Q: Should people listen to MPs who know you well. [Neil quotes three Labour MPs saying he should not be prime minister.]

Corbyn says the manifesto is backed by Labour. People like it. It offers them hope, he says.

People should have a look at the policies.

Q: Should people who don’t know you listen to those who do?

Corbyn says he hopes people will judge what is in the manifesto.

He says he has spent his life in politics trying to get social justice. He relishes the chance to do that in government.

He says Neil could have got quotes from people who support me.

Q: Not as many ...

That was your choice, says Corbyn.

And that’s it.

I will post a summary and verdict soon.

Q: If people want a government to cut immigration, Labour won’t deliver, will it.

Corbyn says Labour favours managed migration.

Q: Would you try to cut the numbers?

If the economy is doing well, and we are training people, then the need for foreign workers will reduce.

Q: How much would you borrow to fund your nationalisations?

Corbyn says Labour would issue bonds.

Q: Bonds are a form of borrowing.

Corbyn says the government would get an asset.

Labour would not borrow for revenue spending, he says.

Q: Don’t your plans for more business taxes risk the economic recovery?

Corbyn says 95% of people will pay no extra tax under his plans.

Q: The IFS says there is no way the Labour tax rises would only affect those at the top. They say your plans would not work.

Corbyn says the IFS did not put it in those terms.

The IFS has said Labour’s investment would bring about a better and more harmonious society.

Q: The IFS say you will bring in the highest ever level of taxation in peacetime.

Corbyn says that is not correct. Corporation tax would still be lower than it was under the last Labour government.

Q: They are talking about the overall tax take.

Corbyn says he disputes that. But the point is, we should invest to create a better society.

Q: Your defence review will include Trident.

Corbyn says it will include the role of Trident.

Q: So you could get rid of it?

It is there in the programme, says Corbyn.

Q: You are a unilateralist. Labour’s support for Trident is not credible.

Corbyn says Labour’s policy is to support it.

Q: Do you support Trident renewal?

It is there in the programme.

Q: Do you support it personally?

Corbyn says he voted against it. But the programme has been agreed.

Q: Do you support it?

Corbyn says he wants a nuclear free world.

Q: You cannot says that you personally will support it?

It is there in the programme and we will carry it out, he says.

Q: Why won’t you say you are against it?

Corbyn says he is reflecting the view Labour has adopted as a party.

Q: Two years ago you said Nato should be wound up.

Corbyn says Nato was a product of the cold war. At one point, after the Berlin Wall came down, he thought the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe should take over. But he changed his mind about that.

Q: Do you still think it is a Frankenstein’s monster, as you once said.

Corbyn says he would work with Nato.

All organisations need to be accountable.

Q: Will you be a committed member of Nato?

Corbyn says he will, to promote peace and democracy.

Q: I’ve looked at all the IRA atrocities. And not once did you condemn them. And you voted 56 times against anti-terror legislation to tackle the IRA.

Corbyn says he voted for more legal safeguards. The Prevention of Terrorism Act was eventually replaced, he says.

Q: Sean O’Callaghan, the former IRA terrorist, says you never worked for peace. You supported the outcome the IRA wanted.

Corbyn says he has never met O’Callaghan. He says he worked for peace. He says Irish constituents of his were being affected by laws impacting on the Irish.

Q: You did meet Seamus Mallon, one of the architects of the peace process. He says your name never came up in the peace process.

Corbyn says Mallon never said that to him.

Q: You supported the IRA, but now you are saying something different because you want to be prime minister.

Corbyn says he wanted peace.

Q: We have checked, and never found words from you saying the IRA should give up bombing. You are surrounded by people like John McDonnell and Diane Abbott who supported them.

Corbyn says all deaths are wrong.

Q: People watching tonight won’t know you were this close to these people. They will be appalled.

Corbyn says they will want to know that they can get a government serious about security and peace.

Q: Why would people support a leader who supported the IRA?

Corbyn says he did not support the IRA and doesn’t. He wants peace.

Northern Ireland has been a model for reconciliation, he says. We can learn from that.

Q: But you invited a convicted IRA terrorist to tea in the Commons a few weeks after the Brighton bomb. You stood in silence to “honour” - your word - the IRA. You have backed them.

Corbyn says he has always backed peace. The minutes’ silence was for all those who have died in Northern Ireland.

Q: The meeting was for the IRA. Did you urge them to give up the bomb at these meetings?

