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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow (now) and Yohannes Lowe (earlier)

General election: Starmer and Sunak clash over taxes, the NHS and immigration in head-to-head TV debate – as it happened

Nigel Farage ​​Rishi Sunak United Kingdom Reform Sir Keir Starmer Immigration SNP
Rishi Sunak, debate chair Julie Etchingham and Keir Starmer.
Rishi Sunak, debate chair Julie Etchingham and Keir Starmer. Photograph: Jonathan Hordle/ITV/PA

Evening summary

  • Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer tore into each other’s election promises on tax and immigration in a fiery first TV debate of the campaign. Here is Eleni Courea’s story about the debate.

Here is a summary of the key points, from Jessica Elgot.

Here is Peter Walker’s assessment of who was telling the truth.

And here is John Crace’s sketch.

Why Labour says Tory claim it would raise taxes by £2,000 for every family is wrong

This is what Full Fact, the fact checking organisation, says about Rishi Sunak’s claim that Labour would raise taxes by £2,000 per family.

Rishi Sunak claimed under Labour there’d be “£2,000 higher taxes for every working family”.

This seems to be based on Conservative estimates of Labour spending plans. Labour disputes these - the Conservatives say they amount to a “£38.5bn black hole”. #ITVDebate #GE24 (1/2)

The Conservative calculations cover a long list of policy announcements and make a number of assumptions.

We’re currently working on a full fact check of their figures which we expect to publish later this week. #ITVDebate #GE24 (2/2)

The figure comes from a Tory dossier published last month. When it released the document, which was partly based on Treasury costings of what CCHQ claimed were Labour policies, the Conservative party said:

Labour’s spending promises cost £16bn per year in 2028-29, or £58.9bn over the next four years;

But their revenue raisers would only collect £6.2bn per year in 2028-29, or £20.4bn over the next four years.

This creates a black hole in Labour’s spending promises of £10bn per year in 2028-29, or £38.5bn over the next four years. The analysis shows that Labour have failed to accurately cost their policies, breaking Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves’ promise only to have fully funded and costed policies.

They do not have a plan to fill this gap. As a result, to avoid breaking their fiscal rules, Labour will have to raise taxes equivalent to £2,094 per working household.

In response, Labour released a rebuttal document claiming to identify “11 glaring mistakes” in the Tory document. They do not seem to be online so, for the record, here they are. (Bold text from original.)

1) The costings rely on “Assumptions from Special Advisors”, rather than an impartial Civil Service assessment.

2) Mental health support teams: The document acknowledges they have not costed the actual policy that sits behind our commitment: “there are alternative models to deliver this commitment, as expanding the provision of counselling support in schools, which have not been costed here.”

3) Dentistry: the costing includes the costs of a “golden hello” scheme. We did call for this, leading to a welcome change when the government adopted our policy. The government do not appear to be aware that this is their own policy.

4) 13,000 neighbourhood police officers and PCSOs: The costing includes Barnett consequentials. This is incorrect, as the policy is funded by reallocating funding, meaning Barnett consequentials are not triggered.

5) Neighbourhood health centres: The document assumes we will be setting up 42 new hubs over and above existing facilities and infrastructure. This is not our policy. Our plans have no additional cost. We will ask Integrated Care System providers to identify opportunities to use the existing estate to provide Neighbourhood Health Centres.

6) Insourcing: The officials flag they have “low confidence” in the assumption that outsourced services are more efficient as “the difference between the cost of outsourcing and in-house delivery is highly circumstance specific.”

7) Bus Service Reform: alongside dubious and questionable assumptions, the costing includes a frank admission that “The analysis in this costing has been done at pace with limited data and, therefore, the uncertainty and risk of error is high.”

8) Halving the number of consultants: Those costing the policy concede that they do not “monetise the potential benefits of reducing consultancy spending.”

9) Non-resident SDLT: They have failed to include in their policy assumptions Labour’s actual policy, which would see non-resident stamp duty land tax go from 2% to 3%. If they had, they could have simply taken a look at HMRC’s published costings of how much a 1% increase in non-resident stamp duty land tax raises, which is £40m per year by the third year of the forecast. This would have saved a lot of civil servant time that would have been better spent improving the country.

10) Mental Health Workers: They have assumed we will put a youth worker in every A&E suite, and a mentor in every Pupil Referral Unit across the entire country full-time. This is not our policy. Our policy is a pilot of both approaches.

