racism” - denouncing the remarks as “complete and utter rubbish”.

Farage says worst nationalist/racist attitudes are to be found in Scotland

This is what Nigel Farage said when asked about his view that the worst racism was to be found in Scotland. (See 11.35am.) He said the worst nationalist/racist attitudes were to be found in Scotland.

I’m suggesting if you want to look at unpleasant tactics, in terms of street campaigning, and outright, naked unpleasantness of a national/racial nature, then you only have to see what was said to me when I was surrounded by a group of thugs in a street in Edinburgh to understand that, actually, it is not Ukip that is the target. I have to say on that particular day to the police in Edinburgh for locking me in a public house for my safety.

Updated

Q: Are you in denial about racism in Ukip?

No, Farage says. The “media obsession” with trying to depict Ukip as racist “is something I’m getting rather bored with”.

He says he is looking forward to hearing the media ask Ed Miliband why former BNP members are allowed to serve as Labour councillors in Lancashire.

Updated

Q: You said today the worst racism you had seen had been in Scotland. What do you mean?

Farage says people like David Cameron and Chuka Umunna have wrongly condemned Ukip as racist. If you want to see unpleasant conduct like this, you only have to look at what happened when he went to Scotland. He had to be locked in a pub for his own safety, he says.

Nigel Farage's Q&A

Nigel Farage has just been giving a speech in Hartelepool. He is now taking questions.

Q: What is your strategy for the final section for the campaign?

Farage says the polling companies under-predict Ukip. Some of them do not prompt for Ukip. And others weight according to voting in 2010, when Ukip support was much lower.

He says Ukip will do better than people expect. They have got momentum, he says.

Q: Have you got anything to say about the death of Keith Harris?

No, says Farage, apart from the fact that he is sorry Harris has died. He thinks the queistion is a trick one.

Q: How can someone like you, from an independent school, connect with people in the north of England.

Farage says unlike other politicians he used to have a job. He spent a lot of time in the Midlands and the north of England visiting “metal bashers”, because they were his customers.

He went to a private school. But 50% of the boys there in his year were on local authority scholarships.

I would regard myself as utterly classless.

Ukip is the only party trying to address the question of social mobility. It would bring back selective schools.

Updated

IFS says taxpayers will be worse off whoever wins the election

Here’s Heather Stewart’s story on the Institute for Fiscal Studies report about the tax and benefit plans from the main parties. And here’s how it starts.

British taxpayers should expect to feel worse off under whichever party wins the general election next week, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

In a scathing analysis of tax and spending policies in the runup to the poll, the IFS issued a series of tough criticisms of the parties’ manifestos.

It said that Labour’s 10p rate of income tax for low earners would be worth just 50p a week, and the Conservatives’ increase in the personal allowance would be of most value to higher earners.

Labour’s proposal for a 10p rate, paid for by scrapping Tory proposals for a married tax allowance, would amount to replacing “one small complication in the tax system with another”, the IFS said. If, as Labour says, the new tax band was to be funded only by the abolition of the transferable allowance, it would be “worth a princely 50p a week”.

Here’s Nick Clegg’s latest attempt to talk down the prospect of a Labour/Lib Dem coalition. He said in an interview that, when he was practising kickboxing, he sometimes imagined Ed Balls.

Updated

Cameron's Woman's Hour interview - Summary

David Cameron has given a wide-ranging interview to Woman’s Hour. Here are the key points.

