tonight at ten: labour's election manifesto is formally approved by the party leadership and will be published within days. after a four—hour meeting, jeremy corbyn said the programme had been unanimously agreed, carefully costed and would be "very popular". the likely offer to voters includes nationalising the entire rail network and abolishing university tuition fees in england. an offer that will transform the lives of many people in our society and ensure that we have a government in britain, onjune 8th, that will work for the many, not the few. but earlier mr corbyn had failed to attend labour's big poster launch, amid confusion over a leaked version of the labour manifesto. we'll be looking at some of labour's policies in more detail and we'll be talking to voters in york. also tonight: a squeeze on consumer spending in prospect, and the bank of england downgrades its forecast for economic growth this year. official figures suggest waiting times for some nhs services

in england are the worst in five yea rs. he's a showboat, he's a grandstander. president trump lays into his former fbi director and says he always intended to sack him. and manchester united keep their champions‘ league dream alive, beating the spanish side celta vigo. coming up in sportsday on bbc news: andy murray is knocked out of the madrid open in the last 16 by borna coric, so he's failed to reach the quarter—finals in two of his last three events. good evening. labour's election manifesto has been formally approved by the party leadership and will be published next week. jeremy corbyn said the policies would be fully costed and would prove to be "very popular" with voters. some of the main parts

of the manifesto had already found their way into the public domain, after a version of the document was leaked overnight. it included proposals to re—nationalise the railways and to scrap university tuition fees in england. our political editor, laura kuenssberg, has more on the campaign events of the day. they wondered what exactly was going on, and you might too. this was meant to be the grand unveiling of a labour poster, albeit on a waste ground in south london. but the party leader was nowhere to be seen. it's got a terrific slogan. jeremy corbyn should have been selling the slogan. he'd been promised as top billing. but after the astonishing leak of a draft of labour's complete manifesto... we were told he had other things to do. mr lavery, mr gwynne, where's mr corbyn? he was meant to be here, mr lavery. he was meant to be here, but things

happened and mr corbyn is... dealing with internal matters. do you know who leaked your manifesto, mr mcdonnell? no, we don't. mr corbyn‘s closest ally was promising great things. this is an extremely modern, progressive set of proposals. it is looking to the long term future and most people are extremely excited at what they have seen. the 45—page draft we have seen spells out plans to nationalise the railways, royal mail and parts of the energy industry, to abolish tuition fees in england, to restore some welfare benefits and scrap the bedroom tax and to provide £8 billion for social care. there are allegations that your staff leaked the manifesto... in a frenzy over who told the world... reporter: are you responsible for the leak? don't be silly. what do you make of the leak? that was naughty, wasn't it? labour shadow ministers, officials and union bigwigs were due to arrive to sign it off. we are here today to decide the final version and i'm sure it

will be an exciting programe that will attract as many voters as possible to the labour party. i am absolutely certain that ordinary labour voters want an increase in the minimum wage, the abolition of zero hour contracts, agency workers dealt with, investment... reporter: and nationalisation? of the railways! eventually, the leader sped in to "dot the is and cross the t‘s." inside, labour's top brass discussed tax rises for the very wealthiest and big business, a ban on fracking, ending arms sales to saudi arabia, but no ban on nuclear weapons. and, afterfour hours, it was eventually agreed, a plan described as the biggest intervention in the state since the 1970s. but is that how he sees it? i'm naturally to the centre. "i'm naturally to the centre," he says. but for how labour will pay for his grand plans, we will have to wait. we havejust concluded ourjoint meeting of the shadow cabinet

and the national executive, and we have discussed our manifesto for the general election. our manifesto will be an offer, and we believe the policies in it are very popular, an offer that will transform the lives of many people in our society. the details will be set out to you, including the costings of all the pledges and promises we make. but the national manifesto, this seeming chaos, for some of his candidates makes not much difference. listen to this. let's get real. the tories are 20 points ahead in the polls. it is the tory manifesto people need to be focussing on and seeing what they are doing in government. we labour mps are trying to save as many good labour mps as possible so we have a semblance of an opposition afterjune the 8th. manifesto timing slip—ups aside, this is less radical thanjeremy corbyn and his core supporters might have wished. the task now to persuade

