PM acknowledges in BBC Panorama interview to air tonight that it is a challenge for people to buy their first home
Davey sums up the Lib Dems’ plans on health and social care
And he says he wants to mention one other policy he is particularly proud of – the proposal to give proper bereavement support to parents whose partners have died.
Continue reading...BBC and PA Media say a scheduled opportunity to question the prime minister was withdrawn on Saturday
The business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, is being pressed to question the Royal Mail bidder Daniel Křetínský on his business links, after the Guardian raised questions about a series of controversial global property deals connected to the Czech billionaire’s longtime business partners.
Badenoch is scheduled to meet the tycoon next week to discuss his £3.57bn bid for the 500-year-old institution, which will be subjected to a review under the National Security and Investment Act.
Continue reading...Pledge comes as parties prepare to launch their manifestos, with Labour to offer support for small businesses
The Conservatives would permanently scrap stamp duty on homes up to £425,000 for first-time buyers, Rishi Sunak is expected to pledge in the party’s election manifesto, in a move that would affect 200,000 households annually.
The threshold was raised from £300,000 to £425,000 in the September 2022 mini-budget as a temporary relief measure that is due to expire next March.
Continue reading...Proposals also include a £20-a-week boost to payments and an increased limit on earnings from part-time work
The Liberal Democrats will commit to a £1.5bn overhaul of carer’s allowance, including a £20-a-week boost for more than 1 million people who devote their lives to looking after frail, ill and disabled loved ones, in their general election manifesto.
An ongoing Guardian investigation has revealed that tens of thousands of unpaid carers have been forced by the government to pay back huge sums – and in some cases have faced criminal prosecution – for minor and accidental breaches of carer’s allowance earnings rules.
Continue reading...PM, who left to attend an ITV interview, says ‘the last thing I wanted was for the commemorations to be overshadowed by politics’
I think it would be fair to say that children’s minister David Johnston is not having a vintage media round today.
First he was ambushed by Rishi Sunak issuing his D-day absence apology while the minister was literally out defending Sunak by repeatedly pointing out that he had been in France earlier in the day and in Portsmouth the day before [See 8.18 BST].
Continue reading...John Swinney claims Anas Sarwar not keeping to Rachel Reeves’s constraints on NHS, schools and renewables funding as leaders clash
The SNP has accused Scottish Labour of “completely rewriting” Rachel Reeves’s spending plans, as the party leaders took part in the first televised debate of the election campaign.
The clash between the the SNP, Scottish Labour, Scottish Conservatives and Scottish Liberal Democrats was screened by STV, without a studio audience, and involved intensive cross-examination of each leader by his political rivals.
Continue reading...It comes after former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the party’s treatment of Abbott was ‘a disgrace’
Keir Starmer is in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, launching Labour’s general election campaign in Wales with beleagured first minister Vaughan Gething. Next week Gething faces a confidence motion in the Senedd. We’ll bring you any key lines that emerge. You can watch it here, the event has just started …
The Liberal Democrats have again criticised ITV’s decision to host a debate featuring just Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer and excluding themselves. The Liberal Democrats were the fourth largest party in the House of Commons after the 2019 election.
Well obviously, I’d love it if Ed Davey and the Liberal Democrats did have a voice in the TV debates, and we are setting out our stall every single day – our fair deal for the British people, our focus on the NHS and care system, the cost-of-living crisis and sewage in our rivers and seas.
Continue reading...Prime minister campaigns in Buckinghamshire as his military service plan is criticised and MP defects to Reform
Rishi Sunak struggled to keep control of his fractured party on a chaotic fifth day of the Tory election campaign, as one MP defected to Reform and a minister criticised the prime minister’s pledge to bring back national service.
Sunak was in Buckinghamshire as he sought to get back on the front foot after a bruising start to the snap election, with Tory insiders increasingly worried about his strategy and performance.
Continue reading...Prime minister dismisses speculation after Tory peer Zac Goldsmith became latest to hint at planned relocation
Starmer is now running through his six first step promises.
Starmer says he is fed up with hearing Rishi Sunak says the UK has “turned the corner”.
Continue reading...After some tetchy interviews the PM flew to all four nations, while Starmer and Davey focused on voters’ desire for change
Far from the bedraggled figure who announced an election outside No 10, Rishi Sunak positively bounced into a biscuit factory for his first stump speech of the election campaign.
He had given a tetchy performance on the broadcast round on Thursday morning, bristling at those challenging his economic record and failure to carry out his Rwanda plan.
