Exclusive: Boom Radio listeners share in election fatigue but demographic arguably has less to lose than younger voters
Sometimes only a song can sum up the national mood.
When a soggy Rishi Sunak fired the starting gun on the general election in May, D:Ream’s Things Can Only Get Better blared across Downing Street. Five long weeks later and voters are cueing up rather more mordant tracks to capture their political fatigue.
Continue reading...Though the betting often interests few outside Westminster, leaders must be clear on where opportunity for impropriety really lies
Until the past few weeks, online casinos and bookmakers have made handy villains for an under-pressure government.
Ministers could legitimately claim to be cleaning up Labour’s mess with reforms that partially roll back the permissive regulatory regime ushered in under Tony Blair.
Continue reading...Lawyers acting for victims of Horizon IT scandal accuse Gareth Jenkins of protecting ‘out of control monster’
A former Fujitsu engineer has been accused by a lawyer acting for victims of the Post Office scandal of “hiding” problems with the Horizon IT system to protect the “out of control monster”, a public inquiry heard.
Gareth Jenkins, formerly a senior engineer at Fujitsu, which developed the Horizon IT system, faced tough questioning by lawyers acting for post office operators caught up in the scandal, which has been described as one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in recent history.
Continue reading...PM again declines to say whether he told Craig Williams in advance about his decision to hold the election in July
Rishi Sunak is returning to the campaign trail on Thursday, PA reports, after a two-day hiatus for the Emperor and Empress of Japan’s state visit and preparations for the final head-to-head debate with Sir Keir Starmer.
With one week to go until polling day, the deepening gambling scandal is still likely to feature heavily when he faces the media during a tour of the East Midlands and Yorkshire.
He is expected to visit a factory in Derbyshire and hold an evening campaign event in Leeds.
Keir Starmer accused Rishi Sunak of using transgender issues “as a political football to divide people” during their head-to-head debate on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Shadow business secretary says trying to rejoin single market or customs union would cause ‘more difficulties’
Labour would rather have stability in the UK’s relationship with Europe than try to seek accelerated economic growth by rejoining the EU’s single market or customs union, the shadow business secretary has said.
Addressing the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) conference on Thursday, Jonathan Reynolds acknowledged that Brexit had been “very difficult for businesses” because it had erected trade barriers, but said reopening the debate would be worse.
Continue reading...Almost 12,000 rough sleepers were seen by outreach workers in 2023-24, a 19% increase on the previous year
Rough sleeping in the capital has hit the highest level in a decade, with more than 1,100 people living on London’s streets for the first time because of evictions.
The number of new rough sleepers seen for the first time by outreach workers between April 2023 and March 2024, surged 25% to 7,974 people – the highest in at least four years. Almost one in 10 people living on the streets was aged 25 or under – including 13 children.
Continue reading...Central bank raises concerns over newly elected governments as more than 80 countries go to polls this year
Uncertainty caused by a global wave of elections, starting this weekend in France, risks destabilising the UK’s financial system, the Bank of England has warned.
Officials are concerned about the kind of policies that newly elected governments may enforce in large economies, including the US, where Donald Trump is vying for another term as president in the run-up to the election in November.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can read our full report on this debate here
YouGov will have a snap poll on who won the debate, with the results available minutes after it finishes.
This is what Labour is putting out ahead of the debate, in a stateement from Pat McFadden, the national campaign coordinator.
Tonight, the British people will witness the choice at this election: five more years of chaos with Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives or change with Keir Starmer and Labour.
On 4 July, the British people will have the chance to vote for change. To stop the chaos, turn the page and start to rebuild our country with Keir Starmer and a changed Labour party.
Tonight, Keir Starmer has the opportunity to announce loud and clear to the British public what his intentions are.
Throughout this campaign we have challenged the Labour party, time and time again, to come clean on their plans for taxes. Time and time again they have declined to do so.
Continue reading...British Chambers of Commerce director general calls on politicians to improve ties with EU and strike better deal
The UK’s current trade deal with the EU is not working and the country must stop “walking on eggshells” around the issue of building closer ties with its biggest trading partner, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) is expected to say.
At the annual BCC global conference in London on Thursday, Shevaun Haviland will say that the UK must forge closer ties with the EU and the next government should focus on improving trading relations to grow the economy.
Continue reading...A number of political figures have been accused of placing suspicious bets in the lead-up to the election
The Metropolitan police are to take an expanded role in investigating the criminal allegations triggered by the Westminster betting scandal, which is continuing to overshadow the election campaign.
Sources confirmed that talks between the Gambling Commission, which has been investigating multiple suspicious bets on the election date, and Scotland Yard have been continuing for days.
