Our data editor Alberto Nardelli has summarised this week’s opinion polls and how they translate into seats in the Guardian’s projection. With two weeks to go there is very little fluctuation in the headline number. The concerted efforts of the Conservatives to warn of chaos if a minority Labour government is propped up by the SNP has not affected the polls ... yet
Robert Oxley from Business for Britain, the Eurosceptic business group, is sceptical about the claim from HSBC that it might leave the UK because of the threat of Britain leaving the EU.
Convinient for HSBC to say considering leaving for supposed 'brexit' fears when the real reason is tax (at at time when deeply unpopular)
— Robert Oxley (@roxley) April 24, 2015
In his speech Ed Miliband said the HSBC announcement showed how Conservative European policy was posing “a grave risk” to Britain’s position in the world.
By far the most important cause of our loss of influence is the position of this government, I believe, in regard to the European Union.
The threat of an in-out referendum on an arbitrary timetable with no clear goals for their proposed European renegotiation, no strategy for achieving it and a governing party riven with internal divisions over our future in the EU - including a foreign secretary who has openly advocated leaving the European Union.
I’ve got to be candid, and we have seen it confirmed again with HSBC today, I think all of this poses a grave risk to Britain’s position in the world. Of course the European Union needs to change, there are demands for it to change in almost every other member state.
Here is the full exchange when David Cameron was questioned about HSBC during the Q&A after his speech.
Q: HSBC says they’re actively considering moving headquarters out of UK. Are you concerned about this? What does this mean about London’s future as a financial centre?
Cameron: London is the world’s leading financial centre, has improved as a financial centre not least by changing the way we regulate banks so that we wouldn’t have to bail them out with taxpayers’ money in future as the last Labour government had to do. But it is an important reminder of how vital it is that we keep a pro-enterprise, pro-business, pro-employment policy in our country. We need to keep taxes low, make this an attractive place to invest. All the time I have been prime minister that is what we have been doing, record levels of invard investment coming here.
Here are the key points from David Cameron and William Hague’s speeches and Q&A.
Today we are making clear that our commitment to fairness for the voters of England will have very rapid effect.
We can do that because such fairness will not require legislation. It will need changes to the standing orders of the House of Commons, and today we are publishing the changes to the parliamentary procedures that would make English Votes for English Laws a reality.
This is not a vague promise to make this change some time in the future, this is a plan ready to be implemented.
We will table our proposals within the first hundred days after the general election.
And after consultation with the procedure committee of the House of Commons and running a pilot test of the new rules, we will fully implement our plan within the first year of the new Parliament and apply it to the budget of 2016.
He also published the proposed amendments to Commons standing orders. They run to nine pages. I can’t find them on the web anywhere. I’ve got them, but I won’t post them here because they are too technical.
The real threat to our constitution, the real threat to the UK, comes from those who will not engage with this agenda, because it is vital that English voters feel that they are getting a fair deal.
He said that, if Scotland chose to abolish air passenger duty, it would not be fair for Scottish MPs, potentially holding the balance of power, to then impose higher APD on English airports. He also said that, while Labour and the Lib Dems were happy to discuss devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, they were not prepared to discuss devolution to England.
Let me be clear about what Ed Miliband has said this morning. I’ve learnt as prime minister that it is so important in a dangerous and uncertain world that you show clarity, consistency and strength on these foreign policy issues. And I think frankly people will look at these ill-judged remarks and they will reach their own conclusions ...
The people responsible for tragedy in the Mediterranean are the criminal gangs and the traffickers who are plying this evil trade.
I have never known in that time the Labour party set out a different policy towards Libya, or to the Arab world in general. And so I would say [to Miliband] that he cannot lecture anybody about Britain’s influence in the world when the last Labour government closed more than 30 of our embassies, never had a foreign secretary visit Australia in 13 years, withdrew from Latin America, closed the language school of the Foreign Office, all things we have had to put right under this govenrment. And he cannot come to foreign policy with some ill-judged and opportunistics remarks after five years of saying very little at all.
Nick Clegg appears to have sided with the Tories over Ed Miliband and his comments about Libya. He told Radio 5 Live:
[It is] pretty distasteful to reduce this total human tragedy, hundreds of people dying in the Mediterranean, to a political point-scoring blame game. Particularly as we are now bringing politics into this, from the party that of course brought us into an illegal invasion of Iraq for which there was no planning at all for the aftermath Labour supported the invasion. It is very easy to be wise with hindsight.
Q: How could post-war planning have been better?
Miliband says he would reconvene the Friends of Libya group.
Has this issue been high up on the government’s agenda? No, it has not, he says.
Miliband is wrapping up. He says he hopes Labour’s dialogue with Chatham House, and the foreign policy community, will continue.
Q: Would you have a different policy on arms sales?
Miliband says international obligations on restrictions on arms sales are very important.
Q: Do you hold Cameron personally responsible for the migrant deaths?
Miliband says the people traffickers are to blame for the deaths in the Mediterranean.
But he is making a point about the failure of the international community, including David Cameron, to do proper post-conflict planning.
He says that Cameron said himself in the House of Commons that he was not happy with the post-conflict planning.
Q: The Tories say you are trying to politicise a tragedy.
That is nonsense, says Miliband.
Ed Miliband, at his Q&A, is now taking questions from the press. The previous questions came from Chatham House members.
Q: To what extend do you blame David Cameron personally for what happened in Libya?
Miliband says the international community as a whole bears some responsibility for what happened in Libya. After Iraq, we should have learnt about the need for post-conflict planning. But that did not happen.
But of course the people traffickers are to blame for the migrant deaths.
Q: What else would you have done in Libya?
Miliband says the key thing is focus. The British government disengaged. It should not have done that.
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