11) Regional Improvement Teams: The document assumes that a Labour government would send in regional improvement teams to all schools below ‘outstanding’, including schools rated ‘good’. This is not our policy.

Hannah White, director of the Institute for Government thinktank, said tonight it was “very misleading” for Sunak to claim these were independent costings.

And the BBC has has said the Tory figures are based on “lots of questionable assumptions’. This is from Ben Chu, a BBC policy specialist.

Sunak/Starmer - verdict from X commentariat

This is what political journalists and commentators are saying about the debate on X.

From ITV’s Paul Brand

After an hour of debate:

Sunak brought the energy, made the best of what is a v difficult situation for him in this campaign. But lost the audience on occasion - groans, laughter.

Starmer was less bouncy, but remained calm and drew less anger. A safe performance.#ITVDebate

From Politico’s Anne McElvoy

I would say Sunak edged in on just having more experience in TV format, but a bit overbearing. Won’t have damaged Starmer (tho he could flexed more and avoided saying “shocking” too much. Mild boost for Sunak on his rattled home team. Doesn’t feel like cause of a major bounce

From the New Statesman’s George Eaton

Rishi Sunak unsettled Starmer but didn’t get the game changer he needed – my take on tonight’s TV debate.

From the Daily Express’s Sam Lister

Keir Starmer likes asking the questions, but not answering them... my analysis on the first TV election debatehttps://t.co/uFINrqwr6f

From Lewis Goodall from the News Agents’ podcast

A weird mess of a debate. Sunak had crisper answers but was hectoring and overbearing to the point of rudeness. Starmer had the strongest overall argument but too often took too long to get to the point, make his rebuttals. Not much will change. https://t.co/xDTYjURNVu

From the Guardian’s Gaby Hinsliff

My main takeaway from that is that the 7-way BBC debate on Friday is going to be an absolute zoo if they’re not careful

From ITV’s Robert Peston

Sunak said time and again that Labour would raise taxes. Starmer said the Tories had failed over 14 years. That is more-or-less the entire leader’s debate. Let me know if you heard anything else

From Sky’s Beth Rigby

Ill-tempered debate with more heat than light. Sunak sharper on attack lines, but with that a tetchiness that unappealing. Starmer had more applause, but not as clear in landing lines. Pretty much a draw - that worse for Sunak as he needed a slam dunk win given Lab poll lead

From Sky’s Darren McCaffrey

IMHO @RishiSunak wins tonight (just) because he had some key messages, on tax, no plan and he hammered them with discipline@Keir_Starmer didn’t address questions directly enough, key messaging not as pithy

Not sure though going to fundamentally change the campaign

No hammer-blow tonight, tax was strongest line from that most viewers will take away - hence why I think Sunak won the debate

But clearly given Labour’s lead just winning a debate will not be enough

From Sky’s Mhari Aurora

That debate felt a bit like a shouting match, but felt like Sunak was doing a bit more of the shouting over the host than Starmer… the word tetchy comes to mind

YouGov has released more figures from its snap poll.

Sunak/Starmer - final verdict

The Tories will feel more cheered than Labour. Snap polls are not always a sound guide to how debates influence public opinion (most people do not watch them in full, and their views are shaped by the reporting they watch and read after the debate) but when was the last time Rishi Sunak came ahead in any sort of poll? He will feel vindicated by the YouGov results. (See 10.17pm.)

And the perception he won reflects the fact that he was more forceful and persistent in getting over his key message. (See 9.14pm.) Keir Starmer is often reluctant to engage with Tory claims about his policy. Often this is sensible (on the grounds that politicians should talk about their agenda, not their opponent’s) but tonight it looked as though he was letting the tax claims go unchallenged because he did not have a particularly good reply. There were other points too – on ending the NHS strikes and on the “retirement tax” (a David Cameron coinage), for example – where he sounded evasive.

But none of this felt even close to the fabled “knockout blow” of debate commentary cliche. Sunak is tarnished as a messenger (because people don’t believe him much any more) and all the evidence suggests voters have abandoned the Tories in droves. People with strong doubts about Labour may have had those firmed up by Sunak, but this did not feel like a performance that would prompt a mass, national rethink.

And, although Sunak may have won on substance, he came across as tetchy, obsessive and a bit unreasonable. Starmer seemed a bit more mature and congenial. On style, he was probably ahead.

