Rishi Sunak should suspend betting scandal Tories, Conservative minister suggests

Rishi Sunak should suspend any Tories who placed bets on the general election date, a Government minister has suggested.

Steve Baker, the Northern Ireland minister, said if it were up to him, anyone who admitted to gambling on the timing of the ballot would be temporarily kicked out of the party.

He said it was for the Prime Minister to explain why he hadn’t taken any action to date, adding he had “no inside information” on Mr Sunak’s reasoning.

It will pile further pressure on the Prime Minister to suspend those caught up in the scandal, with Craig Williams, a Tory candidate and one of his closest aides, having already admitted to putting “a flutter” on the general election some weeks ago. He now faces an inquiry by the Gambling Commission.

Laura Saunders, another Conservative candidate, and her husband Tony Lee, the party’s director of campaigning, are also being investigated by the watchdog over alleged betting on the election date.

Speaking to ITV’s Peston on Monday night, Mr Baker said: “If they placed bets it was disreputable and I would call them up and ask them, did you do it? And if they did it, then they are suspended.”

He added: “But the Prime Minister would have to answer why he hasn’t done it, I haven’t got inside information on why the Prime Minister hasn’t done it.”

Tobias Ellwood, the former Tory defence minister, also argued on Monday that Mr Sunak should have suspended the Conservative candidates caught up in the betting scandal.

Asked if the Prime Minister should have taken that action, he told the BBC: “Given the scale of this as we see now and the potential for this story to continue to eclipse, to overshadow the election, I would now agree.

“I am not sure anyone, including the Prime Minister, could have predicted the number of people involved when this story first broke. The public want to see clear, robust action now.

“The practical dilemma you face, though, is were individuals responding to the whirlwind of the rumour mill around Westminster at the time… about a pending election announcement, or were they in the room when the decision was made?

“If it was the latter, the party can take immediate action. Otherwise it is for the Gambling Commission to rightly make that judgement.”

On Monday, Mr Sunak, who has ordered an internal inquiry to run separately to the Gambling Commission’s investigation, said he was “incredibly angry when I learned about the allegations, as everybody would be when they would hear about something like that”.

He said he was not aware of any other Tory candidates being investigated but stressed that any internal inquiries by the Conservative Party must not “compromise the integrity of… police and other investigations”.

Meanwhile, Sir Iain Duncan-Smith said that he was “opposed to people associated with politics betting on political outcomes in general”.

The former Tory leader told The Guardian: “You can either do it by the party saying it won’t be tolerated, or you could do it by legislation. If you start relying on legislation, it would be a complex process.

“Parties are capable of saying that anyone who does this shouldn’t be in the party. They can move quicker than governments.”

He added: “But one way or the other, it needs to be made clear that the public takes a dim view of it and it shouldn’t happen. It’s a matter for the next parliament.”

10:02 PM BST

That’s all for today...

Thanks for following today’s election liveblog.

My colleague Jack Maidment will be back tomorrow morning to bring you the latest.

09:48 PM BST

Commentator Katie Hopkins attends Reform UK event

Controversial Right-wing commentator Katie Hopkins has attended a Reform UK campaign event in Newton Abbot.

Ms Hopkins said in a video on X that there had been “lovely happy hopeful crowds” at the Reform event.

She said: “There is a lot of young people here and I’ve met them personally. And this is what politics should be like. Ordinary people getting together, having a lovely time and having a conversation. Well done to everybody from Reform.”

Ms Hopkins had been permanently banned from Twitter in 2020 for what Twitter said was a violation of its hateful conduct policy, but was reinstated last year.

She previously posted claims that a photo showing the body of a Syrian child on a Turkish beach was staged and also tweeted “we need a final solution” after the Manchester bombings.

09:23 PM BST

Nigel Farage claims children’s minds are being ‘poisoned at school and university’

Nigel Farage has said children’s minds are being “poisoned at school”.

Speaking at a rally in Devon, the Reform UK leader said: “My commitment to you is that I’m (going to be a part of Reform) for at least the next five years.

“I believe we can get millions of people signed up to this movement, millions of people that want British values to be re-established.”

He added: “Millions of people who don’t want our kids being poisoned at school and university, being told our country is the worst country that ever existed.”

08:54 PM BST

Sir Ed Davey suggests he would back a total ban on politicians making political bets

Sir Ed Davey has suggested that he would support a total ban on politicians betting on political outcomes.

The Liberal Democrat leader has said that the question of politicians making political bets should be looked at “robustly”.

He told Channel 5: “Let’s follow the good process and look at all the details. Footballers are back from betting, sports people are, people in the city where they have insider trading, it’s called.

“People shouldn’t make profits on things where they have the knowledge that something’s going to happen. If you know something’s going to happen, you shouldn’t be allowed to bet on it, it’s immoral right?

“There may be other circumstances, if you don’t know the outcome of an election, I mean, everyone bets on the outcomes of elections, and maybe that’s okay.

“But I’m happy for it to be looked at and looked at robustly and if that means that politicians can’t bet on politics at all well then I’d be happy to go with that.”

08:40 PM BST

Farage: ‘Nothing to stop’ Reform UK winning seats in the South West

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has said there is nothing stopping his party from winning “a couple of seats” in the General Election.

Mr Farage told a rally in Devon that Reform is “on the up” and while he expects Labour to win, his party was “live in second position”.

He said: “Many of these seats (in the West Country) will be decided in Devon and elsewhere by literally a couple of hundred votes either way and I think you’re gonna find we’re in the mix.

“There’s nothing to stop us winning a couple of these seats.

“But to do it, we’re going to need to maintain that momentum, we need to maintain that conversation.”

08:23 PM BST

‘Pub bore’ Farage wrong on Ukraine, says minister

Chris Heaton-Harris has attacked Nigel Farage for being a “pub bore” after the Reform UK leader doubled down on his belief that Nato expansion led to the war in Ukraine, Tim Sigsworth writes.

Speaking at The Sun after the Never Mind The Ballots leaders’ special, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland told The Telegraph: “Boris is absolutely right on this.

“And I think Boris can actually demonstrate his support for the people in Ukraine, for the Government of Ukraine, for President Zelensky because his government stood up for Ukraine.

“Tonight we had Keir Starmer basically saying Boris made all the right calls. So I think maybe Nigel has become a bit of a pub bore on this.”

08:22 PM BST

Lord Kinnock: ‘I wish I’d been fighting this lot’ of Tories

Lord Kinnock has said that he wished he had “been fighting this lot” during his political career.

The former Labour leader praised Tories who he had fought at elections in the 1980s as being “smart guys” and “fundamentally decent people”, but that it had “all changed”.

He told LBC: “I wish I’d been fighting this lot. Oh, god. No John Major, no Heseltine, no Geoffrey Howe. I mean, the thing is even though they were obviously my opponents and so on, smart guys, fundamentally decent people and patriots.

He added: “I mean that’s all changed. And the Conservatives I know and respect, they didn’t have to be my friends, but there are people that I know and respect are despairing at the, can you be superficial and hollow at the same time? Yeah, I know they are. I wouldn’t swap places with them and I actually wouldn’t wish that on my most bloodthirsty enemies.”

08:10 PM BST

Pictured: Farage at rally in Newton Abbot

07:53 PM BST

Keegan ‘very confident’ no cabinet ministers bet on election

Gillian Keegan has said she is “very confident” that no cabinet ministers bet on the date of the general election, Tim Sigsworth writes.

Speaking in the spin room after The Sun’s Never Mind The Ballots leaders’ special, the Education Secretary said: “I’m very confident.”

Asked why no Tory members or officials have yet been suspended in connection with the scandal, she said: “To be fair, those things. I mean hopefully they can be done quite quickly. I don’t know what the timescales are.

“But to be fair you do need to allow people to have due process and that will actually be determining what follows, what actions need to be taken.”

07:44 PM BST

Greens leader: We’re ‘honest’ that our carbon tax plans will make some activities cost more

The Green Party’s plans for a carbon tax “will mean that certain activities will cost more”, the co-leader of the Green Party has said.

She told ITV: “We’re honest about the fact that it will mean that certain activities will cost more, but it will move that that greening of the economy faster, and it’ll be counter-balanced by lots of other changes that we’re making to the economy and the tax system that will make people better off overall.”

