Conservative manifesto: post questions now and join our discussion

Guardian columnists are here to debate the Conservative manifesto and take your questions from 11-1pm (BST). Post your comment to get involved

11.31am BST

Back to the comments, a question from CaptainGrey:

Has the vacuum in the middle caused by Labour’s lurch to the hard left made difficult decisions easier for the Tories to implement? I am thinking particularly of relaxing the pension triple lock (which was becoming more unaffordable year-on-year) and introducing the housing tax to pay for social care, neither of which would be considered had the race been tight.

Terminology of "hard" or other kinds of left aside - that argument goes round-and-round forever - I don't think there's much doubt that the state of the opposition has bought May the space to do things that Cameron/Osborne would like to have done but felt unable to confront - means testing winter fuel and loosening triple lock among them.

Also, crucially, Labour's position on fiscal policy gives May room to be very vague on tax. It will go up after the election. (It nearly always does in first budget of a new parliament, regardless of who is in govt.)

11.22am BST

We’ve also been collecting some questions from Guardian Members via email. Martin Perrie asks:

Is there room in British politics today for a centre right, economically liberal point of view? I mean the view of the FT, the Economist, and probably orange book Lib Dems and the George Osborne part of the Tories.

11.13am BST

First up Rafael Behr joins us in the comments, in response to a reader going by BrokenLogic, who asks:

For me [the manifesto] seems positioned within the European tradition of Christian Democracy. May is shooting to become a Poundland Angela. I think that’s a tone about which a national consensus could be built. And I like that there is a real attempt to win a mandate to find solutions to some big issues that will almost inevitably be unpopular (which is not to say I agree they are the right solutions).

Poundland Angela is very good. I do think it is a shame that a kind of alliance of temperament and political outlook between the PM and the German Chancellor is theoretically available - which would be good for Britain and Europe - but the fact of Brexit and the crass way May has approached it snuffed out the possibility.

I think one of the tragedies of May's time in Downing Street might turn out to be that she thought she could spend her political capital (ie her capacity to annoy the Tory right) doing things other than Brexit (all the soft, market intervention stuff) - and so will have to compensate the Mail /Con grassroots with the Euro-bashing. And that process means she won't achieve any of the other things she has said she wants to do. She seems to think Brexit is just a background noise to some other agenda. In reality, it is the only thing on her agenda.

11.07am BST

Our writers are joining us below the line now – we’ll be posting some of the answers to your questions, and interesting debate points from you, in this space. Get involved in the comments!

3.22pm BST

The Conservative party launched its election manifesto on Thursday, with Theresa May setting out her party’s ambitions at an event in West Yorkshire.

The prime minister said she was presenting a “new contract between government and people” and some commentators suggested this was a clear attempt to break with past Tory thinking and to “redefine modern Conservatism”.

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