Corbyn says he always urged people to opt for peace.

Q: Did you say that to the IRA?

Corbyn says he never met the IRA.

But he accepts he met their political representatives.

Q: You are opposed to intervention. What would you do? Talk to them?

Corbyn says Isis does not come from nowhere. It does not get its money from nowhere. That needs to be chased up.

And Libya is an ungoverned space. That needs to be addressed.

Q: But Islamic State was formed before the Iraq war?

Corbyn says Isis does not represent Islam. It is a perverted form of Islam.

A wide range of opinion thinks that the Iraq war, and leaving ungoverned spaces, leaves more people prey to this form of perversion.

Q: But they are targeting girls at a pop concert because they hate us, and our values? Where is foreign policy in that?

Corbyn says he is not defending attacks. He is saying it would be unwise of any government to ignore the issue of instability, which gives a space for that kind of perversion of Islam to take hold. Barack Obama has said as much.

Q: Do you think if the UK had not followed the policy it did, the Manchester attack would not have happened?

Jeremy Corbyn says the attack on Manchester was totally wrong. But many people including Boris Johnson, the head of MI5 and Commons select committees have said there is a link between foreign policy and terror.

Q: But was Manchester a consequence of that?

Corbyn says it was a consequence of one person doing a vile thing.

He was making the point that foreign policy is relevant.

Theresa May accused Jeremy Corbyn of blaming the UK for the Manchester terror attack after the Labour leader said the “war on terror is simply not working” and that Britain needs a “smarter way to reduce the threat from countries that nurture terrorists”.

Back in 2006, before the Conservatives came to power, the party’s then leader, David Cameron, claimed Britain was more unsafe because of its involvement in the Iraq war. In December that year, Cameron launched and endorsed a Tory position paper that said:

We need to recognise that a central element of foreign policy - the intervention in Iraq - has failed in its objectives so badly that the threat to this country is actually greater than it was before it began.

The BBC has released a brief excerpt of its forthcoming interview with Jeremy Corbyn. In it, Andrew Neil questions the Labour leader on security and defence, including on the UK’s nuclear weapons deterrent, Trident.

The Labour leader says: “I voted against the renewal, everybody knows that.”

Asked if he supports the renewal of Trident, Corbyn replies: “We are going ahead with the programme which has been agreed by parliament and voted on by the Labour party.”

Pressed again over his support for the project, Corbyn adds: “Listen, my views on nuclear weapons are well known. I want to achieve a nuclear-free world through multilateral disarmament through the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.”

We return to a question about the polls: May called the election to increase her majority, is she now fighting for her job?

May says the Tories are the only party delivering Brexit and that there is a clear choice between her and Corbyn, given that negotiations are due to start 11 days after the election.

She repeats that it is “me and my team” offering “strong and stable leadership” against a “coalition of chaos” under Corbyn and the SNP.

That closes the press conference.

May is asked if Trump apologised and if the “special relationship” will endure.

She says it will and that Trump made clear the leaks were unacceptable.

My colleague Anuskha Asthana asks what level the social care cap will be set at and who will get winter fuel allowance.

May says we face a significant challenge with an ageing society, meaning we need to make the system more sustainable. She says there will be a cap but not what it is. Nor does she say who will get winter fuel allowance.

May is asked about the police cuts and the Police Federation’s claim that forces are under-funded, meaning that soldiers need to be deployed.

May says that plan to do so was well prepared for these circumstances.

The next question is about the Libya link to the Manchester terror attack - was the UK’s intervention there a success, in hindsight?

May does not address that directly, but says she wants the UN-led process to be successful.

May is now asked about backdoors in online encryption.

Pressed to answer, May says “in overall terms”, people need to feel safe and secure online. But she needs a system in which content promoting terrorism can be taken down and people responsible for posting it reported.

May is asked about 400 people who went to fight abroad returning to the UK while she was home secretary. She is asked if she was thwarted by David Cameron or if she dropped the ball.

May says she excluded more hate preachers from the United Kingdom than any home secretary before and that the issue is managed “on a case-by-case basis”.

The next question is about the Tories’ lead being cut in many polls.

May repeats her line that the only poll that matters is the election itself, as well as the one about Corbyn threatening a “coalition of chaos”. She also repeats that she offers “strong and stable leadership”.

May reiterates: we can only defeat the evil of terrorism together.

May stresses the importance of dealing with the situations in Libya and Syria, as well as denying nuclear weapons capability to Iran and working against any threat posed by North Korea.