Updated

YouGov snap poll suggests Sunak 'won' debate, beating Stamer 51% to 49%

YouGov has released the results of a snap poll of people watching the debate. It suggests that Sunak won by a tiny margin.

They finished with final statements.

Starmer asked people to imagine how they would feel waking up on 5 July to “five more years of decline and division”.

The choice this election is clear – more chaos with the Conservatives or the chance to rebuild Britain with a changed Labour party.

And Sunak said he would always have people’s back, as he did with furlough. But with “Keir Starmer, apart from higher taxes, you don’t know what you get, and neither does he”.

And that was it.

Reaction and analysis coming up soon.

Etchingham ends with a light question.

Gareth on the way to Germany has a question. What is the best plan? Play it safe or take some risks and go for the win?

Sunak says he has met Gareth Southgate and discussed who had the worst job. He says you need a plan and bold action.

Starmer seems a bit more comfortable discussing football. He says Southgate has built a good squad. That is what he is doing with his shadow cabinet, he says.

Updated

Asked about home ownership, Sunak claims the Tories have delivered a million homes in this parliament.

Starmer says it is shocking how hard it is for young people to buy a home. He would give mayors more powers over housing, he says.

The next question is about what the parties would do for young people.

Starmer says he wants to see people have more educational opportunities.

But he would not make young people join some “teenage Dad’s Army”, he says.

Sunak says he thinks his plan will be transformative for young people.

That prompts some audience laughter.

Asked to respond specifically to Starmer’s point, Sunak says all Starmer is doing is sneering at this.

He says lots of people have told him they like the idea.

Starmer says the army aren’t in favour of this.

He says the government has had 14 years to do this. But it hasn’t done it.

Sunak says Starmer has no ideas.

Starmer says Sunak is claiming Labour does not have any ideas, while at the same time claiming Labour’s plans will cost a fortune.

He says Sunak cannot say the Tories have a good record, because they don’t have one. And they cannot say they have had good leaders, because they are on their fifth. So they just look ahead, he says.

Updated

The next question is about the climate crisis.

Sunak defends his decision to scale back some net zero plans.

He says Labour would force people to spend thousands on installing heat pumps, converting their homes and buying electric cars.

Starmer says the firm that provided these figures has produced a report today saying that under Labour’s plans people would pay less.

Sunak ignores this point, and just repeats the point about Labour costing people more.

Updated

Asked about Gaza, Starmer and Sunak both deliver measured answers.

Mostly they are non-partisan, but Sunak ends by saying he has decided to increase defence spending to keep people safe, and Labour has not matched that.

“Shocking,” says Starmer.

Given a chance to elaborate, Starmer again says this attack was shocking.

He says, as DPP, he worked on foiling terrorist plots.

While he was doing that, Sunak was “making money betting against the country during the financial crisis”.

That is a reference to these claims.

Sunak says, at the time Starmer was working for extremists like Abu Qatada.

Starmer asks Sunak if he is calling the CPS an extremist organisation.

Sunak says he is talking about Starmer’s work before that. He invites viewers to google that.

Sunak implies willingness to leave ECHR, saying membership of 'foreign court' should not jeopardise UK security

Etchingham asks Sunak if the Tory manifesto will include a promise to take the UK out of the European convention on human rights.

Sunak says he thinks his plan is compliant with the ECHR. But if he has to choose between the UK’s security and a foreign court, he will put the UK’s security first every time.

He says:

I will choose our country’s security ahead of membership of a foreign court every single time.

This is similar to what Sunak has said before,

Starmer says he would not take Britain out of the ECHR.

The debate has resumed, and they are now talking about small boats.

Sunak explains his policy, and challenges Starmer to say what he would do.

Starmer says he would smash the gangs.

Starmer says the Rwanda policy is a gimmick. He says, if Sunak thought the Rwanda policy was working, he would not be having the election now.

He says he legislated to stop the gangs. But Labour voted against it, he says.

Starmer says Sunak’s plan is failing.

He says he does not accept that the gangs cannot be stopped.

Updated

Sunak/Starmer - verdict so far

There is now an ad break.

And how are they doing?

In terms of getting his message over, Rishi Sunak is clearly doing best. He arrived determined to hammer away at one point – a very dubious claim about the potential costs of Labour plans, which has not received a lot of coverage since it was first made several weeks ago (even in rightwing papers) because it is based on dodgy costs – and he has repeated it so often that viewers must have got the point. Julie Etchingham has not pushed back on him about this, and Starmer has not challenged this as forcefully as he might have done.

