Keep up with all the latest election news with Andrew Sparrow and the Guardian politics team, as the battle buses roll out across the UKCameron says Labour will pick voters’ pockets with taxesLiving standards key to election – data shows slowest recovery since 1920sLib Dems pledge £2bn extra funding for mental healthFarage: immigration has left Britain almost unrecognisableElection photo highlights: the campaign kicks offCatch up with our essential morning briefing 3.38pm BST The Conservatives have released their first party political broadcast. It features a series of parents talking about their hopes for their children, culminating with David Cameron, who is shown watching his son play football and having a meal at home. 3.27pm BST Here is the photo of the day from Stefan Rousseau, the Press Association’s chief political photographer.ELECTION Photo du Jour: David Cameron meets staff at Sainsbury’s HQ in London. By Stefan Rousseau/PA pic.twitter.com/NkFu0kJpBP 3.27pm BST Left Unity, the new-(ish) leftwing party, is fielding 10 candidates at the election. At its campaign launch, the film director Ken Loach said people should “fear” the Conservative Party. This is from the Press Association.Left Unity, a broad left party formed in 2013 and co-founded by Loach, chose the venue to launch its general election manifesto in a bid to highlight the number of large buildings sitting empty in London. The acclaimed Sweet Sixteen director said: “I think people should fear the Tories and Ukip as an extreme example of the Tories. I mean, we know there are going to be more benefit cuts, crueller sanctions.” 3.17pm BST Through Heat we also learn that David Cameron and Ed Balls have one thing in common - or another thing, besides their shared antipathy towards coalition government. (See 9.21am.)Asked whether he had any phobias, Cameron told Heat: “I’m not very keen on rats, we had one in our kitchen once, it came in through the cat flap. It was horrible, and I kind of found it in the middle of the night.” 3.07pm BST Heat magazine has published some excerpts from its interview with David Cameron. He told Heat he couldn’t multi-task.This is what he said when asked what music he listened to while running.I’m a man, I can’t do two things at once! [Laughs] I cannot listen to music and run. I don’t know how people do it. I like getting out of here and I like getting outside, I love fresh air. I love getting out in the fresh air and going for a run and I want to kind of empty my head and get a bit of frustration out so I don’t want something blaring away in my ear. 2.55pm BST George Osborne has been making pizzas on the campaign trail today. And Nick Clegg has been making pancakes, on a visit to a Panasonic test kitchen in Cardiff. 2.41pm BST Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, has accused the SNP of a “tax grab on Scottish home buyers”, revealing new figures showing that the SNP’s stamp duty replacement would have hit Scottish homebuyers for £30 million more than the UK system last year, Libby Brooks reports. Posing alongside mock for-sale signs detailing the new figures in Edinburgh, where homebuyers would have accounted for nearly half the difference, Davidson said: “When the SNP launched its plans to replace stamp duty, we were told that it did not plan to raise any more tax than the system it inherited. But these figures show that the Scottish government is actually planning to raise an extra £30m from house buyers. It’s a tax grab on Scottish home buyers. This is the first tax that the SNP government has taken control over at the Scottish Parliament, and it’s clear its first instinct is to hike taxes, not cut them.”Ironically, John Swinney, the SNP Scottish finance minister, himself was accused of falling into line with Tory tax cuts in January after he announced changes to the the land and building transaction tax (LBTT), flagship legislation that he previously described as emblematic of the SNP’s approach to a more progressive taxation system in Scotland. 1.55pm BST Under @Conservatives employment is at a record high & we’ll create 2 million more jobs by 2020 pic.twitter.com/W4R1zGgP5QIt is hard to see how the Conservatives will create an additional two million jobs over the course of the next parliament. Imposing savage spending cuts on the public sector will suck demand out of the economy and make hundreds of thousands of public servants redundant.Conservatives have said we’re going to get £5bn from tax avoidance measures. Now that’s a very flaky number. Where do you get £5bn from tax avoidance? We don’t know. Given the scale of spending cuts they’ll otherwise require they must be at least thinking about tax rises. 