On countering terrorism, May says the threat from Islamic State is still important and that the threat is moving online. She reaffirms her believe that tech firms have more to do to combat the threat.

She wants them to develop tools to identify and remove harmful content, as well as reporting the people who post it. It is also vital, she says, to ask foreign nations to help return and prosecute those who travelled to foreign battlefields.

Theresa May is speaking at the G7 summit right now. She says fellow leaders have shown unity with Britain and are addressing issues such as terrorism, which they all face.

Yesterday, she says, fellow Nato members reaffirmed their commitment.

The Times says its YouGov poll (see 11.07am), if replicated at a general election, would give the Conservatives a majority of just two.

But there is some better news for the Tories tonight. Two polling experts who are running sophisticated models to try to predict the election result have updated their figures and they both point to Theresa May securing a very big win.

Lord Ashcroft, a former Tory deputy chairman who is now a polling specialist, is running a model based on multilevel regression and poststratification, or MRP (don’t ask.) He says his model now implies a majority of 142.

Based on an update survey conducted at the height of the “dementia tax” controversy following the Conservative manifesto launch, the combined probabilities currently give the Tories a total of 396 seats (down from 406 last week), or an implied potential majority of 142.

The model allows us to see the likelihood of different outcomes in each turnout scenario, as shown in the graph below. If turnout next month matches that of the last general election, there is currently a 23% chance of the Tories winning a majority between 140 and 159, a 36% chance of a majority between 160 and 179, and a 19% chance of a majority of 180 to 199. If we base the model on all those who say they voted in the EU referendum – which includes greater numbers of demographic types who incline more towards Labour – the biggest probability (34%) is of a majority between 80 and 99.

And Steve Fisher, the Oxford psephologist who works with John Curtice on the BBC exit poll, has a “combined forecast” that takes account of all the systematic forecasts available, based on polling, betting and wisdom-of-the-crowds predictions. His team’s latest combined forecast is for a Tory majority of 100.

Only one poll conducted since the attacks has been published, so most of the changes in the opinion poll data, and the models that are built on them, reflect polls conducted late last week; shortly after the Conservative manifesto launch and mostly before Theresa May’s announcement of a cap on social care funding. Those polls showed a considerable tightening of the Conservative lead and so a reduction in the predicted Tory majority.

Overall, our combined forecast of the Conservative majority has dropped to 100, down from 123 last week and from 132 two weeks ago.

I’m handing over to my colleague Kevin Rawlinson now.

I’ll be back to cover the Andrew Neil interview with Jeremy Corbyn at 7pm.

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, put out a statement criticising Jeremy Corbyn’s speech quite early this morning, on the basis of the extracts released by Labour overnight and before Corbyn delivered it. The statement is quoted at 3.25pm.

Later, speaking on the Lib Dem battlebus, he offered a more nuanced view. He said Corbyn’s speech was “not the wisest” but warned that reactions to the Labour leader’s message could also be over the top.

This is the problem, the temptation is always to blame X or Y, in the middle of the election it’s petrol thrown on that bonfire.

That would work to divide us over what is an appalling outrage. Our best response is to pull together.

The temptation to seek advantage at this point needs to be pushed below the absolute requirement and duty to show leadership. You do that by magnanimity and standing together.

Corbyn had not always got it right when it came to intervention, Farron said.

If you oppose every intervention then like a stopped clock you will be right sometimes and it’s about being wise. We were vociferously in opposition to the Iraq … I think we were right and have been proved right. But nearly a decade earlier under Paddy Ashdown we made a different call, equally right, to intervene in Kosovo to stop the genocide there.

Farron is scheduled to attend a vigil at a mosque in Manchester on Friday evening.

Theresa May has had an unscheduled “bilateral” with President Trump at the G7 summit in Sicily. A Downing Street spokesperson said the two leaders had “reaffirmed their commitment to increasing trade between the UK and the US, including a post-Brexit trade deal” during the meeting.

The pair also discussed “the importance of free trade” but also the importance of ensuring that people are not left behind by globalisation.

“The prime minister and president noted that there had been strong agreement in discussions so far that the G7 should do more collectively on counter-terrorism,” the spokesperson added.

Nigel Dodds, the Democratic Unionist party leader at Westminster and the party’s deputy leader, has put out a statement saying he thinks Jeremy Corbyn’s speech shows he is not fit to be prime minister. He said:

Jeremy Corbyn is entirely wrong. Responsibility for terrorism lies where it always does: with those who carry it out.