voters of its merits. ultimately, what matters is not the clamour over the leak, but what you make of what labour has to offer. sorry, can i get through? jeremy corbyn‘s hope is that the more people understand him, the more they will like. his internal rivals in the labour party fear the opposite is true, and it's already been a bumpy journey. laura kuenssberg, bbc news, westminster. one of the policies that labour believes will appeal to a broad section of the public is the plan to renationalise the railway network. in the draft manifesto document, the party talks of making a publicly—owned rail system "the backbone" of its transport policy. it would be a gradual process of taking over commercial agreements as they expired. labour is also proposing to freeze rail fares. our transport correspondent, richard westcott, has been looking at labour's rail plan and how it might work. britain's railways are bitty and complex. most of the tracks,

signals and stations are run by network rail. it's effectively a nationalised company, spending public money. the trains are run by a mixture of private companies and foreign state railways, including france, germany, holland and hong kong. at the moment, different companies can bid to run different rail services for a limited number of years, it's called a franchise. what labour seems to be suggesting is that, as each of those franchises runs out, rather than having a new bidding process, the government will take over those services instead. there are 18 franchises in total. the first one, south west trains, comes up for renewal in august. overall, 11 franchises, including famous names like great western railways, could be taken into public ownership by the end of the next parliament.

but some contracts don't finish until well into the 2020s and the caledonian sleeper service won't be renewed until 2030. opinion polls suggest nationalisation is popular. i'm for nationalisation becuase i think it'll make it cheaper than what it is at the moment. the train prices are ridiculous. i think it's been proven in the past that nationalised rail services don't meet the standards of customer

expectations and they've had safety issues in the past as well. british rail, we're getting there. the old publicly—owned british rail had a mixed reputation, so why do campaigners think nationalising the trains would make things better? we'd be able to reduce fares and improve services. we could add carriages, we could reopen lines. we could make our railway better. in 2009, east coast services were taken over by the government for a few years because a private company made a mess of the franchise. labour's often hailed it as proof that nationalising a line can improve the service, but the former boss of that publicly—owned company disagrees. it was a success, yes, but i would say that was despite being in the public sector rather than because of it. we made it work. it was quite hard to do it, but we ran it as if it was a private sector company. we returned over £1 billion in profit to the treasury during the time that we were running it, but the new franchisee that replaced us has promised far more money over a longer period of time, with new trains to introduce new services. a slow take over of passenger services is the cheapest option for nationalisation. but if labour wants to buy back the privately—owned trains, it could cost billions. richard westcott, bbc news. one of the other major elements of labour's draft manifesto is education and the pledge to abolish university tuition fees in england. they were first introduced by the labour government in 1998 but in 2012,

under the conservative—lib dem coalition, they were increased to £9,000 a year. our education editor, bra nwen jeffreys, reports on the likely impact of scrapping tuition fees and how much the policy could cost. universities like nottingham trent are part of a revolution. tuition fees have paid for many more places, but it's students who face 30 years of paying back loans, so do they welcome the idea of scrapping fees? i think it'd be a good thing, but how are they going to pay for it? getting rid of them doesn't really make a difference. it's more the living costs that would probably sway people going to uni or not. well i think, obviously, that's brilliant if they actually do it for everyone who's going into education.

but obviously for me, i'm going to graduate in a couple of weeks. a quarter of students here are from england's poorest families, managing on less than £15,000 a year. so does it matter who pays for their courses? from a university point of view, we want enough money to provide a high—quality education. whether that comes from government grants or student loans is a matter for the politicians. i think it's great that this debate is now part of the general election campaign. each time tuition fees go up, applications initially drop, but in the long term it hasn't put young people off. in 2007, when fees were £3,000, 305,000 students accepted a place. by 2016, when fees were £9,000, 394,000 signed up. it would cost around £7.5 billion to replace loans with government spending. the reason it isn't more is taxpayers are still paying some of the cost. like, i don't need that much money in my life. as for returning more power to the unions... i remember the ‘70s. i remember going to work and literally working in candle light, to go homejust in time for everything to go there as well.