She added: “We’re not afraid to talk about how we would raise that. So it’s about changes to the tax system that would move the onus from those on lower incomes who can’t afford to pay very much towards those with the broader shoulders who absolutely can.”

07:39 PM BST

Farage on Marine Le Pen: ‘Going to be the next French President, thumbs up’

Nigel Farage has given the “thumbs up” to Marine Le Pen and declared she will be the next French President.

Mr Farage was asked to give a thumbs up or thumbs down judgement for a selection of political leaders in an interview with ITV.

He said of Ms Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally party in France: “Going to be the next French President, thumbs up”. He said of Emmanuel Macron: “Oh, huge thumbs down”.

He also said of Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni “love her” and of Vladimir Putin: “No, not a nice guy.”

07:34 PM BST

Tories cannot attack Labour on women’s rights, says Phillipson

It is not right for the Conservatives to attack Labour’s stance on transgender issues because of their “record” on women’s rights, Bridget Phillipson has said.

Asked in The Sun’s spin room about JK Rowling’s accusation that Sir Keir Starmer had “abandoned” women, the Education Secretary said preserving single-sex spaces was “incredibly important” but that the Tories did not have a good “record” on women’s rights.

“They can talk about this all they like,” she said.

“Their record is entirely at odds with the reality for women out there.”

07:30 PM BST

Nigel Farage: My comment about Sunak and D-Day was ‘purely about class’

Nigel Farage has insisted that his comment that Rishi Sunak did not understand “our culture” when he left D-Day early was “purely about class”.

Asked if he had an issue with people speaking different languages and people of other ethnicities, he said: “I have a huge problem with people coming to Britain and not assimilating, maintaining their own languages, not mixing in communities, that is a disaster.

“My comment about Mr Sunak was about class, purely about class.”

07:27 PM BST

NHS needs a ‘rethink’, says Farage

Nigel Farage has said that there needs to be a “rethink” on the NHS.

He told ITV: “What’s the NHS for? Ever since the late 1940s it was for healthcare being free at the point of delivery. And I absolutely, subscribe 100 per cent to that, as to how we get there, we’re spending ever more and we’re getting less out in terms of delivery.

“At the other end, I’m just saying, let’s have a rethink.”

07:18 PM BST

Labour rejects Sunak’s claim he will be proven right on Starmer’s economic competence

Labour has rejected a claim by Rishi Sunak that he will be proven right in arguing that Sir Keir Starmer cannot be trusted on the economy, just as he was about Liz Truss, Tim Sigsworth writes.

Speaking in the spin room after The Sun’s Never Mind The Ballots leaders’ special, a party spokesman said: “We’ve seen Rishi Sunak get more and more desperate during the course of this campaign.

“It has now been repeatedly proven that his assertions about what Labour would do if we were lucky enough to get into government are completely untrue, and not based on any policies or proposals that we’ve actually put forward.

“And so, you know, I think the public can frankly see through it for what it is, which is the desperation of the Tory campaign because they haven’t got a record to stand on, and they haven’t got a positive offer for the future.”

07:13 PM BST

Labour would prioritise ‘environmental dogma’, says Sunak

Rishi Sunak claimed Labour would prioritise “environmental dogma” over Britain’s national security and the cost of living.

He also said Sir Keir Starmer’s party does not understand that “sex means biological sex”.

He urged people: “Don’t surrender to Labour”, adding: “Let’s go out and smash it everyone.”

07:10 PM BST

Sunak tells supporters: ‘Don’t surrender to Labour’

Rishi Sunak has told supporters not to “surrender to Labour”.

In a campaign event in London, he said: “Don’t surrender to Labour. Fight for every vote, fight for our values, fight for our vision of Britain, because it is only us Conservatives that can deliver the secure future that our country needs and our country deserves.

“So let’s get out there and smash it everyone.”

07:08 PM BST

Sunak: We have 10 days to save Britain

Rishi Sunak opened his speech by warning Tory supporters “we have 10 days to save Britain from a Labour government”.

He said he is not “blind” to people’s frustrations with him and the Conservative Party.

But he said this is “not a by-election” or a “referendum on me”.

He urged people to think about what a Labour government would mean for them and their family.

Mr Sunak also accused Sir Keir Starmer of “U-turning on his U-turning” on his support for Jeremy Corbyn.

07:00 PM BST

Farage and Denyer to be interviewed on ITV

Nigel Farage and Carla Denyer will shortly be interviewed on ITV for Reform UK and the Green Party.

The pre-recorded interviews will see the leader of Reform and the Greens co-leader be grilled by Harry Horton and Rachel Younger.

06:56 PM BST

Backlog of asylum claims would double by the end of the year if the Tories are re-elected, says Starmer

Sir Keir Starmer said that the backlog of asylum claims would double by the end of the year to 100,000 if the Conservatives are re-elected.

“There are 50,000 people not being processed, if we carry on with Rishi Sunak as prime minister it will get to 100k by the end of the year,” the Labour leader said.

He said it was “outrageous” to pay hotel bills to accommodate those people not being processed.

06:42 PM BST

Starmer: I would ‘welcome’ a discussion with JK Rowling on women’s rights

Sir Keir Starmer has said that he would “welcome” a discussion with JK Rowling over women’s rights and trans issues.

The author and campaigner this weekend said that Labour had “abandoned” women and that she would struggle to vote for them.

Asked whether Labour would meet with Rowling to discuss trans issues, Sir Keir said: “Of course, of course I’d meet with her. Of course I would.”

He added: “She’s made some really important points. I’d welcome that discussion, because I do think that we’ve made huge progress on women’s rights under Labour governments, and equality, massive progress. There’s more work to be done if we are privileged to come in to serve this country and I want to make sure that we can bring people together.”

06:34 PM BST

Starmer: I understand it’s hard for some parents to send their children to private school

Sir Keir Starmer said that he “completely” understands that it is “quite hard” for some parents to send their children to private school.

He told The Sun: “I accept that many families, parents work hard and save hard to send their children to private school because they’ve got aspirations for their children and they think that’s the best place for their child.

“I’ve got nothing against that, nothing against private schools, and I completely understand that for some parents, that’s quite hard to do because there’s not all the money going around.”

He added: “But I genuinely believe that every single parent has aspirations for their children across the whole country, including every single parent who sends their children to state school.”

06:30 PM BST

I could guess what Starmer will say next, says Heaton-Harris

Chris Heaton-Harris has joked that he could guess what Sir Keir Starmer is “going to say and say it for him”, writes Tim Sigsworth.

The secretary of state for Northern Ireland, who is watching the debate in the spin room with journalists, made the jibe as the stream showing the programme buffered.

“I could guess what he’s going to say and say it for him,” Mr Heaton-Harris said.

06:28 PM BST

Pictured: Sir Keir Starmer on The Sun’s ‘Election Showdown’

06:26 PM BST

Labour will not reverse Brexit but ‘we can do more on defence and security’, says Starmer

Labour will not reverse Brexit, but the UK got a “very botched deal”, Sir Keir Starmer has said.

He told The Sun that Labour would not reverse Brexit, but added: “If you talk to any business that’s trying to trade, they will tell you it’s not good enough.

“I think we can do more on defence and security, by the way, with our European partners, but we’re not going back in. We’re not going back into the Single Market, the Customs Union. We’re not going back to freedom of movement. “

06:22 PM BST

Starmer: I ensured Labour ‘never veered on fundamentally important things’ under Jeremy Corbyn

Sir Keir Starmer has said that he stayed in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet because he ensured Labour “never veered from its position on things that were fundamentally important, like Nato”.

Challenged over his historic support for his predecessor, he said: “I didn’t vote for Jeremy Corbyn to be leader of our party in 2015, I didn’t vote for him to become leader. In 2016, I supported other candidates, but our membership returned him as the leader. But that was very difficult for me and for our party, because I thought that we were not going to be heading in the right direction. Everybody then took a decision about what they did, how we dealt with this.

He added: “I felt that on issues such as Brexit, which I thought were going to define us for decades to come, leaders are temporary, but political parties are permanent.

