Category Archives: Scottish National party (SNP)

Sunak cites ‘confidential’ inquiry as he refuses to answer questions over aide and election date bet – live

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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.

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Nigel Farage outperforms all other UK parties and candidates on TikTok

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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.

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UK general election live: Labour suspends candidate Kevin Craig over Gambling Commission probe

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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.

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Sunak defends decision not to take immediate action against Tories in betting scandal – as it happened

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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.

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‘Scunnered with the Tories, frustrated by the SNP’: Labour in bid to be Scotland’s biggest party

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Candidates in key central belt hope to scoop up voters who have become disillusioned with their election rivals

Not for the first time, Blair McDougall, Labour’s candidate in East Renfrewshire on the outskirts of Glasgow, is telling a wavering voter that the election here is “so, so close”.

If predictions of a knife-edge outcome weren’t enough to motivate him, many people – including some in Barrhead, which he is visiting today – have just received their postal ballots. Their votes will be cast in the next few days.

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Starmer says he would not let SNP hold new independence referendum or lift veto on gender recognition bill – as it happened

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Labour leader says he would refuse to participate in negotiations for another independence referendum if he is elected PM

Speaking of Nigel Farage: the Reform UK leader has praised the misogynist influencer Andrew Tate for being an “important voice” for the emasculated and giving boys “perhaps a bit of confidence at school” in online interviews that appear to be aimed at young men over the past year.

The Guardian’s Rowena Mason and Ben Quinn report:

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Rishi Sunak says he is ‘incredibly angry’ about betting allegations in BBC Question Time election special – as it happened

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Prime minister says suspects must face ‘full force of law’ if found guilty; Labour, SNP and Lib Dem leaders speak during programme

The next question comes from Linda, who says Davey’s antics during the election campaigns (fun photo opportunities, often involving him getting wet) haven’t looked prime-ministerial.

Davey says he has been trying to grab attention.

It was very difficult governing with the Conservatives. We couldn’t get everything we wanted …

You either had to stay in and fight inside the government or leave. I think the easy choice for me would be to leave, vote against it, and tour the media studios and complain. The hard choice was to stay in, roll up my sleeves and really fight.

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Rishi Sunak floats sanctions on young people for refusing national service

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PM suggests curbs on finance or driving licences for 18-year-olds who refuse service during challenging Question Time leaders’ special

Rishi Sunak has indicated that young people might face restrictions on access to finance or driving licences if they refuse to do national service, as he faced a TV quizzing from voters.

Asked during a BBC Question Time special what sanctions people could face for declining to take part in the Conservative policy of compulsory national service for all 18-year-olds, the prime minister pointed to “driving licences, or the access to finance, all sorts of other things”.

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Gambling regulator looking into second Tory candidate over bet on general election timing – live

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BBC names candidate as Laura Saunders and says she is married to party’s director of campaigns

In case you missed this late yesterday: Conservatives are projected to slump to their “lowest seat tally in the party’s almost 200-year history” at the General Election, according to the latest YouGov poll.

YouGov said its latest study projects Labour to secure 425 seats, the Tories 108, the Liberal Democrats 67, SNP 20, Reform UK five, Plaid Cymru four and the Green Party two. It noted such a scenario would hand Keir Starmer a 200-seat majority while it added Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is “likely” to win in Clacton.

The findings are similar to those from the Guardian’s Ipsos MRP poll on Tuesday, which showed the Conservatives winning just 115 seats, with Labour on 453.

YouGov used a technique known as multi-level regression and post-stratification (MRP) to model the outcome of the election in every constituency across Britain, PA reports.

It said the estimated seat projections were based on modelled responses from 36,161 adults in England and Wales, and 3,818 in Scotland, between June 11 and 18. Several high-profile Conservatives, including Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, would lose out if the projection played out at the ballot box on 4 July.

YouGov wrote:

Our new MRP has the Conservatives on their lowest seat tally in the party’s almost 200-year history.

Our latest model has 109 seats as toss ups – meaning that the winning party’s lead is less than five points. Sixty five marginal seats are contests between the Conservatives and Labour.”

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Tory government ‘worst in postwar era’, claims expert study – as it happened

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Sir Anthony Seldon leads analysis that concludes that equality, growth and the UK’s standing in the world have all declined since 2010

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And here are some of the best pictures from yesterday’s campaigning. As more voting people than ever appear poised to turn away from the Tories, Sunak appeared in several photographs with sheep and lobsters as he visited North Devon, held by the Tories since 2015. The Guardian’s Archie bland named the sheep the “Dubious photo opportunity of the day”, after the sheep ran away:

Starmer, meanwhile, appeared on LBC where he clarified that Premier League Football Clubs would not be subject to a 10% transfer tax to fund clubs lower down the pyramid. “Let me just kill it dead, we’re not looking at that,” Starmer said. He also visited a tennis club and a pub in Reading West and mid Berkshire.

