Election 2015 live: HSBC threat to leave UK shows danger of Tory re-election, says Labour

24 Apr 201509.59 EDT

Henry McDonald

Northern Ireland’s health minister has today apologised for remarks he made on the general election hustings linking gay people to the neglect and abuse of children.

During a debate in his native South Down on Thursday night the Democratic Unionist Jim Wells appeared to suggest that homosexual couples were more likely to be in unstable relationships and children were vulnerable as a result.

But Wells on Friday rowed back from his remarks and pointed out that he has been under severe personal strain with his wife ill in hospital over the last few months.

Apologising for the comments made in Downpatrick, Wells said:

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The last few weeks have been extremely difficult for me personally. I had just come from a hospital visit and my focus was not on the debate. Indeed, during the event I received several messages from the hospital.

I have listened to a recording of the relevant part of the debate. I accept that one line of what I said caused offence and deep concern amongst members of the audience and beyond.

Although the regional health minister has been coping with his wife’s illness, DUP representatives have a long history of causing offence to the local gay community. Ian Paisley Junior said he was repulsed by the marriage of an Ulster Unionist researcher to his male partner in England several years. And Northern Ireland’s former First Lady Iris Robinson, then an MP, hit out at gay lifestyles in the local media. Her anti-gay remarks came shortly before her affair with a teenager was exposed leading to her withdrawing from public life.

The DUP’s hard-line, evangelical Christian-based opposition to gay equality in areas such as marriage raises some problems for those in larger national parties at Westminster who might seek to deal with the party after the general election. However, the DUP high command has insisted any of their ‘red lines’ or core demans in propping up a minority Labour or Tory administration will not be based religious or moral issues. Instead the party’s key concerns will be on more economic aid for Northern Ireland, the protection of defence spending and supporting a government in London that will defend the union.

Here is the latest report from the Britain Thinks Battleground Britain project (pdf). As well as conducting focus groups, Britain Thinks has been asking its panel of floating voters to keep election diaries. This diary summary says there is some evidence that the criticisms of the SNP’s financial plans are having an impact on voters in Scotland.

In the wake of the IFS’ warnings about the SNP’s finances, confidence in the SNP shows some signs of wavering, even amongst our panelists who had strong convictions in the party in recent days:

“More revelations about the SNP 10 billion pounds black hole in their finances are coming out in the papers today ... It worries me. Britain has bad finances already. Voting for SNP could make it worse” (Sean, Glasgow East)

Here’s a Guardian video with a clip of Ed Miliband talking about HSBC and the dangers of the Conservatives’ approach to the EU.

My colleague Libby Brooks has written a review of what happened in the election campaign in Scotland this week. I thought we had covered most things here by Libby has, among other things, Nicola Sturgeon’s heels, a dog driving a tractor and a Solero.

24 Apr 201509.28 EDT

Ed Miliband more likely to get keys to No 10, say pollsters

Alberto Nardelli

Earlier this month we asked Britain’s leading pollsters who they thought was winning the election. Back then, with a month to go, although most said Miliband had a slight advantage, not all agreed.

However, now with less than two weeks to the election, when it comes to who will have the numbers to become prime minister, they all now believe that the Labour leader is best positioned in the polls – but in an election this close, uncertainty remains.

We asked this question of eight leading pollsters:

Based on today’s figures, who, between Ed Miliband and David Cameron, do you think is in a better position with just over a month to election day?

You can read their full answers here.

Our BritainThinks focus group’s verdict on the campaign

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 thoughts on the recent campaigning – on Ukip, the migrant boat issue, and how the media are covering the parties.

Joel Hills at ITV says on his blog that HSBC is considering moving its HQ from London mainly to avoid tax.

But Siobhan Kennedy at Channel 4 News says the HSBC announcement is “a severe blow to the Tories”.

24 Apr 201508.49 EDT

Lunchtime summary

Andrew Sparrow

• Ed Miliband has said that HSBC’s announcement that it is considering moving its HQ from London partly because of the possibility of Britain voting to leave the EU shows the “grave risk” posed by Conservative policy on Europe. (See 12.55pm.)