Those who excuse, justify or celebrate terrorists only make the job of the security forces harder. They deserve our whole-hearted support, and not the persistent abuse they have received from Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott for more than 30 years.

Jeremy Corbyn has a long and shameful history of indulging supporters of both Islamist and Republican terrorism. His words today are entirely consistent with his undeniable record.

His speech reminds us again that in no circumstances is this a man fit to be prime minister.

As previously pointed out, there was nothing in Corbyn’s speech today that excused, justified or celebrated terrorism.

But Dodds, who in the 1990s was visiting his sick son in hospital when the IRA attacked and shot at the police officers guarding him, is an implacable critic of the Labour leader because of Corbyn’s long history of support for Sinn Féin and relative sympathy towards the IRA.

Various people on Twitter are pointing out that Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, has also argued in the past that the Iraq war increased the terror threat. In a debate in the Commons in December 2015 he said:

In 2003, the late and very great Charles Kennedy led the opposition to the Iraq war and he did so proudly. That was a counterproductive and illegal war, and Daesh [Isis] is a consequence of the foolish decision taken then.

Earlier today Farron said he disagreed with Jeremy Corbyn’s speech, which argues there is a link between foreign policy and terrorism, although Farron also made it clear that his main objection to the speech was its timing, not its content. (See 3.25pm.)

Guido Fawkes, who is no fan of Jeremy Corbyn’s, by any reckoning, says (correctly) that the Tory outrage about his speech today is confected.

Lord West, the former head of the navy and a security minister under Gordon Brown, told the World at One that Jeremy Corbyn was wrong to suggest that western foreign policy was to blame for terrorism. He told the programme:

I think we’ve got to be very careful when we talk about foreign wars of supporting, in effect, the radical Islamist narrative and myth.

They’ve created the narrative and myth that because we’re involved in war, that’s why there is terrorism.

On the same programme Johnny Mercer, a former army officer who is seeking re-election as a Tory MP, made the same argument. He said Corbyn was “buying into the terrorists’ narrative”. He went on:

It’s a narrative he’s played to all his political career and I’m afraid it’s nonsense.

But the Lib Dem leader Tim Farron has criticised Jeremy Corbyn for giving his speech today. Farron, who today visited the Tim Parry & Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace (set up to honour the two children killed by the IRA in the 1993 Warrington bomb), said:

A few days ago, a young man built a bomb, walked into a pop concert and deliberately slaughtered children. Our children. Families are grieving. A community is in shock.

Jeremy Corbyn has chosen to use that grotesque act to make a political point. I don’t agree with what he says, but I disagree even more that now is the time to say it. That’s not leadership, it’s putting politics before people at a time of tragedy.

Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, has defended Jeremy Corbyn’s right to speak about terror policy. Speaking in Edinburgh she said:

We must be able to have a robust debate about foreign policy, about security, about how we keep the population safe.

I’ve been a longstanding critic of the war in Iraq. The SNP did not vote for the bombing campaign in Syria because we believe that these kinds of foreign policy approaches have tended to hinder rather than help the process of dealing with the underlying problems.

We must be able to have these debates, particularly in an election campaign, without anyone suggesting in any way, shape or form that that is justifying or defending terrorist atrocities …

Foreign policy in a Westminster general election can’t be a no-go area, it must be something we have the ability to debate, and debate robustly, and I hope all of us would stand up for that principle.

It’s hot in Scotland today. Here’s the SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon getting an ice cream.

And Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, has been posing for an ice cream shot too.

Here are two more blogs on the Jeremy Corbyn speech.

• George Eaton at the New Statesman says Corbyn is proving to be a tougher opponent for the Tories than they expected.

Corbyn’s decision to give an overtly political speech four days after the Manchester attack is being widely described as a “gamble” or even a profound error. But the election will now rightly focus more closely on the issue of security – nothing should be beyond democratic debate.

Many of Corbyn’s lifelong stances, such as unilateral disarmament, do not find favour with the electorate. But there was little in his speech today that the average voter would contest. The Conservatives will hope to turn the heightened security debate to their advantage, ruthlessly quoting Corbyn against himself. But on this front, as on others, the Labour leader is proving a tougher opponent than they anticipated.

• James Forsyth at Coffee House says the speech will make it easier for the Tories to attack hom over his sympathy for the IRA.

