exactly. like keir starmer is a massive football fan. he likes going to football grounds. that also makes sense for them politically because of the image it projects, but he is a genuine football fan. some of them aren't always, and we did have a bit of a laugh about it on our show this morning. but the main thing we talked about this morning on the programme, not exclusively, but we talked a lot about health and social care because there's been lots of chat this week about it, partly because big plans for social care have not featured in the labour and tory manifestos, even though we know it's a huge issue for listeners and viewers and people around the country. but the lib dems, interestingly, have got...they�*ve majored on social care in health in their manifesto. and hilary gordon, newscaster — thank you for your message — says, "thank goodness we have some politicians who are proposing that all parties get together to look for a long—term solution to the nhs and social care issue. in fact, i think these issues should be above party politics because five years in power won't give enough time to find a long—term solution". and hilary there i think is responding to wes streeting — who very much wants to be health secretary in a few weeks' time — him saying, "actually, i think it might take us ten years to sort it out, but i would like to get people from across the political spectrum to sit down and work it out". now, you can say that's laudable or you can say actually it dodges the issue that they haven't come up with a really clear plan of how they'd actually change the system. well, except if you talk, as i do for many years to the doctors and the nurses, they would love to see a long—term body that didn't make it a politicalfootball, that didn't make it something that you had to decide — i'm the health secretary onjuly 5th, "i know, let's do this in eight years". those conservatives—promised hospitals have not come about, some have, but the list has been delayed. a0 new hospitals, yeah. there's delays to the to the programme, building is difficult to do and actually to take it out of politics, put it into a long—term plan would be very popular. but you lose control then of one of the biggest... the biggest spending of the uk government. you do. and also people have suggested it before, right? and i think when it comes to social care specifically, you can also make an argument and say, "look, actually there is a model there on the shelf". david cameron and george osborne had a review that came up with the system. then they didn't do it because they thought it was too expensive. theresa may then had a plan that had some merits and some negatives, but she could have done that, then ditched it because she got her majority ditched. then borisjohnson had a plan that was then also ditched. and guess what, who was also ditched? borisjohnson. exactly. so, you know, social care has been for years and years and years and years and years ducked by politicians. and there are lots of people around the country, including people who work in the nhs, who say you cannot solve the bigger problems if you don't solve social care. but the other thing that's interesting on health this morning is that the nuffield trust, which is a very well—respected health research organisation, said that neither the tory plans nor the labour plans will actually leave the nhs in a good state. they say that it would be imposing more tightness, more stretch of the cash than during the austerity years. yes. so we've asked hugh pym, the bbc�*s health editor, to have a look at what the parties are promising and if the sums add up. we've seen all sorts of pledges in the manifestos so far on improving gp services and dentistry and cutting waiting lists and better social care and so on. generally speaking, the liberal democrats and the greens have come up with more extensive plans on raising taxes to cover spending increases. but i think hanging over all the main parties, whoever forms the next government, is a huge challenge with the nhs in terms of keeping up with increased patient demand because of the ageing society and population and their needs, the need for more medical advances being converted into drugs for patients, how you pay for all that, and the need to make people more healthy. what do you do about prevention so that the nhs doesn't become overwhelmed? and actually there is an immediate challenge for whoever walks into downing street onjuly 5th. the nhs in england — budgets are really strapped in the current year. in real terms they didn't go up. some trusts are planning job cuts, including possibly even clinical posts. that is a real immediate challenge for whoever's in downing street. now, it's interesting, last time we had wes streeting on actually, not today, but the last time we said, would you tell trusts to stop sacking people if they win? and he didn't really say... he can't. he can't say that. one thing that we're trying to find the primary colours in in all of this and we majored on the fact that keir starmer put wealth creation as a headline, but when you get to the health brief in labour, and i want to come back to what hugh's just briefed us on, but when you get to wes streeting, he says, "we will use the private sector to help us tackle waiting lists" and that is quite a line crossed for some health unions and some people on the left. and wes streeting has faced criticism from within the labour camp for being someone who's talking about using private sector to reform. but i think what we're hearing from hugh here is the problems are sufficiently large that the thinking that's necessary is going to be more than will take one day of arriving in number 10. the nuffield trust are saying, "you haven't given us costs, neither of you have, equivalent to the cuts that were seen in the austerity years," which earned that phrase, the austerity years, so we know there's going to be a massive problem in health as soon as the new government can be blamed for it. whoever it is. and it's interesting that i think what's also resulted from this nuffield trust story this morning is that wes streeting while trying