Continue reading...Labour officials said to be upset that Jovan Owusu-Nepaul was gaining traction for viral social media posts
Labour has been accused of “not putting up a fight” against Nigel Farage in Clacton after the party’s candidate was instructed to leave the constituency after “distracting” from Keir Starmer’s campaign.
Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, 27, who works for Labour’s equalities team, was installed by the party last month to contest the seat, weeks before Farage changed his mind and decided to stand in the Essex constituency.
Continue reading...Tory MP Alister Jack says he ‘had no knowledge of the date of the election until the day it was called’ and is not under investigation
Let’s take a look at today’s top stories. The betting scandal, and election betting by people working in politics in general, dominate this morning’s front pages.
The Guardian leads with a fifth Conservative facing investigation by the Gambling Commission:
Continue reading...Exclusive: Videos on Reform leader’s account show more engagement and average views than any other candidate
Nigel Farage is outperforming all other parties and candidates on TikTok throughout the general election campaign, analysis shows, eclipsing politicians considered most popular among young people.
Since the election was called, videos posted to the Reform leader’s personal account had more engagement and views on average than any other candidate – as well as the main channels of other parties.
Continue reading...Music teacher Nathaniel Dye, 38, who had spoken about delays for treatment, gave update on Tuesday
A man who had a terminal cancer diagnosis, and who described Labour as “the party of hope for a brighter future I won’t live to see” at the party’s manifesto launch, is now cancer-free.
Nathaniel Dye, a 38-year-old music teacher, was diagnosed with stage four incurable bowel cancer in October 2022, and tumours were understood to have spread to his lungs, liver and lymph nodes.
Continue reading...Party says it acted after being contacted by the regulator about the candidate for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich
All along the course of the Thames, turning north, meandering south, passing through locks, historic landmarks, Richmond and Kew, swelling beneath the House of Commons with the turning tide, and on to Docklands and beyond – concern for the health of the Thames has led many other ordinary people, who live, work or play on the water, to take up the fight for the health of the river.
The last 15 years of decline in rivers suggests they have much to do. In 2009, a year before the Conservatives first took power in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, a quarter of English rivers were judged as being of good ecological standard, a marker which examines the flow, habitat and biological quality; by 2022 not one river was in a healthy state.
Continue reading...Prime minister says he fought against predecessor’s plans and warns of migration surge if Labour scraps Rwanda plan
Keir Starmer has defended serving in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, saying he wanted to help preserve the Labour party and that he “always knew there was going to be a day after”.
Speaking in separate interviews hosted by the Sun newspaper that included questions from a watching audience, Rishi Sunak and Starmer underwent at times difficult interrogations, including over migration and the NHS.
Continue reading...Prime minister faces claim Tories are ‘stealing the candlesticks’ on the way out of government
After a passage in his speech attack Labour on familiar grounds, Rishi Sunak also hit out at Reform UK.
[Reform UK] are not on the side of who you think they are.
Reform are standing candidates here in Scotland that are pro independence and anti monarchy.
Continue reading...Author responds after shadow chancellor says party would be ‘really happy’ to ‘give her assurances’
JK Rowling has agreed to a meeting with Labour after Rachel Reeves said the party would be “really happy” to “give her assurances” over its plans to change the process through which people can legally change gender.
Speaking in Scotland, Reeves said protection for women-only spaces would “absolutely stay”, adding: “We’re not going to be changing anything around biological sex … We’re really happy to talk to JK Rowling to give her assurances about that.”
Continue reading...Reform UK leader accuses group of trying to stop his party breaking through into parliament
Nigel Farage has launched a stinging attack on the Daily Mail group, accusing the newspapers of trying to stop Reform UK “breaking through into parliament” by publishing reports that suggest he is an ally of Vladmir Putin’s administration.
Farage said the newspaper, which has often been supportive of him in the past, was “collaborating with the Kremlin to protect the dying Conservative party”, also lashing out at Boris Johnson for joining condemnation of his comments about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Continue reading...Many describe Hunt as a good local MP but some are looking to tactical voting to punish the Conservatives
The beautiful Surrey Hills are well known for two things: a high concentration of some of the UK’s richest residents, who commute from the “stockbroker belt” to well-paying jobs in London, and some of the country’s most popular cycling routes.
The two combined on a recent chilly Saturday morning in a 100km bike ride that passed through the picturesque lanes of the newly created Godalming and Ash constituency. Most of the 10 riders from Velo Club Godalming Haslemere were happy to chat politics as they pedalled up (and down) 1,168 metres of the county’s steepest hills on customised carbon-fibre racing bikes, some of which cost more than a family car.
Continue reading...