“But it was important to have a voice in the shadow cabinet, and it meant that I could challenge on anti-Semitism, and it meant that the Labour Party never veered from its position on things that were fundamentally important, like Nato.”

He said that he had “reflected” on his time serving in Mr Corbyn’s shadow Cabinet, he said: “ I think it was right to fight, I think, in my case it was right to fight from within the Shadow Cabinet”

06:17 PM BST

Starmer: No Labour leader ‘has ever done anything as serious’ to change the Labour Party

Sir Keir Starmer has said that “no  Labour leader has ever done anything as serious” as expelling Jeremy Corbyn from the Labour Party.

He told The Sun: “Look at my leadership on this. I picked up the Labour Party, I recognised many people had not voted for us last time, possibly people in this room and I said, ‘we’re never going to put that proposition in front of the electorate again. I’m not going to tell to the electorate, what do you think you’re doing?’ I’m going to say to my party, we need to shake this up and change it.

“So I’ve changed the Labour Party, so there’s a fundamentally different choice at this election. And Jeremy Corbyn not only lost the whip as a Labour MP, he’s now been expelled from the Labour Party. No Labour leader has ever done anything as serious as that about changing his or her party before.

He added: “I’ve changed it, and now I hope that there is a Labour Party which people feel that they can vote for this time in a way which I accept wasn’t the case last time around.” 

06:13 PM BST

Starmer praises Boris Johnson for ‘strong position’ on Ukraine

Sir Keir Starmer has praised Boris Johnson for taking a “strong position” on Ukraine.

He criticised the former prime minister for his behaviour on Partygate, but added: “To be fair on Ukraine, he took a strong position”.

He added: “I was leader of the opposition, and I said, we will support the government. And so there’s been unity in parliament from the outbreak of that conflict and Russia aggression there.

“And I thought that was important, Boris Johnson thought it was important, because I think we both took the view that the only winner, if there was a split in our politics here in the UK, would be Putin. He wanted to see division in other countries, and we didn’t allow him.”

06:09 PM BST

Sunak: I was right about Liz Truss so you can trust me on Sir Keir Starmer

Rishi Sunak has said that voters can trust what he says about Sir Keir Starmer because he was right to warn about Liz Truss’s plans for the economy.

The Prime Minister ran against Ms Truss to become Tory leader and lost to her in the summer 2022 leadership election.

Rishi Sunak told The Sun: “I spent a summer a couple of summers’ ago saying that what Liz Truss was proposing was wrong, and I was behind. And everyone said to me, ‘why are you bothering? Why are you still talking about this? No one wants to hear what you have to say.’ I kept talking about it every day of that because I believed in what I was saying.”

He added: “I was right then when I warned about Liz Truss, and that’s why all of you can trust me now, when I also warn about the damage that Keir Starmer would do to our economy.”

He told voters: “And I’m telling you again now, all seems a bit familiar. If Keir Starmer is your Prime Minister, the economy is going to suffer, and all of you are going to suffer. I don’t want to see that happen. That’s why I’m carrying on going every day in this election. I believe in what I’m saying, and I want to stop those tax rises.”

05:54 PM BST

Rishi Sunak apologises to voter whose father died after waiting months for cancer diagnosis

Rishi Sunak has apologised to a voter whose father died after waiting months for a cancer diagnosis.

The woman told the Prime Minister that her family has been through “18 months of hell” and that they felt “let down”.

Mr Sunak told her: “One of the ways we’re doing that is by rolling out things called community diagnostic centres. So we’ve done 160 and if we’re re-elected, we’ll do many more. And these are units in your local community where you can get all your checks, tests and scans done, and that way, get your diagnosis much quicker.

“We’re hiring more oncologists, we’re using technology as well and new forms of testing to identify things, but fundamentally, what happened to you and your family isn’t acceptable. I can only apologise. The challenges we’re dealing with with Covid, cancer in particular, was one where for two years, lots of people didn’t present with symptoms, and we’re catching up with that now, and that’s an awful tragedy.”

Asked whose responsibility it was that NHS waiting lists had soared, he said: “It’s my responsibility, because I’m the one in charge, and I’ve been very clear, we haven’t made as much progress on waiting lists as I would have liked.”

05:49 PM BST

Rishi Sunak refused to say whose ‘fault’ it is that migration is ‘too high’

Rishi Sunak has refused to say whose fault it is that net migration is “too high”.

Asked whose fault the level of migration into the UK was, he said on three occasions “the numbers were too high”.

He told The Sun: “I’ve got that. I’ve got the job, and I brought them down.”

05:45 PM BST

Sunak admits ‘we haven’t got the job done’ on illegal migration

Rishi Sunak has admitted that “we haven’t got the job done” on illegal migration.

He told The Sun: “I want people to know where I stand. I think illegal migration is unfair. I don’t think it’s right that people come to our country illegally, and I want to do everything I can to stop it.”

“Let’s be clear, right over the last 12 months, the numbers are lower than they were, this year, already, a full year, it’s down on the year before.

“But I’m being clear, we haven’t got the job done. The only way to do that is to make sure that we make it clear that to come to our country illegally, you won’t get to stay. You’ll be removed.”

05:41 PM BST

It’s not right to say we haven’t made progress in 14 years, insists Sunak

Rishi Sunak has insisted that it is “not right” to say that the UK has not made any progress in 14 years.

The Prime Minister told The Sun: “I don’t think it’s right to say that we haven’t made progress in 14 years, I simply don’t believe that.”

He added: “And if you look at 14 years, what the Conservatives have done, we’ve ensured that our school children in this country, in England, are not just the best readers in the United Kingdom, they’re best readers in the Western world.

He added: “So yes, of course, not everything is perfect. Of course, we haven’t made as much progress as we would have liked to in some areas, but it’s just simply not right to say that the record of the last 14 years is one where we haven’t made progress.”

05:37 PM BST

Sunak: ‘We won’t hesitate to act’ on findings of our internal investigation into election bets

Rishi Sunak has said that he will not “hesitate to act on information or findings that come to light” in the internal party investigation into the allegations of betting on the election date.

He told The Sun: “The Gambling Commission, who are investigating this, as well as the police, obviously, are independent of me, of Government. I don’t have access to the details of their investigation. They don’t report to me.

“But what I can tell you is, in parallel, we have been conducting internal inquiries of our own into the situation, and won’t hesitate to act on information or findings that come to light.”

He added: “I want to reassure people we are in parallel and have been conducting internal inquiries and won’t hesitate to act if findings or information comes to light. And I’ve been crystal clear, if anyone has broken the rules then they should face not just the full consequences of the law, but they will be booted out of the Conservative Party.”

05:26 PM BST

Clegg accuses Starmer of ‘peculiar rewriting of recent history’

Sir Nick Clegg has accused Sir Keir Starmer of a “peculiar rewriting of recent history”, after the Labour leader said that low growth “started well before Brexit”.

The former deputy prime minister has called for Labour to be “bold” about its growth plans, and claimed that the “tinkering around the edges with the EU as currently proposed is not enough”.

It comes after Sir Keir Starmer said that “the problem with low growth, which has been at the heart of the economic problem in this country for 14 years, started well before Brexit”.

Sir Nick, now President of Global Affairs at Meta, wrote: “For the country’s sake I hope Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves succeed in restoring growth to the British economy.

But ruling out even the option of joining the EU’s Customs Union, on the basis that ‘low growth, which has been at the heart of the economic problem in this country for 14 years, started well before Brexit’, is a peculiar rewriting of recent history.”

05:14 PM BST

Sunak and Starmer to face grilling on The Sun’s ‘Election Showdown’

Sir Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak are shortly going head to head on The Sun’s “Election Showdown”.

Both party leaders will face a grilling from The Sun’s Political Editor Harry Cole, before facing questions from a live studio audience.

The Prime Minister will go first, and will head to the stage at around 5:30pm.

05:06 PM BST

Green Party leader admits she has gas boiler, not heat pump

The Green Party leader has admitted that she still has a gas boiler despite her party’s commitment to reach net zero by 2040.

Carla Denyer, the co-leader of the Greens, has insisted she is “in the process of getting quotes” for an air source heat pump.