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Nigel Farage claims young people have had their minds ‘poisoned’ with negative views about Britain – UK general election live

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Farage launches party manifesto in traditional Labour stronghold of Merthyr Tydfil

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have been campaigning in Hampshire this morning. Stefan Rousseau from PA Media took this picture of them on the train.

The SNP has called for a social tariff that would guarantee cheap energy bills for people who are poor, disabled or elderly.

We believe that there are certain things that every citizen should have access to as a right. Healthcare free at the point of need, a social security safety net, pensions for older people, and free education including free university tuition.

But it is time that we recognised that these rights need to go further, to reflect the realities of the modern world.

Connectivity – fast broadband and good mobile phone connections – are critical to modern life. In fact, in rural Scotland and the Isles, it is critical to the whole future of the economy.
As more and more people work from home at least part of the week, often you literally cannot do your job without a decent internet connection. That’s why, to help people get jobs, keep jobs and keep more of their hard-earned cash, there should be a social tariff for broadband and mobile charges too.

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UK elections: what is tactical voting and how does it work?

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The campaign group Best for Britain has launched its guide on how to vote to have the best chance of ousting the Tories. We look at what tactical voting involves and what the group is recommending

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Rayner, Mordaunt, Farage and others quizzed on NHS in general election debate clash – politics live

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Party representatives asked how they would fix a health service that is ‘on its knees’

In more disappointing news for the Tories, the Times is publishing an opinion poll that says that Reform have now overtaken them. Its political editor, Steven Swinford, has recently tweeted the story.

According to Savanta, the Labour manifesto featured 34 pictures of Keir Starmer while the Conservative manifesto had no pictures of Rishi Sunak.

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Rishi Sunak denies he considered missing D-day events entirely as he reiterates apology – UK general election live

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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].

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Starmer says Sunak ‘revealed character’ by lying about Labour’s tax plans – UK politics live

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Labour leader says PM’s tactics in Tuesday night TV debate show he is dishonest when put under pressure

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has been fined for speeding after being caught doing 73mph in a 60mph zone on the M1, PA Media reports. PA says:

Details of the case, dealt with under an administrative system called the single justice procedure, were revealed by the Evening Standard newspaper.

Davey wrote a letter of explanation in which he said he had tried to pay a speeding ticket issued by Bedfordshire police after he was caught speeding on the M1 near Caddington.

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SNP says Scottish Labour is rewriting party’s spending plans in TV debate

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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.

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John Swinney says SNP facing its biggest challenge for years

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Leader launches party’s election campaign as polling suggests it will pay high price for recent woes

John Swinney has described July’s general election as “the biggest challenge the SNP has had for years” as he used his party’s official campaign launch to repeatedly attack Labour, which is threatening the nationalists in dozens of seats across Scotland.

Swinney, who told the rally of more than 200 activists and former MPs in Glasgow that it was a “surprise” to be leading the SNP into an election campaign, added that “voters are right to remind us never to take anything for granted”.

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Labour says early general election leaves many government commitments ‘in the bin’ – as it happened

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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.

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Labour defends welcoming rightwing Tory MP Natalie Elphicke into party – UK politics live

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Natalie Elphicke said she was defecting to Labour due to ‘broken promises of Rishi Sunak’s tired and chaotic government’

PMQs starts in just over 20 minutes, and today there will be particular interest in the mood on the Conservative benches. Rishi Sunak has actively embraced the theory that the local election results show Labour is not on course to win an overall majority, but this is based on a projection that has been widely dismissed as unrealistic.

Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.

It’s an issue of humanity and I think you’ve got to show equivalence. I condemn unequivocally the actions of Hamas on Oct 7; those 134 hostages must be released. At the same time I condemn unequivocally the actions of the IDF and Netanyahu; 34,000 people have perished including 14,000 children.

It’s utterly wrong and an insult to those victims to equate the brutality of Hamas to the legitimate military measures that Israel is taking in defence of its people and nation.

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John Swinney set to be confirmed as new SNP leader and Scotland’s first minister – UK politics live

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Swinney may be only candidate after withdrawal of Graeme McCormick

Labour has marked the anniversary of the Conservatives re-entering government at the 2010 election by launching a what the opposition have called “Conflix” website [geddit?] that mockingly tells the story of “14 years of Tory chaos”

The party’s chair, Anneliese Dodds, was challenged about the site on Sky News this morning and whether the party was relying on “stunts” rather than policy proposals. She insisted that the “detail of policy” was there, in the form of initiatives like GB Energy.

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