  • Cameron suggested Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson could be an outside choice for future national leader of the party. “Well indeed, I don’t put a limit on her ambition, I think she is extremely effective,” he said.
  • He said more needs to be done about regulating pornography on the internet after being asked about school girls watching anal sex videos on their mobile phones in the playground.
  • He refused to pass judgement on the CPS’s refusal to prosecute Lord Greville Janner over child abuse allegations because of his dementia: “I couldn’t comment and I shouldn’t”. But he said he is convinced it would not happen in this day and age that a politician could escape prosecution because of their position.
  • He categorically denied ever owning any raspberry-coloured trousers as a friend of Jeremy Clarkson and member of the Chipping Norton set. “I absolutely swear, there are no red trousers,” he said, while also expressing a bit of exasperation that he is sometimes known as “Old Etonian David Cameron”.
  • He defended the decision to do business with Saudi Arabia and fly the flags at half mast after the death of the kingdom’s monarch in spite of its dire record on women’s and LGBT rights. He said there had to be “mutual respect based on each other’s systems” and dealing with Saudi Arabia was vital for keeping the UK safe.

Updated

Alison Jackson, the artist well known for her lookalike photographs of celebrities, has done a series of politician lookalikes in whimsical situations:

My colleague Dominic Smith has sent me this.

Nigel Farage is giving a speech in Hartlepool this morning - a traditional Labour heartland which has returned an MP from the party at every election since 1964. But the Ukip leader has set his eyes on it as a possible breakthrough in the north-east, and it is thought to be on the party’s top ten list of target seats. Ukip topped the European election poll and gained two new councillors in the town last May, and his latest visit comes after the anti-EU party hosted its regional conference in Hartlepool earlier this year.

Farage has written a piece for the Daily Mail ahead of his visit in which he appeals to northern voters to help Ukip “smash apart Labour’s one party state in the North”. He claims Ukip has several target seats in mind, and names Rotherham, Hartlepool and Stockton as areas where Labour are vulnerable.

Ukip’s campaign was buoyed last week by an encouraging poll in South Thanet, where Farage is hoping to be elected. But it suffered a setback yesterday when the latest batch of Lord Ashcroft’s marginal polling showed Ukip support ebbing away in key targets like Great Grimsby.

Updated

Cameron wraps up his Q&A by telling people to be sure to vote.

Don’t listen to Russell Brand. Get out there with your stubby pencil.

Q: Why have you only done one walkabout? Would not that show more passion?

Cameron says he has done walkabouts. Unlike Ed Miliband, he does not need to go out with a lectern. He would like to free the Labour lectern, and let it out on its own, he says.

Updated

Balls says 'disappointing' GDP figures show economy has not been fixed

Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, has issued Labour’s response to the GDP figures:

While the Tories have spent months patting themselves on the back these figures show they have not fixed the economy for working families.

Tory economic policy may be helping a few at the top but for most people bills have gone up faster than wages, which are down £1600 a year since 2010. And now these disappointing figures show economic growth slowing down too. The Tories just don’t understand that Britain only succeeds when working people succeed.

Updated

Q: Will you keep the NHS free?

Cameron says the NHS is one of the best things about this country. He will keep it free. There will be “no extension of charging” under him.

Q: Will you appear on The Last Leg?

Cameron says he watched it during the Paralympics. It is a very funny programme. But it might be one of those programmes that is better to watch than to appear on.

Q: Don’t these GDP figures show the danger of sucking the demand out of the economy, as your plans entail?

Cameron says the real threat to our economy is not living within our means. If we don’t live within our means, we end up broke.

Ed Miliband is not interested in the deficit. And he will go into alliance with the SNP, who want to borrow £190bn more.

That would affect our children. We would just end up sending deficit cheques to China.

It is better to spend the money here.

Don’t believe politicians who say the deficit doesn’t matter. They only say that because they have not got the guts or the gumption to tackle it.

Q: Aren’t you worried you have not been given an interview with Russell Brand? Would you like his endorsement?

Cameron says Brand says don’t vote. He passionately disagrees. Politics and life and elections are important. Russell Brand is a joke. Ed Miliband can hang out with him.

Updated

Q: Given you say the economy is everything, why shouldn’t people be worried about the slowdown in the economy? And isn’t your response the the figures just spin?

Cameron says the economy is still growing. Many other countries would give their eye teeth for these figures. But we cannot put the recovery at risk, he says.

