General Election Watch UK

All the latest news, stories and gossip in the run up to the UK General Election.

[General Election Watch UK @GElectionWatch]

Streeting discussing McSweeney with Starmer

[General Election Watch UK @GElectionWatch]

Did Kemi even prepare for her Today interview today? If so, how on earth did her team not pull it because she was an utter disaster.

[Beth Rigby @BethRigby]

In answer to accusations of austerity CX says: Day-to-day spending reduced by £6.1bn by 2029-30. & will now grow by an av of 1.2%/yr above inflation…against 1.3% in autumn. "Day-to-day spending will increase in real terms, above inflation, in every single year of forecast. And in the Spending Review Period, apart from the reduction in ODA…day-to-day spending across government has been fully protected" > we get the details of the spending cuts in June at Spend Review

[General Election Watch UK @GElectionWatch]

Theme for the #SpringStatement is security in an era of Global Change, then.

[General Election Watch UK @GElectionWatch]

Shame on @bbcnickrobinson and #r4today for hanging on the word of bottom feeder Rupert Soames and his evidence-free proclamations. Both CBI and Serco have such damaged reputations yet treated like Moses. Awful.

[General Election Watch UK @GElectionWatch]

Nick Robinson is humiliating Robert Jenerick by exposing his hypocrisy #r4today

[General Election Watch UK @GElectionWatch]

@elonmusk Been waiting for a tweet like this. Some takes will see this as reactionary, and that Farage now has a problem. That would be to misunderstand what is a deliberate attempt to replicate the US model here. Who is sneering at @carolecadwalla now?

[National Trust @nationaltrust]

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; Though lovers be lost love shall not;

We were honoured to welcome For Your Tomorrow – The People's Tribute by Dan Barton to Stowe Gardens this autumn for the D-Day 80 memorial exhibition.

📷Hugh Mothersole

[National Trust @nationaltrust]

The 1,475 silhouettes represent fatalities under British command on June 6th, 1944.

They include two nurses, Sister Mollie Evershed and Sister Dorothy Field, who died while helping to save 75 men from the hospital ship SS Amsterdam.

#LestWeForget

📷 Polly Stock

[Chris Giles @ChrisGiles_]

So - one of my new roles at the FT is leading a new monetary policy service (launching soon)

This is our assessment of the UK Budget

[General Election Watch UK @GElectionWatch]

@Peston Robert why not mention that Hunt was clearly setting that as a trap? But no, mention 'markets could react' instead. Can't under analyse the politics of fiscal rules. As you know.

[General Election Watch UK @GElectionWatch]

Don't get angry often but the water companies' PR man is an insufferable prick. Water companies have been creaming dividends and ruining our rivers. #r4today

[General Election Watch UK @GElectionWatch]

The big questions.

Only one answer, though - got to go early before the scones run out.

[National Trust @nationaltrust]

Half-term is here, the perfect time to catch autumn at a National Trust property.

But the big question is do you hit the café at the start or the end of your visit?

[General Election Watch UK @GElectionWatch]

@nationaltrust @southeastNT Stunning photo 🐝

[General Election Watch UK @GElectionWatch]

The cabinet being in open revolt this morning is the price Labour pay for their election strategy. @Jeremy_Hunt will be feeling pleased with himself.

[Robert Peston @Peston]

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has just told my colleague Joel that if - as expected - she increases what employers pay to the government in national insurance that would be consistent with the Labour Party's manifesto promise not to "increase national insurance".

Rachel Reeves's argument is that the party meant only the national insurance paid directly by employees, not the national insurance that employers are obliged to pay on behalf of their staff. 

She implies that we should all have been prepared for a possible rise in employers' NI because the manifesto qualifies its pledge not to increase this tax on income with the caveat that a Labour goverrnment  "would not increase taxes on working people".

In other words, Reeves is insisting that we should all have known that increasing employers’ NI could be on its way under a Labour government because - on her definition - employers' NI is not a tax on working people.

She seems to believe that a rise in employers' NI would hurt only the owners of the business.

Reeves ignores that many employers would attempt to recoup this increased employment cost by limiting pay rises.

Alternatively if Reeves' goes her seemingly preferred route of levying NI on the pension contributions made by employers for their employees, employers are bound to respond by freezing those pension contributions, or cutting them where they are above the statutory minimum.

Any such response would hurt working people. It would have a clear and harmful impact on their future pensions, their income in retirement. 

In economic terms, putting up employers' NI is unambiguously the quacking duck of an attack on working people. It only quacks slightly less loudly in politics if most voters expect all politicians to play fast and loose with the commonsense meaning of manifesto commitments.

Reeves and Starmer desperately need the many billions of pounds that would be raised from this NI rise to help fix public services. But if on 30 October they announce it, as I expect, they won't achieve their aim of restoring trust in what ministers say.

[General Election Watch UK @GElectionWatch]

@elonmusk 'Are they eligible to vote?'

[General Election Watch UK @GElectionWatch]

@RobertJenrick Political opportunism only works when it's not so blatantly obvious.

[General Election Watch UK @GElectionWatch]

@Conservatives @KemiBadenoch @RobertJenrick

[General Election Watch UK @GElectionWatch]

Reform going in strong tonight with a party political broadcast on prime time BBC One focusing on freebies and immigration