it's the panorama special, first of all the leaders. but vicky, lib dem manifesto launch today. i remember last time we had one of these for general election. it was in a nightclub. it was a nightclub. it was, yeah. yeah. where was it this time? i love nightclubs. no, this was central london—ish. it was quite it seemed quite modern. it was modern. it was a very good space. i think they'd splashed a bit of cash on it. yeah, it was all... it was all quite slick. what did notice and this is, and i haven't asked them if this was deliberate, the colours they've used, they, they weren't using their normal gold, it was much more orangey like the old liberal days. interesting. and they do actually in the manifesto talk about their history as the liberal party and then the liberal democrats. so there's a little bit of continuity there. but vicky, i mean, as manifesto launches go, it was a pretty classic, quite retro thing, wasn't it? bunch of activists holding up placards, ed davey walking backwards and forwards, speaking without a script. yeah, that's right. i mean, i think he had his autocue speech planned. he was surrounded by liberal democrat candidates, many of them who obviously hope they're going to win their seats. you know, they're very targeted in this campaign. so i think what was interesting is this was the national message, if you like, the manifesto. he's very proud of the fact that it's very closely costed, he says. it's got lots of policies in there, very much centred on health and social care. but the reality is they're running an extremely targeted campaign, really focused on just a few dozen seats where they are second to the conservatives and feel that they are the only ones who can beat the conservatives. so it's very much, "if you want the tories out, vote for us." but this was the, the national message i suppose. and vicky, it was so interesting for me watching. i watched it live streamed on my phone at home this morning before i came into work and i thought, oh, this is interesting because actually ed davey is talking about all these policy areas and yeah, we're going to take the lib dems seriously on their own merits because in the last election they kept on getting sidetracked by this thing of they were presenting jo swinson, their leader, as their candidate for prime minister. and so every interview was like, you seriously suggesting with the electoral system we've got you guys are going to be in government and they had to spend ages kind of talking about that. yes. then before that it was always like, well, if there's going to be a hung parliament, who will you support the party with the biggest share of the vote or the biggest number of seats? and they could never get onto the message about policies. so actually it felt like going back to sort of 2010 when we asked the lib dems questions about what they actually stood for and what they would, we actually think about policy areas, but then you stood up and you asked a question about their influence in the next parliament rather than on a subject. it's that difficult thing where you obviously take all the parties seriously and you go through the manifesto. but when you've got a manifesto, i think was it 116 pages? it's very detailed. you know, you've got to be a bit realistic about this. if the current polls are anywhere near true, they're not going to get anywhere near power. so there is a question about how much influence you can have. and of course, their aim really is to become, again, the third party at westminster, because that brings with it some added kudos, doesn't it? you get a prime ministers question every week, you get more money, you get more places on select committees, so you can influence it in that way. but of course, you're not very likely going to be in coalition government or certainly not in government. and he wasn't going to make the mistake of saying, like, jo swinson, i'm the next prime minister. of course, she then promptly lost her seat. we'll dive into the details in a second. but chris, what's your take? and for example, their slogan is, "a fair deal." what's the deal? so the big focus is on the nhs, which no doubt vicky will be able to flesh out from having having been there. and then the big strategy, as vicky says, is one of real geographical targeting, not spreading themselves too thinly. and that's where the national opinion polls for the lib dems have only have so much use because actually it's about them focusing on 20, 30, 40 seats that are throwing everything at and really kind of ignoring the other 620 or whatever, 610. so it's super focused on that. then you've got this curious strategy that we've reflected on before with ed davey, which is to reflect on opposite ends of the kind of emotional spectrum. so we've had him goofing around like an embarrassing dad. that's been the recurring theme. and even today, you know, he was on a roller coaster at thorpe parkjust outside london. but at the same time, he had that party election broadcast and much of the thrust of his speech this morning talking about the brutal truth of his own upbringing and then much of his adult life. the death of his parents when he was young and indeed they were young, caring for his son, john, who's now a teenager, his wife's ill as well. and how that has informed his politics. and his argument is that's not a contradiction, that's being a 360 degree kind of human being. and then using that to sort of channel, this real focus on the nhs, coupled with this argument that he's making, that in the parts of the country where the lib dems are competitive, he is saying a vote for labour is a wasted vote. so it's sort of turning on its head the arguments often thrown in the direction of the smaller parties because in the vast majority of the seats where the liberal democrats didn't hold the seat in the last parliament but are competitive, it's the conservatives who had previously held that seat and it's the conservatives they have to overhaul. and so they need to squeeze all of the non—conservative or even anti—conservative vote into the lib dem column to give them the best chance of beating the conservatives. right, let's hearfrom ed davey, majoring on health and social care, which, as we've just heard, was a massive feature of this quite long manifesto. talk to anyone in the nhs - and they will tell you a major cause of the crisis in our health service is the crisis in social care. - right now, there are thousandsj of people stuck in hospital beds well enough to be discharged, - but unable to leave because the care they need at home or in a care home