But she told ITV that she had put replacing it “on pause” during the general election and that she would revisit it once the campaign was over.

Read more on this story here

04:56 PM BST

Parents ‘will be kept in the dark’ under Labour, claim Tories

04:39 PM BST

Starmer: I would offer to pay if I saw a parent shoplifting baby formula

Sir Keir Starmer has said he would offer to pay if he saw a parent shoplifting baby formula.

The Labour leader told the Big Issue: “I’d offer to pay it. The desperation of families around the country should make the Tories feel nothing but shame.

“Of course, shoplifting is a problem for businesses, so we’d have 13,000 more neighbourhood police to provide reassurance on our high streets.

“But we’d also change the rules so people could use food bank vouchers and loyalty card points to buy baby formula.”

Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak said he would not, telling the magazine: “Shoplifting is not a victimless crime and we’ll always support shopkeepers to prevent theft. At the same time, we will continue to help parents with the cost of living.”

04:36 PM BST

Former Tory minister says she would not campaign for Tory candidates under investigation

A former Conservative minister has said that she would not campaign on behalf of Tory candidates who are under investigation for betting on the general election date.

Andrea Leadsom, who is standing down as an MP, said that she believed that they were “innocent until proven guilty”, but said she would not campaign for someone “under that cloud”

She told the BBC: “I would not be going out campaigning for somebody who was under that cloud but I would at the same time, I do think people are innocent until proven guilty. It’s a fundamental principle.”

She described it as a “terrible story”.

04:12 PM BST

President of Finland: ‘I don’t agree with many things Nigel Farage says’

The President of Finland has said that he “absolutely” does not agree with Nigel Farage’s claims that the West provoked the war in Ukraine.

Asked whether he agreed with Mr Farage’s comments on Ukraine, Alexander Stubb told Andrew Marr on LBC: “Well, absolutely not. And with all due respect to Mr Nigel Farage, I don’t agree with many things that he says.”

He added: “Be that as it may, what Russia has done is unprovoked, tried to deny the existence, the territorial integrity and the sovereignty and the independence, the identity and the language of a country called Ukraine.

“There was nothing that provoked it, it was Russian imperialism.”

03:49 PM BST

Prominent writer quits Labour over ‘betrayal of women for trans rights’

A prominent journalist and author has quit the Labour party, saying it has “betrayed women” with its position on trans rights, Daniel Martin writes.

Joan Smith, a former Guardian columnist and the author of novels such as A Masculine Ending, said she had warned Sir Keir Starmer about misogyny in his party, but he had ignored her.

She wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “That’s me done. I wrote to Keir Starmer and spoke to him in person. I warned him about misogyny. He never replied.

“Labour has betrayed women with a raft of policies designed to appease trans-identified men. I don’t suppose Starmer cares, but I’ve resigned my membership today.”

Read more from The Telegraph’s Deputy Political Editor here

03:32 PM BST

Tory candidate calls Conservative Party ‘a shower of s---’

A Conservative candidate has called the Tories a “shower of s---” in a campaign video he posted online amid the party gambling scandal.

James Cracknell, a former Olympic rower, is standing in Colchester, and said: “Two weeks out from the Olympics, if we are competing against the Conservative Party my teammates and I would be saying they are a shower of s---.”

In a video he uploaded to Facebook this weekend, he said: “And if one of my teammates got caught for cheating they’d be dead to me. That abuse of trust is unforgivable.”

He added: “So why am I still canvassing and delivering leaflets? Because I believe the Conservative way is the best for the country.”

In the post caption he wrote: “How I feel about the current situation and why having made my home here I want to see Colchester blossom, bring integrity back to Westminster and politics generally.”

03:22 PM BST

Sunak leaving D-Day celebrations early is biggest misstep of campaign - poll

Rishi Sunak leaving D-Day celebrations early and “Gamblegate” have been the biggest missteps of the election campaign so far, new polling has shown.

A survey by More in Common for the News Agents has found that the two incidents have had the biggest cut through in the population.

Over 70 per cent believed that both the betting scandal and the D-Day mistake reflected badly on the Conservatives.

The row over Diane Abbott’s candidacy was the most high-profile Labour misstep, with just over 50 per cent of those polled believing it reflected badly on the party.

02:56 PM BST

Watch: ‘Widders is about’ campaigning in Boston and Skegness

Ann Widdecombe has taken to the streets of Boston and Skegness to campaign for Richard Tice, in a bright blue Reform UK taxi.

The former MP and MEP was filmed sitting in the taxi shouting “Vote Tice, Tice on July 4” by the Reform chairman.

Mr Tice wrote on X: “Watch out…. Widders is about

“Ann enjoying campaigning old school style🇬🇧 in Boston and Skegness in the taxi”

02:50 PM BST

Labour to rip up school transgender ban

Labour would ditch guidelines banning children from being taught that there are more than two genders, a shadow minister has suggested.

Bridget Phillipson said that guidance announced by the Conservatives earlier this year on what pupils could be taught about sex and gender would be reviewed by a Labour government.

The Tory guidance proposed a ban on schools teaching gender ideology – which states that people can be born the wrong sex and that they can change their identity to the opposite sex or other categories such as “non-binary”.

Read more on this story here

02:40 PM BST

Former British Army head criticises Nigel Farage over Ukraine comments

Lord Dannatt has criticised Nigel Farage over his comments that the West provoked the war in Ukraine.

The former head of the British Army was asked whether Mr Farage had a point with his remarks, to which he said: “As far as I’m concerned, Nigel Farage doesn’t have a point worth listening to about anything.”

He told the BBC Radio 4’s World at One: “If the issue is the wider point as to whether the situation in the war has got to a point where negotiations should take place that is entirely a matter for President Zelensky and really for him alone to decide whether, in his judgment, to negotiate would be a better thing to do in order to save more Ukrainian lives than continue fighting.”

02:28 PM BST

Sunak insists he got the election timing ‘right’

Rishi Sunak has insisted that he got the timing of the election “right”, amid criticism that he called the election too early.

Asked in Edinburgh whether he would have wanted more months to make his case, the Prime Minister said: “No - The most important job I had when I was Prime Minister was to restore economic stability back to our country after what has been a really difficult few years with Covid and the war in Ukraine.

“My priority was (to) bring inflation down, because inflation was eating into everyone’s pay packets, their savings, making everyone feel the challenges of the cost of living.”

He said the UK economy grew faster than others in the G7 in the first quarter of the year.

Mr Sunak added: “That’s why it’s the right moment, now that we have that foundation, for the country to consider what future it wants.”

02:18 PM BST

Starmer accuses Sunak of ‘total failure of leadership’

Sir Keir Starmer claimed Rishi Sunak’s parallel investigation into election gambling allegations (see the post below at 12.11) was an effort to knock the story “into the long grass” and showed a “total failure of leadership”.

“He’s announced an investigation, an investigation designed for one purpose, which is to knock this in the long grass to the other side of the election,” Sir Keir said during a stump speech at Northampton Town Football Club.

02:05 PM BST

Sunak criticises Labour over gender recognition plans

Rishi Sunak said Labour’s policy on gender recognition would create “loopholes that would be exploited by bad faith actors”.

A Labour government would reportedly make it easier for people to legally change their gender (see the post below at 07.08).

Speaking to journalists in Edinburgh, Mr Sunak said: “What I’ve seen from the Labour Party is they’re going to undo all the progress that we’ve made on this issue, undermine the protections that we’ve put in place for women’s rights and their safety and security. And create loopholes that will be exploited by bad faith actors.”

He said Labour had never “properly cared or understood this issue”.

02:02 PM BST

PM ‘confident’ of Tory progress in Scotland

Rishi Sunak insisted he is “confident” the Tories can “make good progress” in Scotland ahead of July 4.

The Prime Minister told journalists in Edinburgh: “Douglas [Ross] and I are confident that we’re going to make good progress here in Scotland and that’s because people are responding very positively to the choice that’s in front of them.

“A vote for the Scottish Conservatives means that you’re going to have your taxes cut, in contrast to the SNP making this the high-tax capital of the UK already and Labour storing up thousands of pounds of tax rises for working people.”