Look at Labour’s plans, he says. The housing plans have scared the housebuilding industry.

Q: [From ITV] Could the timing of the growth figure be any worse for you?

Cameron says they are a “timely reminder” that people need to stick to the economic plan. The economy is still growing, but there are dangers.

Q: Why are you planning deeper cuts than the other parties?

Cameron says the government should be getting rid of the deficit after nearly 10 years.

There is a moral case for this, he says. We should not be wracking up debts for our children.

But there is a practical case too, he says. If debt is too high, the country may not be able to withstand another crisis.

Cameron says signing up to 'ever closer union' in the 1970s was a mistake

Cameron says it was wrong in the 1970s to sign up to the Treaty of Rome committing Europe to “ever closer union”.

  • Cameron says signing up to “ever closer union” in the 1970s was a mistake.

Updated

Cameron's Q&A

David Cameron is now taking questions at his rally.

He is starting with questions from members of the audience.

Earlier he encouraged people to ask tough questions. That seemed to be an acknowledgment that seeing him respond to soft questions does not look particularly good.

Q: How can we know you will deliver change in Europe?

Cameron says he has shown already he can achieve this. People said he could never get a cut in the EU budget. But he did.

Updated

Survation poll in Scotland gives SNP a 25-pt lead over Labour

A new Survation poll for the Record in Glasgow has added to Labour’s gloom by showing the SNP has increased its support, again, putting Nicola Sturgeon’s party at a gravity-defying 51%. The four point boost to the SNP is partly at the expense of Labour, down one point to 26%.

Survation finds Sturgeon has remarkable trust ratings, far exceeding her opponents, with a 64% positive trust rating, against 34% for Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy and 35% for Nick Clegg.

Labour leader Ed Miliband gets a 45% positive trust rating overall – far better than other Scottish polls, but only because 24% “slightly trust him”.

David Cameron comes close behind of the main UK leaders with a 34% positive rating, with 15% saying they “mostly trust” him. But 40% of voters “completely distrust” the prime minister, the second worst negative rating of all the leaders behind the 52% “completely distrust” rating earned by Ukip leader Nigel Farage.

IFS says all parties vague about tax-raising plans

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has released its analysis of the main parties’ tax and benefits proposals.

Here are the IFS’s key points.

The Conservatives propose small net cuts to taxes and large cuts to benefits; Labour propose a rise in taxes and little change to benefits spending; the Liberal Democrats are in both respects somewhere in between.

All these parties seem to have a desire to raise tax revenue in vaguely-defined, opaque and apparently painless ways. In many cases the proposals would lead to unnecessary increases in complexity and inefficiency in the tax system.

Where benefit cuts are proposed, they are largely unspecified (Conservatives), vague (Liberal Democrats) or trivially small relative to the rhetoric being used (Labour).

I will cover more on what the IFS is saying shortly.

Updated

David Cameron says the GDP figures show that we cannot take growth for granted.

And, while Woman’s Hour is broadcasting a pre-recorded interview with David Cameron, Cameron himself is speaking at a campaign event. There is a live feed on the BBC website.

Cameron says Ruth Davidson could lead the Tories one day

David Cameron is being interviewed on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour now. He has just said he could see Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, as leader of the party one day.

Updated

Here’s Lee Hopley, chief economist at EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation, has issued this statement on the GDP figures.

Today’s data is disappointing, but unsurprising, with the UK moving from being one of the fastest growing developed economies to posting the weakest rate of expansion in over two years.

Libby Brooks on what we've learnt from Nicola Sturgeon's interview bonanza

Can you have too much of a good thing? SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon gave her fifth major interview within 24 hours this morning on Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland just now. (The others were on Today, Newsbeat, PM and Newsnight, and yes, we covered every one.)

A few things emerge from this interview avalanche. Firstly, the notion that the first minister is preternaturally unflappable. Certainly, she is an impressive interviewee: articulate, engaging and - when necessary - charming. Indeed, this morning the Herald’s political editor Magnus Gardham introduces his own articulacy scale, puting Sturgeon at the top.

