Labour and the Conservatives in scramble for votes on the final day of campaigning
Here’s Labour’s campaign ad this morning, invoking the Blitz spirit.
Let's get back on track. pic.twitter.com/nITBAzhJUO
A busy day all round. Johnson will be travelling from Yorkshire to the Midlands, Wales and London.
Continue reading...Europe is awaiting the result of Thursday’s poll with trepidation, worried by what the consequences might be for the EU
Continue reading...The mood may be one of despair, but this election is critical to the country’s future. The best hope lies with Labour, despite its flaws
Britain has not faced a more critical election in decades than the one it faces on Thursday. The country’s future direction, its place in the world and even its territorial integrity are all at stake, primarily because this is a decisive election for Brexit. The choice is stark. The next prime minister is going to be either Boris Johnson, who is focused on “getting Brexit done” whatever the consequences, or Jeremy Corbyn, who with a Labour-led government will try to remodel society with a programme of nationalisation and public spending.
Continue reading...Woman denies posting false information that photo of four-year-old was political stunt
A medical secretary has claimed her Facebook account was hacked after it was used to post false information claiming that a photograph of an ill boy on the floor at Leeds General Infirmary was staged for political purposes.
The woman denied posting the allegation that four-year-old Jack Willment-Barr’s mother placed him on the floor specifically to take the picture which became symbolic of the NHS’s troubles after it appeared on the front page of Monday’s Daily Mirror.
Continue reading...Dave Merritt criticises PM for seeing terrorist attack as opportunity instead of tragedy
The father of Jack Merritt, who was murdered in the London Bridge terrorist attack last month, has directly criticised the prime minister for treating his son’s death as a political “opportunity”.
As Boris Johnson sought on Tuesday to get his general election campaign back on track, Dave Merritt accused him of seeking to capitalise on his son’s murder.
Continue reading...Target seats such as Grimsby have not been blue for decades. To win here will require more than giant cod and snappy slogans
Boris Johnson does not look like a prime minister who believes he is just about to lose the office he has coveted since boyhood.
Brandishing a giant cod and joking with fishmongers, he is in his campaign comfort zone. It is the mode of the Vote Leave tour bus: eye-catching photo ops, a snappy slogan and informal stump speeches that play fast and loose with the facts about Brexit.
Continue reading...Foreign minister challenges Johnson’s claim about goods moving from Northern Ireland to Britain
Simon Coveney, Ireland’s foreign minister, has challenged Boris Johnson’s claim that under his Brexit deal there would be no checks or controls on goods moving between Northern Ireland and Britain.
Coveney insisted that under the terms of the withdrawal agreement the prime minister negotiated with the European Union there would be inspections on goods moving in both directions.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson accused of not caring after refusing reporter’s requests several times
Boris Johnson has been accused of not caring after he repeatedly refused during a TV interview to look at a photo of a four-year-old boy forced to sleep on the floor at an overcrowded A&E unit, before pocketing the reporter’s phone on which he was being shown the picture.
In an ITV interview during a campaign visit to a factory in Sunderland, the prime minister was challenged about the plight of Jack Williment-Barr, who was pictured sleeping under coats on a hospital floor in Leeds as he waited for a bed, despite having suspected pneumonia.
Continue reading...John McDonnell to outline agenda for Labour government as general election campaign enters its final days
Good morning. We’re here, in the final stretch of the campaign. The country will go to the polls on Thursday, but before that happens, the parties are giving their pitches one final push.
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell will outline the party’s plan for the first 100 days of a Labour government, while the party focuses on the benefit of its policies to the bank balances of voters, promising the public that a Labour government would put “money in your pocket”.
Continue reading...Shadow chancellor says sorry to Jewish community, adding party was ‘doing everything possible’ to tackle issue
The shadow chancellor has expressed his concern that the row over antisemitism in Labour may have an effect on the election result, adding that the party had “done everything we can possibly do” to tackle the problem.
In a BBC One interview on Sunday morning, John McDonnell apologised to the Jewish community for “the suffering we’ve inflicted on them”. He added: “I say to them, we’re doing everything possible and we are going to learn more lessons and we want to be the shining example of anti-racism that the Labour party should be.”
Continue reading...Eleventh-hour appeal to anti-Tory voters as poll shows Conservative majority halved
A cross-party alliance of opposition politicians has launched an 11th-hour appeal to anti-Tory voters to consider switching allegiance in Thursday’s general election, amid signs that a late surge of tactical voting in a few swing seats could deprive Boris Johnson of a majority in parliament.
The calls from senior Labour, Liberal Democrat and SNP figures come as a major poll suggests Johnson’s likely majority has been cut in half in the last two weeks – from 82 a fortnight ago to just 40 with four days to polling day.