01:57 PM BST

Badenoch hints at Tory leadership ambitions

Kemi Badenoch has hinted at having Tory leadership ambitions, telling an event at lunchtime that “we will talk about leadership things after an election”.

The Business Secretary, who is seen as a frontrunner to replace Rishi Sunak as Tory leader if the party loses the general election, told a Bloomberg debate: “I’m already the Secretary of [State for] Business and Trade, and it’s actually been the job of a lifetime. I love it. There’s no better job.

“It is a lot easier and a lot less pressured than being prime minister. The fact of the matter is, I stood and I lost. And what terrifies me now is not not becoming leader, it is seeing Labour come in.”

She continued: “This is one of the things that I’ve found most difficult doing this job, that people tend not to know what it is, because I’m always asked the leadership question. We’re so interested in the personalities, in the gossip and so on…

“We need to focus on this election. The choice is going to be between us or between them. Be afraid if it is them, is all I would say. And we will talk about leadership things after an election, but not before.”

01:54 PM BST

Pictured: Starmer poses for a picture during visit to Northampton Town Football Club

01:28 PM BST

Tories beg for more money as ‘union barons and champagne socialists’ boost Labour coffers

‌“Union barons and champagne socialists” are behind a surge in donations to Labour, the Conservatives have claimed in an appeal for cash from supporters.

An email sent to activists on Sunday urged activists to “close the gap” after Sir Keir Starmer’s party received 15 times more private money than the Tories during the second week of the campaign.

Labour raised almost £4.4 million in donations worth more than £11,180 during the second week of the campaign, data from the election watchdog showed, while the Conservatives raised £292,500 – less than Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats.

You can read the full story here. 

01:17 PM BST

Pictured: Gavin Robinson launches DUP manifesto at event in east Belfast

01:09 PM BST

Sunak rejects IFS criticism of Tory manifesto

Rishi Sunak has responded to the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ (IFS) analysis of the major parties’ manifestos.

Paul Johnson, IFS director, said earlier today that both the Conservative and Labour manifestos “essentially ignore” some of the “big challenges” in the economy.

Facing questions about the analysis, the Prime Minister said: “No, I don’t agree with that. We have a fully costed manifesto which can deliver tax cuts for people at every stage in their lives and that is largely funded by making sure that we can find some savings in the growth of the welfare budget, because it’s been growing at unsustainable levels since the pandemic.

“We’ve set out a very clear plan to reform that, to support people into work, and in fact, the IFS acknowledge that last time around they said that that wasn’t possible, that it was actually delivered, and that’s something that the IFS themselves have said.

“Labour in contrast don’t think you can save a single penny from the welfare bill, which is already where we’re spending more than on transport, schools, law enforcement. I don’t think that’s right. I want to deliver tax cuts for people and constraining the increase in the welfare budget is the right way to do that to support people in work.”

12:49 PM BST

Farage: Labour would be ‘even more incompetent’ than the Tories

Nigel Farage claimed a Labour government would be “even more incompetent than the Conservatives”.

The Reform leader said: “I believe this Labour government will get into trouble very, very quickly. They will prove to be, if it is possible, even more incompetent than the Conservatives have been.

“And as he tries to take us back to EU rules, as we get more lunacy on trans laws and everything else, you will find a government and a Parliament split from its people.

“So my ambition is for us to establish a bridgehead in Parliament on July 4 and over the course of the next five years to build up a mass movement for common sense, for decency, to represent the silent majority in this country.”

12:45 PM BST

Farage: I was right to call small boats crisis an ‘invasion’

Nigel Farage said he was right to describe the small boats Channel migrants crisis as an “invasion”.

He repeated Reform’s pledge to take the UK out of the European Court on Human Rights.

He said the UK was “not meanspirited or nasty” but people coming to the UK illegally needed to know that they would never be granted refugee status.

12:44 PM BST

Farage accuses Tories of ‘greed and stupidity’ over gambling scandal

Nigel Farage said the recent row over his Ukraine comments was a “useful distraction” for the Conservative Party amid the Tory election gambling scandal.

He joked that the Tories now seemed to “resemble something of an organised betting ring”.

The Reform UK leader told activists in Maidstone: “The sheer level of greed and stupidity that leads people right at the heart of government, who know when the election is going to be called, to put on bets is astonishing but perhaps sums up the self-entitled view that this Conservative Party has after 14 years in government.”

Mr Farage claimed the current claims against Tory figures would be the “tip of the iceberg” as he predicted “this scandal will get worse”.

12:35 PM BST

Reform UK will take ‘no lectures’ on defence and foreign policy, says Farage

Nigel Farage said he would take “no lectures” from either the Tories or Labour on matters of foreign policy and defence.

The Reform UK leader said that the UK should “only go to war as a very, very last extreme, I will campaign for peace wherever it is possible”.

12:32 PM BST

Farage: Defence spending must rise to 3 per cent ‘as quickly as possible’

Nigel Farage said that there had been “almost no debate on foreign policy” or defence spending during the general election campaign.

He said there was “no doubt that the world is in a more dangerous place right now than it has been at any point since the Cuban Missile Crisis over 60 years ago”.

He accused the Tories of having “relentlessly driven down the ability” of the UK’s armed forces and there needed to be “30,000 at least” new full soldiers.

“Let’s not stop conning ourselves that somehow increasing expenditure to 2.5 per cent by 2030, the Conservatives’ pledge and Labour sort of matching it, let’s not con ourselves that that is sufficient. It isn’t.

“If there is one area where we need increased spending up to three per cent of GDP, it is defence and we need to do it as quickly as possible and this matters because without the Americans Nato is nothing and the Americans increasingly think that we are not a serious player.”

12:27 PM BST

Boris Johnson the ‘worst PM of modern times’, claims Farage

Nigel Farage claimed Boris Johnson will go down in history as the “worst prime minister of modern times”.

Mr Johnson took aim at Mr Farage last night on Twitter over his Ukraine comments (see the post below at 09.37).

Mr Farage hit back at the former premier as he told a crowd in Maidstone this morning that Mr Johnson had “pretended to be a Conservative but he governed as a Green” .

Mr Farage also unveiled a giant version of an “i” newspaper frontpage from 2016 with the headline “Boris blames EU for war in Ukraine” as the Reform leader defended the comments he made last week about Ukraine.

12:23 PM BST

Farage: ‘I would never, ever defend Putin’

Nigel Farage said he would “never, ever defend” Vladimir Putin as he addressed the comments he made last week about Ukraine.

Speaking in Maidstone, the Reform UK leader said: “I would never, ever defend Putin and think his behaviour in Ukraine and elsewhere has been reprehensible.

“But if we are going to think towards a peace at sometime in the not too distant future perhaps it might be helpful to understand what went wrong in the first place.”

12:20 PM BST

Farage jokes he won’t forget grandchild’s birthday on Brexit Day

Nigel Farage said that this whole general election campaign he had focused on talking about the “things that matter in life: family, community and country”.

He said that yesterday he had celebrated the arrival of his first grandchild and he was unlikely to forget his birthday given that it fell on June 23 on the eighth anniversary of the Brexit vote.

12:15 PM BST

Farage arrives in Maidstone for campaign speech

Nigel Farage has now arrived in Maidstone to deliver a campaign speech from on top of a double decker open top bus.

The Reform UK leader will be speaking imminently.

12:11 PM BST

Sunak: Tories conducting internal investigation into betting scandal

Rishi Sunak said his party “will act” if the Conservatives’ own parallel inquiry into the general election betting scandal finds wrongdoing.

The Primed Minister said: “The Gambling Commission is independent of Government – it’s independent of me.

“I don’t have the details of their investigation, right? They don’t report to me, I don’t have the details, but what I can tell you is, in parallel we’ve been conducting our own internal inquiries and of course will act on any relevant findings or information from that and pass it on to the Gambling Commission.”

When asked whether he had ever bet on politics whilst being an MP, the Prime Minister replied: “No.”

12:03 PM BST

Sunak not aware of any other Tory candidates facing gambling probe

Rishi Sunak said he was not aware of any other Conservative candidates being investigated by the Gambling Commission and ruled out that he was facing the probe.

“[The Gambling Commission] don’t talk about the individuals that they are investigating,” the Prime Minister told journalists in a huddle in Edinburgh.