It probably will not have much impact, because the evidence suggests voters are no longer listening to Sunak. But Starmer has let this allegation get more airtime than it deserved.

On the plus side, for Starmer, he is sounding calmer and more relaxed. Sunak started sounding tetchy after people laughted at him over waiting times. And Starmer has sounded more sympathetic to the questioners.

Sunak says under Labour’s plan pensioners would pay a “retirement tax”.

Starmer tries to take the debate back to Liz Truss, saying she showed what happened when governments make unfunded tax commitments.

Updated

Starmer says Sunak's claim he would raise people's taxes by £2,000 is 'nonsense'

Etchingham sets the leaders a challenge.

Put your hands up if what I’m saying is wrong, she says.

She then puts three statements to them: they won’t raise income tax, they won’t raise national insurance, they won’t raise VAT.

Sunak and Starmer keep their hands down.

Sunak goes back to the £2,000 tax claim.

Starmer says it’s “nonsense”.

Updated

The next question is on education.

Starmer says there is a pattern here; first the NHS, then education – services are not working.

Etchingham asks him to justify his plan to put VAT on private school fees.

Starmer says he wants to raise money to improve state education.

Sunak says Starmer is admitting that he is putting taxes up.

And VAT on schools is just the start, he says.

Starmer says he needs to address the tax point.

He says the Tory claims are not true. They have produced costing based on policies that Labour is not supported to.

Etchingham asks a quickfire question.

Q: Would you use private healthcare if a loved one was on a long waiting list?

Yes, says Sunak.

No, says Starmer. He says sticking with the NHS is in his DNA.

Sunak says the NHS strikes were a factor. Junior doctors wanted a 35% pay rise. But he would not agree to that because he does not want to put taxes up, he says.

He challenges Starmer to explain how he would resolve the strike.

Starmer starts to attack the government’s record.

Sunak asks again what Starmer would do.

Starmer says, if allowed to get a word in, he would explain. He says he would do it in a grown up way. He will not reveal his tactics now.

Starmer challenges Sunak on waiting list figures. Sunak is supposed to be good at maths. But the waiting lists number is higher than it was when the promise was made.

Sunak says: “They’re coming down because they were coming down from where they were when they were higher.”

This prompts laughter from the audience.

The next question is about the NHS. How long will it take to fix it?

Starmer says his wife works in the NHS, and his mother worked in the NHS. He says waiting lists have gone up.

Sunak says his dad was a GP and his mum was a pharmacist. He grew up with the NHS. He wants to bring NHS waiting lists down.

Updated

Sunak has mentioned the claim that Labour would raise taxes by £2,000 seven times by now.

Sunak repeatedly claims Labour would raise taxes by £2,000 for families

Sunak and Starmer are now debating each other.

Sunak says that Starmer kept calling for an election. But now Starmer does not want an election, he suggests.

Starmer says that answer is no consolation to Paula.

Sunak says Stamer would put people’s taxes up by £2,000. He repeats the figure several times.

Initially Stamer does not challenge that, and stays focused on the cost of living. Eventually, when he does try to address it, Etchingham cuts him off, and says they want to come back to that later.

The first question comes from a woman, Paula, who is worried about the cost of living. All I do is work to live, she says.

Sunak says he knows what a strain the cost of living is.

He is doing all he can to support people like her, he says. He mentions the furlough scheme, and the plan to bring inflation under control.

He wants to keep cutting taxes, he says.

Under Labour, taxes would go up by £2,000, he claims.

(Labour says that is not true.)

Starmer stresses his sympathy for Paula. He says it must be really difficult for her.

The Tories have made things worse, he claims. Liz Truss’s advisers are in the Lords. And she is a candidate again, he says.

If the plan is working, why did Sunak call the election now?

Keir Starmer is making his opening statement.

It starts with more or less the same words Pat McFadden issued earlier. (See 8.48pm.)

And Rishi Sunak gives his opening statement. As in the CCHQ statement (see 8.56pm), he says he has a plan, and Labour doesn’t. He will cut taxes, he says.

Sunak/Starmer debate starts

The debate programme is starting.

Julie Etchingham introduces the debate.

Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer are standing quite close to each other, and seem to be avoiding eye contact.

Etchingham mentions the cost of living crisis, climate change and geo-political threats.

What are these leaders going to offer us? And will they level with the public, she asks.

