Category Archives: General election 2024

Elton John among stars pledging support for Labour in general election

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Celebrities including Kit Harington, Deborah Meaden and Jason Manford back Keir Starmer’s party

Elton John has led a lineup of celebrities who have announced their support for Labour at the general election.

The singer-songwriter and his husband, David Furnish, joined actors Kit Harington and James Norton, singer Beverley Knight, comedian Jason Manford and businesswoman Deborah Meaden in bringing some stardust to a Labour supporters’ meeting held in the final days before next week’s poll.

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Starmer’s promise to voters: ‘I will relight the fire of optimism’ in Britain

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Writing in the Observer, the Labour leader vows to restore the bond of trust with politics if his party wins Thursday’s general election

Keir Starmer pledges to “relight the fire” of optimism and hope among the British people – and rekindle their faith in politicians as public servants - if they come out in sufficient numbers and vote for a Labour government in Thursday’s general election.

Writing exclusively for the Observer with just days to go until polling day, the Labour leader says that after 14 years of the Tories “serving themselves”, restoring the “bond of respect between people and politics” will be the precondition for a Labour government’s success.

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Nigel Farage to boycott BBC over ‘biased’ Question Time audience

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Reform also complains to Electoral Commission and Essex police about Channel 4 undercover investigation of party

Nigel Farage has announced he is boycotting the BBC, accusing the broadcaster of bias over his reception on Friday night’s Question Time.

The Reform leader took part in a leaders’ special episode, a half-hour Q&A session with a live audience, in which he was heavily criticised. One audience member called him a racist and another asked why his party attracted extremists.

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General election – as it happened: Farage says he is boycotting BBC as more Reform candidates dropped over past comments

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The Reform leader complained of a ‘dishonest Question Time audience’, while his party also reported Channel 4 to the Electoral Commission

The Conservative party deputy chair Angela Richardson called the sewage crisis a “political football” and claimed opposition parties and activists had put Tory MPs in physical danger by campaigning on the issue.

Richardson, who is standing for re-election in Guildford, where the River Wey was recently found to have 10 times the safe limit of E coli, also suggested the only reason people were talking about the problem was “because the Conservatives let everyone know it was happening”.

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Caroline Lucas: Labour must pursue social justice while tackling climate crisis

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Outgoing Green MP calls for combined strategy to ensure net zero will not be done ‘on the backs of the poor’

Labour must combine tackling the climate crisis with pursuing social justice, if elected, to show that achieving net zero will not be done “on the backs of the poor”, the UK’s outgoing Green party MP has warned.

Caroline Lucas, who has held the seat of Brighton Pavilion since 2010, said: “The biggest priority is to demonstrate that is not the case. We have to make sure that this is a strategy and a policy that is the opposite of being done on the backs of the poor.”

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Rishi Sunak speaks of ‘hurt and anger’ at daughters having to hear Reform activist’s racist slur about him – UK general election live

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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.

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Nigel Farage ‘has questions to answer’ over Reform racism, says Rishi Sunak

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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.

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Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now: UK radio listeners nominate songs to sum up election campaign

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Exclusive: Boom Radio listeners share in election fatigue but demographic arguably has less to lose than younger voters

Sometimes only a song can sum up the national mood.

When a soggy Rishi Sunak fired the starting gun on the general election in May, D:Ream’s Things Can Only Get Better blared across Downing Street. Five long weeks later and voters are cueing up rather more mordant tracks to capture their political fatigue.

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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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Labour to seek ‘stable position’ with Europe rather than reopen Brexit debate

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Shadow business secretary says trying to rejoin single market or customs union would cause ‘more difficulties’

Labour would rather have stability in the UK’s relationship with Europe than try to seek accelerated economic growth by rejoining the EU’s single market or customs union, the shadow business secretary has said.

Addressing the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) conference on Thursday, Jonathan Reynolds acknowledged that Brexit had been “very difficult for businesses” because it had erected trade barriers, but said reopening the debate would be worse.

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Global wave of elections could hit UK financial system, warns Bank of England

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Central bank raises concerns over newly elected governments as more than 80 countries go to polls this year

Uncertainty caused by a global wave of elections, starting this weekend in France, risks destabilising the UK’s financial system, the Bank of England has warned.

Officials are concerned about the kind of policies that newly elected governments may enforce in large economies, including the US, where Donald Trump is vying for another term as president in the run-up to the election in November.

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Sunak and Starmer clash over tax, borders and Brexit deal in final head-to-head before polling day – as it happened

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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.

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Met police to take bigger role in investigating election betting scandal

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A number of political figures have been accused of placing suspicious bets in the lead-up to the election

The Metropolitan police are to take an expanded role in investigating the criminal allegations triggered by the Westminster betting scandal, which is continuing to overshadow the election campaign.

Sources confirmed that talks between the Gambling Commission, which has been investigating multiple suspicious bets on the election date, and Scotland Yard have been continuing for days.

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Labour ‘not putting up a fight’ against Farage in Clacton

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Labour officials said to be upset that Jovan Owusu-Nepaul was gaining traction for viral social media posts

Labour has been accused of “not putting up a fight” against Nigel Farage in Clacton after the party’s candidate was instructed to leave the constituency after “distracting” from Keir Starmer’s campaign.

Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, 27, who works for Labour’s equalities team, was installed by the party last month to contest the seat, weeks before Farage changed his mind and decided to stand in the Essex constituency.

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UK general election live: Scottish Secretary says he placed bets on date but has ‘not breached any gambling rules’

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Tory MP Alister Jack says he ‘had no knowledge of the date of the election until the day it was called’ and is not under investigation

Let’s take a look at today’s top stories. The betting scandal, and election betting by people working in politics in general, dominate this morning’s front pages.

The Guardian leads with a fifth Conservative facing investigation by the Gambling Commission:

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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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Make this the last inaccessible election for blind people in UK, campaigners demand

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RNIB calls on all parties to commit to remove barriers that prevent people with sight loss voting on their own

Tens of thousand of people with sight loss will be denied their right to a secret ballot at next week’s general election, campaigners have warned, prompting calls to make it the last inaccessible election.

The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) is calling on all political parties to commit to remove barriers that prevent blind people voting on their own and without help in future elections.

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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 says Truss’s budget was mistaken as Starmer defends backing of Corbyn

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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.

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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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