Inside Politics: Party leaders promise veterans the earth, as Farage under pressure to pull candidates

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Monday 11 November 2019 09:00 GMT

General Election 2019: What you need to know

There are only 31 days to the general election

Well I say! Is nothing sacred? The creators behind the third season of The Crown have been accused of “quite remarkable lapses into vulgarity” for suggesting the Queen may have had an affair with her horse racing manager. Her Majesty’s former press secretary said it was “very distasteful”. Our gutter politics have witnessed so many “remarkable lapses into vulgarity” in recent years it’s difficult to know what qualifies as distasteful any more. We have the big two parties accusing each other of lying to the public, Nigel Farage considering a squalid deal to pull hundreds of his own candidates, and the SNP drawing up a tawdry “wish list” of demands in the event of a hung parliament. There’s no chance of a little decorum over the next four weeks, is there? I’m Adam Forrest, and welcome to The Independent’s Inside Politics newsletter.

Inside the bubble

Our political correspondent Lizzy Buchan on what to look out for on the campaign trail today:

Both Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn will unveil pledges to help veterans today after the campaign paused briefly to mark Remembrance Sunday. The PM will visit the Black Country on Armistice Day where he will lay out measures to help ex-service personnel into work – including tax cuts for businesses that employ veterans. Corbyn, who will be in his Islington constituency, has also announced that the Labour manifesto would contain a string of pledges to bolster working conditions for the forces and their families. And Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson will promise that veterans born outside the UK would be exempt from paying settlement fees under her party’s plans

Daily briefing

SHOW ME THE MONEY: It’s the first Armistice Day during an election campaign for almost 100 years, so the parties are making various financial promises to prove they really, really care about veterans. But the most controversial pledge is actually nothing to do with money. It would see the Conservatives amend the Human Rights Act to ban unlawful killing inquests for deaths in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Human rights lawyer Mark Stephens called it “clickbait for Tory voters”. Veterans aside, there will be no dignified cessation of hostilities today, with the row over the magic money tree set rumble on. After the Tories claimed Labour would splash £1.2 trillion over five years, John McDonnell dismissed it as a “ludicrous piece of Tory fake news” and “bad maths”. Sajid Javid insisted his party’s report contained “the numbers John McDonnell did not want you to see”. But the Tories have decided they don’t want us to see their own numbers right now – refusing to reveal the cost of their spending plans.

BABY IT’S COLD OUTSIDE: Campaigners are complaining about it being too chilly to knock on doors. But some leading Brexiteers think Nigel Farage is being too hot-heated, urging him to stand down hundreds of Brexit Party candidates. His pal Arron Banks, co-founder of the Leave.EU campaign, said the prospect of Corbyn getting the keys to No 10 should “cool egos”, while former Brexit Party candidate Philip Walling asked Farage “examine your conscience in the cold light of reason”. A conscience? Farage? Don’t be daft. Anyway, Tory MP Andrew Bridgen has reportedly been trying to broker a deal that would see Nigel politely inform hundreds of his candidates to sod off home in exchange for a promise that a no-deal Brexit remains an option if a trade deal hasn’t been reached with the EU by the end of 2020. Farage warned “the clock is ticking” on the deadline for candidate nominations this Thursday. But with the Brexit Party falling in the polls and Leave.EU threatening a tactical voting app that would tell people to vote Tory in all but a small number of Labour seats, Farage is the one under pressure to relent.

SKILLS TO PAY THE BILLS: The Lib Dems caused some tittering in Twitter over the weekend when one the party’s online ads boasted mysteriously about “skills wallets”. Nobody had a clue what it meant. Some said it might be indie-rock band, others thought it sounded like a film star from the 1940s. Anyway, Jo Swinson’s crew has finally revealed all: the party is promising £10,000 grant for every adult in England to help pay for “skills” training over the course of their career. Perhaps if the election goes especially badly for the prime minister he could re-train as a cleaner. A video has emerged showing Johnson trying to mop up floodwater at a branch of Specsavers, but making the floor far, far muckier than when he started. I know politics is a dirty business, but slopping filthy water all over someone’s shop is just ridiculous.

FEELING LISTFUL: He’s making his list, he’s checking it twice – Ian Blackford wants to know if Corbyn will be naughty or nice. The SNP’s leader at Westminster says he is drawing up a “wish list” of demands if the pre-Christmas election leads to some form of coalition with Labour. He suggested that scrapping the Trident nuclear deterrent would be on there. Nia Griffith, shadow defence secretary insisted Labour remains committed to keeping it, even though everyone knows Corbyn’s no fan of nuclear weapons. If there was to be some arrangement between a Labour-led government and the Nats, Trident would probably be a sideshow. The SNP’s true list of priorities are roughly as follows: independence, independence, independence, independence ... You get the idea.

FOOD LUDICROUS FOOD: We turn now to the latest candidates dramatically exiting stage left, never to be heard from again. Antony Calvert, standing to be Tory MP for Wakefield, has stepped aside after he said claims made about food poverty in Britain were “ludicrous”. His in-depth research involved reading an article about “a chap with two young boys bleating that he needs food banks to avoid going hungry”. He also referred to the capital as “Londonistan”, and said of female opponent’s appearance on TV: “Obviously the BBC make-up department don’t work on Sunday.” Nice chap. In the least surprisingly withdrawal since the campaign began, Labour’s Keith Vaz won’t be standing in Leicester East. The 62-year-old was found to have expressed a willingness to buy cocaine for others during an encounter with male prostitutes.

GHOST IN THE MACHINE: The Russia interference story keeps meddling its way into the headlines. Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has blamed “machinery of government” for the failure to publish to the Intelligence Security Committee (ISC) on Russian covert actions in the UK, claiming Whitehall cannot “publish things that are seen as controversial in any way” during an election. According to The Sunday Times, the red-hot document names nine Russian business people who have donated money to the Conservative party. Meanwhile, a police watchdog has denied it’s delaying a judgement on whether to investigate the PM for possible criminal misconduct over his dealings with Jennifer Arcuri while London mayor. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) told The Independent that it was still possible that the decision could be made before the 12 December poll.

On the record

“I’m not going to bandy around figures.”

Business minister Kwasi Kwarteng refuses to throw Tory spending estimates around – despite throwing around Labour ones.

From the Twitterati

“Taking back control of our laws, money, trade, standards, farming and fishing is “not Brexit”? Seriously? Try putting in the Lib-Lab-SNP alternative. Then you’ll see what “not Brexit” looks like.”

Tory MEP Daniel Hannan is among the many right-wingers urging Nigel Farage to stand his candidates down...

“It appears that the polls are showing a slow haemorrhaging of support for the @brexitparty_uk as its supporters are concerned about a @jeremycorbyn government ... @Nigel_Farage is aware and will do the right thing.”

...but Tory pollster Lord Ashcroft thinks Farage will “do the right thing”.