And the Tories have put out their own pre-debate statement. A spokesperson said:

Tonight, the country will get to see firsthand the clear choice ahead on July 4.

The public will get to see that it’s only Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives who have a clear plan and will take the bold action needed to deliver a secure future for our country.

We don’t know what the public will get to see from Keir Starmer, it depends which version of himself he chooses to bring to the debate.

But we do know that tonight will expose the Labour party’s complete absence of any new ideas, any principles and ultimately, that they do not have a plan.

Handing Labour the keys to No10 would hit every working family with a £2,094 tax bill, punish pensioners with the retirement tax, bring in an amnesty for illegal immigrants and take our country back to square one.

James Ball from the New European has more on the Survation MRP poll. (See 8.38pm.)

These are from my colleague Peter Walker, who is in the spin room in Salford for the debate.

I’m in the “spin room” for the ITV leaders’ debate in Salford, which is actually in a different building – I suspect even a different postcode – to the actual event.

There are green rooms for the Tory and Labour spinners, so they can grimace into a mirror, Tilda Swinton-in-Michael-Clayton-style, before giving us their views.

Updated

Labour has sent out this statement ahead of the debate from Pat McFadden, its national campaign coordinator.

The choice at this election is simple: five more years of chaos with the Conservatives or change with the Labour party.

On 4 July, the British people will have the chance to vote for change. To stop the chaos, turn the page and start to rebuild our country.

Tonight, the British people will have a chance to see the choice first-hand. Between a desperate Rishi Sunak whose scatter-gunned approach has shredded his economic credibility. Or Keir Starmer who has changed the Labour Party and is offering a credible plan to change Britain.

Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak have both arrived at the ITV studios in Salford where the leaders’ debate will start at 9pm.

Survation is the latest polling company to release the findings of an MRP poll. It suggests Labour is on course to win a majority of 324.

This is broadly in line with the estimate from the Electoral Calculus model, which pointed to a Labour majority of 320. Yesterday’s YouGov MRP poll had Labour on course to win a majority of 194, and yesterday’s More in Common MRP poll had Labour heading for a majority of 114.

These models produce different results because they used different headline voting intention figures (different polling companies measure voting intention using different methods) and they use different versions of MRP (multilevel regression and poststratification – a technique that tries to estimate results constituency by constituency, using very detailed demographic data about particular groups living in particular constituencies, and how they vote).

If the Survation and Electoral Calculus figures seem utterly crackpot, it is worth pointing out that this academic assessment of how polling, MRP surveys and other complex election models compared to the actual results in 2019 shows the Electoral Calculus model was one of the more reliable ones.

Here is a short commentary on X from the polling expert Lewis Baston on the latest Survation figures.

Before you dismiss this as completely implausible - a couple of thoughts. There are several (4 by my count) sets of people doing MRPs, all with somewhat different methods and different results. That’s good

… it’s a new area of statistics and polling and if a model that is based on reasonable principles produces weird looking results - then it’s right to publish those results and see how much the reality ends up resembling them…

… also: First Past the Post can do weird things, particularly when one party has a big lead over the other. We know this but seem to forget it. Nobody saw the 1931 mega landslide coming, and 1997 was more of a shock than it should have been…

… we are inclined to think the future resembles the past and the middle outcome happens, and often that’s right - but that’s hunch as often as it is genuinely rational. So don’t necessarily take this projection as fact but don’t laugh either.

In a reference to Nigel Farage announcing that he would stand in the election, and take over as Reform UK leader, Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister, said in a video he posted on X that yesterday was “a pretty shit day”. He said voting Reform UK would only let Labour in.

Day 13 campaign update..

Tough going. But I am as determined as ever. And don’t be dazzled by Nigel.. you will simply get Labour MP’s and a Labour Prime Minister

Mercer had a majority of almost 13,000 in Plymouth Moor View at the last election. According to the latest YouGov MRP poll, Labour are now on course to win, beating the Tories by 43% to 32%.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is winning the contest for the best photo opportunities of the election. The Lib Dems want to dismantle “the blue wall” (Tory seats, mainly in the south of England, where the Lib Dems are the main challengers), and today he and the party’s candidate in Cheadle, Tom Morrison, demolished a wall of sorts (but more of a tower, really) playing Jenga with giant blue bricks.