to sort of deal with that criticism has said what they don't get, and he said, "i've got lots of respect for the nuffield trust", but he sort of said what they don't understand or what they don't get is that the manifesto is basically a starting point. yes. it doesn't rule out future spending reviews and future spending budgets and all those sorts of things. that, however, though, gave the tories an inch in which to leap and say, "aha! that shows that actually labour is secretly planning all sorts of extra spending and all sorts of tax rises and wes streeting has just let the cat out of the bag!" which mark harper tried to then crowbar into almost every single answer in the interview that we did with him after we had spoken to wes streeting. that's not what labour is saying, but what they are saying is basically after this manifesto period, what they hope is that the economy will grow so there is more money to spend. but i just wonder if actually that little twin pack this morning of wes streeting followed by mark harper on this issue, might become the row for the next kind of 2a to 36 hours in the campaign. really? because you're then saying to me, based on your programme, what i've read in my papers, which is that less sunak from the conservatives, more tax. yes. and that's going to be my next five days. it is. and i had a very similar conversation with... i think you were referring to the tim shipman piece in today's sunday times. iam. i had similar conversations in the last 2a hours with people involved in the sort of sunak circle that they see that labour left a vulnerability with their manifesto launch by not ruling out every tax rise under the sun. but you can't rule out every tax rise under the sun. and look, and we've said before, if there's anyone who knows about raising taxes, it's the conservatives. indeed so, because the tax burden is at a record high. but their political calculation, and they believe is that labour has made themselves vulnerable and they are going to use every possible moment to keep going, "they're going to put your tax up, they're going to put your tax up". like penny mordaunt, "tax rises, tax rises, tax rises!" and of course, we have to look at these things really, really carefully, of course. so the latest wheeze is the tories saying, "aha, labour hasn't ruled out council tax rises". it's important to try to press them to find out what their plan is and they haven't ruled them out. but it's also important for newscasters to know the current tory spending plans involve council tax already going up. so these things are all, you know, the sort of crashing symbols of the campaign. we will, newscasters, endeavour to try to actually tell you what the full nuance is, which is sometimes easier said than done. yeah. no, i think we will do our best, assisted by newscasters. can i give something that's happened? it's in the rear view mirror. yeah. therefore, everyone knows what i'm going to talk about. it's not controversial. during the campaign for london mayor, it was put about by opponents of the labour mayor that he was going to consider road charging. yes, it was. it was said, ah, if you let this man in, he's notjust going to tax you for a congestion charge, which is limited hours — and i know that many people don't live in london, but bear with me — because road charging would be every time you get in your vehicle, every mile you take, you contribute to the treasury. it's a massive idea, and it happens in some places. but he had to come out to deny it because that's such a sort of travel bomb to put into the household budget, to think that, "oh, my car!" and he said, "no, we're not. this is rubbish". so, of course, i think that is a microcosm of where you could go once you start saying, "we've ruled out these taxes, what about them?" but of course, to be fair to labour at the launch, he has said, no, read my lips effectively, no rises in income tax, vat and national insurance. that's what he said. that's right. the tricky thing for labour, i think now is that they have shown on occasion that they will succumb to tory pressure on things that they would like to do or things that they don't want to say. so if you go back a few months, actually, we talked about this a lot, the £28 billion, for example. the tories went after that and after that and after that and, in the end, labour dropped it. the tories went after it after labour on vat. "will you rule out vat increases?" and they hadn't done that initially. and then labour did rule it out. they did the same with saying, "will you rule out capital gains tax on people's main homes?" and labour sort of tried on the kind of "don't be ridiculous, we're not going to get into this silly game," but then did rule it out. so the tories have sort of scented blood on this and thought this is a game where we might be able to score points. the context, of course, is that the tories are in deep trouble and they haven't got very many options. so i think they're going to keep playing this game whether newscasters think it is terrible, profitable, silly or worthwhile. and also as journalists it is, of course, worthwhile asking parties what they're going to do and what they'd rule out and what they wouldn't rule out, especially because the overall context, as you said, with the nuffield trust, is that there probably isn't going to be very much money to spend. so whoever is in government is probably going to have to look at ways of raising more cash. and also when we get into this, we will see, i think, that the polls and events and what we were talking about on the pod yesterday, just the sheer politics of it, sometimes it doesn't really matter what you're saying, the voters... i don't mean you. i would especially say me! i would include me. but there's another story in the papers today, a poll thatjust puts the conservatives down to... you have to go back to 1906, which is before i was actually born. is it? yeah! and it puts them down to 72 seats. now, that's one poll. we're not actually majoring on that, butjust it's a one poll extension. the thing is about all of this, and i promise, newscasters, we will actually play