- Sturgeon denies English people are afraid of her
- SNP leader says election is not about Scotland’s independence
- Boris Johnson likens Sturgeon to Lady Macbeth and King Herod
- Read our morning briefing to get you back up to speed
Q: Will you insist on Scotland’s fishing minister taking the lead in EU talks on behalf of the UK?
Sturgeon says this is something the SNP has argued for for a long time.
Q: Do think the rest of the UK wants a more leftwing government than the one Ed Miliband offers?
Sturgeon says the fact that neither the Tories nor Labour are on course for a majority suggests that the public want someone different. Labour is not offering a clear enough difference to the Tories. Ed Miliband asked at the debate last week if she was saying there was no difference between him and Cameron. She is not saying that. She is just saying there is not enough difference.
Q: Would you urge people in England to vote Labour?
Sturgeon says she is not telling people in England how to vote. All she would say is that they should vote for the most progressive candidate?
.@NicolaSturgeon steps back from urging English voters back Greens & Welsh Plaid Cymru: vote for Labour candidate if s/he most progressive
Q: David Cameron is setting out what he calls “the Carlisle principle”. (See 11.28am.) What is your reaction to that?
Sturgeon says they are borne out of desperation and panic. They will be seen as an attempt to undermine the Edinburgh parliament. And it is a bit rich for a government that has racked up billions of pounds of debt to criticise a government that has always balanced the books.
Q: If Ed Miliband made his budget an issue of confidence in him, would you support that budget?
Q: If a minority government does not do what you want it to do, will you vote it out of power? Or will you just torture it for five years?
Sturgeon says she will do neither of those things.
Q: Why do you think the English are scared of you?
I don’t think they are, she says.
.@alextomo asks @NicolaSturgeon "why do you think the English are scared of you?" Answer: "I don't" "we will play a constructive role"
Q: You have had eight years in government to raise tax, but you have not done so. Can you name a single redistributive policy you have implemented in Scotland?
Sturgeon says she does not have those powers. All she can do is raise or lower the basic rate of income tax by 3p. People on the basic rate are not those with the “broadest shoulders”.
Q: Full fiscal responsibility is on the second last page of the manifesto. Will you give us full costings?
Sturgeon says even if the SNP reach an agreement on this, it would take several years for this to be implemented. It is therefore “irrelevant” to use figures from one particular year to argue that it would not work.
Q: David Cameron says it would be frightening for the SNP to have influence on the government of the UK. Could independence come about through the back door of English disquiet, not from the front door of SNP demands?
Strugeon says she has been told that Cameron would not sit on the sofa with her at the end of the Andrew Marr show yesterday.
Q: Are you now encouraging other parts of the UK to seek independence?
No, says Sturgeon.
Nicola Sturgeon is now taking questions.
Sturgeon says the SNP will always support independence.
But this election is not about independence. It is about making Scotland stronger.
As we go further in devolving powers to Scotland, we need to make sure devolution works for all the other all parts of this country too ...
Today I want to set out a new principle - you could call it the Carlisle Principle – that we will make sure that there are no unforeseen detrimental consequences to the rest of the country from Scottish devolution. For either England, Wales or Northern Ireland.
Sturgeon says abolishing the bedroom tax would release the £35m that the Scottish government currently uses to mitigate the effect of that measure.
The SNP government in Scotland would use that money to address the food poverty problem that makes people reliant on food banks.
Sturgeon says the SNP would press for 100,000 new affordable homes to be built each year.
And @theSNP will back 100,000 extra new homes & £8.70 min wage across the UK says @NicolaSturgeon, again throwing down gauntlet @UKLabour
Sturgeon says Labour has failed to commit to the money England’s NHS needs. The Tories have committed to this, but not explained where the money could come from.
.@NicolaSturgeon ups ante on #NHS UK funding by pledging a £9.5bn above inflation annual rise in funding, totalling £24bn #GE2015 @theSNP
Sturgeon says the SNP will vote for the £100bn due to be spent on Trident to be spend on education, the NHS and better childcare instead.
Sturgeon says, under her plans, the deficit and national debt would still fall each year.