Green party agrees to review policy proposing reducing number of medical interventions in childbirth

The Green party has confirmed it will conduct a full review of its health policy, after concerns were raised over its pledge to reduce the number of medical interventions in childbirth, PA Media report. PA says:

The party’s health policy document said there has been a rise in caesarean sections, which it described as “expensive and, when not medically required, risky”.

A change to NHS culture is also proposed in the document, to ensure that “birth is treated as a normal and non-medical event”.

Green party health spokesperson Dr Pallavi Devulapalli said on X there is “no intention to stop or reduce medical care provision during pregnancy and childbirth”.

The health policy document on the party’s website – which was last updated in April 2024 – has since been taken down.

The website previously said: “The incidence of medical intervention in childbirth has escalated in recent years, particularly the rate of caesarean sections, which are expensive and, when not medically required, risky. We will work to reduce the number of interventions in childbirth, and change the culture of the NHS so that birth is treated as a normal and non-medical event, in which mothers are empowered and able to be in control.”

The milkshake attack on Nigel Farage today was not a laughing matter, Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, told LBC’s Tonight with Andrew Marr. Streeting explained:

Firstly, I don’t find what happened to Nigel Farage today to be a laughing matter and neither does the Labour party. I think if people want to take Nigel Farage on, we do it by debate and we do it by the ballot box. He’s put himself up for the election, people should take him on through democratic debate, not through those sorts of silly stunts.

People might say, ‘Oh, it’s just a milkshake.’ I’ve been a member of parliament for nine years, in that time, two of my colleagues, one Labour, one Conservative have been murdered. You don’t know when someone’s launching towards you what it is going to be.

The polling company Savanta has issued a press release highlighting what it describes as “a rare bit of positive news for Rishi Sunak”. It says its latest poll shows the Labour lead down to 14 points – its lowest level since February.

But Savanta points out that the changes from the previous week (Labour down 2, the Tories up 1) are within the margin of error. And a lead of 14 points would still be enough to give Labour a majority of 176, according to seat-modelling site Electoral Calculus, Savanta adds.

Julie Etchingham is chairing tonight’s ITV debate. Here is a picture from ITV showing the set.

And Jon Craig from Sky News has a picture of the spin room at the Salford studios.

‘Arbitrary’ election pledges to cut UK migration will worsen worker shortages

The battle between the Conservatives and Labour to show they are tough on migration risks damaging sectors that are vital to the economy, industry figures have warned. Rob Davies and Jack Simpson have the story.

Lee Cain, who was Boris Johnson’s director of communications at No 10, has written an interesting thread on TV debates on X.

This is probably his main point.

The most important thing to remember is the debate is *not* a debate. It is an opportunity to drive a message and frame the choice to millions of voters. In 2019, that frame was ‘back Boris to get Brexit done’ (change) or ‘dither and delay with Jeremy Corbyn’ (more of the same)

Philip Cowley and Matthew Bailey have written a good history of TV debates for the House magazine. Here is an excerpt.

Since the Brown-Cameron-Clegg debates of 2010, only one major party leader has not taken part in at least one direct debate – Theresa May in 2017 – although arguments about the format have continued, ensuring relatively few one-on-one encounters. The debate between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer on Tuesday night will be just the third head-to-head debate between the two main party leaders since Wilson first floated the idea over 60 years ago (the first and second being between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn in 2019).

Advocating for TV debates back in 1974, Alastair Burnet, then editor of the Economist, said that “men talking intelligently to each other gives a much healthier impression of the political process than men shouting at each other around the country”. We suspect that may be a naïve view of tonight’s proceedings.

Sunak under pressure to use first TV debate with Starmer to break campaign deadlock and deflate Labour's poll lead

Tomorrow it will be two weeks from the moment when Rishi Sunak called the general election. As the Guardian’s opinion poll tracker shows, at the time Labour was more than 20 points ahead of the Conservatives and now – after endless travelling and campaigning, thousands of leaflet deliveries and conversations, countless hours of TV news coverage and a torrent of print journalism in ink and pixel – the state of play between the two main parties is more or less exactly the same as it was.

Tonight, at 9pm, ITV will host the first TV debate between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer. In 2010 the first ever TV election debate in the UK had an audience of around 10 million and that suggests that, if any single moment in the campaign is going to present Sunak with an opportunity to jumpstart the Tory poll ratings, it is now. There won’t be 10 million people reading his manifesto.

