UK

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak has unveiled the Conservatives’ general election manifesto – here we round up some key of the takeaways. Sunak is appealing to ‘white van man’In a manifesto of few surprises one stood out – to abolish national insurance for the self-employed within five years. For employees, the Tories also pledged a further 2p cut to NI, following on successive 2p cuts at the autumn statement and spring budget. Making the self-employed exempt is expected to affect around four million people. The manifesto also promises no increases to income tax, NI or VAT and to scrap capital gains tax for landlords who sell properties to their tenants.And trying to appeal to would-be homeowners In an effort to help people get on the property ladder the document promises a “new and improved” Help to Buy scheme. To run for three years, it would be available to those buying new-builds, worth up to 20 per cent of a property’s value and would help buyers purchase with a 5 per cent deposit. The Conservatives have also said they will abolish stamp duty on houses up to the value of £425,000. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and wife Akshata Murty at the launch of the Conservative Party General Election manifesto at Silverstone (James Manning/PA) More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak has made a last-ditch appeal to voters with tax cuts as he seeks to turn the tide of his disastrous election campaign. The prime minister pledged to cut national insurance by 2p, and scrap it entirely within five years for the self-employed, as he unveiled the Conservative manifesto in what is one of his final major throws of the dice before polling day. Labour hit back at the plans, with Keir Starmer accusing Mr Sunak of producing a “Jeremy Corbyn-style” document, “where anything you want can go in it. None of it is costed.” Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty arrive at an event to launch the Conservative Party’s manifesto More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailWatch live as Rishi Sunak launches the Conservatives’ general election manifesto on Tuesday, 11 June.The prime minister has pledged a tax break for landlords, as well as help for first-time buyers after acknowledging during a BBC interview that it has become harder for people to own their first home under the Tories.Tax cuts, such as another 2p cut to national insurance, are also expected to be in the prime minister’s pledges according to reports.Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) figures have previously showed the UK’s current level of tax burden is the highest on record.Tax hit 35.3 per cent of gross domestic product in 2022/23, a 0.9 per cent increase on the previous year, according to statistics published late last year; this ratio is forecast to grow to 37.7 per cent by 2029, with the government’s freeze on tax ratios the dominant driver.Today’s event comes after a difficult few days in the campaign for Mr Sunak, who has dismissed resignation rumours amid the ongoing criticism over his early departure from D-Day commemorations in France last week.Ahead of the launch, Labour’s Wes Streeting described the Tory manifesto as the “most expensive panic attack in history.”Labour will announce their manifesto on Thursday. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailNigel Farage has pulled out of a high-profile BBC interview as his Reform UK party faces a row over whether the UK should have appeased Hitler.The former UKIP leader was due to take part in a Panorama special with Nick Robinson, set to have been broadcast on Tuesday night. But it has been pulled from the schedule and postponed, despite Mr Farage continuing to campaign in Barnsley and Nottinghamshire.It comes less than 24 hours after it emerged one of his candidates claimed the country would have been “far better” off if it had “taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality” instead of fighting the Nazis.Ian Gribbin, who is standing in Bexhill and Battle, also described Winston Churchill as “abysmal” and praised Russian president Vladimir Putin, according to the BBC.Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, in Cawthorne, South Yorkshire, on the campaign trail. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA series of secret tapes have exposed the depth of the Tory civil war over the prospect of ditching the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).Rishi Sunak is expected to confirm in his manifesto today that he will leave the door open to leaving or trying to reform the ECHR, which was inspired by Winston Churchill after the Second World War, by vowing to put border protection ahead of the edicts of foreign courts.But a recording of justice secretary Alex Chalk speaking to Tory members at the Two Cities Conservatives reception on 20 February reveals he was opposed to the move.Justice secretary Alex Chalk warned against leaving the ECHR More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak has doubled down on his disputed claim the Labour Party will increase taxes for the average household by more than £2,000 a year after he was accused of “misleading” the public with the figure.In an interview with BBC Panorama’s Nick Robinson, the prime minister was questioned about the record level of tax increases under Tory rule since 2010, before he was asked why he was hitting out at possible Labour tax rises.