But, as we heard this morning with her response to host Gary Robertson’s interruptions, or yesterday afternoon with Eddie Mair’s forensic questioning over un-met NHS targets, she can also become irritated and snappy. This may relate to the fact that a lot of these interviews have taken her over very familiar, and thus safe, ground on post-election cooperation with other parties, another independence referendum, and so forth.

A second and related point: when Sturgeon is questioned on territory she feels less secure on, like the economy, a ‘blinding with science’ mode is employed, again as we heard this morning. Robertson rightly asked her about the IFS projections which hole beneath the waterline the SNP’s plans for full fiscal responsibility and likewise suggest that the SNP’s spending plans would lead to deeper cuts than under Labour.

Sturgeon first went into detail about why the IFS figures on Labour were wrong, and then she came to the point that the SNP insisted that they didn’t include any revenue from planned changes to tax avoidance which would raise £7bn and had also underestimated the party’s borrowing plans. The trouble with this kind of interview format is that there’s only a short space of time to cover this ground - come back to Sturgeon to ask exactly how that £7bn is calculated or what the difference between 1.45 and 1.6% borrowing really amounts to and the audience at home has gone off to take the kids to school. But it also means that Sturgeon can quotes these figures with impunity.

A third point relates mainly to this morning’s interview, but also questions from Eddie Mair yesterday about precisely how progressive the SNP actually is. Robertson asked Sturgeon about Labour’s proposed changes to stamp duty - she said that the SNP’s Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (the first tax to be raised in Scotland for 300 years and a supposedly progressive alternative to stamp duty) has already exempted 50% of Scottish homeowners. She added that this was not a case of following Labour, but Labour following the SNP.

And yet in January, the Scottish government was accused of falling into line with Tory tax cuts after the finance minister, John Swinney, announced changes to LBTT legislation - which he had previously described as emblematic of the SNP’s approach to a more progressive taxation system - prompted by George Osborne’s stamp duty cuts in his own budget.

A final point has been niggling me overnight. On PM, Sturgeon became extremely rattled when Mair asked her continually about Alex Salmond’s influence over the party at Westminster, and eventually asked him if he’d be asking that question if she was a man and Salmond was a women. Mair denied that gender had anything to do with it. Then at the end of the Newsnight interview with Evan Davis, she was asked which football team she’d support and gave a rather coy answer about it being “a woman thing” and liking to watch David Beckham. I’m not sure you can have it both ways - or certainly not within the space of a few hours.

Updated

City economists agree that today’s growth figures are disappointing:

Jeremy Cook, chief economist at the international payments company, World First, says Britain has suffered a “dramatic” slowdown:

Q1 2015 was the slowest three month period of growth in the UK since the last quarter of 2012.

Industrial and manufacturing numbers from the UK economy through January and February have been poor and for once, the services sector has not been able to make up that deficit. That, in itself, is worrying.

“Q1 should have seen stronger household consumption, with lower energy and fuel bills helping the pockets of average consumers. Wages are rising in real terms and unemployment is falling. To have the slowest level of service sector growth in over 2.5 years is quite confusing.”

Cook points out that these preliminary readings of GDP are often revised as more data is analysed; but not until after the General Election....

And Dr Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight say the figures are unwelcome news for David Cameron and Nick Clegg:

Given that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are hoping that many undecided voters will ultimately decide to vote for them due to their management of the economy, this marked slowdown in growth is particularly unwelcome news coming just over a week before the general election.

Pound hit by weak UK growth

The pound has been hit by the disappointing growth figures.

Sterling fell sharply against the US dollar when the data was released, down half a cent to $1.518.

Traders are calculating that the Bank of England is likely to leave interest rates at the current record lows of 0.5% for even longer.

Cameron says GDP figures show 'we can't take recovery for granted'

David Cameron has commented on the GDP figures. His message is the same as George Osborne’s. (See 9.34am.)