do you think this will be a step down that road? i think it will because again you are going back to the few in the unions who are dominant, controlling the many. we love our railways, when they're running property. why not renationalise royal mail too. well, maybe going back to a state—owned rail service is rather sentimental, even an eccentric idea? well, the state did a reasonable job in the past but previously the private corporations have done perhaps an even better job. i think the guys who are more motivated to do the job should be the ones to run it. why do you think a lot of people are happy with the idea of nationalising railways? because railways are a treasure and we do love our railways. it's absolutely nostalgia, yes. but in a pick—and—mix of labour policies, nationalisation is popular. the investment hasn't gone in over the years, so if the private sector can't do it then it's left to the public sector. ifor one, i'd be fine

with that, no problem. if this election was a shopping trip, there's a lot of labour policy people seem to fancy. nationalise the railways, tax the rich but the hardest currency on approximately day is public trust and jeremy corbyn needs to do better in that marketplace than he's done in the past, if labour ideas are to count for much onjune 8th. john pienaar, bbc news, york. we have heard mr corbyn say this has been carefully costed. set out in the manifesto. what do you make of the manifesto. what do you make of the political challenges? you have a lwa ys the political challenges? you have always seen, idea by idea, there is always seen, idea by idea, there is a lot in this plan which is potentially popular, which are people and corporations pay more in tax. hard—pressed schools and hospitals getting more money getting more money after seven long years of austerity. never imagine these ideas are there simply because they may be vote catchers. jeremy corbyn believes deeply that society is unfair. that markets have failed that the deck has been stacked by and for the house and they have not. his belief is socialism which is unsha keable and he

his belief is socialism which is unshakeable and he will carry on believing whatever happens in this election. the challenge is to convince the unconvince these plans are practicable and affordable. there is still more we want to see in that. how much will higher earners have it pay in tax. what about wealth and property tax. ? what more is there to learn about that? there are deeper plans, could this plan shake sterling, share prices, interest rates and ultimately livelihoods and jobs? in the end, huw, it comes to faith, whichjeremy corbyn has in abundance and in public trust, which as of now he pleasant lilacs and needs to build up, if this whole plan is to

become a radical plan for government and in the simply end up as a sort of curiosity left over as a failed political experiment on june 8th. thank you very much. a reminder, you can keep up to date with all the developments throughout the campaign and live events on the bbc news website, bbc.co.uk/news. and if you're on the move you can follow the election via the bbc news app. the bank of england has warned of a squeeze on household incomes this year, as the cost of living rises faster than wages. the bank's governor, mark carney, said he expected only moderate growth for the uk economy. looking further ahead, he said better prospects depended on the government securing a "smooth" exit from the european union. our economics editor, kamal ahmed, is here with more details. thanks, huw. today's report actually can be summed up in about seven words. short term negative. longer term more positive. global growth is looking better, and the bank says its working on the asumption that eu deal will work out. but, the governor started with a warning about where we are now. well, this is going to be a more challenging time for british households over the course of this year.

real income growth, to use our terminology, will be negative. to use theirs, wages won't keep up with prices. consumers are split between the worried and those that see more positives ahead. no matter what you go in to buy nowadays, even in the shops or even for the animals, no matter what, everything has gone up in price. i do think it's going to get worse when brexit hits hard. so, iwould say, i'm not really looking forward to the consequences of brexit. we're seeing stability in the uk and that's a positive thing. i think the economy is actually on the turn, on the way up. i think you've got no choice but to, kind of, look where your money is going, in terms of, like, shopping, spending. holiday prices, obviously, going up as well. it's those rising prices the bank is focussing on, saying it expected inflation to rise to 2.8% by the end of the year. that is in sharp contrast with the rise in earnings,

which will languish atjust 2%. over the next two years more positive news, with a growth upgrade for both 2018 and 2019. the bank also insists wage growth will bounce back. governor, you've spoken about this sharp squeeze on living standards this year, why are you so confident that that will come to an end and that wage growth will hit 3.75%, you suggest, by the end of 2019? yeah. we're conditioning on a smooth process, smooth brexit process, and to the extent to which uncertainty over that a final thought on interest rates. if the economy does strengthen, the bank said rates might go up more quickly than some expect. but, as mr carney made clear, that all depends on achieving that huw. kamal, thanks very much again.

