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In their costings document Labour have quietly increased their estimate of how much British Broadband will cost to run. Now £579m a year in cash terms. They were previously saying £230m but they now admit that was an NPV value (so a bit meaningless for the pub finances) 
Labour have, to their credit, provided the costings for their manifesto. LibDems did too. Wonder if the Tories will (they didn't last time around)? Below are Labour's spending and revenue totals. Full doc labour.org.uk/wp-content/upl… We'll be breaking it down in today's #CampaignCheck
Pretty crucial footnote in Labour's manifesto costings document. Whlie they say nationalisations will be "fiscally neutral", the small print here admits that they might actually cost money...
Today on #CampaignCheck a look inside the Liberal Democrat manifesto. How would they manage to finance one of the biggest fiscal giveaways in modern history without borrowing a single penny? Short answer: a fair bit of financial jiggery-pokery libdems.org.uk/plan
Let's start with this. The LibDems have gratifyingly published their workings and this is the main table. In the left column is a lot of extra spending (14bn for universal childcare! 10bn on schools! 7.7bn on the NHS!). On the right is how they intend to pay for that spending...
Here's same table in chart form. Top bar is revenues. Bottom bar is spending. Somehow the LibDems manage to fund ALL their extra spending through revenues. But here's the thing, only a little over half of that revenue is what you'd traditionally call revenues (dark blue bit)...
Today on #CampaignCheck: The Liberal Democrats claim that they're now the party of "sound finance" with the toughest fiscal rules. bbc.co.uk/news/av/electi… This would be a big deal. Have they really taken the Tories' place as the party of fiscal discipline? To find out read on...
There are broadly speaking two kinds of fiscal rules. One which limits day-to-day spending/borrowing - CURRENT spending. The second kind puts limits on how much you can invest - CAPITAL spending. Before we get into the nitty-gritty, it's worth emphasising:
ALL major UK parties (Con, Lab, LD) are loosening fiscal rules this election. ALL their plans imply govt will carry on notching up deficits as far as the eye can see. Most of this new spending will be on INVESTMENT. Key differentiator for the LibDems is on current spending...
Today on #CampaignCheck we're looking at the NHS (almost certainly not for the last time) and specifically this claim from Boris Johnson: "we're investing massively in the NHS, the biggest investment for a generation". Is that right...?
In one sense, yes. Tories plan a £33.9bn increase in NHS England spending to 2023/24. More than any comparable period. But that's not saying much because it doesn't adjust for inflation. When you do, it's a smaller increase than Blair/Brown. So in real terms, the claim's wrong
But that's a good starting point for exploring another question: how does that spending increase compare historically? First, let's have a look at where we are. Here's UK health spending, inflation adjusted, since 1949, the tail-end of the Attlee govt, to today. Note austerity:
Today in @skynews #CampaignCheck we investigate whether Labour are right to claim that government spending on flood defences is heavily skewed towards London and the south-east of England.
Specific claim from Labour: "the government's planned spending on flood defences until 2021 heavily favours London and the south-east of England". And on the basis of the overall regional per head spending numbers, they're right. End of? Not quite...
Problem with this chart is it includes an exceptional slug of spending on Thames Estuary, budgeted from now til end of century. Pushes up London/SE dramatically. Bars for other regions only cover until 2021. So what let's see what happens if we only look at spending til 2021...
Today on #CampaignCheck, @borisjohnson's big pledge on policing. 20,000 new officers. How much difference will it make? On the surface, it is indeed a massive increase in numbers, tho that raises a big question: is it actually possible to recruit & train 20k officers in 3yrs?
Yes, 20,000 more police officers would bring total numbers back to the pre-crisis peak. But divide police nos by the population (a better way of measuring police strength) and even after the recruitment blitz police strength will still be BELOW levels of 80s, 90s and 2000s
After @borisjohnson has recruited an extra 20,000 police officers, rather than being at the bottom of the European league table of police strength England & Wales will probably leapfrog Romania and be just below Poland. Still a long way below the European average. #campaigncheck
Are NHS operation cancellations at an all-time high? That's the impression you might have been left with if you read this story from the Labour party today, about some FOI numbers it's gotten hold of labour.org.uk/press/foi-reve…
Labour's research shows numbers of cancellations in past 3yrs exceeded 80k. Much of that's due to staffing issues & equipment failures. But the main question this chart makes me ask is: OK but if you had bars going further back would they really show it's now an all time high?
The short answer is: no. NHS England has a database of cancellations going back to the '90s. They suggest cancellation numbers are high, but not rising exponentially. NB Labour's figs aren't 100pc comparable since they cover other parts of the UK tho not every trust/region.
