Tories and Labour keeping policies up their sleeves

Three weeks from now, people will be voting and the parties will just be getting a sense of how this election is shaking out. But in a sign of how both the Tories and Labour are expecting this contest to go to the wire, I understand that they have both held policies back from their manifesto so that they can use them in the final days of the campaign. The thinking is that by keeping some things back they can use these policies to grab the initiative in the campaign at crucial points.

At the moment, the polls show no sign of breaking either way. What does seem to have happened, though, is that the Tories have steadied themselves after their mini-wobble last week.

Tellingly, late last week Tory Cabinet Ministers were talking about the campaign in the third person, they need to do this, they need to do that. But after the manifesto launch, these ministers are again using the first person plural when talking about the campaign.