kamal ahmed there, our economics editor. hospital waiting times in england are at the worst level for five years, according to a study of the latest nhs data. the health foundation, a charity which conducts specialist research into health policy, said key targets were being missed, and there were longer waits for accident & emergency, cancer treatment and routine operations. our health editor, hugh pym, has been examining the findings. jim has prostate cancer, he faced long delays between seeing his gp, going for tests and then having surgery. he's one of a growing number of patients in england facing long waits for cancer treatment. it affected every part of my life. it affected my personal life, my work life because you're waiting around and it becomes more and more clear that you've got something wrong with you. so i went for so long without any treatment at all. at least 85% of patients should start cancer treatment within 62 days of being referred,

but that target hasn't been met in england since late 2015. in a civilised country, the nhs has to do better for cancer patients. people shouldn't be waiting more than 62 days for treatment, they deserve much, much better. according to the health foundation think—tank, waiting times for key services in england were the worst in five years. 26,000 patients had to wait longer than the two month target to start cancer treatment. that compares with 14,300 in 2011-12. the number waiting more than the four—hour target for being treated or assessed in a&e was 2.5 million, a sharp increase on the 725,000 with long waits five years before. against a backdrop of rising patient numbers and stretched resources, it's getting harderfor the nhs in england to hit its key performance targets, which are supposed to provide reassurance of high quality care for patients. more and more people are needing to use the nhs. that's not new and it's not unexpected.

as a population we're getting older, there are more of us and our health needs are more complicated. but demand on the nhs has historically risen by around 4% per year whereas, from 2009—10, funding has only risen by around 1% per year. nhs england said the march figures were better than proceeding months, but over recent years there's been a steady decline. whoever forms the next government will have to face up to that. hugh pym, bbc news. three women, including a mother and daughter, have appeared in court in london charged with terrorism offences and conspiracy to murder. it's believed to be the first alleged all—female jihadist plot in britain. one of them was shot during the operation to arrest them last month.

the three were accused of planning a knife attack in the westminster area. president trump appears to have changed his explanation for sacking the head of the fbi, james comey. the white house had insisted that mr trump acted on the advice from the usjustice department. but in a television interview this evening, mr trump said that he'd been intending to sack mr comey in any case because the agency was in "turmoil." our north america editor, jon sopel, is in washington. rjon, it's the president's first interview since this cry sirs sis first broke? yes, it is. the president was in characteristically forthright mood. there will be one day i will say he pulled his punches. he didn't in this interview. he accused james comey of being a showboat, a grandstander. he had left the fbi in turmoil. what i thought was most interesting was the explanation. on tuesday night, wednesday, we were being told the reason he was fired was because the deputy attorney general had recommended there needed to be change at the top. in donald trump's letter sacking comey he said, "i have received the tachd letters recommending your dismissal. i've accepted their recommendation. " listen to what he says in the

interview. on monday you met with the deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein. right. did you ask for a recommendation? what i did is, i was going to fire comey. my decision. it was not - you had made the decision before they came in the room? i was going to fire comey. there's no good time to do it, by the way. because in your letter you said, "i accepted their recommendations." yeah, well they also - but you had already made the decision? oh, i was going to fire regardless. the white house also said that one of the reasons that he was fired was that the rank and file ebbs m of the fbi were unhappy with him as their leader. but that was contradicted today by the acting director, who was giving testimony before a senate committee. the white house have also said today that the other thing that president trump wanted to do was to see the russia investigation completed. yet the president has tweeted this evening that the russian investigation is making america look like a laughing stock