There are, though, three problems he faces. First, voters already have firm views about both leaders, and on balance they prefer Starmer. Second, it is not obvious that Sunak is a better debater; in terms of rhetoric at PMQs, the two are relatively well matched, but Sunak is massively handicapped by having to defend the Tories’ 14-year record. And, third, most election debates in the past have had little or no lasting impact on voting intention in the campaign.

Still, you never know. At the very least it might make good TV. And it is possible that we will learn something new. Starmer is fighting a safety-first election campaign, focusing on a series of policy proposals that have already been well publicised. But Sunak seems to be pushing buttons desperately, in the hope of finding something that might work, and we have yet to see out how radical he will be in terms of promising further tax cuts, or floating withdrawal from the European convention on human rights. Tonight we might get some clarification.

Archie Bland has more in our debate preview podcast.

Updated

Former Welsh FM Mark Drakeford condemns his successor's decision to shelve shorter school summer holidays plan

The former Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford has strongly criticised a decision by the Welsh government to shelve plans to shorten summer holidays. (See 9.33am.)

Speaking in the Senedd, Drakeford said the change of heart over holiday reform by the Labour administration was an abandonment of a manifesto commitment and would harm children from poorer areas.

It was Drakeford’s most notable intervention since stepping down as first minister and comes at a tense time for Labour. Tomorrow Drakeford’s successor, Vaughan Gething, will face a no confidence vote over donations he accepted for his leadership campaign.

Drakeford was clearly angry at the change of heart on school holidays. He said:

I regret the political damage, I regret the reputational damage. What I really regret is the damage that will be done to the life chances of the children who are at the heart of this.

Under Drakeford, the Welsh government had argued that some pupils, especially those from financially disadvantaged backgrounds and those with additional learning needs, find it difficult to get back to learning after long summer holidays.

Drakeford said: “This policy would have begun to close the gap in the lives of those children.”

Education secretary Lynne Neagles said she regretted the tone of Drakeford’s remarks. She said the decision had been made taking into account views made during an extensive consultation. She said:

But it’s also about recognising that we have to implement a series of major reforms and tackle some serious attainment issues in our schools. And to think that a week’s change in the school year is going to make a difference to the systemic challenges we’re facing in education is quite frankly fiddling while Rome burns.

Redfield and Wilton Strategies have published some new polling from Scotland suggesting Labour’s lead over the SNP in Westminster voting intention is now 10 points – three points up from last month. It says this is the joint highest lead for Labour in Scotland recorded by any polling company since 2013.

Rishi Sunak has been using helicopters a lot during the election campaign, which means regular visits to the London Heliport at Battersea. According to a report by Andrew McDonald for Politico, Tom Cruise has been there too – and at one point tried to get into Sunak’s limousine when they arrived around the same time.

Giles Watling, the Conservative candidate in Clacton, where he was been the MP since 2017, has condemned the milkshake attack on his Reform UK rival, Nigel Farage.

I’m sorry to hear @Nigel_Farage has had drinks thrown at him in Clacton-on-Sea today - we may disagree, but every candidate has the right to campaign without fear of violence or intimidation!

UK faces £33bn hole in finances or return to austerity, IFS says

And here is Larry Elliott’s write-up of the IFS report. He says the thinktank is arguing that whoever forms the next government will next government will need to fill a shortfall of up to £33bn in the public finances unless it is prepared to push through a fresh round of severe austerity measures.

IFS says Tories and Labour both 'avoiding reality' that their fiscal rules mean they are signed up to 'sharp spending cuts'

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a new analysis arguing that Labour and the Conservatives are not being honest about the spending cuts that will be needed if they are going to continue complying with their fiscal rules. The report explains what the fiscal rules are, and how they impact on the parties’ spending plans. Isabel Stockton, the IFS economist who produced the assessment, said:

Both main parties say they are committed to getting debt on a downward path between 2028-29 and 2029-30. This target has an unfortunate combination of characteristics. It is eminently gameable - and has already been gamed almost to irrelevance by the current government; it is the loosest debt rule we have had in the past 30 years; and yet it is currently so constraining that it will either be breached, or will result in policies in practice quite different to those currently being peddled. It is, to be kind, not a sensible rule, and neither party appears serious about the underlying principle of getting debt falling.