GDP figures show growth slowing - Snap Twitter reaction

Here is some snap Twitter reaction to the GDP figures.

From Philip Aldrick, the Times’s economics editor

From Faisal Islam, Sky’s political editor

From Richard Edgar, ITV’s economics editor

From Duncan Weldon, Newsnight’s economics editor

From the FT’s Giles Wilkes

This is Britain’s weakest quarterly growth since the last three months of 2012 (the last time the UK’s economy contracted), as this chart shows:

The UK is the first major economy to report growth figures for this quarter, so we don’t (yet) know how this compares to, say, Germany or the US.

GDP figures show economy hit by unexpected slowdown

Britain’s recovery suffered a far sharper than expected slowdown in the first quarter, delivering a major blow to George Osborne’s track record on the economy with a little over a week to go before the general election.

The economy grew by just 0.3% between January and March according to the latest official figures, half the rate of the previous quarter. Economists were expecting stronger growth of 0.5%.

It was the slowest rate of quarterly growth since the end of 2012.

The slowdown undermines the chancellor’s argument that sustainable growth is dependent on a Conservative victory at the polls on 7 May, while a Labour victory would plunge the UK into economic “chaos”.

The last major economic news to be published before the election showed Britain’s recovery is still heavily reliant on the consumer, with the services sector driving growth.

Industrial production, manufacturing, and construction output on the other hand have all disappointed, as the government’s much hoped-for export led recovery remains elusive.

Despite the slowdown in the first quarter, Osborne is likely to focus on the relative strength of the UK economy. Growth of 2.8% in 2014 was the strongest of all G7 economies, although the US is expected to overtake the UK in 2015.

Updated

Lib Dems say GDP figures show 'still work to do to secure recovery'

Here’s Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem chief secretary to the Treasury, on the GDP figures and the slowing rate of growth.

The British economy is recovering well, but these figures remind us that there is still work to do to secure the recovery. Though volatile construction data shows a big dip, the underlying figures show that we are still making solid progress across the wider economy.

Britain will continue to grow at a healthy rate if we stick to a sensible, balanced, timely plan to finish the job and do it fairly. The Tory plans to lurch off to the right with unnecessarily deep cuts and a frenzy of unfunded tax giveaways is a real threat to all the hard earned progress we’ve made to date. Labour’s plans for more borrowing and more debt will push the recovery off track.

A fair and balanced plan in a stability budget to deal with the deficit and grow the economy will be a red line for Liberal Democrats after the election because it is the only way to keep the recovery on track.

The UK service sector was the only part of the economy to grow during the quarter, by +0.5%.

Construction output fell by 1.6%, production by 0.1% and agriculture by 0.2%.

Osborne says GDP figures show economy at a 'critical moment'

George Osborne, the Conservative chancellor, has issued his response on Twitter.

GDP grew by 0.3% in first quarter of 2015 - less than expected

  • The UK economy grew by 0.3% during the first quarter of 2015, the Office for
    National Statistics said today.

That is less than expected.

Here are the growth figures.

Peter Robinson says DUP would not back £12bn Tory welfare cuts

Peter Robinson, the DUP leader, was interviewed on the Today programme earlier. Here are the key points.

  • Robinson said the DUP would not support Conservative plans for welfare cuts worth £12bn.

Nobody quite knows what the £12bn would amount to. What we have said is that some of the existing welfare plans that the Conservatives have brought forward we are opposed to, the bedroom tax being an example of that ...

I could not see how £12bn could be saved on welfare in a way that would enjoy our support.

  • He said the DUP could work with either Labour or the Conservatives.

We’ve had a very good relationship with both the Conservative party and with the Labour party in the past.

  • He accepted that the DUP was socially conservative.

Yes, we are socially conservative. We make no apology for that. The majority of people in Northern Ireland would fall into that [category].

The interview has attracted some unusual comment. This is from Adam Ramsay, a Green activist and commentator.

Faisal Islam, Sky’s political editor, has been set out some election thoughts on Twitter which are worth a look.

YouGov poll shows 60% of voters back Labour's plans for rent controls

Another YouGov poll has shown clear support for Labour’s plan to impose rent controls on private landlords.

A new YouGov poll reveals broad support for rent controls, with 60% in favour of limiting the amount that landlords can charge renters and 25% opposed. The net +35 support for the policy is up from +23 in May last year.

Conservatives, whose party have denounced rent controls, are divided on the issue – 42% support, 44% oppose.

Here is Patrick Wintour’s story about Ed Miliband filming an interview with Russell Brand. And here’s how it starts:

The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has been seen leaving the London recording studios and home of Russell Brand, raising speculation that the comedian could be considering endorsing him.

Here is more from the Nick Clegg press conference, where he was setting out a new “red line” for coalition talks. (See 7.29am and 7.49am.)

YouGov poll gives Tories 1-pt lead

Good morning. I’m taking over from Claire now.

Here are today’s YouGov polling figures.

Priti Patel, the exchequer secretary, is on the Today programme now to plug the Conservatives’ new fund for apprenticeships funded by Libor fines.

Is this an acknowledgment that the government has neglected under-25s, Mishal Husain asks her. It means we are now targetting them, Patel replies.

She says the government has invested in apprenticeships over the last five years and talks in fairly vague terms about skills (I covered education for a good few years. Politicians do love to talk in vague terms about skills).

This is the most important election in a generation … We’re very clear what is at stake.

This is about our record. Look at what we have achieved.

And what does she think about the all-new, pumped-up David Cameron, who said yesterday that he was feeling “bloody lively” about the election?

I actually think this is about being passionate about the future of our country.

Updated

My colleague Frances Perraudin is waiting for Nick Clegg at his early morning red-line-drawing. She reports:

Speaking at the National Liberal Club, the deputy prime minister will call for a ‘stability budget’ within the first 50 days of the next parliament.

He will rule out pursuing Conservative plans to cut £12bn from welfare and to balance the books through cuts alone, and he will insist that Labour spell out clear plans on deficit reduction.

Clegg is expected to say:

We will have a stability budget, to take place within 50 days of election day, a pre-condition of any coalition arrangement.

There will be no deal if there is no stability. No coalition without coming clean with the British people. This too, is a red line.

But it is also a means to an end. It is a guarantee to the British public that the government will balance the books, following a clear timetable, and do so fairly.

Yesterday, Clegg was quizzed on whether his party ought to have made tuition fees a red-line issue in 2010:

It is, from my point of view, of course a shame that a policy we were not able to put into practice, which wasn’t on the front page of our manifesto, has eclipsed the very remarkable achievement of being a party with only 8% of MPs [that] has delivered everything on the front page of our manifesto, but therein lie the twists and turns of politics.

I’m not sure if that counts as a yes or a no.

Ed Miliband films an interview with Russell Brand

The Guardian’s political editor, Patrick Wintour, has more on that visit by Ed Miliband to Russell Brand’s pad.

He reports:

A Labour spokesman said Miliband went to film an interview, adding that the party was looking forward to it being broadcast. Brand has more than 9.5 million followers on Twitter, runs his own YouTube channel, The Trews, and has previously urged his followers on the left not to vote.

It is thought he is not himself registered to vote so if he were to endorse Miliband it would represent a sharp change of mind by the comedian.

An endorsement by Brand may be a mixed blessing for Miliband but the fact that the Labour leader was willing to go to his home to discuss politics suggests he thinks it may be a risk worth taking as he seeks to persuade young voters to turn out on election day.

Updated

Nick Clegg is all about those red lines this week. Yesterday, it was education, and his insistence that the Lib Dems would not enter coalition with any party that didn’t agree to its education spending plans.

