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...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...Reform UK leader refuses to apologise after his remarks attracted widespread condemnation
Nigel Farage has doubled down on his claims that the west provoked the Russian invasion of Ukraine, refusing to apologise and insisting he is not an “apologist or supporter of Putin”.
The Reform UK leader had appeared on the BBC’s Panorama programme on Thursday night, drawing a link between Nato and EU expansion in recent decades and the conflict in eastern Europe.
Continue reading...Reform leader speaks on BBC as part of special election interviews; Welsh TV election debate to take place on BBC One Cymru
If you want to get a bit of revision in before Nigel Farage’s interview tonight, you can find the Reform UK manifesto, which it is branding its “contract with you”, here.
The five opening key pledges are:
All non-essential immigration frozen to boost wages, protect public services, end the housing crisis and cut crime.
Illegal migrants who come to the UK will be detained and deported. And if needed, migrants in small boats will be picked up and taken back to France.
Still free at the point of delivery, healthcare needs reform to improve outcomes and enjoy zero NHS waiting lists.
Lift the income tax starting threshold to £20k to save the lowest paid £1,500 per year. This takes 7 million of the least well-off out of income tax to make work pay and get people off benefits.
Scrap energy levies and net zero to slash energy bills and save each household £500 per year. Unlock Britain’s vast oil and gas reserves to beat the cost of living crisis and unleash real economic growth.
Continue reading...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:
Continue reading...Reform leader’s strategy to engage with young voters online pays off as he hits 776,000 TikTok followers
While Nigel Farage has written off many in generation X for being hopelessly woke and leftwing, he is much more interested in gen Z.
“Support is exploding among young gen Z 18-25 voters,” he told an audience in Runcorn in Cheshire on Thursday. “Something remarkable is happening out there. There’s an awakening in a younger generation who have had enough of being dictated to, have had enough of being lectured to, and they’re seeing through the BS they’re getting in schools and universities.”
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Farage says his party will gain more than 6m votes in election after survey puts it ahead of Tories for first time
Nigel Farage has declared himself the real “leader of the opposition” and predicted his Reform UK party will gain more than 6m votes at the general election, after polling ahead of the Conservatives for the first time.
At an impromptu press conference in Westminster, the Reform leader said there was a momentum behind his party, and he “absolutely” believes he will gain more votes than the Tories.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Leaders of Scotland’s five main political parties clash during live TV debate
Momentum, the leftwing Labour group set up when Jeremy Corbyn was leader, is not happy about Keir Starmer’s jibe about Corbyn’s manifesto.
Labour’s 2019 manifesto was fully costed.
Keir should know, he stood on it as a member of the shadow cabinet.
How about stopping attacking your own side during an election @Keir_Starmer?
George Cottrell, who was jailed in US for wire fraud, has been seen at Reform UK leader’s side over the last week
Nigel Farage is facing questions over why he is being accompanied on the campaign trail by an aristocratic friend who spent eight months in jail in the US for wire fraud.
Known as “Posh George”, George Cottrell was a volunteer for Farage in 2016 before his arrest in the US on money-laundering charges and ultimate guilty plea to one count of wire fraud in a case unrelated to his work at Ukip, Farage’s party at the time. The crime was committed in 2014, before Cottrell worked for either the anti-EU party or Farage.
Continue reading...Cabinet minister Mel Stride says PM ‘deeply regrets’ early exit from 80th-anniversary commemoration in Normandy
An ally of Rishi Sunak has said the prime minister will “absolutely” continue to lead the Conservative election campaign after his D-day ceremony blunder, which triggered fury within the party.
The prime minister was campaigning in Yorkshire on Sunday without media appearances, after cutting short his attendance at the 80th anniversary of D-day in France with other world leaders.
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...Labour leader says prime minister’s claim he would raise people’s taxes by £2,000 is ‘nonsense’
The Guardian’s visuals team has produced an interactive boundary map for the UK general election which shows you if your constituency has been altered because of boundary changes. You can check it out here:
Ed Davey has been speaking about his party’s plan to provide free personal care for adults. The Liberal Democrats leader said he wants carers to have a special, higher minimum wage.
Continue reading...Our Nige at least manages to sound slightly plausible while talking utter rubbish
It’s not hard to pick out where the power lies at any Reform party event. Just check out the middle-aged men with a tan. Richard Tice, Nigel Farage and David Bull all look like they’ve spent a suspiciously long time on the sunbed. Or maybe they’ve got a bulk offer on spray tan. Either way, you have to blink several times when you see them in the flesh. The glare is oppressive. Welcome to the party with heavy 1970s Benidorm vibes.
Nigel Farage had insisted that when he first booked Glaziers Hall near London Bridge, it had been to announce that he was planning to stand as a candidate in the election. Like a lot of things Our Nige says, this may be wishful thinking. Or a straight porky. Check out the timings. Rishi Sunak calls a general election last Wednesday. Nige books the room the next day. All set to go. Then changes his mind within days. Mmm. Maybe not.
Continue reading...Brexit campaigner suggested he and prime minister should ‘have a conversation’ after favours he had done Tories over the years
Rishi Sunak has ruled out a deal with Nigel Farage after the Reform politician suggested they should “have a conversation” before the election.
Farage has held back from running as a candidate for the Reform party, which is led and funded by Richard Tice, but on Wednesday he extended an olive branch to Sunak in an interview with the Sun, telling him: “Give me something back. We might have a conversation.”
Continue reading...Comments from former Ukip leader, who also said he will stand for parliament in the future, described as ‘outright Islamophobia’
Nigel Farage has come under fire for using his first election interview to “spout Islamophobia, hatred and divisive comments” after he said a growing number of Muslims do not share British values.
The honorary president of the Reform UK party drew heavy criticism on Sunday after claiming Rishi Sunak had allowed “more people into the country who are going to fight British values” than any UK leader before him.
Continue reading...Belgian PM condemns move by local mayor to shut down radical rightwing conference as ‘unconstitutional’
A radical right conference that was addressed by Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman as police arrived to close it down has resumed after a Brussels court overturned a local mayor’s attempt to stop it.
Following moves condemned as “unacceptable” and “unconstitutional” by the Belgian prime minister, Alexander De Croo, organisers of the National Conservatism conference went to the conseil d’état, Belgium’s supreme administrative court.
Continue reading...Emir Kir ordered police to close down radical rightwing conference attended by Suella Braverman and Nigel Farage
The UK prime minister has rounded on Belgian authorities for closing down a radical rightwing conference in Brussels that was addressed by British politicians including Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman.
After a day of chaos, claims and recriminations, the decision by a local Belgian mayor to stop the National Conservatives (NatCon) event was also condemned as “unacceptable” by Belgium’s prime minister, Alexander De Croo.
Continue reading...