His reiteration of the blowback theory of terrorism will cause a massive political row. The Tories, who had been reluctant to attack Corbyn too directly on terrorism in the wake of the Manchester attack, will no longer feel the need to be restrained. In the next 13 days expect to hear a lot about the anti-terrorism measures that Corbyn voted against, his sympathy for the IRA and his previous willingness to call Hamas and Hezbollah ‘friends’.

In a blog Channel 4 News’s Gary Gibbon is also arguing that Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May have a little more in common on foreign policy than either would like to admit. Here’s an extract.

Whatever Mrs May says or doesn’t say about Mr Corbyn’s speech today linking British military involvements abroad and terrorism at home, the the truth is that Mrs May watched the Libyan military involvement led by David Cameron and President Sarkozy “with her head in her hands” according to one who knows her well.

Sources close to Mrs May have long said she thought David Cameron had a buccaneering approach to military involvement and was uncomfortable with some of his judgment calls in foreign affairs. Mrs May wouldn’t sign up to Jeremy Corbyn’s speech today, even in private. But there are slightly more overlaps than the campaign rhetoric would suggest.

Here is the full text of the Jeremy Corybn speech.

The Green party has praised Jeremy Corbyn’s speech. This is from its co-leader, Jonathan Bartley.

The responsibility for terror attacks like that in Manchester lies solely with those who perpetrate these heinous crimes, but it is important to look at the wider picture too. The Labour leader is right to point to failed Western intervention as a cause of instability. Indeed when you look at the Libyan Intervention you see failure at almost every level.

If we’re going to beat terrorism we need both adequate security measures at home and a look at how Britain’s role in world affairs can have serious unintended consequences which lead to greater insecurity. Greens are united in our belief in a foreign policy built on diplomacy and peace-building and when you vote Green on June 8th you know that you’ll be voting for someone who will seriously scrutinise the march to war of any government.

Corbyn is not taking questions. That’s it.

I will post a summary soon.

Corbyn says the people of Britain need to stand together.

Today I do not want to make a narrow party political point. Because all of us now need to stand together.

Stand together in memory of those who have lost their lives

Stand together in solidarity with the city of Manchester

And - stand together for democracy.

Because when we talk about British values, including tolerance and mutual support, democracy is at the very heart of them.

And our general election campaigns are the centrepieces of our democracy – the moment all our people get to exercise their sovereign authority over their representatives

Rallies, debates, campaigning in the marketplaces, knocking on doors, listening to people on the streets, at their workplaces and in their homes – all the arts of peaceful persuasion and discussion - are the stuff of our campaigns.

They all remind us that our government is not chosen at an autocrats’ whim or by religious decree and never cowed by a terrorist’s bomb.

Indeed, carrying on as normal is an act of defiance – democratic defiance – of those who do reject our commitment to democratic freedoms.

Corbyn says no government can prevent every terrorist attack.

But the responsibility of government is to minimise that chance, to ensure the police have the resources they need, that our foreign policy reduces rather than increases the threat to this country, and that at home we never surrender the freedoms we have won, and that terrorists are so determined to take away.

Too often government has got it wrong on all three counts and insecurity is growing as a result. Whoever you decide should lead the next government must do better.

Corbyn says he has a message for soldiers who have been deployed on the streets of Britain this week.

You are doing your duty as you have done so many times before.

I want to assure you that, under my leadership, you will only be deployed abroad when there is a clear need and only when there is a plan and you have the resources to do your job to secure an outcome that delivers lasting peace.

That is my commitment to our armed services.

Corbyn says the war on terror “is simply not working”.

Corbyn says Labour would be willing to spent more money on public services to keep people safe.

And he says there has been a link between foreign policy and terrorism.

This is the section Labour released overnight. See 8.41am.

Corbyn says terrorists are trying to divide us.

Terrorists and their atrocious acts of cruelty and depravity will never divide us and will never prevail.

They didn’t in Westminster two months ago. They didn’t when Jo Cox was murdered a year ago. They didn’t in London on 7/7. The awe-inspiring response of the people of Manchester, and their inspirational acts of heroism and kindness, are a living demonstration that they will fail again.

But these vicious and contemptible acts do cause profound pain and suffering, and, among a tiny minority, they are used as an opportunity to try to turn communities against each other.

So let us all be clear, the man who unleashed carnage on Manchester, targeting the young and many young girls in particular, is no more representative of Muslims, than the murderer of Jo Cox spoke for anyone else.