“What I can tell you is I am not aware of any other candidate that they are looking at.”

12:00 PM BST

Farage to deliver speech from open top double decker bus

Nigel Farage will be addressing a crowd in Kent from an open top double decker bus.

We are expecting to see the Reform UK leader imminently.

11:43 AM BST

Tory claims of Labour pressuring Gambling Commission are ‘nonsense’, says Starmer

Sir Keir Starmer rejected as “nonsense” the claim made by Tory Cabinet minister Chris Heaton-Harris that Labour was seeking to exert “undue influence” on the Gambling Commission (see the post below at 07.28).

The Labour leader told broadcasters: “That’s nonsense. The Gambling Commission is obviously looking at these cases and what we need is leadership from the Prime Minister – he should have suspended those candidates.”

He added: “He hasn’t done it because he’s not showing leadership.”

11:37 AM BST

Starmer: ‘I’m not in favour of ideology being taught in our schools on gender’

Sir Keir Starmer has said he is opposed to “gender ideology” being taught in schools.

Asked if he would rip up the ban on teaching children and young people about “gender ideology” at school, he said: “No, I’m not in favour of ideology being taught in our schools on gender.”

Asked about potential changes to sex education in schools, he said: “I think we need to complete the consultation process and make sure that there is guidance that is age appropriate. That is helpful for teachers and has at its heart the safeguarding of children.”

Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, had suggested at the weekend that Labour would ditch guidelines banning children from being taught that there are more than two genders.

11:32 AM BST

Starmer insists economic growth can help pay for Labour’s plans

Sir Keir Starmer has hit back at claims that he may be unable to deliver on his tax and spending commitments as he insisted his plan to boost economic growth would help to pay for his blueprint for Britain.

The Labour leader told broadcasters: “Economic stability is the foundation on which we grow the economy and create wealth in this country.”

He added: “I don’t accept the proposition that the economy cannot be better than it is now, and a lot of the forecasts are on the basis that we can’t improve – I don’t accept that… and that’s why the change at this election is the change between carrying on with what we’ve got, which has got us into this problem, or turning the page and rebuilding the country with Labour, and change only comes if you vote for it, and that’s why it’s a very important election about change and that choice.”

Asked whether Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, was “wrong” in his think tank’s analyses over recent weeks, Sir Keir said: “Look, I don’t accept the forecasts that say we can’t do better than this. The economy has flatlined for 14 years. That is exactly what we are wanting to change, that’s why we’ve set out our plans for growth in our manifesto.”

11:25 AM BST

Sir Ed Davey washes an ambulance during campaign visit in Wimbledon

Sir Ed Davey donned overalls and a hi-vis jacket to clean an ambulance during a campaign visit in target seat Wimbledon in south-west London this morning.

On his visit to Wimbledon ambulance station, he chatted to staff and stroked post-traumatic stress disorder assistance dog Teddy.

The dog was wearing a harness stating “do not pet”. The Lib Dem leader then used a jet wash to hose down an ambulance, catching watching photographers as the spray bounced off the vehicle.

He was making the visit to highlight his warning that there are now just “10 days left to save the NHS”.

11:23 AM BST

Coming up: Nigel Farage to deliver speech in Kent

We are expecting to hear from Nigel Farage shortly.

The leader of Reform UK is due to make a speech in Kent at noon.

11:20 AM BST

Sunak: Vote Scottish Tories to ‘secure our United Kingdom’s future’

Concluding his remarks in Edinburgh, Rishi Sunak said: “Our country needs a secure future, not more posturing about independence.

“Our country wants a clear plan and bold action and it is a vote for the Scottish Conservatives that will secure our United Kingdom’s future.”

11:14 AM BST

Sunak: ‘Big’ defeat for SNP on July 4 would put Indyref2 on ‘backburner’

Rishi Sunak said voters in Scotland have the opportunity to “put independence on the backburner for a generation” if they deliver a “big” defeat to the SNP on July 4.

He said that if the SNP win a majority of seat in Scotland it will usher in “another five years of ignoring your priorities”.

The Prime Minister said: “A vote for the Scottish Conservatives is a vote to put this issue to bed. To move past these tired and stale arguments and to go forward united and together.”

He added: “But that can only happen if the SNP are routed. If they do not just lose some seats but the SNP lose big. And voting Scottish Conservative is the only way to ensure that that happens.”

11:09 AM BST

Only Tories have ‘courage’ to stand up to SNP, claims Sunak

Rishi Sunak is now on stage in Edinburgh as he launches the Scottish Tories’ manifesto.

The Prime Minister said it had only been Douglas Ross and the Scottish Tories who had been able to “properly stand up to the SNP” at Holyrood.

He said it was only the Tories who “have the courage to stand up to the nationalists”.

11:06 AM BST

Scottish Tories pledge to scrap intermediate rate of income tax

The Scottish Tories have pledged to abolish the intermediate rate of income tax north of the border.

Douglas Ross told activists in Edinburgh this morning: “The final of our top-five priorities is reducing family bills across Scotland by cutting their tax.

“UK Government action this year alongside the National Insurance tax cuts planned in this manifesto will reduce the tax bill of Scottish workers by up to £2,262 per year.

“And today I can announce that we would do our part in Scotland by abolishing the intermediate rate of income tax as an immediate priority.

“This would not just close the tax gap between Scotland and the rest of the UK but also reduce the tax bill for workers by up to £171 per year.”

11:04 AM BST

Inflict ‘terrible result’ on SNP to end Indyref2 push ‘for a generation’, says Douglas Ross

Voters can silence the Scottish independence campaign “for a generation” if they hand the SNP a “terrible result” on July 4, Douglas Ross said.

The SNP has said that if it wins a majority of seats at the general election it will seek to reopen negotiations with the UK Government on holding a second independence referendum.

But Mr Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, said defeating the SNP next week would end the party’s “political obsession” for the foreseeable future.

He told activists as he launched the Scottish Conservatives’ manifesto at an event in Edinburgh: “If the SNP do not just lose this election in Scotland but have a terrible result and are defeated right across the country – then we will have put the nationalists’ political obsession to rest for a generation.

“Scotland will have again firmly said no to independence. No to more division. No to five more years of separatist campaigning and distraction. That will be a verdict that John Swinney and his SNP Government cannot ignore.”

10:58 AM BST

SNP are ‘on the backfoot’, claims Douglas Ross

Douglas Ross claimed the SNP are “on the backfoot” as he launched the Scottish Tories’ general election manifesto at an event in Edinburgh.

The leader of the Scottish Conservatives criticised the SNP for seeking to treat the election as a “proxy independence referendum”.

He said: “The SNP have put their political obsession with separating our country on the line.

“John Swinney has produced a manifesto that has on the entirety of its first page “Vote SNP for Scotland to be an independent country”. The nationalists are not even trying to hide it.

“They are running a single-issue campaign. And treating the general election as a proxy independence referendum. The SNP are on the backfoot – and they know it. They have nothing positive to offer in this election.”

10:55 AM BST

Watch live: Sunak launches Scottish Tories’ manifesto in Edinburgh

10:44 AM BST

Coming up: Rishi Sunak to launch Scottish Tories’ manifesto

Rishi Sunak is due to help unveil the Scottish Tories’ general election manifesto at 11am.

The Prime Minister will join Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, at an event in Edinburgh.

10:30 AM BST

IFS: Households ‘must brace for tax rises over next five years’

Households must brace for tax rises for the next five years amid uncertainty over how the next government will fund its spending plans, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has warned.

Paul Johnson, the director of the think tank, said this morning: “It will be a considerable surprise if no other taxes are increased over the next five years.”

The Telegraph’s business live blog is posting updates on the IFS event which is analysing each of the parties’ manifestos this morning.

You can find the blog here.

10:17 AM BST

Starmer reveals cat JoJo is ‘most loved person in our family’

Sir Keir Starmer revealed his family has a cat called JoJo who is probably the “most loved person in our family”.

The Labour leader said his daughter is currently on a campaign to persuade him to get a dog.

10:15 AM BST

Labour leader backs journalism as good career choice

Sir Keir Starmer said journalism is a good career choice for young people.

