Portrait of the week | 16 April 2015

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Launching the Conservative party manifesto, David Cameron, the party leader, told voters he wanted to ‘turn the good news in our economy into a good life for you and your family’. The Tories promised: to eliminate the deficit by the end of the parliament; to provide 30 hours of free child care a week for working parents of three- and four-year-olds; to grant a right for housing association tenants to buy their properties; to increase the inheritance tax threshold for married couples from £650,000 to £1 million (paid for by nobbling tax allowances on pension contributions for those earning £150,000); to raise the threshold of the 40p rate to £50,000 by 2020; to freeze rail fares in real terms until 2020; and to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU.

In a speech launching the Labour manifesto, Ed Miliband, the party leader, said: ‘The deficit will be cut every year. The books will be balanced and the national debt will be falling.’ The 20,000-word manifesto promised a 50p tax rate on incomes over £150,000 a year, but no rises in VAT and national insurance; a one-year freeze in rail fares, paid for by delaying work on the A27 and A358; a £2.5 billion fund for the NHS largely paid for by a tax on houses valued at over £2 million; a cut in university tuition fees from £9,000 to £6,000; and a requirement for people in the public sector working with the public to speak English (except perhaps in Wales). The smaller parties published manifestos by way of setting out stalls for negotiation in the event of a coalition.

The annual rate of inflation remained at zero in March, as measured by the Consumer Prices Index, and fell from 1 per cent to 0.9