simply isn't there. - after years of conservative chaos and neglect, the scale _ of the challenge is enormous. so our manifesto doesn't shy away from that. - we are putting forward a bold, | ambitious and fully costed plan to tackle the health and care crisis from top to bottom. _ this is a manifesto to save the nhs. applause and he got lots of applause from his activists, although i noticed that actually the longest applause was later when he said, "oh, and we need to reform the voting system so that it's fairer to liberal democrats." so some things never change with that party. vicky, what's their prescription, though, forfixing health and social care? well, it's really to spend more money in some places, an extra £3] billion a year on social care. so the way they will spend that would be to make sure that care workers are paid at least £2 above the minimum wage. and that's, of course, to try and tackle the vacancies, get more people working in that sector. carer�*s allowance, an increase of £20 a week for that and also raising how much carers can earn, in addition to caring duties. there's minimums that you can earn before you start to lose money. so all of that adds up to quite a lot of money, but they're going to pay for it and they say it's costed and they say they'll pay for it by raising taxes. now, not income tax, not vat, not national insurance, but raising taxes on banks who have had some kind of tax breaks previously, social media companies, oil and gas companies, and then changes to capital gains tax as well. it's interesting reading the small print, though, on some of the health stuff. so one of the big things they said is, oh, we'll give everyone the right to see a gp in within seven days or within 2a hours if it's an emergency. 0k, having the right to do it and there being the resources available for that service to be delivered. and then what do you do if your right is not available to you? that's maybe not as dramatic as it sounds to say you've got a right to it. yeah, it's so interesting, isn't it, in this stage of an election campaign or in any election campaign, really, particularly for a party that realistically is not going to be part of government. and it would appear at this stage, as far as the polling is concerned, insomuch as we attach too much significance to it, that they're not likely to be in a place where they've been in the past, where they could hold the balance of power. that whilst, journalistically, we should be scrutinising the logic or the funding of of a policy proposal, it's the sentiment that matters more, arguably, because a savvy voter will realise that they're not going to be wrestling with how they actually deliver this in government. it's more about articulating a sentiment that a voter can either agree to or not. well, the same with their policy about people being able to see a dentist. actually, they're just saying you can see a dentist in an emergency or if you were going to undergo certain medical treatment and needed a check—up beforehand. this is not like guaranteeing easy access to a dentist for everybody, all the time, but it is highlighting what they call the dental deserts, where it's really hard for people to get any dental treatment at all. i think really the most, when you think about getting their policies implemented, they have very little chance of doing that. you know, the most likely way a policy will be implemented is if another party nicks it off them. and i think the fact that if they have costed this, you know, there might be the other parties look at some of these things and think, "oh, yeah, actually, maybe that is quite a good idea to rake in a bit more cash from taxpayers." well, especially if all the tax rises the lib dems are talking about don't superficially appear to affect anyone normal. yeah, it's like fat cats... billionaires. ..and silicon valley, so yeah. there was an interesting one on aviation tax. oh yes. which i didn't quite get to the bottom of how this is going to work, but they think that they could raise 3.6 billion by penalising frequent fliers alongside a super tax on private jet flights. but basically, they're saying if you only fly once a year for an annual holiday, for example, you wouldn't pay more. but then it goes up the more you fly. but you sort of think the logistics, the bureaucracy of an airline, knowing how this is going to happen or you have to fill out a tax form. no, you'd have to have a government sponsored frequent flyer card. like a government sponsored avios card, other frequent flyer programmes are available to see how many flights you've got. although chris, i was intrigued to see there was a mention of, of the eu in there, but in the old days when they were all like, "let's reverse brexit. let'sjust rejoin..." page 114 out of 116, i think you'll find that bit. yeah, and it's now the plan is to rebuild the relationship bolt on lots of extra things to the existing brexit deals and then, chris, rejoin the single market, but we all know that comes with all sorts of like pitfalls and conditions and yeah, potential benefits. it's so interesting because the lib dems have always made the case that they're the sort of proudly pro—european party. but when you look at the geography and the demographics of the vote that they're courting, so often it is in places, you know, which were very strongly for brexit. and then also i think there's that collective sense, i think at westminster, which may or may not be reflected beyond, of a kind ofjust lethargy about the whole topic, just not wanting to rake over this thing thatjust consumes so much energy and bandwidth and all the rest of it for so long, that there has been this sort of sense ofjust not talking about it. labour and conservatives don't really want to talk about it at all. i guess the lib dems felt, you know, as vicky was saying, "0h, we better had do, but we'll bung it towards the end and then talk about these multi—stage process that, you know, means that hopefully it's not too frightening to anyone who just thinks, "oh, for goodness sake, we can't go anywhere near that", whatever someone's view was in the first place. but at the same time, they're flashing a little bit of leg in the direction of those long standing liberal democrats who are very pro—european, who might be of the view of saying, "hang on a minute, why is there," as some critics see it, "a kind of conspiracy of silence that no one's wanting to talk about brexit," and the argument that's made about its economic impacts and all the rest of it. well, they're what's interesting is that all the parties