1.33pm BST Jim Murphy, the Scottish Labour leader, is anticipating a big swing away from the SNP late in the day, Severin Carrell reports.Jim Murphy, the Scottish Labour leader, has insisted his party can close an apparently unshiftable 17 point gap with the SNP by election day, denying that the SNP vote is too solid to erode. He told reporters as he visited a community cafe to promote Scottish Labour’s £175m anti-poverty project: “The election is only 24 hours old; there are weeks to go. Lots of people are for the first time beginning to think about the general election.“When I was elected [Scottish leader] I said the polls will turn big and the polls will turn late, when people are confronted by the choice facing them. Lots of people are thinking about last year’s disagreement [on independence] rather than this year’s decision.” 1.27pm BST At his speech earlier Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, said he was surprised the George Osborne wanted to make living standards and growth a campaign issue. (See 11.20am.) Balls said:A small upward revision today in the GDP figures doesn’t change that overall record. This has been a disappointing recovery and it didn’t have to be this way. If the Conservatives want to go round and say ‘Our plan is working, look at the GDP figures; our plan is working, look at the figures on disposable income’ then we say bring it on because the reality is that this is the toughest squeeze on people’s living standards in a parliament since the early 1920s. 1.20pm BST 1.13pm BST Tina Stowell, the Conservative leader of the Lords, could end up reading out the first Queen’s Speech after the election, it has emerged. Peter Riddell, the former Times journalist and director the Institute for Government, outlined this when he briefed lobby journalists about possible coalition scenarios this morning 1.05pm BST TNS UK has released a poll giving the Conservatives a one-point lead.The full voter intention figures are as follows: LAB 32% (0) CON 33% (0) LIB DEM 8% (+1) UKIP 16%(-1) GREEN 5% (+1) Other 7% (0) ...With several of weeks of campaigning ahead, the latest TNS research also shows that almost three quarters (72%) say they have a ‘good deal’ or ‘some interest’ in politics, with 28% saying they have no interest in politics. 12.49pm BST 12.48pm BST My colleague Severin Carrell has sent me this about a possible SNP reshuffle - or non-reshuffle.Alex Salmond has personally reassured his long-standing colleague and ally Angus Robertson that he will not seek to replace him as the SNP’s Westminster leader if Salmond returns to the Commons at the election, the Herald reports.Speculation that the SNP and Salmond want him to replace Robertson as Westminster party leader have escalated in recent days, even though Robertson and Salmond have repeatedly said the former first minister had no plans to do so. 12.45pm BST My colleague John Plunkett has filed more on the ITV debate on Thursday - and the complicated speaking grid that has been produced. (See 11.50am.)TV’s leaders debate on Thursday will be a complicated affair as producers bend over backwards to ensure it will be fair and balanced to all seven party leaders taking part.The consequence of this bid for impartiality, which began with the drawing of lots to decide the podium order, is a remarkably complicated looking question and answer grid which is likely to prompt comparisons with The Thick Of It. 12.37pm BST Shabana Mahmood, the shadow Treasury minister, has joined the list of Labour figures saying they would not buy one of the party’s “controls on immigration” mugs. Asked about this on the Daily Politics just now, she said:Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls said he's going to buy a controversial Labour immigration mug... pic.twitter.com/iqtnlbYZx7Ed Balls on Labour's immigration mug: “I’ve not got one, but I want to buy one and have it in my constituency campaign office.” @SkyNews.@edballsmp not remotely abashed about Labour's Immigration mug. After the elxn 'I can do a toast in that mug' #SkyNews 12.23pm BST Guess who’s wearing HM cufflinks? 12.20pm BST Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, has been unveiling a new poster in Dover, under the White Cliffs.When Cameron made that promise he was being wilfully dishonest because he knew the truth and I think now the British public five years on know the truth - that you actually cannot have an immigration policy, you can’t set targets of any kind at all, you can’t attempt to control who comes into Britain, all the while you’re members of European Union.I’m saying a net level of about 30,000 a year is roughly what we had for 50 years from 1950 almost until the turn of the century. It was a level at which the country was comfortable and that integration was possible and it didn’t, crucially, compress the wages, push down the wages of ordinary people.Nigel Farage in the pub... drinking coffee. "I'm just not giving you the pleasure of you seeing me drinking a pint" pic.twitter.com/idg9jP3a1eNigel Farage, at the coast: "Have you seen this surfer down there? He must be off his chump!" 