Inside Politics: Boris Johnson’s manifesto pledges picked apart

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There are only 17 days left until the general election

Huge news: two of the most popular puppets in British history – Emu and Orville – are up for sale at auction. Any parallels with the most unpopular party mouthpieces of recent times, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn? I’ll let you work out which one resembles the obnoxious, chaos-causing emu, and which resembles the comically naïve, child-like duckling. Like stuffed birds on show, Johnson and Corbyn are trotting out the same old lines and tired routines on the campaign trail, but they do at least have manifestos to wave around at their audience. It means, however, their spending pledges can now be properly plucked apart. Feathers are sure to fly. I’m Adam Forrest, and welcome to The Independent’s daily Inside Politics briefing.

Inside the bubble