Continue reading...Labour and Conservative party leaders clash over racism and NHS in final before polling day
Jeremy Corbyn accused Boris Johnson of having made “racist remarks” as the pair clashed over Islamophobia and antisemitism in their parties in a crucial head-to-head debate less than a week before polling day.
Corbyn made the allegation during the BBC One leaders’ debate on Friday as he defended himself against Johnson’s charge that his handling of antisemitism complaints within Labour was a “failure of leadership”.
Continue reading...Labour leader says government report states Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal will be ‘highly disruptive’
The Labour leader has produced a leaked report on Northern Ireland and customs checks, describing it as “cold hard evidence” that Boris Johnson has been misleading people about his Brexit deal.
Corbyn revealed the confidential document, titled Northern Ireland Protocol: Unfettered Access to the UK Internal Market, at a press conference in central London on Friday.
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Continue reading...This election has dragged party leaders to a new level of pathology. One that may be beyond treatment
I’m not sure what the protocols are for these sorts of events, but the sight of Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn attending the vigil for Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones, who were killed in the London Bridge terrorist attack, felt like shameless political grandstanding: a desire to be seen to be doing the right thing, rather than heartfelt sympathy. And judging by what Jack’s father later wrote about the prime minister he would probably have also preferred Johnson to be a no show. Shortly after the vigil, various members of one of my WhatsApp groups expressed much the same feeling and we made a promise to actively prevent politicians from pitching up at our funerals or hospital beds if we were killed or injured in a terrorist attack or some other major incident. Should the prime minister, or any other political leader, try to muscle in on my family’s grief, I want a security detail to escort them off the premises. If they insist on making statements “to express the nation’s feelings” they can do so via a video-link from their own bedrooms. And there will be no need for them to worry about looking as if they didn’t give a toss by not attending, because my friends will have put out a statement to the media saying they were NFI. Not that I have given much thought to what sort of funeral I do want, though I’ve always thought how weird it must have been for the Queen Mother to look out of her bedroom window and watch the military rehearsing for hers. But my friend Simone has her funeral arrangements totally sorted. While her close friend Ali was dying of cancer, she dreamed of her own funeral – the music, the readings – in its entirety. When she woke up she remembered everything, thought it to be just perfect, and wrote out her instructions. I’m still waiting for that dream.
Continue reading...PM says sorry for describing Muslim women in veils as ‘letterboxes’ and promises EU trade deal by end of 2020
Boris Johnson has claimed that all-out strikes on public transport will be made illegal under a new Conservative administration following major disruption on UK train routes.
On a day when the prime minister also apologised “for any offence caused” by his comments about Muslim women and refused to concede it could take more than a year to agree a trade deal with the EU, he said it was “absurd” that rail workers could bring the system to a halt.
Continue reading...The UK has a well-earned reputation for being a key player on the global stage – respected for our record on international development, climate change, and humanitarian aid.
By 2020, this country will have helped vaccinate 76 million children, saving 1.4 million lives from preventable diseases. The UK has already helped 57 million people to cope with the effects of climate change over the last eight years and is on track to reach 60 million people with clean water by 2020. About 32 million people have been supported with humanitarian assistance in the face of conflict and disasters, including at least 10 million women and girls.
Continue reading...Labour leader says: ‘Obviously I’m very sorry for what has happened’
Jeremy Corbyn has apologised to the Jewish community for antisemitic incidents involving Labour party members and said he was dealing with the issue.
The Labour leader said: “Obviously I’m very sorry for what has happened,” after being asked to apologise directly by presenter Philip Schofield, in an interview on ITV’s This Morning.
Continue reading...Gus John lambasts Justin Welby’s support amid church’s ‘woeful’ record on racism
A leading campaigner against racism has resigned from a Church of England advisory body in protest at the archbishop of Canterbury’s support for the chief rabbi’s comments last week on antisemitism in the Labour party.
Gus John, a respected author and academic, said: “As a matter of principle, I cannot continue to work with the Anglican church … after the archbishop of Canterbury’s disgraceful endorsement of the chief rabbi’s unjust condemnation of Jeremy Corbyn and the entire Labour party.”
Continue reading...Donald Trump has said he would not be interested in putting Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) on the table during trade talks with the UK even if it was ‘handed on a silver platter’.
Trump, who is in London for a Nato summit, said: ‘We have absolutely nothing to do with [the NHS], and we wouldn’t want to. If you handed it to us on a silver platter, we’d want nothing to do with it’
Continue reading...Lib Dem leader said leaders should be ‘very careful’ about relationship with US president, ahead of his arrival for Nato
Morning, Amy Walker here, I’ll be taking over the politics liveblog for the next hour or so.
The former head of the parole board, Nick Hardwick, has criticised government changes to the criminal justice system after London Bridge attacker Usman Khan was released from prison under licence.
PA Media reports a vigil will be held to pay tribute to the victims killed in the London Bridge terror attack and to honour the emergency services and members of the public who responded to the incident.
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