The Lib Dems want education spending boosted to £55.3bn by the end of the next parliament, £5bn more than Conservative plans and £2.5bn more than Labour.

Today, it’s the economy, and Clegg says he would want a “stability budget” in the early weeks of the next government. This report is via the Press Association:

An emergency “stability budget” within the first 50 days of the next parliament will be a Liberal Democrat red line in any post-election deal.

Nick Clegg’s demand would effectively veto the Tory plan to cut £12bn from the welfare budget to balance the books if the Lib Dems teamed up with the Conservatives again.

If the Lib Dems were in coalition with Labour, the demand would impose a timetable on Ed Miliband and Ed Balls to deal with the deficit.

The New Statesman wonders if Russell Brand is ready to forgo his non-voting hard line in order to pencil his X for … Ed Miliband.

It notes that:

The comedian and activist has recently praised Miliband on his programme The Trews after the Labour leader’s appearance in the televised debates.

And perhaps the deal has been sealed, as Miliband was spotted leaving Brand’s house:

Writing in the Guardian in 2013, Brand had this to say about the appeal of abstaining:

The only reason to vote is if the vote represents power or change. I don’t think it does.

I fervently believe that we deserve more from our democratic system than the few derisory tit-bits tossed from the carousel of the mighty, when they hop a few inches left or right …

Whatever party they claim to represent in the day, at night they show their true colours and all go to the same party.

Updated

Morning briefing

Good morning! Nine days to go until polling day and there will be no signs of election fatigue on this live blog. We are bringing you live coverage of the campaign every day from 7am till late, right up to 7 May and – possibly significantly – beyond, as the next government takes shape.

I’m Claire Phipps, kicking off the blog this morning, before handing over to Andrew Sparrow to take you through the day. We’re on Twitter, @Claire_Phipps and @AndrewSparrow, so do share your thoughts there or in the comments below.

The big picture

All the stops are being pulled out now, as the final straight looms, with David Cameron warning in an interview with the Times (paywall) that there are only “ten days to save the United Kingdom” (I’m saying nine days, but as we know from the polls, numbers can mean different things to different people).

Perhaps setting himself a mighty target, he told the Times:

Not winning the election outright is obviously not a success … I have a duty to spend the next 10 days to win the election outright.

I’m feeling pumped up. There’s 10 days to go, it’s a bloody important election and I’m determined to get across the line. The line is victory – and victory is a Conservative majority. I know the polls are tight but victory is doable.

Keeping with his feisty tone, Cameron is putting an uncharacteristic boot into the banks today, with an announcement that he will use a £227m fine imposed on Deutsche Bank for rigging the Libor rate to create 50,000 new apprenticeships for 22- to 24-year-olds. He’ll say Deutsche Bank was “part of Labour’s failed past” and say he is “taking the money off a bank that tried to rig the market and using the money to get young people off the dole”. Unemployed young people who do not take up the apprenticeship offer will be obliged to do community work, the Tories will say.

Another leader feeling pumped up (and isn’t this all getting rather macho, guys?) is Nick Clegg, who tells Classic FM in an interview today that he imagines he is beating up Ed Balls during his weekly kickboxing classes.

I just sort of wallop these sort of things that you have to hit. I try not to put a face on the things that I’m striking with my feet and my hands … Sometimes Ed Balls might flicker through my imagination.

Meanwhile, Labour turns to immigration, setting out a “10-point action plan”, including an immigration bill in the first Queen’s speech. This list, via Press Association, seems only to be nine points, but perhaps the 10th is the rabbit in the hat? (Or see above, re numbers, polls, etc.)

  • recruit 1,000 extra borders staff.
  • introduce full exit checks.
  • stop serious offenders coming to Britain.
  • ending the indefinite detention of people in the asylum and immigration system.
  • maintain the cap on workers from outside the EU.
  • crack down on employers undercutting wages.
  • ban on overseas-only recruitment.
  • two-year wait for benefits.
  • language requirements for state sector workers dealing with the public.