12.19pm BST Matthew Weaver: Does David Cameron talk to his wife Samantha or not? In a blokey exchange earlier with Sky’s Eamon Holmes, Cameron was asked if he in is secret talks with Nick Clegg about forming another coalition. He replied: “I’m not having talks with anyone. I barely have time to talk with my wife, never mind anyone else.” 12.10pm BST The GMB union says David Cameron’s jobs claim (see 12.05pm) “completely lacks credibility”. This is from Paul Kenny, the GMB general secretary.Cameron’s claim completely lacks credibility. The circumstances that gave rise to many new jobs in this parliament are not likely to be repeated in the next one. Many of those new jobs are directly linked to the 3.2m in population since 2007 which led to additional economic activity as would be expected. However GDP per head is still 1.5% below 2007 levels. 12.05pm BST My colleague Angela Monaghan has been factchecking David Cameron’s claim to have created 1,000 jobs a day since he came to power. This, of course, is nothing more than a claim. Employment is forecast to rise in the UK, but it is impossible to know by how much, partly because it will be up to businesses whether or not they create jobs.A Conservative government will help business create two million new jobs in the next parliament if elected in May, David Cameron and George Osborne will announce today, maintaining the average of over 1,000 jobs a day being created.The pledge comes as Treasury estimates show Britain starting to overtake Canada on the road to full employment. Britain’s employment rate is expected to reach 72.6 per cent in the second quarter of 2015 - Canada’s current rate is 72.5 per cent. The commitment to creating a further 2m jobs during the next parliament would take the UK past Germany and Japan on current levels. 11.50am BST ITV has released details of what order the seven party leaders taking part in Thursday’s debate will speak. The seven will each get the chance to make an opening statement. There will be four questions during the two-hour programme, with each leader getting a minute to answer before it opens up for an 18-minute debate. Then there will be closing statements at the end. 11.45am BST Leanne Wood, the Plaid Cymru leader, has categorically ruled out Plaid Cymru supporting a Conservative government. And it would not vote for Labour plans to implement austerity or renew Trident, she said.There’s no way that we could support the Tories in government, absolutely not. Wales has never given a mandate for the Tories to rule over us and it’s highly unlikely that they will next time ...While we won’t prop up a Tory government, we won’t back a Labour government to implement austerity and Trident replacement either. We would not be part of a formal coalition with a Labour government prepared to renew Trident. There is no way that Plaid Cymru MPs will ever vote to support the replacement of a system which would cost £100bn and which no government would ever realistically use. 11.40am BST Sajid Javid, the Conservative culture secretary, says Labour’s plan to reverse the planned corporation tax cut could cost 100,000 jobs.Corporation tax will fall from 21 to 20% this April. And Labour have committed to reverse this – risking 100,000 jobs #youcouldntmakeitup 11.35am BST More on Joey Essex. (See 9.29am.) Apparently he was impressed by Nick Clegg’s “honesty” and now realises that Clegg’s party isn’t called the Liberal Democats.There is a joke about this on the Lib Dem website. 11.29am BST Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, is speaking in Swindon, where he is confirming Labour’s plans to cut business rates for small businesses. He is announcing that this would be introduced in Labour’s first budget. Ed Balls is giving a speech on Labour's help for small business. In a graveyard. #GE2015 pic.twitter.com/OuvRWst7qr 11.20am BST The Conservatives have welcomed three pieces of economic data that have come out today.Today we’ve got a hat-trick of good news about the British economy and with 37 days to go to the election, it’s another sign that changing course would put recovery at risk. We’ve had a significant upgrade to GDP, the highest consumer confidence for over 12 years and confirmation that living standards are higher than they were at the last election. This is good news for families and businesses across the country.Real household disposable income per head, consumption per head and GDP per head now all above where they were at last election 10.52am BST What do you think should