Asked the question during a visit to a school in Kettering, the Labour leader said “I do think it is good thing to do... it is really interesting”.

He said journalism is “really important in politics and democracy” because it ensures politicians are held to account.

10:10 AM BST

Starmer predicts Arsenal will win Premier League next season

One pupil asked Sir Keir Starmer, famously an Arsenal fan, who he believes will win the Premier League next season.

The Labour leader replied: “It is going to be Arsenal... it is my team and we did really well this year.”

Asked who he believed was Arsenal’s greatest ever midfielder, Sir Keir said Dennis Bergkamp. He picked Thierry Henry as the club’s best ever forward.

10:07 AM BST

Starmer: Voters can ‘turn the page’ on July 4

Sir Keir Starmer told pupils during a visit to a school in Kettering that there was a clear choice for voters on July 4.

The Labour said people needed to decide “do we want to carry on with what we have got” after 14 years of the Tories being in power or does the nation want to “turn the page” with Labour.

10:05 AM BST

Starmer sets out Labour’s plan to lower voting age during Q&A with school pupils

Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, and Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, are answering questions from pupils during a visit to a school in the East Midlands this morning.

The first question was about Labour’s plan to lower the voting age to 16.

Sir Keir said: “I think that if you pay tax you should be allowed to say what you think your tax should be spent on.”

10:01 AM BST

Watch live: Sir Keir Starmer answers questions from pupils in East Midlands

09:53 AM BST

Boris Johnson ‘pokes fun at Sunak over Tory electoral fortunes’

Boris Johnson reportedly made a joke at Rishi Sunak’s expense as he celebrated his 60th birthday at a party on Saturday.

The BBC reported that the former prime minister had apologised to his guests about a lack of chairs.

He then delivered a punchline along the lines of “but there are many great parties without enough seats”.

09:48 AM BST

Small boat Channel crossings hit record high for first six months of a calendar year

Small boat Channel crossings have hit a new record high for the first six months of a calendar year, according to provisional figures published by the Home Office this morning.

Some 257 people were detected crossing the English Channel to the UK on Sunday, taking the cumulative number of arrivals so far in 2024 to 12,901.

The previous record for arrivals in the six months from January to June was 12,747 in 2022. There were 11,433 arrivals in the first six months of 2023.

The cumulative number of arrivals so far this year, 12,901, is 17 per cent higher than the total at this point last year, which was 11,058, and 8 per cent higher than the total at this stage in 2022, which was 11,975.

09:41 AM BST

Labour trying to be ‘as inclusive as possible’ with gender plans, says Streeting

Wes Streeting said “biological women have felt excluded” at times during debates on transgender rights.

The shadow health secretary told Times Radio: “I think at times in pursuit of inclusion we’ve ended up in a position where women have felt excluded, biological women have felt excluded.

“And there are practical examples of this in terms of things like NHS language and documentation.”

Asked about Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s position on the issue, Mr Streeting said: “I think what Keir has been trying to do on this – I think we all have – is to try and respect the fact that there are people whose gender identity is different from their biological sex and to try and be as inclusive as possible.”

09:37 AM BST

Boris Johnson criticises Nigel Farage over Ukraine comments

Boris Johnson has accused Nigel Farage of spreading “Kremlin propaganda” over his comments about the war in Ukraine.

Mr Farage sparked a backlash last week after he argued the “ever-eastward expansion of Nato and the EU” had given Vladimir Putin a reason to justify his invasion.

Mr Johnson said on Twitter: “This is nauseating ahistorical drivel and more Kremlin propaganda. Nobody provoked Putin. Nobody ‘poked the bear with a stick’.”

Mr Farage hit back this morning, calling the former prime minister a “liar and a hypocrite”.

You can read the full story here. 

09:29 AM BST

Streeting ‘depressed’ by JK Rowling criticism

Wes Streeting said he felt “pretty depressed” over JK Rowling’s criticism of Labour’s stance on transgender rights.

Asked how he feels about comments by the author criticising the party for “abandoning” women concerned about gender ideology, Mr Streeting told Times Radio: “Pretty depressed, to be honest.

“I have a lot of respect for JK Rowling both in terms of what she’s done for children and literacy but also the work that she’s done campaigning for women and in particular violence against women and girls.

“I think that we’ve clearly got more work to do to rebuild trust with people that we’ve lost on this issue.”

The shadow health secretary added: “I think we can find a way through that both treats trans people with the dignity and respect that they deserve, and also treats women with the respect that they deserve, particularly protecting women’s spaces, women’s voices, and right to speak up.

09:26 AM BST

Coming up: IFS to deliver verdict on election manifestos

The Institute for Fiscal Studies will deliver its verdict on each of the parties’ general election manifestos at an event later this morning.

Paul Johnson, the director of the IFS, and his team will be speaking to the media from about 10am.

You will be able to follow the event over on our business live blog.

09:10 AM BST

Reform and Green manifestos ‘entirely unattainable’, says IFS boss

The Reform UK and Green Party manifestos are “radical but entirely unattainable”, according to Paul Johnson.

Reform has pledged big tax cuts and a significant reduction in public spending while the Green party has promised tax rises and a big increase in public spending.

Mr Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, told the BBC: “I think the further away from power you get, the more apparently radical the manifestos become.

“If you go as far as the Greens and Reform you get into a world where the manifestos look radical but entirely unattainable.”

08:56 AM BST

IFS: Labour and Tory manifestos are not fully-costed

The Labour and Tory manifestos are not fully-costed despite both parties insisting that they are, the head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies said this morning.

Paul Johnson, the director of the IFS think tank, said neither party was being transparent about their public spending plans.

Asked if the manifestos of the main two parties were fully-costed, Mr Johnson said: “No. I think it is fair to say they are not. If you look at the costings numbers at the end of the Labour and Conservative manifestos they have got really very small numbers in them.

“They don’t give us any sense of what the counterfactual is and what I mean by that, if you look at what they will spend on the NHS, the Conservatives are talking around about an extra £1 billion, Labour an extra couple of billion.

“This is off a baseline of nearly £200 billion that we spend on the NHS  each year and we will be spending somewhere between £30 and £50 billion more by the end of the Parliament.

“So talking about one or two billion really tells us literally nothing about what they are planning there.”

08:51 AM BST

Cabinet minister defends Sunak over failure to suspend betting scandal Tories

Chris Heaton-Harris accused a broadcaster of “trying to suggest someone is guilty until proven innocent” when asked why Rishi Sunak would not take robust action over the betting allegations that have engulfed the Conservative Party.

Asked whether the Prime Minister should ask Craig Williams when he placed his bet, the Northern Ireland Secretary told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if that conversation has been had but you asked me if I knew, and I don’t.”

On whether the fact that the Tory candidate has not been suspended indicates that Mr Sunak is confident the bet was properly placed, Mr Heaton-Harris said he would not provide any extra comment on an ongoing investigation.

Asked whether he could see how the scandal looks to people, the minister said: “I can see how people do not want people to benefit in betting terms or in other terms from having knowledge of a situation, which is why the investigation needs to be taking place.”

Asked why the Prime Minister cannot take what former minister Tobias Ellwood has called “robust action”, he told presenter Mishal Husain: “I think what you’re trying to suggest is that someone is guilty until they’re proven innocent and that is not how this works.”

08:45 AM BST

Ellwood: Sunak should have suspended Tory candidates caught up in betting scandal

A Tory former minister said Rishi Sunak should have suspended Conservative candidates caught up in the general election betting scandal.

Tobias Ellwood, who is standing for re-election in Bournemouth East, suggested the Prime Minister should have taken action but conceded it may not have been straight forward to do so.

Asked if the PM should have suspended the two candidates, Craig Williams and Laura Saunders who are being looked into by the Gambling Commission as part of a wider investigation, Mr Ellwood told the BBC: “Given the scale of this as we see now and the potential for this story to continue to eclipse, to overshadow the election, I would now agree.

“I am not sure anyone, including the Prime Minister, could have predicted the number of people involved when this story first broke. The public want to see clear, robust action now.

“The practical dilemma you face though is were individuals responding to the whirlwind of the rumour mill around Westminster at the time… about a pending election announcement or were they in the room when the decision was made.