Continue reading...Bills, including smoking ban for people born after 2009, unlikely to become law before 4 July vote
Rishi Sunak is now speaking at an event in Ilkeston in Derbyshire. It is in the Erewash constituency, where the Tory MP Maggie Throup had a majority of 10,606 at the last election.
He repeats the claim that a Labour government would cost every family £2,000.
Labour’s spending promises cost £16 billion per year in 2028-29, or £58.9 billion over the next four years.
But their revenue raisers would only collect £6.2 billion per year in 2028-29, or £20.4 billion over the next four years.
I don’t really think the arrangements in Scotland for the school holidays have really been anywhere near the calculations made by the prime minister …
I think it would be respectful if that was the case but it’s pretty typical of the lack of respect shown to Scotland that we’re an afterthought from the Westminster establishment and particularly the Conservative establishment.
Continue reading...Tory council representation has imploded, but Labour’s gains have not been seismic. These charts show what this may signal for a general election
Conservative representation has collapsed to its lowest level since 1998 in the areas that voted in Thursday’s local elections, according to a Guardian analysis.
The Tories now control 19% of seats in the 98 council areas that had announced results by 20:40 on 3 May – their lowest level since Labour’s Tony Blair swept to power in the late 1990s.
Continue reading...Party source describes region as ‘beating heart of general election battleground’ as prime minister says Labour threw ‘lot of mud’
The results of the London mayoral contest and London assembly elections are due on Saturday. Labour’s Sadiq Khan is seeking a third term and polls have put him comfortably ahead of Tory Susan Hall, despite jitters in Khan’s campaign team.
Following the closure of the polls tonight, Khan said his campaign and Labour activists “sent out a message of fairness, of equality and of hope”.
Continue reading...With almost all council elections declared, Conservatives are on course to lose up to 500 seats
At the start of a long weekend of election results, the first outcomes have been every bit as dire for the Conservatives and Rishi Sunak as analysts had predicted. Here is the state of play.
Continue reading...Results from more than 100 English councils, as well as for several mayors, are announced. So far the Conservatives have lost control of several key councils but have won the Tees Valley mayoral contest. Find out what happened in your area
Figures for England obtained by Lib Dems show that 500,000 people in ‘very urgent’ need travelled to hospital without ambulance in 2023
Growing numbers of seriously ill people are making their own way to A&E in what has been called an “Uber ambulance crisis”, because 999 response times are too slow.
A&E doctors said that while they understood that people are acting out of “desperation”, they are taking a serious risk with their health, especially if they are driving themselves.
Continue reading...Lib Dems also call for action to suspend arms exports to Israel after seven aid workers killed in Gaza
Ministers are under pressure from Tory MPs and peers to stop arming Israel after seven humanitarian workers were killed by an airstrike in Gaza.
Four Conservatives told the Guardian on Wednesday that the UK should stop exporting arms to Israel after its strike, which killed three British aid workers.
Continue reading...Lib Dem leader fears war will spread to West Bank if those pushing for more settlements are not penalised
The UK should impose sanctions on two far-right Israeli ministers who have pushed for more settlements on Palestinian land, Ed Davey has argued, saying this is vital to stop the fighting in Gaza spreading to the West Bank.
The Liberal Democrat leader, who returned on Wednesday morning from a visit to Israel where he had spoken to charities, politicians and relatives of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, said there was a risk of the prospect of a two-state solution collapsing.
Continue reading...With Labour withdrawing support for its candidate, the vote has been blown wide open
With Labour withdrawing support for its candidate, Azhar Ali, at the 11th hour, the Rochdale byelection on 29 February has been blown wide open. The candidates on the all-male ballot paper include George Galloway, who has been canvassing support among the Muslim population, and the seat’s former MP Simon Danczuk, who has appeared as a last-minute candidate for Reform UK.
Here’s a run-down of the candidates and what they stand for:
Continue reading...Letter shows the Lib Dem leader initially refused to meet a campaigner when he was a minister responsible for the service
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has seen his personal popularity take a significant hit in the wake of the Post Office scandal, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer.
Davey was one of a series of ministers responsible for the Post Office during the crisis, holding the role between 2010 and 2012. He has received criticism after a letter emerged in which he refused to meet Alan Bates, the former postmaster and campaigner fighting for justice, telling him: “I do not believe a meeting would serve any useful purpose.”
Continue reading...