Final polls predict unprecedented Labour victory, with Starmer declaring Britain a ‘great nation, with boundless potential’
Keir Starmer has hailed a “new age of hope and opportunity” as millions of people prepare to vote in a general election that could deliver the biggest shake-up of British politics in a generation.
The Labour leader said he was “ready for government” and that his intended cabinet would “hit the ground running” if it wins Thursday’s election.
Continue reading...Labour leader also says he cannot foresee circumstances where UK would re-enter single market or customs union
Keir Starmer has insisted the UK will not rejoin either the EU, the single market or the customs union within his lifetime, in his firmest pledge yet that Labour will not seek much closer relations with Europe for as long as he is prime minister.
The Labour leader told reporters on Wednesday he did not think Britain would go back into any of the three blocs while he was alive, all but ruling out rejoining even if he wins a second term in office.
Continue reading...Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer out campaigning after Mel Stride says Labour likely to win a large majority
It has just gone 7am: let’s look at today’s stop stories. With 24 hours to go until polls open, the Guardian leads with Keir Starmer accusing the Conservatives of desperate tactics amid claims that Tory criticism of his defence of family time was insensitive and had antisemitic undertones.
The Times has Boris Johnson saying a Labour landslide would be “pregnant with horrors”:
Continue reading...Deputy PM says Victoria Atkins is ‘star’ and is one of only people he could see leading Tory party
Meanwhile Rishi Sunak is expected to tell voters today that “If just 130,000 people switch their vote and lend us their support, we can deny Starmer that supermajority,” PA reports.
Keir Starmer has said a big majority would be “better for the country”, as the Tories continue to urge voters to proceed with caution and not hand Labour a “blank cheque”.
Continue reading...Conservatives push out ‘final warnings’ amid backlash over targeting of Labour leader’s Friday night ‘protected time’
Keir Starmer has accused the Conservatives of desperate tactics amid claims that Tory criticism of his defence of family time was insensitive and had antisemitic undertones.
With Rishi Sunak embarking on a marathon day of campaigning, beginning with a pre-dawn visit to a distribution centre and closing with a late-night rally, Tory ministers and aides sought to contrast these efforts with what they termed Starmer’s “part-time” approach.
Continue reading...MPs and others have stressed how important time away from work is for those in top jobs
“Increasing desperation, bordering on hysterical” is how Keir Starmer responded to the Conservatives’ claim that his decision to spend Friday nights with his family is a threat to national security.
But a man cannot live on cabinet briefings alone – and online attacks on Starmer by Conservatives have been largely met with deadpan resistance by politicians and the public alike.
Continue reading...PM says he ‘loves this party dearly’ and would always put himself at the service of it’
Rishi Sunak is speaking at a campaign event in Staffordshire. As the advance briefing predicted, he has just told his audience.
I tell you this: once you have handed Keir Starmer and Labour a blank cheque, you won’t be able to get it back.
We’ve had a strategy in place and we’ll try to keep to it, which is to carve out really protected time for the kids, so on a Friday – I’ve been doing this for years – I will not do a work-related thing after six o’clock, pretty well come what may.
There are a few exceptions, but that’s what we do.
[In politics] some people think, if you fill your diary 24/7 and don’t do anything else, that makes you a much better decision maker. I don’t agree with that, I think you’ve got to make space, so we do it …
Actually, it helps me, it takes me away from the pressure, it relaxes me, and I think, actually, not only is it what I want to do as a dad, it is better.
Continue reading...Labour leader hopes to gain closer economic ties with EU if he becomes PM and says he would work with ‘whoever’
Keir Starmer has said that a government in France led by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party would not hamper a Labour government’s intention to negotiate a better EU deal.
The RN made historic gains in the first round of France’s snap elections on Sunday with 33% of the vote, bringing the possibility the party could emerge as the largest in the final round of voting next Sunday.
Continue reading...Celebrities including Kit Harington, Deborah Meaden and Jason Manford back Keir Starmer’s party
Elton John has led a lineup of celebrities who have announced their support for Labour at the general election.
The singer-songwriter and his husband, David Furnish, joined actors Kit Harington and James Norton, singer Beverley Knight, comedian Jason Manford and businesswoman Deborah Meaden in bringing some stardust to a Labour supporters’ meeting held in the final days before next week’s poll.
Continue reading...Writing in the Observer, the Labour leader vows to restore the bond of trust with politics if his party wins Thursday’s general election
Keir Starmer pledges to “relight the fire” of optimism and hope among the British people – and rekindle their faith in politicians as public servants - if they come out in sufficient numbers and vote for a Labour government in Thursday’s general election.
Writing exclusively for the Observer with just days to go until polling day, the Labour leader says that after 14 years of the Tories “serving themselves”, restoring the “bond of respect between people and politics” will be the precondition for a Labour government’s success.
Continue reading...The Reform leader complained of a ‘dishonest Question Time audience’, while his party also reported Channel 4 to the Electoral Commission
The Conservative party deputy chair Angela Richardson called the sewage crisis a “political football” and claimed opposition parties and activists had put Tory MPs in physical danger by campaigning on the issue.
Richardson, who is standing for re-election in Guildford, where the River Wey was recently found to have 10 times the safe limit of E coli, also suggested the only reason people were talking about the problem was “because the Conservatives let everyone know it was happening”.
Continue reading...PM responds to comments by Reform activists, who were filmed by Channel 4 reporter while canvassing in Clacton
Here’s the latest in the Guardian’s series on The broken years: Tory Britain 2010-24:
Unless the polls are wildly inaccurate, the Conservative party is heading towards a catastrophic defeat in the coming election.
Continue reading...Essex police say they are ‘urgently assessing’ racist and homophobic remarks made by party’s volunteers
Rishi Sunak has said he was hurt and angry to hear a Reform UK canvasser calling him a racial slur, saying Nigel Farage “has some questions to answer”.
The prime minister responded after a Channel 4 undercover investigation found a Reform campaigner had called him a “fucking [P-word]”. Sunak repeated the slur and said he had done so because it was important to call it out for what it was.
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...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...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...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.”
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