The general election is three weeks’ today, and Prince Andrew is doing his upmost to keep it off the front pages. The Duke of York fell on his ceremonial sword last night, retiring from public life over his links to Jeffrey Epstein.
Elsewhere, the Lib Dems released their manifesto yesterday, in what leader Jo Swinson hopes will be the second most important launch of her life.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Labour Party will launch their “manifesto of hope” today, calling it the “most radical and ambitious plan to transform our country in decades”. Jeremy Corbyn will pledge higher NHS spending, a second Brexit referendum, a £10 minimum wage, and free broadband for all.
And the Labour leader will promise the biggest affordable house building programme since the 1960s, with plans to build 100,000 new council homes and 50,000 social homes a year by 2024.
Boris Johnson let slip plans to cut the threshold for paying National Insurance to £12,500 - only to row back later and tell the BBC that the threshold would be £9,500 for the first budget of a Tory government, with no schedule for the further £3,000 rise.
Meanwhile a long-running tracker by pollsters Ipsos MORI has seen 60% of voters put the NHS as their number one priority in the election, ahead of Brexit/the EU on 56%.