• David Cameron has criticised Milband after Labour suggested the prime minister is responsible for the deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean owing to failures in formulating post-conflict plans for Libya. As Nicholas Watt reports, as Labour accused the Conservatives of manufacturing the row, on the grounds that Miliband had not made such an allegation in a Chatham House speech, Cameron described the claims as rash. Speaking at a Tory rally in Lincoln, he said: “Let me be clear about what Ed Miliband has said. I have learned 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. People will look at these ill-judged remarks and they will reach their own conclusions.” Speaking to journalists after delivering a speech in London, Miliband rejected claims he was saying Cameron had “blood on his hands”.

Anyone who reads my speech would see that that is very, very wide of the mark. The only people trying to whip up a big storm about this are the Conservative Party.

I am making a very important point, I believe, about post-conflict planning in Libya. The international community as a whole, including our government, bears some responsibility for the crisis we see in Libya. I think that is undeniable.

As far as what is happening in terms of the tragic scenes of people drowning in the Mediterranean, that is a result of the people traffickers who are engaged in those issue.

• Miliband has said that Labour would spend more on defence than the Conservatives. (See 9.31am.) He made the comment in a wide-ranging foreign policy speech in which he accused Cameron of presiding over “the biggest loss of influence for our country in a generation”. He said:
  

David Cameron has presided over the biggest loss of influence for our country in a generation. And that has happened because the government he leads has stepped away from the world, rather than confidently towards it. It is an approach that has shrunk our influence and weakened Britain. And the evidence for that is all around us.

Take the situation of Russia and Ukraine. Was there ever a more apt symbol of Britain’s isolation and waning influence than when David Cameron was absent as the leaders of Germany and France tried to negotiate peace with President Putin?

• Cameron has said that a Conservative government would introduce English votes for English laws (Evel) within 100 days of taking office. In a speech in Lincoln, he said this would make the UK “stronger”. It was those who opposed these policies who were putting the integrity of the UK at risk, he said. (See 11.02am and 12.45pm)

• Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader, has said that the SNP would oppose Cameron’s Evel plans. They were in breach of the Smith commission on devolution, she said. All main parties supported the Smith commission report which said: “MPs representing constituencies across the whole of the UK will continue to decide the UK’s Budget, including income tax.” Sturgeon said:
  

What he is announcing today is firstly a direct breach of the Smith Commission proposals ... I’ve made clear on a number of occasions that if there are matters that are genuinely English only, that have no impact in Scotland, I think there’s a strong case for Scottish MPs not voting on them. The problem is there’s a lot of issues characterised as English-only issues that are anything but - matters relating to the English health service for example. Decisions taken on that have a direct impact on Scotland’s budget. I would vote against anything that prevented Scottish MPs standing up for Scotland’s interests.

• The Institute for Fiscal Studies has raised concerns about the Conservative proposals to encourage tenants in housing associations to buy their own homes. In a briefing it said:
  

There are considerable uncertainties surrounding the revenues that can be raised from sales of expensive properties, the costs of right to buy discounts and the cost of replacing sold properties. These reflect both genuine difficulties in predicting the effect of the policies and a lack of detail in the Conservative Party’s announcement.

Given this uncertainty, and the coalition’s less-than-impressive record in delivering replacement social housing under the existing right to buy, there is a risk that these policies will lead to a further depletion of the social housing stock – something the proposal explicitly seeks to avoid.

Leanne Wood, the Plaid Cymru leader, has called for the creation of a Youth Parliament for Wales and votes at 16 for the Welsh Assembly.

I witnessed at first hand the democratic revolution that occurred in Scotland last year when people there of all ages, of all backgrounds, seized back the democratic process for themselves from the establishment. I know that young people here in Wales have the same yearning to shake up the system as they had there. To young people in Wales I implore you, make your voices heard.

One way of giving these voices a platform would be the creation of a Youth Parliament for Wales - something which Plaid Cymru wholeheartedly supports.

Plaid Cymru will also make sure that next year’s National Assembly elections are the last where 16 and 17-year-olds are excluded.

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Populus has released a new poll giving Labour a 3-point lead.