be in the party manifestos? We’re running an online survey and inviting readers to suggest ideas, with the aim of writing “readers’ manifestos” for each party.The full details are here. 10.47am BST Nick Clegg is also doing a high-viz photocall.First hi-vis of the campaign trail. Nick Clegg visits a building site in Watford, where voters will one day live... pic.twitter.com/A4S56IDhxZ 10.34am BST Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, is launching its manifesto this morning. Leanne Wood, the Plaid leader, said that if Plaid held the balance of power in a hung parliament, it would fight to rebalance power and wealth away from Westminster.People in Wales are rightly sceptical of the rhetoric of the establishment parties. The four Westminster leaders offer us nothing more than further swingeing cuts to our public services and no commitment to securing an economic recovery for all.But this election provides Wales with an unprecedented opportunity. There will very likely be another hung parliament in May and the direction of the next government could come down to how strong a presence Plaid Cymru secures in Parliament at the election.The people of Wales can have faith in us. If Plaid Cymru holds the balance of power, we’ll rebalance power and wealth throughout the UK. Away from the financial sector in the City of London and to communities such as those in Wales who need investment.I have no issue with the decision of the Welsh people to vote for the Labour Party, because they clearly haven’t been convinced that we are a better alternative.In Scotland the SNP have convinced them, it seems to me from the polls, and therefore that’s our responsibility, we have to have a better election than we’ve ever had before. 10.21am BST David Cameron has been visiting Sainsbury’s HQ in London. 10.18am BST Here is the Lib Dem election spokesman Lord Scriven responding to David Cameron’s failure to say where the proposed £12bn Conservative welfare cuts would come from.It is time for the Tories to come clean about their plans to cut £12bn in working-age benefits from the welfare budget, which will hit 8m low income families.The Conservatives might not think it’s ‘relevant’ to say whether they would tax disability benefits or restrict child benefit to the first two children but the people who rely on this support do. 10.05am BST Nicola Sturgeon was interviewed on BBC Radio Scotland this morning. As my colleague Libby Brooks reports, she said the SNP would not support a minority Labour government in on a “confidence and supply” basis if it went ahead with Trident renewal.Pushed by host Gary Robertson whether Trident was still a red line and precisely where that red line sat, Sturgeon clarified (at least to an extent).She has said all along a formal coalition with Labour is highly unlikely. A less formal agreement of confidence and supply would need a formal agreement that the renewal of Trident wasn’t proceeding, she said. 9.54am BST On Sky this morning David Cameron said that in 2010 Britain was on the brink and had a deficit forecast to be higher than Greece’s.My colleague Alberto Nardelli has been fact checking this. Here’s his conclusion.By a very narrow measure, with no context, Cameron can make that claim but it is just not comparing like with like and does not stand up to scrutiny. 9.51am BST Clegg launches Lib Dem mental health manifestoClegg heaps praise on Tim Farron: "I'm a great fan of Tim." Says attacks by Cable, Ashdown etc are not in his nameNick Clegg has been a force for good on mental health stigma but the reality is that MH services have gone backwards under the coalitionIt costs £12,000 inc VAT per seat for a Lib Dem election campaign bus season ticket. The price of democracy. 9.29am BST Nick Clegg has been posing for a selfie with Joey Essex. No, I’ve never heard of him either, but apparently he’s a reality TV star, and the trendy people in the office tell me people will be interested..@JoeyEssex_ Really nice to meet you this morning. Sorry about the early start! Hope the programme goes well! pic.twitter.com/QOyyIUSc1I 9.21am BST Those weren’t the most revealing interviews ever. But we did learn a few things that were new. Here are the key lines from David Cameron’s morning interviews.What we’ve done through this parliament is we’ve actually improved the money that goes to the most disabled people in our country. We’ve replaced one benefit – disability living allowance – with a new benefit – personal independence payment – it’s working well, it is also going to lead to some savings over time and we haven’t created that benefit in order to undermine it. We want to enhance it and safeguard it.We have funded the first part of that, with £2bn extra in the coming year, and we have said that combined