Election debate: reaction and analysis after Jeremy Corbyn and party leaders spar – as it happened

After her Bath Q&A Theresa May recorded a sit-down interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg. Kuenssberg tried to get her to give details of the level at which the Tories would set the cap for social care costs and how many people would be affected by the decision to means-test the winter fuel payment. But she did not get very far at all, because May just batted the questions away by saying she would consult on these issues after the election. When asked what her message was to voters who wanted answers, May said:

What I’m saying is I will listen to you. And I think that’s important. You can approach this in one of two ways: I’ve set out the broad principles for our policy. I’ve shown how we will provide a long-term, sustainable social care system for this country which we need because the system will collapse unless we do something and do it now.

But what I’m also saying to people is I want to listen to them about where that cap should be, about where we should means-test winter fuel payments, listen to voters, listen to organisations, charities and others working with older people, consult with them. I think that’s the open thing for a government to do.

At least Sam Blackledge will know he is in distinguished company. Blackledge is the Plymouth Herald’s chief reporter and he has written a candid piece about how all he got was bland waffle when he interviewed May on local issues during her visit to the city this morning. This is how his article ends:

Back at the office, we scratched our heads and wondered what the top line was.

She had and given me absolutely nothing. It was like a postmodern version of Radio 4’s Just A Minute.

I pictured Nicholas Parsons in the chair: ‘The next topic is how Plymouth will be affected by Brexit, military cuts and transport meltdown. Theresa, you have three minutes to talk without clarity, candour or transparency. Your time starts now.’

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And, while we’re back on the YouGov election model (see 1.06pm), Jim Messina, the American political consultant who is working for the Conservatives, has rubbished it:

One consequence of the YouGov election modelling (see 1.06pm) is that reporters are taking the prospect of a Jeremy Corbyn government more seriously. ITV’s Robert Peston asked him about the possibility of forming a coalition, and he did not rule it out.

When Corbyn was asked if he would put together a coalition if necessary, Corbyn replied:

We’re doing no deals, no coalitions, we’re fighting to win this election.

When Peston put it to him that he did not need to do a deal now, and that it would be after the election, Corbyn replied:

Then you’d better ask me on 9 June.

Corbyn has already ruled out forming a coalition with the SNP, but not with other parties.

That has given the Tories the excuse to put out another “coalition of chaos” press release. In a statement Patrick McLoughlin, the Conservative chairman, said:

Jeremy Corbyn has made clear that he will do a deal in order to get the keys to Downing Street. Corbyn propped up by the Lib Dems and the SNP in a coalition of chaos would be a disaster for Britain and would mean a bad Brexit deal, higher taxes, more borrowing and weaker defences.

Jeremy Corbyn has given an interview to the Guardian Sport Network, mostly about Arsenal and grassroots football. Here is the interview in full:

And this is what he said when asked if a Labour victory would be “a bigger comeback than Istanbul”.

We are coming up towards the 84th minute. We’ve got six minutes to go. We are not ahead, we are not even totally level, but we’ve got this massive bank of supporters behind us. We have the opposing team ahead of us, their supporters behind them and our supporters behind us. We’ve got the spirit from them, we’ve got the determination from them. 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, there is no extra time in elections. Ten o’clock on 8 June, polls close. Result, next day: watch out for it.

31 May 201711.16 EDT

Mark Sweney

Earlier we reported that Ofcom was considering 38 complaints from viewers who thought Jeremy Paxman’s interview with Jeremy Corbyn on Monday night was biased against the Labour leader. (See 1.06pm.)

It did not take them long. It has assessed the complaints, and decided that there are no grounds to investigate any potential breach of the UK broadcasting code.

31 May 201711.11 EDT

Severin Carrell

The broadcaster STV has predicted the Scottish National party will hold on to 50 of its 56 seats at the general election after its Ipsos Mori poll put the SNP on 43%, confirming a slump in support from similar polls in 2015, when the SNP reached 55% before the 2015 general election.

That forecast suggests the SNP will do better than other polls and even SNP insiders were predicting, with some Holyrood figures suggesting the party faces losing 15 Westminster seats. Other surveys suggested Nicola Sturgeon’s party could lose up to a dozen or more seats, in the face of a Scottish Conservative surge which pushed its vote up to 33% in one poll.

The Ipsos Mori poll, conducted before Sturgeon published the SNP’s manifesto a week later than originally planned, gave Scottish Labour a fillip, putting its support at 25% – much higher than in recent polls.

Even so, STV’s seat projection said that would not translate into any gains. It would remain on one seat, currently Edinburgh South. Scottish Labour suggested the party was finally benefiting from the Jeremy Corbyn effect elsewhere in the UK, where there has been a late surge to Labour.

The Tories were also on 25%, lower than other recent polls, but the STV seat projection put them on course to hold David Mundell’s seat of Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale and pick up six further seats at the expense of the SNP.

The SNP is yet to respond to the results, but both Labour and the Tories claimed they showed only their parties were best placed to defeat the SNP.

Jackson Carlaw, the Scottish Tory deputy leader, said:

Labour is now too weak, and with Jeremy Corbyn having confirmed he will open discussions with Nicola Sturgeon about a second referendum, they can’t be trusted to stand up against the SNP.

James Kelly, Scottish Labour’s election coordinator, said:

This is another encouraging poll which shows that increasing numbers of Scots know the only way to defeat the SNP in the majority of seats in Scotland is to vote Labour on June 8.