But they would fall more slowly, she says.
So @theSNP moves to box in @UKLabour by backing @Ed_Miliband's 50p tax rate; bankers bonus tax; mansion tax but rejects #Trident renewal
Sturgeon says she holds out “a hand of friendship” to people in the rest of the UK.
The manifesto sets out policies for progressive change.
It is time to end the needless pain of Tory cuts.
When a policy is failing, it is time to change that policy.
Sturgeon says the SNP will make Scotland’s voice be heard more loudly at Westminster than it has ever been heard before.
Nicola Sturgeon is now speaking at the launch of the SNP manifesto.
Sturgeon arrives at back of hall to thunderous music and near-hysterical cheering pic.twitter.com/ieIyZEk59u
Here are some early highlights from the SNP manifesto.
No mention of independence in Sturgeon's introduction. Emphasis on austerity, NHS spending, and Trident. pic.twitter.com/Ga6axME0vk
SNP manifesto parks independence and moves towards "full fiscal responsibility". pic.twitter.com/yDYqFPYgka
This is the only mention of independence I can find in the #snpmanifesto. pic.twitter.com/0GSPPCikCy
The SNP would raise minimum wage to £8.70 by 2020. #snpmanifesto
Unusual design... A manifesto within a manifesto. #snp pic.twitter.com/XhwAH5C07v
There is a curious lack of Alex salmond in the snp manifesto - I can't imagine why
The SNP manifesto launch is just about to start.
So here it is: the LP sized #Westminster blueprint for @theSNP surge, with a non-MP @NicolaSturgeon on the cover pic.twitter.com/PtrDqQyTFP
Jim Murphy, the Scottish Labour leader, is planning to force through key parts of his manifesto from the opposition benches at Holyrood if Labour win the Westminster election, according to a report in the Herald this morning.
Murphy, whose Scottish Labour manifesto pledges on devolved areas include 1,000 extra nurses for the Scottish NHS and an additional 500 GPs, challenged first minister Nicola Sturgeon to “Vote against it if you dare.”
The Green party has launched its youth manifesto today. The Young Greens have 17,700 members, making them the largest youth party in the UK, they say.
The Greens’ proposals include 2,000 new young people’s centres, spending £1.1bn on youth services, getting rid of tuition fees and reintroducing the educational maintenance allowance.
Lord Mason, who as Roy Mason was a Labour defence secretary and Northern Ireland secretary in the 1970s, has died, the Yorkshire Post reports.
Death of Roy Mason leaves @LordHealey as last surviving member of Wilson's 1964-70 Cabinet @LabourHistory
Boris Johnson, the Conservative mayor of London, has compared Nicola Sturgeon to the baby-killer King Herod. Obviously, at one level it’s just hyperbole, but, still, even Johnson must have had second thoughts before hitting the keyboard with this one.
This is from his Telegraph column.
You wouldn’t get Herod to run a baby farm, would you? It would not normally occur to you to interview a convicted jewel thief for the post of custodian of the Tower of London.
You would not dream of asking a fox to look after the henhouse or a temperance campaigner to run a brewery or Attila the Hun to work as a doorkeeper for the Roman senate – and no one in their right mind would enter into a contract with a bunch of voracious weevils to protect the lovely old timbers in the tower of the local church. Would they?
It is therefore obvious to every serious political analyst that [Ed Miliband] would be in many ways the plaything of the SNP. Unless he has the support of that 40-plus bloc of Scottish secessionists, he will be stymied. If Miliband somehow manages to form a minority government, he will be peeping from Alec Salmond’s sporran like a baffled baby kangaroo. He would be the vacillating Macbeth, pushed hither and yon by Lady Macbeth, in the form of Nicola Sturgeon.
Did you see her the other night, telling him to man up, to screw his courage to the sticking place – to do what she told him to do because “you are not strong enough on your own”? The awful truth is that she is right. Without her help and her say-so, and without the support of Salmond and his troops in the Commons, there is not a single bill that Labour could get through.
Here is the poster the SNP are launching to go with their manifesto. It is going to appear on 400 poster sites in Scotland, as well as being used extensively in SNP campaign literature.