Corbyn praises those in Manchester who helped the victims of the bombing.

The people who we ask to protect us and care for us in the emergency services, who yet again did our country proud: the police; firefighters and paramedics; the nurses and doctors; people who never let us down and deserve all the support we can give them.

And the people who did their best to help on that dreadful Monday night – the homeless men who rushed towards the carnage to comfort the dying, the taxi drivers who took the stranded home for free, the local people who offered comfort, and even their homes, to the teenagers who couldn’t find their parents.

They are the people of Manchester. But we know that attacks, such as the one at the Manchester Arena, could have happened anywhere and that the people in any city, town or village in Britain would have responded in the same way.

It is these people who are the strength and the heart of our society. They are the country we love and the country we seek to serve.

That is the solidarity that defines our United Kingdom. That is the country I meet on the streets every day; the human warmth, the basic decency and kindness.

It is our compassion that defines the Britain I love. And it is compassion that the bereaved families need most of all at this time. To them I say: the whole country reaches out its arms to you and will be here for you not just this week, but in the weeks and years to come.

Corbyn starts by talking about the Manchester Arena attack. He condemns the attack, but he says the rally in Manchester afterwards was inspiring.

As Claire mentioned in her briefing, the Times has a remarkable poll today showing the Tory lead down to five points. It suggests that Theresa May and her party have been badly damaged by the row about the Tory manifesto plans for social care, which triggered an unprecedented U-turn.

Here are the key figures.

Here is an extract from Sam Coates’ story in today’s Times (paywall).

At the start of the election campaign Mrs May had personal approval ratings of 10 per cent. They dropped into negative territory for the first time on Monday, reaching minus 7 per cent, before returning to plus 1 per cent in yesterday’s poll. Mr Corbyn’s ratings began on minus 42 per cent and peaked on Monday at minus 11 per cent, dropping to minus 16 per cent yesterday. The parties are almost neck and neck in terms of how favourably they are regarded, with Labour on minus 8 per cent and the Conservatives on minus 7 per cent. YouGov interviewed 2,052 adults on Wednesday and yesterday.

On the YouGov website Anthony Wells, one of the firm’s directors, has written a blog explaining the figures in more detail. He says that although initially it might look as if the Manchester Arena attack explains the fall in Tory support, a close look at the data suggests that the social care U-turn was to blame. YouGov’s last state of the parties poll was carried out on Thursday and Friday last week, before the Tory social care row fully erupted. It has not done a new state of the parties poll until now. But Wells said that YouGov did carry out a favourability poll on Monday, assessing attitudes towards parties and their leaders, and that suggests that by then the damage to May’s standing, and to the Conservatives’, had been done. YouGov then asked about favourability again on Wednesday and Thursday, and those figures show May and the Tories have recovered a bit following the Manchester attack.

This chart suggests the manifesto launches inflicting serious damage on the reputation of May and her party.

And this chart, which shows the favourability figures going back to August last year, not just to April (as in the chart above), puts the fall in context. May’s lead over Corbyn has been slashed. In April she had a net favourability lead over Corbyn of +52. On Monday it was down to +3, on these YouGov figures, but it has now crept up to +17.

That’s still a hefty lead. But it is nothing like the overwhelming reputational advantage she used to enjoy.

Here is the IFS presentation with the charts on the manifesto plans for public spending (pdf).

And here are two of the key charts.

School spending plans compared.

Health spending plans compared.

In his opening statement (pdf) Carl Emmerson, the IFS deputy director, said there was a good chance the Tories would have to raise taxes, in ways they have not announced, if they win the election. He said:

[The Conservative plans mean] another parliament of austerity for the public services, including an incredibly challenging period for the NHS and real cuts to per pupil funding in schools. It is not clear that this would be deliverable. Barely two months after the 2015 general election they announced spending plans that were less tight than set out in their manifesto. Maybe they would do that again. I would also not bet against a Conservative government finding some additional tax raising measures.

He said the deficit would be £37bn more in 2021-22 under Labour plans than it would be under Tory plans.

Here are the charts from the IFS briefing on tax and benefit policies (pdf).

And here are some of the key ones.

A summary of how Labour would raise tax.

The distributional impact of tax and benefit changes already in the pipeline (ie, due to take effect after the election.)

And the distributional impact of tax and benefit changes already planned (the green line) compared to what would happen under Tory, Labour and Lib Dem plans.