to the russians. you pays your money and you take your choice, huw. indeed, jon. jon sopel there with the latest for us in washington. michael barnier, the man who will lead the brexit negotiations on behalf of the european union, has warned that one of the consequences of the uk leaving the eu could be the introduction of customs controls between northern ireland and the irish republic. mr barnier, speaking in dublin today, said he was aware of the concerns and said he'd work to avoid the creation of what's called a "hard border." our special correspondent, fergal keane, has travelled from belfast to dublin to hear what people think about the possible impact of the brexit process. as they have every spring, brexit or no brexit, the orangemen parade through belfast. no longer do these marches bristle with the menacing energy of the troubles years, but there is mounting uncertainty. at the same time as the collapse

of power—sharing here, nationalist resentment over brexit has spurred demands for a referendum on irish unity, leaving unionists uneasy. do you ever think, at the back of your thoughts, that eventually it's going to happen? i think it's always a possibility there but, i have to say, i think those are defeatist attitudes. i've heard people recently say, who've surprised me, who've said, you know, would i be any worse off? i think that's what propaganda does. but, hopefully, the unionist community will see through those things and get back to where their first love is, and that remains the queen and country. the armed conflict has been overfor 20 years, the agony brought to an end by a compromise which allowed all sides to feel their aspirations were respected. brexit has complicated that. a0 miles south of belfast, on the border, the debate has stirred painful memories. and i as a child remember sitting in the back, turning that corner we've just turned, looking down this

road and just seeing... damian mcginty is a south armagh farmer. ..of maybe about 18 or 20 paratroopers or four or five ruc. this militarised frontier vanished with the troubles. but any kind of hard border, with customs posts and identity checks, could be economically costly and politically divisive. what happens if you get a hard border here again, what's that going to do? that's a scary thing. ireland, it's just one country. now, if you stick any kind of a hard border along that 300 mile stretch, you're saying to a sizeable chunk of the population, young people here, that this country is being repartitioned. the republican dead memorialised on a border road heading south. now nobody i met feared a return to violence, but irish history is an enduring lesson in unintended consequences,

of how political decisions play out in the long run. dublin has persuaded the eu to guarantee membership to the north if ireland unites. a former cabinet minister makes the economic case for unity to ulster protestants. do you think that in our lifetime, there will be a united ireland? i think there maybe. i think it will be - maybe? see, you wouldn't have said that ten years ago, would you? ten years ago i would have thought that a united ireland was a very distant possibility, now i think it's a more real possibility and the reason i believe that is that the economic interests of the people of both sides in northern ireland and both parts of ireland are coming together rather than being divided. i think that brexit underlines the common interest that irish people have as opposed to the interests of the tory party in britain.

but unity doesn't inspire universal enthusiasm in the south. in my home city of cork, na piarsaigh hurling club was named after the rebel martyr, patrick pearse. the club's symbol — the red hand of ulster, but minus a thumb — symbolises a divided ireland. do people around here really care about a united ireland? well, i suppose, some people do, like. but, in this area, the people are more worried with more hand—to—mouth and how they exist day—to—day rather than a united ireland. we're 280 miles away from the north. so from day—to—day it doesn't really affect us here, like, you know. for 60 years, eamon de valera was the most prominent political... the old story of britain and ireland was one of often bitter entanglement, as the graves at glasnevin cemetry remind us, but there are more recent memorials here to the sacrifice of irish catholics and protestants in the great war. peace has madejoint remembrance possible. some much of ireland's history is interred in this place, from revolution to reconciliation in ourtime. walking through these graves, it's still possible to marvel at the fact that peace has been achieved on this island and that healing between divided

communities has begun. it's not that a new armed conflict looms, but that, in an atmosphere of uncertainty, the trust needed for lasting reconciliation could be lost. protecting the gains of peace is the great challenge of the negotiations to come. fergal keane, bbc news, on the island of ireland. last saturday, 82 girls were released by the islamist