"My vow is to make Scotland stronger at Westminster": @NicolaSturgeon. Coming to a billboard near you! #GE15 #voteSNP pic.twitter.com/EMwxBwbL3o
Nicola appearing on the poster reflects her exceptionally strong approval ratings - which the latest YouGov poll in Scotland showed are increasing. 71% of people think Nicola Sturgeon is doing well as first minister, compared to just 23% who think she is doing badly. The net approval rating of +48 is a significant increase on the already high +33 recorded last month.
A remarkable 71% of people who voted Labour in 2010 believe that she is doing well.
Andrew George, who is seeking re-election as Lib Dem MP for St Ives, has said that another Conservative/Lib Dem coalition “is not going to happen”, my colleague Patrick Wintour reports. George told a public meeting:
We have had enough of it. The Tories would not want it and I am sure my party would not go for it.
The Guardian’s data and interactives team has produced this incredibly fascinating map of the UK showing exactly which constituencies are likely to change hands, based on national polling projections.
As well as digging down into the specific race where you live, you can also see some general trends across the country, such as the dogfight the Lib Dems are in in south-west England, and Ukip’s expected gains in the east.
In a speech this morning David Cameron will say that, of the 2m jobs that the Conservatives want to create over the next five years, 60% would be outside London and the south east. He will say:
I’ve always been clear, right from the start: it’s not just a bigger economy we want, it’s a balanced economy, where the success is felt from North, to South, to East, to West. I didn’t come into this to create some reckless, booming economy just within the M25. That’s what we had before ...
No more. We will back business to create two million new jobs. And this is my goal - that more than 60% of these will be outside London and the South East. That is what we’ve done in the last parliament.
Four prominent environmentalists, Jonathon Porritt, Tom Burke, Charles Secrett and Tony Juniper, have put out a joint statement backing Caroline Lucas, the Green candidate in Brighton Pavilion. They are all former directors of Friends of the Earth.
As four former directors of Friends of the Earth it would be inappropriate for us to urge everyone to vote for Green Party candidates in all constituencies around the country – though we would certainly like to refute the charge that a vote for the Green Party in any of those constituencies is a wasted vote. The Green Party’s new Election broadcast spells out the case for ‘voting true, not tactical’.
But there is one constituency where a vote for the Green Party is irrefutably not a wasted vote – and that’s Brighton Pavilion. Its MP, Caroline Lucas, is currently the only Green Party MP, and in our view it’s absolutely crucial that she is re-elected.
The SNP are launching their manifesto at the Edinburgh climbing centre.
Coming up on @BBCNews now #ge15 #voteSNP pic.twitter.com/la9ltoP0KC
Here is today’s Guardian seat projection.
My colleague Roy Greenslade has written a good blog examining how the Tory press in London is demonising Nicola Sturgeon. (See 7.05am and 9.08am.) Here’s an extract.
The Mail is withering about the SNP’s leader. “Even by her own megalomaniac standards, Nicola Sturgeon’s language on the day of her manifesto launch is breathtaking in its arrogance”. (It does not say this in its Scottish edition, which carries a different, though avowedly unionist, editorial).
The Mail believes the SNP, a party representing less than 5% of the total electorate, is “intent on destroying the UK” and that the prospect of its ruling in company with Labour “should make anyone who believes in democracy shudder”.
Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, told Sky News this morning that the Conservatives were talking up the chances of a Labour/SNP pact because their own campaign was “flatlining”.
It suits [Nicola Sturgeon’s] interests and the Tories’ to talk up all these potential deals after May 7. I think it’s a bit disrespectful and will turn the public off from this election campaign.
They want to know what we are going to do - what’s Labour’s plan for the country, what’s Labour’s plan for the NHS - before they cast their vote. If we look like we are taking their vote for granted or presuming how they are going to vote on May 7, I think it will bring politics into even more disregard.
I don't understand some of today's Coalition Maths. SNP can only block defence spending if they are willing to vote with Cons & vice versa.
