General election 2017: Theresa May struggles to defend 'dementia tax' U-turn in BBC interview – as it happened

Later this morning Theresa May will be speaking at the launch of the Welsh Conservative manifesto, and some extracts from her speech have been released in advance. Often these overnight releases are fairly anodyne, but there are some interesting lines in what May will say.

• May will condemn politicians for issuing “hysterical warnings” about Brexit. And she appears to praise the Welsh for ignoring them. She will say:

Because too often in the past, ordinary working people have found the help and support they need just isn’t there.

And I know that sense of disenchantment is particularly acute here in Wales. We saw that when people here in Wrexham and across Wales chose to ignore the hysterical warnings of Labour, Plaid Cymru and Liberal Democrat politicians in Cardiff Bay, and voted to leave the EU.

In the extracts we’ve seen, May forgets to mention that she also warned people not to vote for Brexit – although, to be fair, her arguments against leaving the EU were measured, and she said the sky would not fall in if the UK did leave.

This line could also be seen as a dig at George Osborne, whose claim that Brexit would necessitate an emergency, tax-raising budget during the EU referendum campaign was also seen as hysterical. May sacked Osborne when she became PM and does not seem to feel any warmer about him now. There was a sly dig in her Times interview on Saturday, (paywall) when May, asked about the Evening Standard, now edited by Osborne, replied: “I have to confess, absolutely honestly, [I have] only ever in my life occasionally flicked through the Evening Standard.”

• She says that the UK must be represented in the Brexit talks by someone “100% committed to the cause”.

Because our future prosperity depends on getting the next five years right.

That is why we need someone representing Britain who is 100% committed to the cause. Not someone who is uncertain or unsure, but someone utterly determined to deliver the democratic will of the British people.

May, of course, voted for the UK to stay in the EU. Until recently, when asked in interviews whether she has changed her mind about Brexit and now thinks it is a good idea, or whether she still thinks it is bad idea but is just going along with it anyway, she has dodged the question, saying that because people voted for Brexit, it must happen, and that the important thing is to make it work.

But, increasingly, May is starting to sound like a true believer. In the Commons earlier this year she said that staying in the single market would effectively mean staying in the EU, a Ukip argument that no remain supporter would accept. At her press conference last week she refused to accept that Brexit was to blame for the slump in sterling that has pushed up inflation, hitting living standards; this is remain orthodoxy, and at least 90% true, but an uncomfortable fact for leave true believers to accept. And now she is saying she is “100% committed to the cause”.

• She urges people to vote Tory to stop Jeremy Corbyn being at the “negotiating table” for the Brexit talks. She mentions the prospect of Corbyn being at the “negotiating table” or in the “negotiating chamber” twice. For example, she says:

Just 11 days after that the European Union wants the Brexit negotiations to begin.

The UK’s seat at the negotiating table will be filled by me or Jeremy Corbyn. The deal we seek will be negotiated by me or Jeremy Corbyn.

There is nothing particularly new about this, because May has conjured up this image repeatedly in her standard stump speech. But today’s comments suggest she is redoubling efforts to put the image of Corbyn on the train to Brussels to negotiate on behalf of the UK in the minds of voters. If you want to know why, read this, from Lord Ashcroft’s latest account of what focus groups are saying about the election. It is from focus groups conducted in three Labour-held seats in the north of England.

Those with doubts [about Labour] – particularly those previous Labour supporters who had voted leave last year – kept coming back to one point: “I would have voted Labour as per usual but I’m not sure that gentleman is the right one to go into the negotiations on coming out.” For some distressed remainers, it hardly mattered who was speaking for Britain (“We’ll get what we’re given. We’re outnumbered, we’re in a parlous position. We’ll rue the day, whoever is leading the so-called negotiations”), but for many others, which team would represent the country was the single biggest point at stake: “That’s the main thing for me that may swing me from Labour to Conservative”; “Brexit plays a part because there’s been nothing mentioned that I’ve seen about if Labour do get in, what are their plans? At least Theresa May is putting a plan into place.”

Ukip are holding a press conference this morning, about protecting the older generation. But, as the Sun’s Harry Cole says, press interest isn’t exactly high.

I’ll post some more about it when I’ve got an account of what was said.

22 May 201704.33 EDT

Pound hit by 'dementia tax' backlash

Graeme Wearden

Theresa May already has a reputation for talking the pound down, and the Conservative party manifesto is reinforcing it this morning.

Sterling has fallen by almost 0.5% against the US dollar in early trading, falling to $1.297, having hit a seven-month high last week.

The backlash against the PM’s proposals for social care, and opinion polls showing the Tory lead narrowing to nine points, is causing some anxiety in the City this morning.