with efficiencies and the extra spending we are going to put in, we are confident we can achieve the Stevens plan in full.It depends how much you save from efficiencies. Majority government is more accountable. What I put in my manifesto is the programme for the government. Nothing gets haggled away in backroom deals. And I think people want the clarity, that certainty, that accountability from the election and the outcome.For the next 37 days there is no plan B.I’m not having talks with anyone. I barely have time to have talks with my wife, let alone talks with anyone else.I think it’s a totally fair assumption. If Labour want to come forward now and change the assumptions and set out their own assumptions, then they can. But in the meantime, the best calculation available is the one that we have made.The Office for Budget Responsibility predicted half that number of jobs in the last parliament and we doubled what they predicted and we’re believing that we can do that again. 8.48am BST Severin Carrell, our Scotland correspondent, reports that Jim Murphy, the Scottish Labour leader, will press forward with a plan announced last week to spend £175m on a Scottish anti-poverty fund during a visit to a food bank in Edinburgh South, a marginal seat which the Scottish National party is threatening to take, later this morning. 8.41am BST My colleague Nicholas Watt thinks David Cameron was less than frank in his Today interview when asked he he regretted passing Andrew Lansley’s health reforms. (See 8.22am.)Clever @Sarah_Montague asks @David_Cameron if stop Andrew Lansley NHS reforms if had time again. Private views unsuitable for morn audience 8.31am BST Here’s the full audio of Cameron’s interview on the Today programme: 8.30am BST Q: On Thursday you will stand next to Nicola Sturgeon in the debate. What will you do to convince here that the SNP should not vote down the Conservatives? 8.26am BST Q: Where will you find the £12bn welfare cuts. You have explained £2bn, but not the other £10bn.Cameron says he is saying the government needs to save £1 out of every £100 the government spends for the next two years. He would rather do that than put put taxes or borrowing. 8.22am BST Q: Do you regret passing Andrew Lansley’s Health Act? 8.18am BST Q: Can you commit to spending the extra £8bn that the NHS needs?Cameron says the government has already allocated £2bn. He says he is confident that the Simon Stevens plan (that requires an extra £8bn) can be met in full. 8.15am BST Q: You were asked last week what you regretted, and you said you promised to make politics more polite and failed.Cameron says he was not being impolite yesterday. 8.14am BST Sarah Montague is interviewing David Cameron. 7.55am BST Here are today’s YouGov polling figures.Update: Con & Lab tied - Latest YouGov / The Sun results 30th Mar - Con 35%, Lab 35%, LD 8%, UKIP 12%, GRN 5%; APP-10 http://t.co/YegZcU9g92 7.43am BST Here’s the audio of Cameron on Good Morning Britain. 7.42am BST Q: You say you won’t serve a third term. So, if people like you, and there’s going to be a leadership battle, we should they vote for you?Cameron says he will serve a full third term. But he won’t go on and on and on. 7.39am BST Q: Is it because you don’t know where the cuts will fall? Or do you know and aren’t saying?Cameron says, where the Conservatives know where they want to cut, they have been clear about this. 7.37am BST Q: You have said you will cut £12bn from the welfare budget. Why won’t you tell people where that will come from?Cameron says the Conservatives have been the most specific of all the parties about saying where the money for cuts will come from. The government needs to find £1 from every £100 it spends. It is better to do that than to put up taxes or increase borrowing. 7.36am BST Q: You are running a negative campaign, aren’t you?David Cameron says he is talking about his plans to create 2m jobs. You can’t be more positive than that. 7.34am BST Morning. I’m taking over from Claire now. 7.32am BST Here’s the full audio of Cameron on Sky News. 7.31am BST Asked about his pledge not to serve a third term, Cameron says he was giving a straight answer to a straight question. He said he didn’t necessarily believe that all prime ministers go mad. 7.29am BST Cameron rejects the interviewer’s portrayal of him as Scrooge. He says the election is a choice between cutting welfare and a spending Labour party. 7.27am BST Cameron pledges to train three million apprentices in the next parliament. There is no reason why we can’t carry on creating a thousand jobs per day, he repeats. 7.26am BST Cameron says he is going to work flat out for a Conservative majority. 7.26am BST Cameron says the public want a majority government that “won’t get haggled away in backroom deals”. 