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It was a week of two manifestos, two debates and a scandal. On the manifestos, Labour went first, with Jeremy Corbyn unveiling dramatic plans for the biggest increase in tax and spending in more than half a century.

Costed at £83bn a year, pledges included free broadband; a 5% public sector pay rise; 100,000 new council houses a year; 1m new jobs in a “green industrial revolution”; nationalisation of rail, water and mail; and a nationwide “investment blitz”.

The Tories followed four days later, with Boris Johnson setting out their aims not just to “get Brexit done” but to “level up across the country” by improving schools, hospitals and the police – at a much more modest cost of just £2.9bn more a year.

Commentators said Corbyn had gambled that voters are ready for radicalism, while the prime minister aimed to cautiously run down the clock until 12 December, hoping his key (and continually repeated) Brexit promise would cut through.

Paul Johnson, of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said it was not credible that Labour’s “colossal” spending plans would only affect businesses and the richest 5% of individuals, while the Conservative offering was “notable for its lack of ambition”.

In the debates – one a testy head-to-head, the other between the four main party leaders – Johnson and Corbyn clashed first over the NHS, with the Labour leader accusing the PM of being ready to sell it off to US corporations.

The second debate was notable for Corbyn’s promise to take “a neutral stance” in any future Brexit referendum, while Johnson was attacked on his trustworthiness and Jo Swinson for the Liberal Democrats’ record in coalition and revoke article 50 policy.

The Tories were lambasted by many (including Twitter) for misleading the public after they rebranded one of the party’s official accounts to make it look like a factchecking service during the first debate - an accusation Johnson subsequently failed to address.

There was also a row over the promise of 50,000 new nurses.

In his first major intervention in the campaign, Tony Blair said neither Labour nor the Tories were fit to win the election, accusing both parties of peddling “fantasies” and engaging in “populism running riot” and predicting it would all end in tears.

The Guardian’s election polling tracker showed the Conservatives ahead, but with a lead varying between anything from 19 points to just seven – the difference between a comfortable Tory majority and another hung parliament.

What next?

The government is preparing – if it wins – for a state opening of parliament and a slimmed-down Queen’s speech as early as 19 December, and first and second readings of the withdrawal agreement bill before Christmas.

Meanwhile, Johnson’s promise to “Get Brexit done” is increasingly being attacked as misleading, since – as my colleague Jennifer Rankin explains – the UK’s departure from the EU would, in fact, mark the end of merely the first phase of Brexit.

What follows, moreover, will be arguably the biggest negotiations of the post-war era, concerning much more than trade, with an immense volume of technical work to be done, potentially diverging EU27 goals, and a UK that has yet to make the necessary hard choices on the form of its post-Brexit future.

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In the Guardian, Rafael Behr argues Johnson’s “Get Brexit done” drumbeat is the prelude to lies, betrayal and duplicity:

As politics, ‘Get Brexit done’ is snappy; as policy, it is empty. It is the vacuous sequel to ‘Take back control’, starring the same falsehood about Britain’s global stature. It contains the illusion that we, liberated nation, tell them, spurned continentals, how things will be. Three years of negotiation tell a different story. The UK tried to retain privileges of EU membership without abiding by the rules, failed, and watched its deal deteriorate as a result. If the Tories win a majority, that pattern repeats all next year. Johnson’s plan is to complete a comprehensive free-trade agreement before transitional arrangements expire next December. Trade talks between advanced economies can fill the best part of a decade. Ministers have three lines of defence for their improbable timetable. First, the UK and EU start from what Johnson describes as “perfect alignment and harmony”, so there isn’t much to adjust. Second, Phil Hogan, the EU trade commissioner, has said a year is sufficient. Third, people said Johnson couldn’t ditch the backstop from Theresa May’s deal, but he did. Those arguments are bogus. First, Johnson’s plan explicitly mandates divergence from EU norms. Its purpose is to carve out competitive advantage through deregulation. Brussels sees that as a threat to undercut continental businesses and dump substandard goods on EU consumers. Second, when EU officials nod along with the tight timetable, they are being polite and trying not to spook British voters. The commission wants the deal ratified as much as Johnson does, but an imbalance of power favours Brussels as much in the next phase as it did in withdrawal talks. Third, Johnson’s powers of persuasion are fictional. He achieved removal of the backstop by abandoning a promise not to permit a trade border between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain, burning the DUP and reverting to a Brexit model he had once vigorously rejected.

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The UK’s ever-succinct former ambassador to the EU weighs in again: