Category Archives: General election 2024

Rightwing Tories plan ‘rebel manifesto’ if Sunak’s policy launch falls flat

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Party figures including Braverman and Jenrick waiting to see how public responds to pledges, insiders say

Conservative rightwingers are planning to present Rishi Sunak with demands for tougher action on immigration and human rights law before the election if the prime minister’s manifesto promises on Tuesday fall flat.

Prominent party figures including Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick are said by Tory insiders to be among those waiting to see how the manifesto is received by the public before they act.

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Rishi Sunak’s general election interview with the BBC: the key points

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Taxes, D-day, Farage and NHS waiting lists were all on the agenda as the prime minister jousted with Nick Robinson

Rishi Sunak was the first party leader to sit down with the BBC’s Nick Robinson for the broadcaster’s series of long-form election interviews. Here are the key points from the PM’s grilling.

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Lib Dems launch election manifesto with pledge ‘to save the NHS’

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Party presents ‘fully costed plan to tackle the healthcare crisis from top to bottom’, including guarantees on GPs and dentists and free-to-access social care

The Liberal Democrats have become the first of the big parties to launch their election manifesto, with a pitch to voters based on boosting the NHS and social care.

They also promised that – unlike Labour and the Tories – their plans were fully costed.

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Harder to own your first home under the Tories, Rishi Sunak admits – UK politics as it happened

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PM acknowledges in BBC Panorama interview to air tonight that it is a challenge for people to buy their first home

Davey sums up the Lib Dems’ plans on health and social care

And he says he wants to mention one other policy he is particularly proud of – the proposal to give proper bereavement support to parents whose partners have died.

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‘I want to win everywhere’: Keir Starmer sets out scale of Labour ambitions

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Leader talks of ‘fully costed, fully funded’ plans for NHS, nursery places, social care and university funding

In the sunny garden of a local community centre in Thurrock, a relaxed-looking Keir Starmer, shirt sleeves rolled up, was surrounded by a buzz of television cameras, reporters and Labour party activists taking selfies.

Hundreds of miles away in North Yorkshire, Rishi Sunak, who had cancelled a press event on Saturday amid the fallout from his D-day blunder, spent a quiet day in his constituency, nursing his wounds.

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Labour pledges to create more than 100,000 new nursery places

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Exclusive: Party plans to set up more than 3,300 nurseries in existing primary schools in England for children from nine months old

Labour has pledged to create more than 100,000 new nursery places for children from nine months old, helping to both drive up standards and meet demand, as a key manifesto offer for working parents.

The party plans to set up more than 3,300 new nurseries in existing primary schools in England to support a major expansion of childcare.

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Nigel Farage faces questions over convicted fraudster’s campaign role

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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.

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Sunak will ‘absolutely’ remain Tory leader despite D-day blunder, ally says

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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.

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‘Crank’ Tory candidates accused of sharing online conspiracy theories

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Labour has expressed concerns about the calibre of would-be Tory MPs after a some shared outlandish views online

The Conservative party has been accused of becoming a home for “cranks” after some of its candidates at the general election were revealed to have shared conspiracy theories on social media.

The posts seen by the Observer include the suggestion that positive tests for Covid-19 were “mass psychosis at work” and that the Black Lives Matter movement might be an attempt to “bring down British society”.

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Labour promises new police powers to curb noisy off-road bikes

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Party would boost powers to remove dirt and quad bikes from streets in crackdown on antisocial behaviour

Labour is promising new powers for police to quickly scrap noisy dirt and quad bikes causing havoc in neighbourhoods as part of a crackdown on antisocial behaviour.

Keir Starmer’s party also wants to raise on-the-spot fines for using off-road bikes or ignoring officers’ instructions to stop, which are as low as £100.

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Labour pledges 80 new rape courts in bid to tackle backlog crisis

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Plan for specialist unit in all police forces amid manifesto drive to reduce violence against women and girls

Labour will establish 80 new rape courts across and England and Wales to fast-track cases as part of wide-ranging plans to tackle violence against women and girls that will be announced in the party’s general election manifesto this week.

The specialist courts will be set up in unused rooms and spare capacity within every existing crown court, in an effort to end a growing backlog that causes 60% of rape victims to drop out before their cases even begin.

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Rishi Sunak’s chances were always slim. And the numbers just get worse

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Polls show longstanding Tory advantages on issues such as immigration, crime and defence are gone, while Labour opens new leads in traditional areas

Was this the week the wheels came off for Rishi Sunak? After two weeks of campaigning for “a clear plan of bold action for a secure future” the verdict in the polls is clear: voters don’t like his clear plan, they don’t want his bold actions, and they believe their future will be more secure without him. All of this was true even before the prime minister’s calamitous Thursday afternoon decision to leave D-day commemorations early for a pre-recorded media interview.

Make no mistake: the Conservatives are now staring down the barrel. Their campaign is failing on every front, with precious little time left. Voters are making their minds up, and what the prime minister offers is not what they want.

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General election – as it happened: planned opportunity for media to question Sunak ‘cancelled’ as D-day fallout continues

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BBC and PA Media say a scheduled opportunity to question the prime minister was withdrawn on Saturday

The business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, is being pressed to question the Royal Mail bidder Daniel Křetínský on his business links, after the Guardian raised questions about a series of controversial global property deals connected to the Czech billionaire’s longtime business partners.

Badenoch is scheduled to meet the tycoon next week to discuss his £3.57bn bid for the 500-year-old institution, which will be subjected to a review under the National Security and Investment Act.

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‘Bigoted woman’ and fridge-hiding: a history of election gaffes after Sunak’s D-day disaster

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Prime minister is not first party leader to make bad decisions during heat of a general election campaign

When Rishi Sunak missed a key D-day event in favour of an ITV interview, it is unlikely he had considered what a political storm it would prompt.

But the prime minister is far from the first party leader to make ill-advised decisions in the heat of the campaign. In fact, Sunak’s early departure is just one of a long list of political gaffes made during a general election campaign.

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Sunak pledges to keep stamp duty threshold at £425k for first-time buyers

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Pledge comes as parties prepare to launch their manifestos, with Labour to offer support for small businesses

The Conservatives would permanently scrap stamp duty on homes up to £425,000 for first-time buyers, Rishi Sunak is expected to pledge in the party’s election manifesto, in a move that would affect 200,000 households annually.

The threshold was raised from £300,000 to £425,000 in the September 2022 mini-budget as a temporary relief measure that is due to expire next March.

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Lib Dems to promise £1.5bn reform of carer’s allowance including debt amnesty

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Proposals also include a £20-a-week boost to payments and an increased limit on earnings from part-time work

The Liberal Democrats will commit to a £1.5bn overhaul of carer’s allowance, including a £20-a-week boost for more than 1 million people who devote their lives to looking after frail, ill and disabled loved ones, in their general election manifesto.

An ongoing Guardian investigation has revealed that tens of thousands of unpaid carers have been forced by the government to pay back huge sums – and in some cases have faced criminal prosecution – for minor and accidental breaches of carer’s allowance earnings rules.

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Rishi Sunak denies he considered missing D-day events entirely as he reiterates apology – UK general election live

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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].

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Disgraced Keith Vaz expelled from Labour as he stands for One Leicester party

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Exclusive: Vaz to run in Leicester East, infuriating Labour party candidates who have campaigned for his eviction for years

The disgraced former MP Keith Vaz has been belatedly kicked out of Labour after announcing he is standing in his old seat, Leicester East, for a new local party.

The former minister, who is running against an official Labour party candidate, was still a member of the party on Thursday when it emerged that he was standing in the constituency for the One Leicester party.

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Rishi Sunak apologises for leaving D-day events early to record TV interview

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Amid heavy criticism, the PM denies he had planned to skip commemorations entirely

Rishi Sunak has apologised for missing a key part of the D-day commemorations in northern France to film a TV interview, as he faces a wave of condemnation over what may be his biggest misstep yet in a faltering election campaign.

The prime minister was heavily criticised for leaving the 80th anniversary events for an ITV interview that is not scheduled for broadcast until next week, with opposition parties calling it crass and a dereliction of duty.

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UK watchdog warns Tories over PM’s ‘£2,000 tax rise’ claim

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Rishi Sunak failed during TV debate to make clear how he had calculated Labour’s spending policies, says OSR

The UK’s statistics watchdog has warned the Conservatives over Rishi Sunak’s claim that Labour would raise taxes by £2,000, saying it failed to make clear how the figures were calculated.

In a rap over the knuckles for the prime minster, who made the claim during a leadership debate on ITV on Tuesday evening, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) said the case demonstrated how all party campaigners needed to offer the public a transparent view of tax and spending policies.

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