The former Scottish Green party leader Robin Harper has taken the unusual step of endorsing Ian Murray, the Labour candidate defending the party’s only Scottish Commons seat, in the largely affluent constituency of Edinburgh South.

In a sign that tactical vote-switching is influencing key contests along constitutional lines for often complex reasons in Scotland, Harper said he was backing Murray as he too was a unionist, pro-UK voter and wanted to prevent a Scottish National party win in the seat.

Harper has the distinction of being the first Green parliamentarian elected in the UK. He won the party’s first and only seat in the first Scottish parliament in 1999, before the Greens won seven seats in 2003, and stepped down at the 2011 Holyrood election.

Harper’s stance conflicts with the Scottish Greens formal policy of backing independence, and it has backed the SNP in key votes at Holyrood. Yet it fits a trend to see this seat as a straight Labour-SNP contest. Murray had a 5.5% lead over the SNP in 2015, and despite the Scottish Tory surge in other seats, Conservative strategists say Tory-leaning voters are backing Murray heavily on an anti-SNP ticket.

The Scottish Greens are contesting only three seats this election, blaming a shortage of time and finances. In a Guardian interview last week, Patrick Harvie, Harper’s successor as leader of the Scottish Greens in Holyrood, openly endorsed Murray because that best fitted Harvie’s objectives of preventing the Tories from winning Scottish seats.

Harper said he was backing Murray as an individual:

My party, the Greens, has decided not to stand a candidate in this unnecessary election to save resources. For myself, as a unionist as well as a Green, I have little option but to vote Labour or Liberal.

You can read the text of Carl Emmerson’s opening remarks at the IFS briefing here (pdf).

You can watch the IFS briefing live here.

Carl Emmerson, the IFS deputy director, is speaking now.

In his speech Jeremy Corbyn says: “Many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services, have pointed to the connections between wars our government has supported or fought in other countries and terrorism here at home.”

This is a reference to the evidence emerged after the Iraq war, partly in the Chilcot inquiry but also elsewhere, showing that Tony Blair was warned by the intelligence services that invading the country would increase the terrorist threats.

For example, the intelligence and security committee (ISC) revealed in 2003 that the joint intelligence committee (JIC) issued a warning to this effect in February 2003, shortly before the invasion. The ISC said:

The JIC assessed that al-Qaida and associated groups continued to represent by far the greatest terrorist threat to western interests, and that threat would be heightened by military action against Iraq.

The JIC assessed that any collapse of the Iraqi regime would increase the risk of chemical and biological warfare technology or agents finding their way into the hands of terrorists, not necessarily al-Qaida.

And seven years later Eliza Manningham-Buller, head of MI5 at the time of the war, told the Chilcot inquiry that the Iraq war was a “highly significant” factor in how “home-grown” extremists justified their actions. She said:

Our involvement in Iraq radicalised a few among a generation of young people who saw [it] as an attack upon Islam.

Q: Do you accept that the Iraq war contributed to this?

No, says Wallace. The person responsible was the terrorist.

Q: Corbyn says that in his speech.

Wallace says the last attack in Manchester, an IRA bomb, injured 212.

There can be no excuse for terrorism, he says.

He says these people hate our values.

That’s it.

Q: Jeremy Corbyn will criticise cuts to the police in a speech today. Some 19,000 police posts have gone. Have the cuts gone too far?

Wallace says Corbyn’s timing is “incredibly disappointing and crass”.

Q: But if what Corbyn says is right, he is right to say so.

Wallace says he does not think Corbyn’s substance is right either.

He says the government is increasing spending on counter-terrorism from £11.7bn to £15.2bn over the course of this parliament.

Q: Are companies like Facebook letting terrorists off the hook?

Wallace says the government thinks they can do more.

Q: NHS England have told trauma units to be on standby. Have they given specific information about threats?

Wallace says that is predominantly precautionary.

There is no specific threat about an event.

When the threat level is raised to critical, people are put on standby, he says.

Q: MI5 are apparently dealing with 500 investigations, involving 3,000 people of interest. Are these 500 plots?

Wallace says it varies. Some may be sophisticated plots. Some will be immature ones.

When people report things, leads are followed up. Some of these people will be Walter Mittys. They talk a lot, but do not do anything.

Q: We know that there are seven people on Tpims. Are those being used as much as they should be?

Wallace says those numbers go up and down.

