Youth campaigners have stepped up efforts to oust Boris Johnson from his constituency with grassroots organisations increasingly hopeful they can make history by ensuring he is the first prime minister to lose their seat at a general election.
Despite speculation that Johnson might have relocated to a safer seat, it was confirmed on Thursday that he would stay put, ignoring an internal assessment from the intelligence agency GCHQ that he is potentially at risk.
Continue reading...PM makes false statements about Brexit being ‘blocked’ and his record as London mayor
Boris Johnson is facing criticism over a series of inaccurate statements made in a flurry of live broadcast interviews during a difficult day of campaigning.
The prime minister was challenged on Friday on subjects as varied as crime, Brexit, the abandoned London garden bridge project and the number of children he has fathered.
Continue reading...Document to reiterate radical 2017 commitment to ‘sector-wide collective bargaining’
Labour’s manifesto will reaffirm plans for the most dramatic shift in conditions for employees in Britain since the 1980s – including changing the way wages are set for 20 million workers.
The “clause V” document, which will be agreed by senior party figures at a meeting on Saturday, is expected to be launched by Jeremy Corbyn next week.
Continue reading...Jeremy Corbyn will announce free internet plan in speech in Lancaster, while prime minister is in Oldham
Johnson is now asked whether he has done enough for the flood victims. He says you can never do enough for someone who has suffered in a flooding. Of course there’s always more you can do, he says, but he will make sure that the insurers don’t “weasel out of their obligations” to the flood victims. His government has put far more into flood defence than previous Labour governments, he says, 2.6bn.
They move on to migration. Is net migration going to rise and fall under a Conservative government? Johnson says “it’s a great thing” that there are “more EU nationals in the UK than ever before”. Once we come out of the EU, in January, we will take control of our borders, the PM says. When pressed for particular target numbers, Johnson says he doesn’t want to play the numbers game. He says the problem is uncontrolled immigration, and that this is what Labour wants to pursue. He brings up an Australian-style point-based immigration system again. Is a brain surgeon or a porter getting more points? His analysts haven’t decided yet, the PM says.
PM cancels stop-off in Glastonbury after being heckled on visit to school
Boris Johnson has been accused of refusing to meet members of the public and running scared of protests during a visit to Somerset.
Johnson was in south-west England to try to bolster the campaigns of Tory colleagues against strong Liberal Democrat challenges. But in Taunton he was heckled by protesters as he visited a school and a planned stop-off at a bakery on the edge of Glastonbury was ditched.
Continue reading...The prime minister delivers the first big set-piece speech of the campaign as Labour pledges £26bn extra per year for NHS
That’s all from us for this evening. Thanks for reading and commenting. For a comprehensive rundown of the day’s events, see my colleague Andrew Sparrow’s daily election briefing:
Related: Andrew Sparrow's election briefing: Johnson won't change Brexit stance to please Farage
Related: Boris Johnson heckled over floods but does not apologise for 'slow response'
Hoey also said complained that MPs had spent the last two years trying to thwart Brexit, telling LBC:
We’ve had two years of parliament – a remain parliament – doing everything they can to stop us leaving; by different methods and some not so serious as others. But most of the Labour MPs in there and a substantial number of Conservatives have tried to stop it.
Continue reading...Gauke said he would contest South West Hertfordshire seat he has held since 2005
The former Tory cabinet minister David Gauke has announced he will stand as an independent candidate at the general election.
The former justice secretary said he would contest the South West Hertfordshire seat he has held since 2005.
Continue reading...Hillary Clinton has said she is 'dumbfounded' as to why the UK government has not yet published a report on alleged Russian interference in British politics. Speaking to BBC's Radio 4 Today programme, the former US presidential candidate said: 'Every person who votes in this country deserves to see that report before your election happens.'
Continue reading...Party leader announces election climbdown in effort to avoid splitting leave vote
Nigel Farage has said the Brexit party will not field any candidates against the Conservatives in the 317 seats they won at the last general election, after Boris Johnson committed to leaving the EU by 2020 and pursuing a Canada-style trade deal.
Farage said his party’s climbdown came after months of trying to create a leave alliance with the Tories, but he felt it was time to put the country before his party and make a “unilateral” move.
Continue reading...Party leader has stressed benefits of immigration, but some fear policy could hurt Labour in Tory seats
Labour activists are urging Jeremy Corbyn to incorporate the radical pro-migration policy passed at the party’s conference into its manifesto this week as the Tories prepare to weaponise the issue in the election battle.
Senior Labour figures are expected to meet on Monday to thrash out the details of the party’s policy, but a final decision will not be made until next weekend.
Continue reading...Labour ‘shocked’ as police watchdog freezes investigation into Jennifer Arcuri scandal
The scandal over Boris Johnson’s friendship with technology entrepreneur Jennifer Arcuri was reignited on Saturday after the Observer revealed that the independent police watchdog has delayed its announcement on whether the PM should face an investigation into possible criminal misconduct until after the election.