some clips from people who've been on the airwaves this morning, notjust me and paddy wagging on, the thing is, though, about this election and i've just had a couple of conversations in the last 2a hours about the polling, what it doesn't do, it's notjust that it doesn't tell you the eventual result, it doesn't give you anything like a real sense of the constant churn. you know, we've talked about this before, this sort of churn everywhere right across the electorate. there are millions of people who haven't decided what they're going to do. there are millions of people who might not even have thought about it yet. there are millions of people who might think they know what they're going to do now, but they might change their mind. and that constantly shifting picture isn't captured by a set of numbers. and also, we've got to remember, sometimes people pay for polling for particular reasons, for points that they want to try to make or the questions that they would like to be answered in a particular way, right? we shouldn't be naive about this. and i also just think the other point i wanted to make today, because of these conversations i've had in the last days, the last five years of politics have been so wild. you've just got to bear that in mind that the sort of lessons... can you apply any lessons from 2019? i don't know. can you apply any lessons from 2017? i don't know. can you look at how polling is conducted now and think that that's in any way something that you can count on? and, you know, it's a perennial question in elections how much attention to pay to polls, because you've got to be really careful they don't become actors in themselves, because they do. some countries ban them for the whole cycle. it's just i've been thinking the last five years have been so consequential and so wild and so volatile that i think, you know, wejust have to remember that, because we don't know how people are going to behave. one of the products of that perhaps, though, is labour trying to seek to be, above all else, reassuring with a capital r. although there are actually some really big things in their manifesto, but they've announced them very, very carefully over time. so when the manifesto actually launched, people went, "oh, well, there are no surprises in it," but things like their workers' rights plans, that's a really big deal. that's a really, really big thing. but because they announced the broad picture of these things ages ago, the manifesto in itself didn't kind of drop like a big surprise document. but wes streeting this morning did say, "actually, i'd love to have been more ambitious on social care. i'd really have liked to do more, but because there isn't any money," and i wonder if he was hinting that he'd had a plan that he tried to get past rachel reeves and she said, "my purse is going back in my handbag, young streeting". but anyway, this is what he said. i think in being honest with people that building a national care service is work that's a decade in the making, that's honest, and that's where the credibility comes from. secondly, if we were, for example, to introduce our fair pay agreement, that will be transformational in terms of our ability to recruit and retain the workforce, putting money directly into the pockets of people who by and large are working class women in parts of the country where we've had a low pay economy — that would make an enormous difference. well, how much will it cost, then? but i make no... just to finish this point, laura, i make no bones about the fact, of course, on social care, i would have wanted the manifesto to be more ambitious, but to get policies in the manifesto, you have to run the gauntlet of answering two fundamental questions, can the country afford this promise? and if the answer to either of those questions was no, it's not in the manifesto. and that is why when people pick up labour's manifesto as they're deciding how to vote, they should know that they can trust every single policy in there that would offer real change for our country. and they're going to build 100 new gp surgeries in england. but as i said, when the independent nuffield trust got hold of it, it wants "more of this detail, please, wes". this is good detail, very good. where is another 100 bits of detail?" but i mean, to be fair, i understand what he's telling you — "the bits i can put in are the bits that passed the rachel reeves test". interesting. and i'd love to know actually what happened there behind the scenes, so i might try and find that out in the next few days just because i'm nosy, basically. other interesting thing, though, he said about the lib dems on social care, he said, "oh, the lib dems have got some good ideas," which of course begs the question, well, if you think they're good ideas, why aren't they in your manifesto? but the lib dems have said a lot about health and social care this week. so let's talk about some of them. i've got them here. lib dems — 62 day cancer urgent referral treatment guarantee and £1 billion for radiotherapy equipment, an £8 billion package for health and social care and services, and 8,000 more gp�*s in england. this has led to questions over how long it takes to get a gp trained in time to meet the target in a five—year parliament. but we're still trying to do the briefing stage of what they're saying and we can'tjust say, "this has been said, it can't possibly happen". i mean, the parties have got to be able to say what they want. absolutely. and they're trying to sell their plans and trying to persuade people to go for them. and it's interesting, the lib dems, i mean, ed davey didn't want to engage with this, but i did ask him if in some senses they are now to the left of the labour party because they're talking about bigger tax rises and they're talking about quite a lot more public spending, going after tory seats, and it's just quite an interesting thing in its sort of concept. and ijust wonder if you think of the journey they've been on. can i ask you about that? course you can. i want to ask you, do you get the impression that ed davies' tail is wagging? yeah, he's loving it. is he? absolutely