The UK can’t continue with policies that have produced a productivity slump and record amounts of insecure work

In the manifestos of both the Conservative and the Labour parties, there is a commitment to implementing the NHS long-term workforce plan to ensure that the country will be able to populate the health service with UK-trained doctors and nurses. However, neither of the parties are suggesting that they will fund the £30bn it would cost to employ the tens of thousands of staff they say they will train. Instead, voters are expected to believe that the confidence fairy will turn up when the next government arrives – and businesses will invest, leading to economic growth.

It is magical thinking to believe that, without actually doing anything, private spending in Britain will be stimulated to such an extent that it will more than compensate for the anticipated public sector cuts that depress it.

Shadow health secretary says ‘we will not make promises we cannot keep or that the country cannot afford’

Wes Streeting has failed to rule out an overhaul of the council tax system if Labour win next month’s election, as the shadow health secretary said the party wanted to do more in power than it had promised in its manifesto.

Streeting told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg none of his party’s manifesto pledges required a rise in council tax. But pushed by the presenter to rule out the country’s first revaluation since 1991, he refused to do so.

Independent schools in England had warned plan to charge VAT on fees was putting parents off and had shut schools

The number of children attending private schools in England has risen, new figures show, despite claims that families are being priced out by Labour’s plan to add VAT to school fees.

The Independent Schools Council (ISC) said last month that pupil numbers had fallen – a sign, they said, that schools were already starting to see “the impact of VAT looming on the horizon”.

Prime minister and Labour leader take part in second big TV event of campaign, with questions from Beth Rigby and live audience

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In an interview with ITV due to be broadcast on Wednesday evening, Rishi Sunak says he went without “lots of things” as a child, including Sky TV.

Sunak was pressed in the interview by the ITV journalist Paul Brand to give examples of things he didn’t have a child to which he replied: “There’ll be all sorts of things that I would’ve wanted as a kid that I couldn’t have. Famously, Sky TV, so that was something that we never had growing up actually.”