7.25am BST Next up Sky News. This time in the studio. Cameron is asked about his refusal to take part in head to head debates with Ed Miliband. The interviewer said it would have been better to debate with Miliband than “getting clubbed to death by Paxo”. 7.21am BST Here’s the full audio of Cameron’s interview on BBC Breakfast. 7.19am BST Cameron again said the choice was between carrying on with the Conservative’s economic plan or opting for Labour which has refused to set out how it would make spending efficiencies. PM clear on @BBCBreakfast - 2m jobs is something Cons "believe" they can create, not s/thing they're pretending they can guarantee 7.18am BST Presumably meant in the sense of trying to “psych out” his opponents, but this is unfortunate phrasing….@BBCBreakfast has just accused @David_Cameron of engaging in 'a bit of psycho campaigning' #ge2015 7.17am BST What business can’t find a £1 of saving for every £100 of spending, Cameron said referring to the Conservative’s budget plans. On benefits savings, Cameron said in the next parliament the Conservatives would look for half as much savings on benefits as it had in this parliament. Cameron refused to rule out privatising disability living allowance. 7.14am BST Cameron insisted that the Conservative’s claim about Labour’s tax bill was “fair” despite claims by the Institute for Fiscal studies that it was unhelpful. Cameron said the election was a choice between a government that will find savings and won’t pick your pocket, and a Labour party that would pick people’s pockets. 7.12am BST Cameron kicks off a round of breakfast interviews by claiming his coalition government created 1,000 jobs per day. 7.00am BST Good morning and welcome back to the Guardian’s election live blog as we settle in for the long campaign. Knowing how you hate to miss a key pledge, candidate gaffe or mis-spelt party leaflet, we will be live blogging every day from 7am till late to bring you every question, answer and evasion from now until 7 May (and likely beyond). “Clowns to the left of him” says a Tory source re the debate line up: http://t.co/dKc422qn1B pic.twitter.com/EiIZeklc2f They are different. They want to break up Britain. You cannot deal with these people …There’s a very natural instinct to keep more of their own money to spend because you want to spend it on your family, you want to try and plan for a nice holiday, have a bit more put aside for Christmas, take the children on that trip you want to take them on.That’s the most natural instinct in the world. Owning your own home – I’ll never forget the moment I got the first keys to my first flat and walked through the door. You just feel so excited that you own something and you’re going to take care of it.She will be sometimes on her own, going to support candidates, some of the time with me, some of the time sorting out the children’s homework and her business and everything else she’s got to do.She’ll take multi-tasking to a new level.There is an interesting mixture of arrogance and insecurity in the failure by the Conservative and Labour leaders to reinvent their parties. On the one hand, both are so convinced of the strength of their own argument that they do not feel the need to win over non-believers; on the other, each also feels that their only task so close to an election is to secure the support they already have rather than trying to shake up the system.The bitterness and negativity that will only intensify between now and May 7th derive from the fact that each party is going into battle from a position of weakness rather than strength. They are fighting fear with fear in the hope that by attacking their rivals they will protect themselves by turning attention away from their own faults. If she was really honest, she’d admit another five years of the Tories is exactly what she wants in the hope that would provoke Scots to be “all in” for another independence referendum. The greatest gamble of all.But here’s the truth. If you play in the SNP casino, it’s the Tories’ house that always wins.Burning with energy, blessed with an enviably able new leader, the SNP feels like the party of most Labour activists’ secret dreams … With motions on more generous benefits, land reform, no fracking, no austerity, no Trident, when Nicola Sturgeon says SNP support would give Labour ‘backbone and guts’, a good many English Labour party members might nod in agreement.It’s everyone’s personal choice whether they speak publicly. I’ve come to a position in my own mind that it’s time someone talked about it. I couldn’t have done this five or six years ago. Our predictions for the U.K. election: http://t.co/7NSj88FMJS #GE2015 pic.twitter.com/C8W1JncRfz Continue reading...
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