PM responds to comments by Reform activists, who were filmed by Channel 4 reporter while canvassing in Clacton
Here’s the latest in the Guardian’s series on The broken years: Tory Britain 2010-24:
Unless the polls are wildly inaccurate, the Conservative party is heading towards a catastrophic defeat in the coming election.
Continue reading...Essex police say they are ‘urgently assessing’ racist and homophobic remarks made by party’s volunteers
Rishi Sunak has said he was hurt and angry to hear a Reform UK canvasser calling him a racial slur, saying Nigel Farage “has some questions to answer”.
The prime minister responded after a Channel 4 undercover investigation found a Reform campaigner had called him a “fucking [P-word]”. Sunak repeated the slur and said he had done so because it was important to call it out for what it was.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can read our full report on this debate here
YouGov will have a snap poll on who won the debate, with the results available minutes after it finishes.
This is what Labour is putting out ahead of the debate, in a stateement from Pat McFadden, the national campaign coordinator.
Tonight, the British people will witness the choice at this election: five more years of chaos with Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives or change with Keir Starmer and Labour.
On 4 July, the British people will have the chance to vote for change. To stop the chaos, turn the page and start to rebuild our country with Keir Starmer and a changed Labour party.
Tonight, Keir Starmer has the opportunity to announce loud and clear to the British public what his intentions are.
Throughout this campaign we have challenged the Labour party, time and time again, to come clean on their plans for taxes. Time and time again they have declined to do so.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Prime minister says he fought against predecessor’s plans and warns of migration surge if Labour scraps Rwanda plan
Keir Starmer has defended serving in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, saying he wanted to help preserve the Labour party and that he “always knew there was going to be a day after”.
Speaking in separate interviews hosted by the Sun newspaper that included questions from a watching audience, Rishi Sunak and Starmer underwent at times difficult interrogations, including over migration and the NHS.
Continue reading...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...Latest Opinium survey shows gap with Labour widening after another week of Conservative gaffes, while Reform rises two points to 16%
The Tories’ disastrous election campaign has propelled Labour to a near-record poll lead with just 11 days to go until election day.
The latest Opinium poll for the Observer puts Labour on 40% (unchanged compared with a week ago), with the Tories languishing on just 20% (down three on the week).
Continue reading...‘It looks like one rule for them and one rule for us,’ the levelling up, housing and communities secretary suggests
The election betting row is as damaging to the Conservatives as the Partygate scandal, Michael Gove has said.
The levelling up, housing and communities secretary was speaking after revelations in the Guardian about a wagers allegedly placed on the date of the general election just before it was announced by the prime minister, Rishi Sunak.
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...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...PM says he is ‘angry’ about allegations while Keir Starmer accuses him of ‘total lack of leadership’
Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives are refusing to say how many Tories are under investigation for betting on the date of the election, as the row continues to dog their campaign.
The prime minister said on Friday he was “angry at the thought that someone might have done the things that are alleged” after three people linked to the Conservatives were made subject to Gambling Commission inquiries, including one from his inner circle.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Chris Skidmore, ex-energy minister, says Rishi Sunak’s bid to turn net zero into culture war issue is ‘greatest tragedy of his premiership’
The Conservatives’ former net zero tsar has revealed that he intends to vote Labour for the first time because Rishi Sunak has been “siding with climate deniers” to politicise the energy transition.
Writing exclusively in the Guardian, Chris Skidmore, a former energy minister, said he could not back the Tories, who had argued that net zero was “a burden and not a benefit”, a decision that he said would cost it votes.
Continue reading...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”.
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...Labour leader asked if he would have served in a Corbyn cabinet and declines to say council tax won’t rise if his party wins
Q: [From Emma in Greenwich] How will you protect single-sex spaces for girls, while making it easier to get a gender recognition certificate?
Starmer says he is passionate about protecting single-sex spaces. As director of public prosecutions, he dealt with a lot of cases involving violence against women and girls.
Continue reading...Tens of thousands of letters signed by former prime minister expected to be delivered this week
The Conservatives will turn to Boris Johnson in an attempt to boost their faltering election campaign, according to reports.
Tens of thousands of letters signed by the former prime minister are expected to be delivered later this week in the closest campaign engagement yet by Johnson, whose involvement so far has been limited to endorsing individual Tory MPs.
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.
Rishi Sunak’s team helped fast-track deal with firm founded by Charles Huang, who says contracts generated $2bn profit
In California, state of sunshine and palm trees, a small group of men are locked in a big legal fight over the money made by a US company selling Covid tests to the British government. The founder of Innova Medical Group says his business collected $2bn (£1.6bn) in profits, one of the largest fortunes banked by any medical supplier during the scramble for lifesaving equipment in the early months of the pandemic.
In a storm of claims and counter-claims, Innova’s boss, Charles Huang, is accused by former associates of “squandering” or moving $1bn of those profits, spending lavishly on luxury aircraft, an $18m house in Los Angeles and “homes for his mistresses”.
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