You should also know:

What isn’t at all messy is our attractive poll of polls, which shows you just how the parties could shape up on 8 May:

Election 2015: The Guardian poll projection.
Our model takes in all published constituency-level polls, UK-wide polls and polling conducted in the nations, and projects the result in each of the 650 Westminster constituencies using an adjusted average. Methodology.

Diary

A jam-packed schedule today:

  • At 7.30am, Nick Clegg starts the day off with a press conference on the economy.
  • At 8.30am, Ukip’s Suzanne Evans and Patrick O’Flynn are briefing on the party’s tax and economy policies.
  • At 9.30am, we get the latest growth figures.
  • At the same time, the SNP’s John Swinney is in Stirling talking about plans to cut employers’ national insurance and increase the employment allowance.
  • At 9.50am David Cameron makes a speech in London on the economy and jobs.
  • At 10am, the Institute for Fiscal Studies will be showing the results of its comparison of the parties’ tax and benefit plans.
  • At 11am Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy is with Caroline Flint in Glasgow, to campaign on energy prices.
  • Ed Miliband will be in the Vale of Glamorgan talking about Labour plans for immigration.
  • At 1pm Nicola Sturgeon is campaigning in South Queensferry.
  • Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson is in Edinburgh for the afternoon.
  • And this evening, Nigel Farage rocks up in Hartlepool.

The big issue

All eyes will be on the economy today – it’s no coincidence that most of the parties are gabbing about it on the day we find out GDP figures for the first quarter of 2015. They are expected to show a small slowdown in the growth rate, which was 0.6% in the fourth quarter of last year.

As my colleague Larry Elliott argues, the Conservative tactic to focus its election campaign on the economy hasn’t yet won them huge poll riches:

The Conservatives have put the economy at the heart of their election strategy in the belief that it will give them a decisive lead over Labour.

This approach will still be justified if there is a swing to the Tories in the last 10 days of the campaign. But so far, despite zero inflation, falling unemployment and rising consumer confidence, David Cameron has yet to reap a significant ‘growth dividend’.

Our business live blog will have the GDP figures when they burst forth at 9.30am, and we’ll have the fallout and the political bickering here too.

Read these

  • In the Telegraph, Philip Johnston points out that for those millions of people not living in so-called priority seats, the election campaign has actually been a rather quiet affair:

The real battle is being fought for a few thousand votes in around 80 marginals mainly in England, which are being bombarded with election literature and subjected to a steady stream of political heavyweights beating a path to their doors. Some of them may be getting fed up with it but at least they are involved. Their vote counts; it doesn’t feel like mine does.

The momentous nature of the choice ahead is still passing too many voters by: canvassers need the patience of saints hearing those whose lives will be radically affected by the result say ‘They’re all the same’ or ‘We don’t vote’. The temptation to grab people by the lapels and give them a good shaking must be almost overwhelming.

  • Alex Massie, writing for Politico under the rather eyebrow-raising headline, The end of Britain as we know it?, says a rebellion is brewing in Scotland:

The parliamentary arithmetic means that a vote for the SNP is most probably actually a vote for a weak Labour government. Unless Cameron can cobble together a majority with the Lib Dems and, perhaps, Northern Ireland’s Unionist parties, it’s likely that, together, the SNP and Labour could, as Sturgeon says, ‘lock the Tories out of Downing Street’.

Labour in Scotland, however, cannot admit such a possibility even as Labour in England cannot afford to discount it.

The day in a tweet

Could it be anything else? (And if you’re thinking yes, yes it could: it could be something I actually understand, have a read of this.)

If today were a song, it would be…

Abba: Money, Money, Money. It’s all you’re going to be hearing about today.

Abba: Money, Money, Money.

The key story you’re missing when you’re election-obsessed

Nine prisoners, including Australia’s Bali Nine pair, face execution within hours in Indonesia after last-ditch attempts to save them failed.

 

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