Talk of voting with 'Labour rebels' to change the budget is fraudulent. Would come to nothing without support from the official opposition.
@philipjcowley missing headline Tories to join SNP in holding Labour to ransom.
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 general thoughts as the campaign ticks over its halfway point:
Labour will today launch a manifesto for disabled people, the Press Association reports.
Labour will today launch a manifesto aimed at winning over the votes of 12m disabled people, suggesting they hold the key to election victory.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Rachel Reeves said high-profile Labour pledges such as scrapping the so-called bedroom tax - or spare room subsidy - will be packaged alongside promises to include disabled people in policy committees in government.
Here is the Conservative response to the Labour NHS campaign launched today. (See 7.38am.) It’s from a party spokesman.
This marks a new low in Ed Miliband’s desperate attempts to weaponise the NHS. His credibility on health is in tatters because he refuses to fund the £8bn the NHS needs. By building a stronger economy, we have protected and improved the NHS with 9,500 more doctors, 6,900 more nurses, and 1.3 million more life-saving operations every year. There is only one threat to the future of our NHS and that is the economic chaos of an Ed Miliband-SNP government.
Good morning. I’m taking over now from Peter.
Here are today’s YouGov GB polling figures.
Update: Lab lead at 1 - Latest YouGov / The Sun results 19th Apr - Con 34%, Lab 35%, LD 8%, UKIP 13%, GRN 5%; APP -10 http://t.co/j41V7TQ2cr
Another reminder that it’s still – just – not too late to register to vote. And reasonably large numbers are still doing so.
124,000 people registered to vote yesterday. There's still time - deadline midnight tonight. http://t.co/PaHIJmfGAe pic.twitter.com/Q1j3ICOcwx
In their wisdom, someone at the Sun has decided that veteran political pundit Trevor Kavanagh’s latest column should feature arguably the most sexist illustration of the election campaign so far. And there’s been a fair bit of competition. I won’t show it directly here – it is still early on a Monday morning – but it features a heavily-cleavaged, mini-dressed Nicolas Sturgeon, Leanne Wood and Natalie Bennett fawning over an 007-esque Ed Miliband.
In case you’d forgotten, this is the 2015 election, not 1974.
Paul Mason, Channel 4 News’ economics editor, has used his regular Guardian column to flag up anoher element of the Trident debate: if the missile system is renewed, will it even be effective?
The unpalatable truth – for those who believe in nuclear deterrence – may be that four new submarines are not enough. All the things touted as alternatives to the current Trident system – cruise missiles, free-fall bombs and static silos – might be needed on top of it. Without a clear, public assessment of the new threat, nobody knows what the new minimum deterrent really is, or if it can deter at all.
For those who oppose nuclear deterrence as a concept, the challenge is to spell out an alternative doctrine to deal with the Russian threat.
The election is over and the result is in: another coalition, with one of the main parties likely to need propping up by a smaller, vehemently anti-EU group. In Finland, that is.
The Guardian’s Scotland correspondent, Severin Carrell, has some more on John Swinney’s interview on the Today programme:
Ending austerity has become the “sharp point” of the general election campaign and will be the primary focus for the SNP at Westminster, John Swinney, the Scottish deputy first minister, has told Radio 4’s Today programme.
Speaking before the Scottish National party publishes its 2015 manifesto near Edinburgh, Swinney said that fighting public spending cuts at UK level was the chief priority for the party.
The Labour party has tweeted the poster which goes with its “NHS week” focus, being formally launched later this morning.
The NHS is on life support after five years of the Tories. Cameron is planning to double the pace of cuts next year. pic.twitter.com/v72S7neJNm
The media campaign group Hacked Off has commissioned a YouGov poll which found that more than half of people believe Ed Miliband receives negative coverage in the press. A mere 17% thought he was featured positively, against 36% who believed this of David Cameron. Read the full story here.
John Swinney, Scotland’s deputy first minister, has just endured a somewhat testy interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in which James Naughtie repeatedly pressed him on whether the SNP would potentially bring down a Labour government over the issue of Trident. By my count Naughtie asked this specific question five times. On each occasion Swinney dodged it. “You’re really avoiding the question, again, and again and again,” sighed an exasperated Naughtie.