“You’ve got a bit of a nerve, haven’t you, having a go at the Labour Party?” said Mr Robinson.“You’ve raised our taxes by record amounts, £93 billion, you’ve produced some figures criticised by the boss of the Treasury, criticised by the Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, criticised by the former Head of the Civil Service. And yet, you come to this interview and you repeat something that you’ve said that they all think is misleading.”Mr Sunak responded: “Because it’s right, and the choice in this election is clear, we are going to keep cutting people’s taxes, you’ll see that in our manifesto tomorrow, you’ve seen it in the announcements that we’ve already made, Labour Party are going to put people’s taxes up.”He claimed recent tax rises were due to circumstances out of his control, blaming the pandemic and Russia’s war on Ukraine.( More

Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UKSign up to our Brexit email for the latest insightDespite Vladimir Putin’s war and the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic, eight years after the vote, Brexit is among the most-cited reasons for declining public services, according to new research.Three in four Brits believe services are worse since the last general election in 2019, research by Ipsos found. A third (31 per cent) blamed Brexit as a cause – more than the outbreak of Covid-19 (27 per cent) in 2020. Head of political research Gideon Skinner told The Independent: “Our latest research highlights that three-quarters of Britons believe public services have deteriorated in the past five years, with policies implemented by the Government, rising costs and poor management cited as the main reasons for this worsening, amid perennial concerns over underfunding.“Brexit, the Covid pandemic, and staff shortages are also all seen as contributing factors – although whilst Labour and Liberal Democrat 2019 voters are more likely to blame Brexit than Covid, it is the other way around for those who backed the Conservatives at the last election.”Across the political spectrum, government policies are the leading culprits for worsening public services in the eyes of the public (45 per cent), while four in ten respondents blamed cost pressures from inflation and poor management.For Labour and Lib Dem voters, Brexit is believed to be the second leading cause of decline in public services, at 48 and 44 per cent respectively. Lib Dem leader Ed Davey announced today that he would push for Britain to rejoin the European single market, and eventually the EU, in a reversal of Brexit.Meanwhile, Labour voters are most likely to believe that public services have deteriorated in the last five years, at 86 per cent, but three in four Tory voters also see a decline.The recent Ipsos poll surveyed 5,875 individuals across Great Britain and found that satisfaction has declined for all public services in the past three years. This could affect how people vote on 4 July, said Mr Skinner.“This is particularly important in the run-up to the general election, with the NHS especially and also education key factors in how people say they will vote, and roads and transport often important local concerns,” he said.NHS hospitals have seen the sharpest drop in satisfaction since 2021, at 39 per cent lower, according to Ipsos, followed by GPs and train companies.The public is most overwhelmingly dissatisfied with provision of road maintenance and repairs, with 82 per cent of respondents unhappy.People are not happy with local councilsHalf of the public are dissatisfied with their local council – another record low and twice as bad as 2021 levels of satisfaction.Just 1 in 5 respondents are happy with the way their local council runs things, the Ipsos data found, compared to 40 per cent in 2021, and 50 per cent in 2000.Over a longer timeframe, satisfaction among people who have used council housing has plummeted from 72 per cent satisfaction in 1998, to just 20 per cent now.Despite discussions on barriers to buying a home from the Tories and Labour, the Lib Dems are the only party to commit to social housing since the election was announced.Satisfaction is also dropping off for younger-stage education, the data shows, as net satisfaction with nurseries and primary schools is down by 24 per cent since 2021.The number of teachers across nurseries and primary schools has hardly changed since 2016, according to national statistics, and in fact has slightly dropped from 222,300 teachers to 221,300 teachers in 2024.“We know that as well as concerns over funding and staff, the public particularly wants to see improvements in the availability, speed and ease of accessing services, around their accountability, and providing a minimum standard of quality across the country”, added Mr Skinner. More