The decision prompted fury from Westminster politicians and London assembly members who said it appeared that a ruling had been “suppressed” in order to protect Johnson from potentially damaging headlines at a crucial stage of the election campaign.
Continue reading...The Guardian’s Rory Carroll is reporting from the constituency of Belfast East to find out what issues people there care about most – and he wants your help
Are you a Belfast East voter? The Guardian will be reporting from Belfast East next week ahead of the General Election, as part of a series of pieces from across the country focused on finding out what matters to the people who live there.
Traditionally a unionist seat, Belfast East is facing deep political uncertainty. It’s held by the DUP which supports Brexit but is not happy with Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal in case it weakens Northern Ireland’s position in the UK.
Continue reading...PM says there will be no checks on goods going from Northern Ireland to rest of UK
Boris Johnson has been accused of misleading the public about his own Brexit deal, after footage emerged of him telling exporters in Northern Ireland they will not need to fill in extra paperwork.
After a rocky start to the general election campaign in which Jacob Rees-Mogg had to apologise for his comments about victims of the Grenfell Tower fire, and the Welsh secretary, Alun Cairns, resigned, footage emerged of the prime minister regaling businesses with the benefits of his deal.
Continue reading...Returning infrastructure investment to 1970s levels may be undeliverable, says IFS
Labour and the Conservatives have triggered a public spending bidding war, promising massive programmes of borrowing that will return public investment to levels last seen in the 1970s, according to Britain’s leading experts on the public finances.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said plans unveiled by Sajid Javid, the chancellor, and John McDonnell, his Labour shadow, would represent a decisive break with the past, but warned that a future government might have trouble delivering projects on the scale envisaged.
Continue reading...The Guardian’s Rob Booth is reporting from the constituency of Peterborough to find out what issues people there care about most – and he wants your help
The Guardian will be reporting from Peterborough next week ahead of the General Election, as part of a series of pieces from across the country focused on finding out what matters to the people who live there. For example, the people of Peterborough have seen public spending fall by £262 a year per person since the start of austerity in 2010 – typical of the UK as a whole.
If you live in Peterborough, can you tell us what this has meant? We’d like to understand the big issues facing you and your family and which policies matter to you. How happy are you with the state of housing, work, community relations, policing and health services?
Continue reading...Move will reopen debate about party’s direction under Jeremy Corbyn
Tom Watson is quitting parliament and stepping down as Labour’s deputy leader, reopening the debate about the party’s direction under Jeremy Corbyn. Watson, who is one of Labour’s best-known figures, has represented the constituency of West Bromwich East since 2001.
In a letter to Corbyn released by Labour, he said his decision to step down was “personal, not political”.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson pressed to drop Cairns after he quit as Welsh secretary over rape trial claims
Boris Johnson is facing calls to remove Alun Cairns as a Conservative candidate after the Welsh secretary resigned over allegations that a former aide sabotaged a rape trial.
Cairns stepped down following huge pressure in recent days over the actions of his former adviser Ross England, with the furore threatening to derail the Tory campaign in Wales.
Continue reading...The Guardian’s political sketch writer is supposed to make up his own jokes. But politics has been so ludicrous and psychedelic that he’s just written down what happened and taken credit for the laughs
I didn’t think twice when I was asked to become the Guardian’s political sketch writer. Not only was it a huge honour to follow in the footsteps of so many great writers, such as Norman Shrapnel and Simon Hoggart, but what better job could there be for a satirist and lifelong politics nerd? Yet in February 2014, I imagined it would be a niche slot. Centre-stage, certainly, for the big set pieces of elections and budgets, but otherwise strictly for obsessives like me who could find humour in exchanges over proposed improvements to the Kettering bypass at transport questions on a Thursday morning.
Yet almost from the day I started, it was as if our politicians had chosen to overdose on psychedelics. The surreal rapidly became the all too real. Sketches that used to be comedic diversions, lighthearted puncturing of pomposity, incompetence and duplicity through exaggeration and flights of imagination, became almost straightforward reportage. I didn’t have to make anything up, I just had to more or less write down what people said and claim the laughs for myself. A transcription service, if you like.
Continue reading...Exclusive: leaked briefing note advises candidates not to sign up to non-approved pledges – but supporting shooting is allowed
Conservative candidates in the general election will be told not to sign up to specific pledges on protecting the NHS from privatisation and trade deals or tackling climate change, according to a leaked internal document from party headquarters.
The 11-page briefing note explains the party’s position on nine key areas and “strongly advises” prospective Tory MPs “against signing up to any pledges” unless they have been agreed from the centre.
Continue reading...No 10 refuses to clear release of report into Russian political interference before election
Boris Johnson was on Monday night accused of presiding over a cover-up after it emerged that No 10 refused to clear the publication of a potentially incendiary report examining Russian infiltration in British politics, including the Conservative party.
Downing Street indicated on Monday that it would not allow a 50-page dossier from the intelligence and security committee to be published before the election, prompting a string of complaints over its suppression.
Continue reading...