The survey also found a fall in support for independence, down from 50% in the last Ipsos Mori poll in March, to 47%, excluding don’t knows.

Here is today’s Election Daily podcast, with the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland and Owen Jones alongside the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush.

There was a big crowd of protesters outside the factory in Bath where Theresa May was speaking earlier, my colleague Steven Morris reports.

Steven has also been asking people what they think of May not debating Jeremy Corbyn.

Theresa May has now come up with four different reasons as to why she doesn’t need to debate Jeremy Corbyn. She managed to deploy them all as she took questions from journalists in a slightly awkward Q&A at a factory in Bath. Here they are in full.

1 - Because she debates him anyway at PMQs

This is the line Number 10 first deployed when the subject of an election debate came up, before the dissolution of parliament, and she repeated it again today.

First of all, I’ve been taking Jeremy Corbyn on directly, week in, week out, in prime minister’s questions.

2 - Because she’s more interested in meeting members of the public

Once parliament was dissolved, the PMQs answer no longer carried any weight, and at that point May started using another argument - that she would rather focus on face-to-face campaigning. When the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg asked a few minutes ago why May did not debate Corbyn, given the importance of public scrutiny, May replied:

Yes, public scrutiny is for an election campaign. That’s why taking questions from members of the public who are going to be voting on 8 June is so important. That’s what I enjoy doing during the campaigns. And I think that’s really important. That is why I’ve been doing that up and down the country.

3 - Because debates are a bit pointless

May first used this argument last month, when she took part in a Facebook Q&A. She used it again today, in response to the third question in a row from a broadcaster about why she was refusing to debate Corbyn. May said:

I think debates where the politicians are squabbling among themselves doesn’t do anything for the process of electioneering. I think it’s about getting out and about, meeting voters and hearing directly from voters.

May is actually wrong about this. This is from the conclusion of a report by academics into the 2015 election debates that investigated whether they were useful to voters.

The findings we have presented show that the 2015 TV election debates performed a crucially important civic role, reaching sections of the population least likely to be touched by the rest of the campaign; helping citizens to acquire the information they need to make meaningful choices; and thereby boosting the electorate’s confidence. Whatever their strategic effects might have been in terms of inter-party competition, the debates served democratic citizenship.

4 - Because she is too busy preparing for Brexit

Sky’s Faisal Islam was the first journalist to ask May today why she was not debating Corbyn. Here is her reply in full.

I’m interested in the fact that Jeremy Corbyn seems to be paying far more attention to how many appearances on telly he’s doing. I think he ought to be paying a little more attention to thinking about Brexit negotiations. That’s what I’m doing, to make sure we get the best possible deal for Britain.

Presumably May said this because she is because she is trying to keep the focus of the campaign on Brexit, not because she really cannot afford the time for a debate because she is busy with Brexit prep, but it is what she said.

Analysis

May might have been better advise to stick to just one explanation for not debating Corbyn instead of giving four. She managed to come up with multiple reasons without mentioning the obvious and most credible one: that it is generally sensible for serving prime ministers who are ahead in the polls to avoid debates because they have nothing to gain and everything to lose.

In adopting this approach, May is just following the policy adopted by every prime minister from the 1950s, when TV started covering elections, until Gordon Brown in 2010. It is not not a particularly brave or principled stance, but tactically it makes sense.

However, it has become more difficult for May to refuse to participate in debates than it was for prime ministers like Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair because both her two immediate predecessors, Brown and David Cameron, did do them. (Cameron only participated in 2015 reluctantly, and he ended up doing just one, with six other leaders invited, thereby diluting the impact of the Cameron/Ed Miliband contrast.)

One other point worth making: May has been taking questions from journalists regularly at her campaign events, but it is noticeable how the tone has changed. At the start of the campaign she was always treated with considerable respect. Now, as the Bath Q&A earlier illustrated, journalists, including the all-powerful broadcasters, are treating her with much more scepticism. May often responds to hostile questions by laughing. Occasionally it seems genuine, but more and more it is sounding like a nervous tic.

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31 May 201709.24 EDT

Severin Carrell

Scottish voters are becoming disenchanted with both Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May, with the popularity of both leaders plunging over the last eight months in the latest STV opinion poll.

The Ipsos Mori poll for the broadcaster gave the prime minister a satisfaction rating of -27, a hefty 43 point fall from her +16 rating in September last year.

Sturgeon, who previously enjoyable substantial popularity ratings, is now on -4, a fall of 18 points from her +14 rating last autumn. She is now the most unpopular of the five Scottish party leaders, according to these findings.

When the pollsters asked Scottish voters who would make the most capable prime minister, 42% backed May but 40% supported Corbyn, implying that Corbyn’s standing among Scottish voters had been boosted in recent weeks.

On a personal level, Corbyn had a -13 satisfaction rating, still very negative but an improvement of 13 points from his -26 last September.

Among other Scottish party leaders, the most popular was Scottish Green co-convener Patrick Harvie, who had a +12 rating, followed by Willie Rennie, the Scottish Lib Dem leader, on +6, Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson on +5, down from her previous +31 high last year, while Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, was on -2, an eight point improvement from her -10 last autumn.

Those ratings should be treated with some caution, however, because nearly everyone in Scotland has an opinion on Sturgeon and May. Not so other leaders.

Ipsos Mori data (which was not reported by STV) showed that 34% of Scottish voters either had no opinion of Harvie or did not know who he was, with 32% expressing no view of Rennie. By contrast, only 15% of voters had no opinion of Davidson. Only 4% of voters had no opinion of Sturgeon.

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