“If it was the latter the party can take immediate action. Otherwise it is for the Gambling Commission to rightly make that judgement.”

08:40 AM BST

Ex-minister: Ban politicians and party officials from being able to place political bets

New gambling rules should be introduced to ban all politicians and party officials from being able to place bets on political events, a Tory former minister has suggested.

Tobias Ellwood told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “Let’s give the nation greater reassurance that I think it wants to see to ensure this never happens again.

“Let’s introduce clear rules as you have in the banking world and in the city… let’s prevent any current politician or party professional from placing any bets in the future.

“That would send a clear message to the public that this sad incident is being taken seriously and it won’t happen again.”

08:33 AM BST

Nigel Farage celebrates arrival of first grandchild

08:16 AM BST

Streeting: ‘People are literally pulling their own teeth out’

Wes Streeting said “people are literally pulling their own teeth out” because it is so difficult to see an NHS dentist.

The shadow health secretary said a Labour government would “deliver 700,000 urgent dentistry appointments to help stabilise the system”.

Mr Streeting told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “People are literally pulling their own teeth out or ending up in A&E departments in pretty bad shape.”

He added that Labour would “get the British Dental Association in to start the process of long overdue contract reform”.

“Because I think what will shock people, especially those who’ve either paid through the nose for private dentistry, or have been priced out altogether, is that last year there was a £400 million underspend in the NHS dentistry budget”.

08:03 AM BST

Introducing insurance model for dentistry would be ‘slippery slope’, says Streeting

Wes Streeting said introducing an insurance model for dentistry would be a “dangerous, slippery slope”.

Labour is today unveiling a “dentistry rescue plan” which includes the promise of an extra 700,000 urgent and emergency dental appointments a year and “golden” hellos” of £20,000 for new dentistry graduates who spend at least three years working in under-served areas.

The shadow health secretary was asked why Labour had not considered introducing an insurance model to improve the funding for dentistry.

He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “I think that is a dangerous, slippery slope. I don’t think the problem with the NHS, fundamentally, is the model of funding which is equitable and built on the principle of fairness and fair access.

“I think it is about where the money goes.”

07:49 AM BST

Northern Ireland Secretary ‘not really’ a betting man

Chris Heaton-Harris said he was “not really” a betting man.

Asked what he thought of people who were, the Northern Ireland Secretary told Sky News this morning: “I don’t mind people who have a bet on things they have no knowledge about, which is what most gamblers do.”

Mr Heaton-Harris said that on the campaign trail, people are “worried about what a Labour incoming government might do.”

“That is what people are talking about,” he said.

07:40 AM BST

Chris Heaton-Harris: Labour’s private school tax raid ‘unwise’

Chris Heaton-Harris said Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees was “unwise” because it could prompt a pupil exodus, putting huge pressure on the state education sector.

Asked if he believed the policy was “unfair”, the Northern Ireland Secretary told Sky News: “I think that is unwise certainly. I think people who have saved hard, worked hard, want to spend extra money on their children;’s education should be allowed to.

“I actually think it is a very bad policy because it also means lots of children would be entering… a state education system which is doing really well but is not ready to cater for thousands of extra pupils coming in at this time.”

07:30 AM BST

North Sea oil and gas industry not safe with Labour, Sunak to claim

Rishi Sunak will today accuse Labour of “virtue signalling to eco zealots” instead of protecting North Sea oil and gas jobs.

The Prime Minister will visit Edinburgh to launch the Scottish Tory manifesto and will claim that Sir Keir Starmer would tax the vital UK energy sector “into oblivion” while attacking Labour’s “ideological” plans to ban new licences.

In contrast, he is to pledge that a Tory government would introduce new legislation to guarantee that there would be further annual oil and gas licensing rounds and promise to maintain tax breaks for investment by energy companies.

You can read the full story here. 

07:28 AM BST

Cabinet minister accuses Labour of trying to influence Gambling Commission

A Cabinet minister accused Labour of trying to put “undue influence” on the Gambling Commission over its investigation into the Tory general election betting scandal.

Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland Secretary, claimed Labour was trying to “lean on” the organisation.

Pat McFadden, Labour’s election campaign coordinator, wrote to the Gambling Commission at the weekend to urge it to release the names of figures being investigated.

Mr Heaton-Harris said this was “pretty concerning”.

He told Times Radio: “It has said it is investigating offences in relation to the date of the election, that it is an ongoing investigation and that it won’t provide any details at this time and it is not confirming or denying the identity of any individuals concerned. And it is right that it has an investigation. It is an independent body.

“I actually think, I saw that the leader of Labour’s campaign, Pat McFadden, wrote to try and put some undue influence on the Gambling Commission over the weekend and I think that is actually pretty concerning in itself, Labour trying to lean on yet another independent body like it leant on the Speaker of the House of Commons to not have a vote on Gaza.

“I think you are beginning to see, people are beginning to see, what a Labour government would actually be like in the United Kingdom.”

07:08 AM BST

Labour would create ‘more loopholes for predators’ with gender plans, claims Badenoch

Kemi Badenoch claimed Labour’s gender plans would create “more loopholes for predators”.

A Labour government would reportedly make it easier for people to legally change their gender.

The Times reported that the party would remove the requirement for people to have to prove they have lived as another gender for a two year period before they can obtain a gender recognition certificate.

Ms Badenoch, the minister for Women and Equalities, said: “These proposals unravel all the protections in the current system designed to protect women and girls. This change creates more loopholes for predators and bad faith actors to infiltrate women-only spaces and put us at risk.

“Labour have never understood or cared about this issue or the vulnerable women impacted by their policies.”

06:57 AM BST

Coming up: Wes Streeting on the broadcast round for Labour

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, is on the morning broadcast round for Labour.

Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland Secretary, will be answering questions on behalf of the Conservative Party.

06:51 AM BST

Starmer vows to ‘champion our armed forces’

06:40 AM BST

What is happening in the general election campaign today?

Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer will take part in a live question-and-answer session this evening as the general election campaign enters its final full week.

The Prime Minister and the Labour leader are set to face questions from Harry Cole, the political editor of The Sun, and a panel of the newspaper’s readers from 5pm.

It will come after Mr Sunak visits Edinburgh to launch the Scottish Conservative manifesto along with Douglas Ross, the party’s leader in Scotland.

He is not the only senior politician heading north of the border on Monday as Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, visits a clean energy project with Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, where they will discuss Labour’s green energy policies.

Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, continues his campaign with a lunchtime event in Kent and an evening rally in Devon.

And the Institute for Fiscal Studies will present its analysis of the parties’ general election manifestos from 10am, with Paul Johnson, the director of the influential think tank, leading comparisons between the Labour and Tory offerings.

06:37 AM BST

Calling election on July 4 ‘could well backfire’, says Kwarteng

Rishi Sunak’s decision to trigger the general election on July 4 “could well backfire”, according to Kwasi Kwarteng.

Asked if opting for an earlier than expected contest was a mistake, the Tory former chancellor told GB News: “I could see why he did it but, as it’s turned out, it looks like it could well backfire.”

06:33 AM BST

Kwarteng: Sunak ‘very much responsible’ if Tories suffer ‘massive defeat’

Kwasi Kwarteng said Rishi Sunak will be “very much responsible” if the Tories suffer a “massive defeat” on July 4.

The Tory former chancellor said that no one person would receive all of the blame but he pointed out that the timing of the contest was entirely a decision made by the Prime Minister.

His comments were in response to Michael Gove, the Levelling Up Secretary, suggesting that Liz Truss would be to blame if the Conservatives lose the general election.

“If there is a defeat, blame will be apportioned to lots of different people,” Mr Kwarteng told GB News.

“But this idea that Rishi Sunak could call the election when he did, when no one was expecting it, least of all the party it would appear, who has been front and centre of the campaign, under whom Reform has risen to nearly 20 per cent, the idea that he had nothing to do with any of that is wrong.

“When I left office, I was just checking, actually, the polls just now, Reform were on about 4 per cent. I think when Liz Truss left in October 2022, they were 4, 5 per cent.”

He added: “If you suffer a massive defeat, clearly the leader is very much responsible for that. What proportion? I don’t know. Obviously there were other mistakes done by other leaders. He called the time of the election.”