Summary

  • The Conservatives launch their manifesto, with David Cameron declaring “we are the party of working people”

  • They promise an extension of the right-to-buy scheme and 30 hours free childcare a week

  • The Green Party’s manifesto launch calls for action against climate change

  • It also promises steps to “restore and extend our public services”

  • There are 23 days left until polling day

Live Reporting

Victoria King, Alex Stevenson and Bernadette McCague

  1. 'Failed economic plan'

    ShopperPA

    The TUC offers a less positive take on today's flat inflation figures - you can read our full story here. General secretary Frances O'Grady has this to say:

    “Zero inflation is a mark of the weak condition the economy has been left in by a failed economic plan. Stagnating prices are not a sound foundation for the strong and sustained pay rises that workers have been waiting years for. With the threat of deflation set to continue, the Conservatives’ plans for extreme cuts after the election look more and more like a suicide note for the UK economy.”

  2. Green manifesto: Key pledges

    Natalie BennettPA

    We're hearing the full Green manifesto is something of a weighty tome so here’s a handy digest of the key pledges:

    • Fair economy: Creating one million jobs that pay at least a living wage; a new wealth tax on the top 1%; a Robin Hood tax on the banks
    • Safe climate: Urgent action with other countries; ban fracking; invest in renewable energy
    • Public NHS: End the creeping privatisation of the NHS and repeal the Health and Social Care Act 2012; make mental health a much higher priority with resources to match this status
    • Free education: Scrap university tuition fees, promote comprehensive system of local schools offering mixed ability teaching; bring academies and free scores into the local authority system.
    • Better transport: Return railways to public hands, saving money and improving services; introduce an immediate cut in fares of 10% to give passengers a much-needed financial break; promote walking and cycling
    • Decent homes: Abolish the bedroom tax; provide 500,000 social rented homes by 2020; cap rent, introduce longer tenancies and license landlords to provide greater protection for renters.

  3. Add to the debate

    Email: politics@bbc.co.uk

    Rosie Shaw, Cambridge:

    Housing association tenants already have better security of tenure than private tenants. Giving them the right-to-buy while completely ignoring the private rented sector is utterly irrational. Lots of us in the private rented sector would never qualify for social housing (which is fair enough) but we're completely priced out of buying; why is nothing being done for us? How much would it really cost the government to improve security of tenure for private tenants?

    Can we force Theresa May to live in the private rented sector? Preferably in the grottiest house we can find. Then (legally) kick her out on two months notice when she hasn't done anything wrong.

  4. Tamara Cohen, Political Correspondent at the Daily Mail

    @tamcohen

    tweets:

    Clegg on right-to-buy: 'It's a poor cover version of one of Margaret Thatcher's 1980s great hits...and the sums don't add up'.

  5. Robert Hutton, Bloomberg

    @RobDotHutton

    tweets:

    Arriving in Swindon, we're passed by a chauffeur-driven Bentley. I sense we're approaching the Tory manifesto launch. #GE2015

  6. Nurses 'demoralised'

    Nurse's glovePA

    Unison, the public services union, has released itsannual nursing survey. The results aren’t great: safe staffing levels haven’t improved over the last year, with 65% reporting that patients are missing out on care because of under-staffing. “With not enough money to fund adequate staffing levels, nurses and midwives are running themselves into the ground as they struggle to keep the health service going,” Unison’s head of health Christina McAnea says. The union concludes nurses are now an “overstretched and demoralised workforce”.

  7. Inflation figures

    Two consecutive months of zero inflation is yet more positive news for family budgets and economic stability. We now have low inflation, record employment and strong growth. These are the ingredients that are delivering a stronger economy and a fairer society. But all this progress on the economy is at risk if we allow either a single party Labour or Conservative government to pull the economy off course. There’s never been a more important time to keep a Liberal Democrat hand on the economic rudder’."

    Danny Alexander, Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury

  8. Jess Brammar, BBC Newsnight

    @jessbrammar

    tweets:

    Green presser over. launch lasted 20 mins and they took 4 (I think) questioners and then called it a day. Told hacks to refer to PDF on site"

  9. Saving trees

    Natalie Bennett

    Natalie Bennett doesn’t sound so keen on discussing the details of her party’s proposals. Asked about pensions policy, she explains the nitty-gritty can be found online. “We are the Green Party so we haven’t given you out the printed versions,” she explains, before adding: “Going through detailed numbers at this point isn't the most useful thing.” The press conference wraps up shortly afterwards.

  10. Fraser Nelson, Editor of the @spectator

    @FraserNelson

    tweets a link to his blog:

    At last, shopping is getting cheaper - let’s not look this gift horse in the mouth. My blog on today's inflation data"

  11. Laura Kuenssberg, chief correspondent and presenter of BBC Newsnight

    @bbclaurak

    tweets:

    Green manifesto says total spending by 2019, 919bn, total revenue 898bn - so deficit bigger every year?"

  12. PoliticsHome

    @politicshome

    tweets:

    The role of smaller parties in the coming election/parliament will be "more important than ever", says Caroline Lucas of @TheGreenParty

  13. No Green coalition

    Caroline Lucas, sounding very much like a leader, says the Greens would consider supporting a minority Labour government on a case-by-case basis. "That would give us a real opportunity to push Labour on the policies that we know the public wants and are at the heart of our manifesto," she says. Top of her list, significantly, is not renewing Britain's nuclear deterrent - posing a potential future nuclear threat for Ed Miliband.

  14. Mike Robinson

    @DerbySceptic

    tweets:

    #Green Party wants to scrap the eco friendly #HS2 yet calls for action on climate change #environment #climatechange

  15. Joey Jones, deputy political editor, Sky News

    @joeyjonessky

    tweets:

    Hearing a lot about "green" (environmental) issues at Green manifesto launch. Which isn't always the case as much as one might imagine."

  16. Doing the sums

    Caroline Lucas

    "It is nonsense to say we can waste billions on new roads or HS2 but we can't afford to keep people warm in their own homes," Caroline Lucas says. She claims every £1 spent on insulation results in £1.27 being returned to the economy.

  17. Green cheers

    "Hurray!" yells an enthusiast amid applause as Natalie Bennett wraps up (this is a rather smaller affair than Labour's manifesto launch yesterday). We're on to Caroline Lucas, now, who says the Greens recognise "tackling the environmental crisis isn't some luxury". It can't be "discarded... like that extra cappuccino on the way to work". She underlines the importance of her party's home heating policy.

  18. Greens on wages

    Victoria Derbyshire

    We're the only UK party who is saying that the minimum wage should immediately be lifted to a living wage and should reach £10 an hour by 2020"

    Natalie Bennett, Green party leader

  19. Siraj Datoo, UK political reporter, Buzz Feed

    @dats

    tweets:

    Bennett says that the first past the post system represents "a politics that's left many voters disappointed or even depressed". #GE2015"

  20. Green policies

    Natalie Bennett

    The Greens' leader is rattling through her party's policies as she launches their manifesto.

    "It's really not a radical statement to say that if you work full-time it should be enough to live on," Natalie Bennett says. In a "fair economy", she insists, a living wage should be the bare minimum income acceptable.

    On the NHS, she says privatisation has meant the "shovelling of public money into private hands".

    The same principle applies to transport: "We want to bring the railways back into public hands."

    Then there's the "pressingly urgent need to create the conditions for a safer climate". Ms Bennett points out in the big TV debate she was the only leader to mention the two words "climate change".