Tpims are used alongside other tools. For example, passports get taken away. People abroad can be deprived of their citizenship.

Q: How often does that happen?

Wallace says he cannot give the number. But it happens quite a lot.

Q: Should Tpims be used more often?

Wallace says, to obtain one, you have to present evidence to a court.

He says control orders (which Tpims replaced) were about to get struck down by the courts. Tpims are more effective because they are more legally robust, he suggests.

He says the Investigatory Powers Act will be used to do more to tackle people promoting terrorism online.

Sarah Montague is interviewing Ben Wallace.

She starts by saying there are some alarming claims about the threat from terrorism in the papers today.

Q: Is is true that police are hunting for two more devices?

Wallace says he cannot comment on the different leads in the papers.

He has read the papers, and not all the stories he recognises. Some of them are not true.

But the police are trying to roll up a network. There are eight people in custody.

The Westminster attack was a single incident. This is different.

Q: How far through the rolling up of the network are the police?

Wallace says the police are confident about being able to roll it up.

But he cannot say more.

He says he is going to a Cobra meeting later.

Andrew Sparrow is now picking up the live blog.

A reminder: you can sign up here to receive our daily election briefing email, the Snap.

Today is what the Fair Funding for All Schools campaign is calling a national day of action against cuts in funding.

Caroline Lucas, the Green co-leader seeking re-election in Brighton Pavilion, will be speaking at one rally on her home turf this afternoon, and her party has also set out plans to boost school funding by £7bn each year by 2022.

The Greens say this would be paid for by raising corporation tax and taxes on high earners.

Lucas will say:

The Tories’ plans for our schools will leave teachers stressed and stretched, and risk our children’s education. PTAs are already fundraising to pay for essential equipment like pens and glue sticks; the situation is getting desperate.

Analyses by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Education Policy Institute today have said the Conservative manifesto plans would see schools face years of real-terms funding cuts.

The Welsh Liberal Democrats will publish their manifesto today, with a focus on Brexit and what they will say is the need for a second referendum ahead of any deal that could “wreck the future for our children, our economy and our schools and hospitals”.

Leader Mark Williams – who was, until the dissolution, the party’s only Westminster MP in Wales – will launch the manifesto promising that voters should have the chance to reject any deal and instead stay within the EU.

Lord Carlile, the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has been speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme about how authorities can deal with those suspected of having links to extremism.

He says it was a “grave mistake” for the coalition government to remove control orders.

In 2011, the then home secretary, Theresa May, announced control orders would be replaced by less restrictive terrorism prevention and investigation measures (Tpims).

Tpims are, Carlile says this morning, “better than nothing”, but he argues the country “would be a safer place” if control orders were reintroduced:

There was a political resistance to imposing these orders on people who were reasonably suspected of being terrorists.

He says Tpims are rarely applied but notes:

The use of Tpims has increased since the 2015 election from about zero to seven today.

He says he suspects the current home secretary, Amber Rudd, would favour greater use of Tpims.

But Carlile rejects the idea floated by Jeremy Corbyn and others that cuts in policing numbers have undermined intelligence-gathering:

It’s very easy to say we need more police … I do not believe the number of police officers is the central issue.

Barry Gardiner, the shadow international trade secretary, has been on Radio 4’s Today programme ahead of Jeremy Corbyn’s speech later this morning about the links between British foreign policy and terror attacks.

Gardiner says the Labour leader’s argument is a nuanced one:

There is no simple causal relationship … We need profoundly to reassess the ways in which there are linkages.

He says Salman Abedi, the Manchester bomber, had links to Libya and was radicalised as a result:

Libya is a country in which we intervened … what we did there was made a military intervention and then withdrew and that country has been in chaos.

The pattern that we’ve seen time and again has been one in which military intervention has gone in hard but then lost its way … Look back to Iraq, look back to Afghanistan … the stabilisation of a country is so important.

Gardiner says such “chaos” is used as an excuse by Isis to recruit “alienated” young men:

Absolutely clearly the responsibility for these atrocities is with those who have perpetrated them … but they use these things as an excuse.

These are people who simply want to destroy our way of life … There is no negotiating with these people.

[But] it is undeniable that young, radicalised men from this country have used the excuse of British foreign policy and the chaos that has often resulted.

Gardiner says Corbyn’s approach is “not about ending any military action” but adds that the idea that “we can bomb our way to a victory” in Syria “is completely misconceived”.