UK will be safest in the world online… after we’ve fixed that NHS cyber attack: Five things we learned on Saturday
1. The Conservatives would make Britain ‘the safest place in the world for people to be online’. With somewhat unfortunate timing, given the massive cyber attack that hit the NHS on Friday, Theresa May outlined proposals that would compel social media companies to remove posts that people made when they were teenagers. In other policy announcements, Labour committed to keeping the triple lock on pensions and the Liberal Democrats said they would build 300,000 new homes every year.
2. Labour do not want Jeremy Corbyn caught up in embarrassing photos. Aides to the Labour leader were spotted covering up a ‘beware’ sign as Mr Corbyn walked along the beach in Lowestoft. However, his visit to the East Anglia coast was not perfect from a PR perspective – Mr Corbyn and Labour supporters got a telling off from a local cyclist for blocking the cycle lane along the Lowestoft seafront, while people at a bingo hall in Great Yarmouth were disappointed that a planned visit was cancelled at the eleventh hour. Among them was Miles Baron, the chief executive of the Bingo Association, who had made a 300-mile round trip to see the Labour leader.
3. It is not just Labour that leaks manifestos. Conservative peer Lord Dobbs, author of House Of Cards and a former special adviser to Margaret Thatcher, revealed that he had once leaked the Tories’ major policy document ahead of a general election. ‘We had a struggle over who was going to pay any notice to this, so we leaked it and we ended up on the front page,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. ‘I’m not quite sure that’s what the plan was behind this leak.’
4. Gordon Brown is making his presence felt in the General Election. The Labour former prime minister and chancellor made his second major speech of the campaign in just three days, telling an audience in Fife that levels of poverty will be higher under Theresa May than they were under Margaret Thatcher. He once again failed to mention Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn even once.
5. Even politicians are underwhelmed by the General Election campaign so far. Former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg told a Brexit conference in London: ‘It is a delight to be here on a Saturday morning in the middle of possibly one of the most listless, soulless and dreary General Election campaigns I can ever remember.’ Surely he cannot have been talking about his party leader, Tim Farron, who has already been pictured boarding a hovercraft and making jam tarts while out on the campaign trail.
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