loving it. because i haven't had him in my studio. absolutely loving it. is that because he's connected with his inner ed? there's something a bit awkward about him, but all thisjumping off paddleboards and also actually going to the electorate and saying, "oh, we're going to put up taxes!" i think he loves the stunts. i think that's absolutely true. i also think, though, for lib dems like ed davey, who have been in this business for a long time, who were ministers in the government, where they were able to make decisions in the coalition and have their bums on seats in ministerial cars and actually do things that affected people's lives above and beyond being a constituency mp, which is an importantjob in itself, i think having been through time in government, then being absolutely smashed to bits at the 2015 election that they believe now that they are on course to gain a significant number of seats and they feel they're coming back to being a political force that actually has some real welly. and i think that that is something that is making them feel really good. it's interesting, though, because they still have some issues. not issues, i mean... i was going to say unresolved, not unresolved, but there are things from their record that still chase them. could i write it down on here? i haven't got a pen. i wanted to write it down there so you could see i knew in advance. oh, yeah? what was i going to say? post office. yes, the post office. and one of the things we put to ed davey this morning was lee castleton, who was one of the sub—postmasters whose life was ruined, we had a question from lee some months ago for ed davey about why, in his view, he didn't do enough when he was the post office minister. but lee this morning told us, and we showed this to ed davey, that he thinks you can't trust people if they're swinging on a rope. i mean, he said, "this looks like borisjohnson to me. i don't like it. i want you to be serious about what's going on". and so we played it to ed davey, we played lee's question to him and it was a bit of an awkward moment. i think i don't particularly like the buffoonery. - i find it very boris—esque, and i. don't think there's any need for it. it's really, really, _ really important that we trust him, and trust is never going to be built by swinging around on ropes - or paddleboarding in cumbria. trust is about engaging with the people that. need that engagement. do you think you're really taking it seriously? well, on the sub—postmasters, my heart goes out to lee and all the others who were so badly affected, and i'm looking forward to giving evidence to the inquiry, which i campaigned for to hold people to account. but in terms of the things we've been doing, the stunts, actually the real issue is engaging people, and they have done. and one of the reasons i'm so pleased to be on your programme is to talk about what liberal democrats are standing for. we're standing for health and care. we've put that at the centre of our manifesto. we're talking about the cost of living, and that's not coming up enough. people are really struggling out there. and we're talking about the environment. we're the ones campaigning against the sewage scandal, for example. and i'm determined in all the seats that we can win across the blue wall against many conservatives in the west country and so many other places, people hear about what the liberal democrats stand for from our local champions, because we could make real gains at this election. i mean, the thing is, he's on the ropes with the post office. he didn't handle these questions well, say the sub—postmasters and —mistresses when it was first brought to his attention. when he was actually in cabinet or in government, he did not have the meetings that were requested. that's the public policy problem for him. he can't go back in time and undo it. and if you are one of those broken sub—postmasters and you see him on a paddleboard in a wet suit, it doesn't play well. i can't believe how powerful that must have been for him to tackle that question. and it will haunt him. it's not going away. it's a bit like the lib dems, what they said to students with tuition fees. well, that's right. and one of the other things we asked him about this morning was the cuts to payments on the welfare system and payments to people and families with caring responsibilities and disability, because ed's talked about his son john a lot and very movingly and very openly has talked about the challenges of caring for a family member who has extra needs. and we asked him this morning if, looking back now, that he was in part of a government where they took decisions to take out money from a lot of public services, affecting a lot of people in those situations in a negative way, and he wouldn't say he regretted it. he did the sort of politician's line of, "oh, there are lots of difficult decisions to take". but i think that's the thing, lib dems can be having a great time in this campaign, and there's no question that they are, and they think that they will do well this time around, but that doesn't mean that everything that's gone before somehow won't be lingering in some voters' minds. but talking of the record, i mean, it's the tories right now that are really grappling with the record of 1a years in office and all sorts of things having gone wrong. and the labour party have sought to put that in one word — chaos. so that's how the whole thing comes full circle. they want to keep pinning the record on rishi sunak. they do. and rishi sunak keeps wanting to say, "oh, elections are about the future". and guess what? in that you have the whole issue explained about those two parties. we think there's going to be more candidates for smaller parties that are successful this time. yeah. and we have seen polls that predict greater success for the liberal democrats. so let's talk about a smaller party — plaid cymru. one of the things that interested me when i saw their manifesto launch was that the word "independence" doesn't really feature and, for me, watching from london, you understand plaid as being a party that wants to move towards independence