The sharp point to this election is that we have an opportunity to bring austerity to an end, and that will be the first priority of SNP MPs.
Meanwhile, not everyone is seemingly gripped by the prospect of post-election governmental chaos.
Interesting article in #CSQuarterly about the future of driving: http://t.co/a76BZZlcJw
The Liberal Democrats have launched what they’re terming a “five-point plan for teachers and parents”, which is largely just a condensed version of their existing plans for education.
.@nick_clegg announces five point plan for teachers & parents http://t.co/sNK11sfk07 #GE2015 #libdems pic.twitter.com/FopY5xktgj
Hello everyone, and welcome to another all-day chronicle of the latest election news, as we enter the second-last full week of campaigning, with all the polls still pointing towards some variant on a hung parliament. I’m Peter Walker, getting things going before Andrew Sparrow takes us through most of the day. Let us know your thoughts, whether in the comments below or via Twitter. I’m @peterwalker99, he’s @andrewsparrow.
With fixed-term parliaments, it gives parties in a minority-government situation – [where] hopefully the SNP will be in a position of influence – huge ability to change the direction of a government without bringing a government down.
There are very limited circumstances in that act where you can trigger a general election, but what you can do is build alliances to change the direction of a government on particular issues and that is what the SNP would seek to do.
THE TIMES: We will hold UK defence to ransom, SNP warns #tomorrowspaperstoday #BBCPapers pic.twitter.com/KF4HaM2O5f
TELEGRAPH: SNP's ransom note to Miliband #tomorrowspaperstoday #BBCPapers pic.twitter.com/Id6JnuyN1g
MIRROR: Your country needs you....to vote! #tomorrowspaperstoday #BBCPapers pic.twitter.com/X1efyVc9UF
On present evidence the Scottish nationalists are more likely than the Lib Dems to hold the balance of power on May 8. The SNP is a separatist party on the cusp of national power, and is not afraid to say how it would use it.
It would back Labour on cutting tuition fees, scrapping the coalition’s welfare reforms and fixing energy prices. The signs are that at the same time it would hold the UK budget to ransom with line-item deliberations more familiar in Washington.
Like the more earnest characters in Star Wars, the leaders of minor parties who are angling for a pact always promise to bring balance to the Force. In almost all cases, this is wildly misleading. If you think coalition was bad – backroom deals, cut-and-paste policymaking, good ideas lost in the quicksand between the two parties – then try the looser varieties of alliance.
David Steel’s account of the Lib-Lab pact of 1977-78, A House Divided, should be required reading. “The House of Commons did enjoy a period when it actually controlled the executive,” writes Steel. “Unless the government could muster by argument a majority, its measures could not pass.” All of which is fine, as long as the constituent parties understand and accept this transfer of power and are prepared for five years of gruelling parliamentary negotiation over absolutely everything.
The share offer will raise billions of pounds, helping taxpayers to get back the money that the last Labour government put in, and reducing the national debt. This is another example of our long-term plan in action – cleaning up the mess we inherited, dealing with our debts, rewarding hard-working taxpayers and rebalancing the economy towards investment and saving.
What is clear is that the election is close and pollsters face a number of challenges in correctly reflecting voting intention in national opinion polls. There appear to be some differences when considering survey mode, at least when considering UKIP and the sheer number of parties involved present real challenges.
Any one of them being significantly out creates a potential problem. Finally, the age old problem of potential ‘shy Tory’ voters could rear its head again whilst turnout in Scotland could also have a significant impact in the eventual result too.
Labour are only set to win about as many seats as the Tories. So why do we think Miliband must be favoured to be the next PM? Because governments aren’t necessarily formed by the largest party; the next one will be formed by whomever can cobble together 323 seats...
According to our forecast, the ‘anti-Tory’ parties – Labour, the SNP, and smaller parties like the Greens, Plaid Cymru, SDLP and Respect – are going to win 337 MPs, 14 more than they need to ‘lock Cameron out’, as Alex Salmond put it to us last month.
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