Investors are rethinking their assumption that May would secure a landslide win, giving her a stronger hand to deliver a “smooth Brexit”.

Kathleen Brooks of City Index says the pound is suffering because May’s manifesto has “gone down like a lead balloon” with core voters.

She adds:

While a nine-point lead could still give Theresa May a comfortable victory on 8 June, the fact her lead has been slashed in half in just a few days may reinforce to financial markets that her victory is not a certainty.

With three weeks to go before the election, another bad PR week for PM May and her team and the Tories’ lead over Labour could fall further into the low single figures, which could encourage sterling selling ahead of this crucial vote.

This is from Howard Archer, economist at data firm IHS Markit:

Back in early October, the pound tumbled by 1% when May announced she would trigger article 50 by the end of March this year. Sterling then suffered a mysterious ‘flash crash’ just days after the Tory party conference, where ministers signalled that a hard Brexit was likely.

Fast-forward to early January, and the pound was knocked back to just $1.21 after May insisted that Britain couldn’t hold on to parts of its EU membership. It fell further ahead of the PM’s Lancaster House speech, where she declared that Britain would leave the single market (but rallied once the speech was actually delivered).

There is more on the business live blog.

Just to make things complicated, even though the FT splash headline (see 8.38am) is using the term “dementia tax” (in recognition of the fact that this is a term that is sticking), the FT’s editor Lional Barber has tweeted an article to an FT article by Merryn Somerset Webb, the editor-in-chief of MoneyWeek, saying the plan to charge some homeowners more if the need care in their own home is not a tax.

Here’s an extract from the article.

It isn’t a tax. One smarty pants started referring to the policy online as the “dementia tax”. That’s clever, but also nonsense. A tax is a cash contribution to the state’s coffers, taken directly from your income or tacked on to the cost of something you buy. It is money to be pooled to finance the needs of the population as a whole.

This instead is simply a system that helps you pay for your own needs with your own money. Start adding “tax” to the description of everything you pay for out of your net income and life quickly gets a bit silly. You pay for your own pants rather than contributing to a hypothecated underwear fund on an annual basis. But do you feel peeved about the “knicker tax” every time you go into M&S? I suspect not.

And here is her verdict on why she backs the Tory policy.

It is a simple solution to the ongoing problem of the cost of care. It is a neat political way to marry individual responsibility and state support.

It is also an exposure of the biggest lie in British politics: that national insurance is a separate levy which is set aside to pay for this kind of thing. It isn’t. Anyone who starts a conversation about social care with “I’ve paid in all my life” needs to get this. And finally it is a happy recognition that while there aren’t many problems in the UK to which high house prices are the obvious answer, there are some. Financing social care is one of them.

In an interview with BBC Breakfast Angela Rayner also played down the significance of the Conservative attacks on Jeremy Corbyn over the terms in which he chose to condemn IRA bombing in an interview yesterday.

I think it’s a bit of a dead cat because the Conservatives know that at the moment they are on the rack, because they are trying to bring in a dementia tax which will hurt older people.

Jeremy Corbyn on Sophy Ridge did condemn the bombing (by the) IRA, he did condemn that bombing and he was quite clear about that.

Labour have got a proud record, under Tony Blair we brought about the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Jeremy has been absolutely clear, he condemns the bombing by the IRA in Northern Ireland and we want to continue to see that peace process flourish.

A “dead cat” is a distraction technique. It is a reference to a metaphor used by the Tory election strategist Lynton Crosby to describe the maneouvre.

(Not to be confused with a “dead cat bounce”, which is something different.)

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Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, gave an interview to Sky News this morning, as well as to the Today programme. (See 7.35am.) On Sky she was asked about the people Theresa May named as her dream dinner party guests in a Sunday Telegraph interview, and whether she was disappointed not to be on the list. She replied:

I’m not surprised at all. Theresa May often looks at me and sneers when I see her opposite the dispatch box, so I’m not surprised she wouldn’t want me at her dinner party, to be honest. I’m probably not posh enough.

The Conservatives are losing the battle to get people to stop calling their plans for social care a “dementia tax”. As the Independent’s Jon Stone points out, if the FT is calling it that, than that’s as good as official.

As Guardian Politics points out on Twitter, the Tories are trying to counter this using Google advertising.

Clegg says the first-past-the-post system is “loopy”. At the last election almost 4m people voted for Ukip, “and all they got for that was Douglas Carswell” (ie, just one MP).

Clegg says people have more control over their daily lives. Yet politics is still slow and archaic.

But he says he wants to speak up for politicians. British MPs make themselves available to their constituents. Compared with politicians in other countries, they spend much more time making themselves available to citizens. He hopes that does not change.

Here is Sarah Sands, the new Today editor, explaining why Nick Clegg is being interviewed.