for wales from the united kingdom. that's right. and so rhun ap iorwerth, their leader, was on the programme this morning and we asked him specifically this because in 2021 their manifesto for those sets of elections, which presumably were the welsh elections — we should change that, i'll just say. we asked their leader, rhun ap iorwerth, who was with us this morning exactly that — they used to demand a referendum on independence for wales, they now are arguing for a consultation, and as newscasters know, a consultation does not a concrete plan make. and his defence is, "look, we haven't given up on it at all, but this isn't an election where it's about that". but it's interesting because it's quite similar to how the snp have backed away somewhat from their sort of, you know, very clear strong demands for immediate decisions, immediate votes on independence. but it's interesting to see how plaid are positioning themselves, and like all of the other smaller parties, apart from reform, they're saying more money for public services, biggertaxes. and you're right, one of the fascinating things about this campaign, it's possible that the smaller parties altogether will have the biggest total share that they've ever had in a general election. it's one of the trends that we're really interested in looking out for in the next couple of weeks. so it's always important to hear from the smaller parties, but particularly at this moment after such a crazy few years, it may be that the smaller parties really clean up, and that's one of the things — the lib dems in particular — that the tories are so worried about. so when mark harper was on our programme this morning, the transport secretary, you know, he was trying to kind of manage this slightly unusual message, "don't give labour this massive majority, although we still think that we're fighting to win". i think to a lot of newscasters there's quite a lot of tension in that message, and he wouldn't resile from it, and this notion of the supermajority, which we talked about yesterday, which isn't really a thing in british politics but the tories are trying to make it a thing, but it's just interesting to see where the tories are trying to position themselves and they know they're in real trouble, but there's still, in political time, a long way to go. we say to everyone who's managed to make it this far, thank you very much indeed. it's a goodbye from her and goodbye from him. newscast from the bbc. hello there, good afternoon. for many of us, it is a bit drier and a little warmer than it was yesterday. the wind not quite so strong towards the south. still some more showers around, mostly out towards the east. some of those heavy and thundery, such as this beautiful cumulonimbus cloud, as captured by weather watcher in suffolk. but lots of sunny spells, too. still the chance of some heavy, persistent rain towards the north. and that band of rain has been sinking southwards from northern central scotland into southern scotland and northern england, taking a lot of cloud with it as we head through the afternoon. brightening up somewhat across northern central areas of scotland, some showers, remaining rather cloudy, though, across northern ireland. sunshine and showers for the rest of england and wales. most of those showers out towards the east tending to be drier towards the south. we could see highs here of 20 celsius. but along with the best of the sunshine, of course, today comes some high or very high pollen levels. as we head through this evening and overnight, that band of cloud and showery rain continues to weaken. it pushes further southwards, some clear skies towards the north of that. showers for eastern scotland, cloudy for northern ireland, clear spells, too, towards the south of that band of cloud. and where we see the clearer skies, temperatures are likely to drop back into single figures, so locally, quite a chilly start to the day tomorrow. and then on monday, our area of low pressure is pulling out into the north sea. still some showers for eastern areas of scotland down through north—east england too. in fact, the chance of an isolated shower almost anywhere. remaining cloudy across northern ireland. temperatures where we see the best of the sunshine and again, it should be largely dry out towards the south of england, could get into the low 20s celsius. but it's across southeast england where we could start the day on tuesday with some outbreaks of rain and some more cloud that will gradually clear away again. some showers developing, particularly towards eastern areas as we head through the afternoon on tuesday. it's really quite cold across the north of scotland with quite a brisk northerly wind blowing here. so temperatures remaining on the cool side, still the low 20s towards the south. and then high pressure starts to build in from the southwest, from the azores as we head through the middle of the week. always the threat of a bit of rain out towards the southeast and perhaps a bit more cloud here. and then another weather front sinks down from the northwest later, but generally, for most, a bit drier and a little warmer, so a bit more like summer. bye— bye. live from london, this is bbc news. police in hamburg have shot and severely injured a person wielding an axe ahead of today's euro 2024 match there. the euro 2024 match there. police tell the ppc the ma tried the police tell the ppc the man tried to lie to a petrol bomb. officials say it is not football related. a peace summit on ukraine closes — with the final declaration committing to ukraine's territorial integrity. they recognise that all parties are needed to end the war, but was to —— russia did not attend. israel announces an hours—long pause in military activity along a road in southern gaza — but not in the city of rafah. and princes george and louis and princess charlotte pay a father's day tribute to prince william in a post on social media. police in the german city of hamburg have shot and severely injured a person who threatened them with an axe near a fan zone for dutch supporters ahead of today's euro 2024 match between poland and the netherlands.