talk about wanting more growth and that being really at the root of them not having to put up taxes if they can get growth going. now, ed davey did talk a little bit only when he was asked about this and talked about a new trade deal and they thought they could get a much better trade deal than the current government has in order to boost growth. but as you say, the party's not really willing to go there. would you like to know the answer to my little trivia teaser? oh, yeah, because i was thinking it probably couldn't be roller—coasters on the basis that the first manifesto may have pre—dated the first roller—coaster. i thought it's thorpe park. so basically — let's follow my chain of logic here, this is not like a snappy one liner. so after we launched the lived our manifesto, ed davey, so after he launched the lib dem manifesto, ed davey, as you correctly said, went to thorpe park, went on a couple of rides. the first manifesto in british politics was the tamworth manifesto, published in 183a by robert peel. robert peel's home is now chessington world of adventures, another theme park. that's the link. get it? that's never going to get there. get it? that would've almost been good, if his first home had been thopre park. yes, that would have been good. that's when i first saw the pictures on social media and i didn't know it was thorpe park. i was like, "is it chessington world of adventures?" because that would be amazing if it was. i mean, amazing to one person, me. anyway, you know what would be amazing though if is if you two listen to my new series, which is on radio four and bbc dounds starting today, it's called understand: uk election. yes, i heard a little trailer on radio four. i did, as well. yeah. so if you go on bbc sounds, type and understand the uk election and you'll get the first half of its ten parts. should we tell people, chris, that you were meant to be presenting it but you're slightly sidetracked? i, yes. i was happy to step in. yes, i was days away from starting recording and then up stepped the prime minister and that was the end of that as far as i was concerned. but that doesn't matter one jot, because the series flies. as rishi sunak was to borisjohnson in the 2019 seven party leadership debate, i am to you on bbc sounds. the stand—in. yeah, yeah. although, well actually both of them ended up in quite tricky positions. yeah, yeah. i think sort of stretching that comparison further... sounds like you going to depose, you're going to depose chris and take over. no. no, never! anyway, right. the reason i did that link was to get us into the second half of this episode of newscast, which is chewing over the half an hour sit down interview nick robinson did with rishi sunak. this is the first of a whole series of specials for a panorama programme where nick grills the party leaders. chris, my first takeaway from watching it was, was actually it happening at all because yeah, borisjohnson didn't sit down with andrew neil for his equivalent last time round. and actually rishi sunak�*s not been very present in front of the tv cameras since the end of last week. no, i mean, it has been the weekend, to be fair. true, true. but no, he hasn't. and actually, you know, as nick acknowledges in a piece he's written for the bbc news app, you know, this time all of the, i think he's doing seven party leader interviews, all of the leaders have said, yes, that they will sit down and do these near half an hour proper interrogations on prime time telly and on iplayer, where you really get a sense of what somebody stands for and what they're like when they're under scrutiny. and that's kind of the democratic process working at a point of time when people are most interested in said democratic process. and actually, the thing is with these interviews is that they are not primarily for the super aficionados. and they're not necessarily for a trio like us three, necessarily, looking for what we injournalism would describe as news lines. sometimes they will offer an insight or a revelation orjust one of those things, but that's almost really a by—product to what should be a interesting, broad, kind of interrogation of what a leader stands for and wants to do and believes in, so that the fleeting viewer, who doesn't necessarily pay much attention to politics most of the time, has a more rounded and informed view of of each person as they come to sort of making a decision. and, my goodness, we're going to get a lot of these. we're going to get nick's interviews. there's some equivalent ones going on on itv. and in fact, it was one of these very things that rishi sunak was doing on friday afternoon, not friday afternoon, thursday afternoon, when he came back from the d—day commemorations early. there's the question time interviews. there's still the bbc head to head debate coming up in a couple of weeks. i think the sun has got an equivalent too. we're going to be seeing these all over the place. but yeah, the bbc interviews along these lines with all the leaders have begun. and one of the things you will hear at the start of this interview, if you go and watch it or listen to it, is rishi sunak apologising again for leaving the d—day commemorations early. although i would argue this is a sort of an upgraded apology to the one he gave on friday when he was first asked about it. well, the last thing that i wanted to do was cause anyone, - any hurt or offence or upset, which is why i apologised - unreservedly for thei mistake that i made. and i can only ask that. i hope people can find it within their hearts to forgive me and also look at my actions - as prime minister to increase . investment in our armed forces to support our armed forces. and vicky, i know you haven't watched the interview yet, and that's you probably hearing that bit for the first time, but is my instinct right? that is a more kind of heartfelt apology than the one he gave on friday. he even says, can people find it in their hearts to forgive me? yes, i think so. definitely sounds like that, doesn't it? and also, he's drawing on whatjohnny mercer, the veterans minister, said when he gave his response last week, which was to point out what he has done for veterans. so having a veterans minister who attends cabinet. that's something he can say he's achieved to put them more at the centre of policymaking. so better prepared, i would say, is what he is. he just seemed on the back foot with it all last week, didn't he? and they hadn't really thought through what he was going to say. and it didn't sound particularly from the heart, whereas this does a little bit