This has led to both parties avoiding the reality that they are effectively signed up to sharp spending cuts, while arguing over smaller changes to taxes and spending. The one exception is Labour’s plan to borrow £23.7bn over five years to spend on green investment, which will make a promise to get debt falling harder to keep. On the basis of the March budget forecasts and the sharp spending cuts they imply, it looks as though it will be just about consistent with the fiscal rule - at least on paper. If that remains the case come the autumn, then whoever is chancellor by then will be able to consider themselves fortunate. Labour, or anyone serious about government, should not rely on getting lucky.

Gove claims Starmer will 'fall apart' in TV debate if asked difficult questions about economics

In his interview with Andrew Neil on Times Radio, Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, also claimed that Keir Starmer could be in trouble in the debate tonight if pressed on economics. Gove said:

I think Starmer will fail on the detail. He has skills, but he knows diddly squat about economics. He is out of his depth in dealing with these questions.

And I think if it’s just a trading of sound bites, then he’ll survive and he’ll get through it. But if he’s put under forensic interrogation on the economy, he will fall apart.

He’s like a mastermind contestant, his specialist subject, the constitution, full marks on. But on general knowledge and particularly on economics, then it’s a big fat zero, I suspect.

The Conservative MP Marco Longhi told the Times that he would like to see Reform UK and rightwing Tories cooperate. (See 1.42pm.) But Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, who is standing down at the election, told Times Radio that he did not agree.

Referring to Farage saying he would like to stage a reverse takeover of the Conservative party, Gove said:

[Farage] should be careful what he wishes for because if he is successful in his aims, then we will have a Labour majority which will undo all of the things for which he has claimed credit. And he will be directly to blame for having ushered in a leftward shift in British politics.

So yes, Nigel Farage has been admirably honest. But a), it’s an ego trip and b), he’s also said that he wants to destroy the Conservative party. I’m all for working with people from other parties but if someone says it’s their explicit aim to grind you into bone meal, then they’re not your friend.

Rishi Sunak has visited the studio in Salford where tonight’s ITV debate is taking place to size it up, ITV’s Robert Peston reports.

Woman arrested on suspicion of assault after drink thrown over Farage

A woman has been arrested on suspicion of assault after the incident where a drink was thrown at Nigel Farage in Clacton, according to Essex police. In a statement the force said:

Officers have made two arrests after responding to a report a drink was thrown at a man in Clacton.

We were called to the area of Marine Parade East, Clacton, at around 2.10pm today.

It was reported a man had a drink thrown over him as he left a premises in the area.

A 25-year-old woman, from Clacton, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of assault.

While officers were responding and making this arrest, a second individual, a man, was arrested on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker.

Both individuals remain in custody for questioning.

Richard Tice, the Reform UK chair (and leader until he was replaced by Nigel Farage yesterday), says the “juvenile moron” who threw a drink at Farage today (see 2.41pm) will help the party win votes.

The juvenile moron who threw a drink over Nigel has just gained us hundreds of thousands more votes

We will not be bullied or threatened off the campaign trail

George Osborne says he expects Tories to pledge to abolish inheritance tax as 'big throw of dice' in campaign

The election campaign has been running for almost two weeks now, but nothing the Conservative party has done has made a dent in Labour’s commanding poll lead. George Osborne, the former Tory chancellor, thinks the party will pledge to abolish inheritance tax, or something similar, as a last resort. As Genevieve Holl-Allen reports for the Telegraph, Osborne told his Political Currency podcast:

I still am waiting for one big throw of the tax dice.

We haven’t heard from the Tories on tax and I think a pledge to abolish inheritance tax or all but abolish inheritance tax is probably coming down the track.

Whether it will have the same impact in 2024 [as a similar move did in 2007] I question, but if you’re throwing everything at this election, it seems quite likely you’d reach for that tool in the toolkit.

When Osborne was shadow chancellor in 2007, and the Tories were worried Gordon Brown was about to announce a snap election which polling suggested he would win comfortably, he announced plans for a big increase in the inheritance tax threshold. This is credited with giving the Conservatives a significant popularity boost, prompting Brown to shelve plans for an early election.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, will not be campaigning to be Clacton’s MP on the basis that he is the candidate who knows the town best, the BBC’s Lucy Manning reports. She says that, asked where the local football team played, when the pier was built or what the town’s postcode was, Farage told her:

I’m not playing silly quiz games. Am I an expert on the local area? Of course I’m not.

Do I hope that a national figure representing an end of the line town that’s been ignored might just be able to put it on the map and get some investment coming in? That’s what I hope to do.

Sarwar says parents with children at private schools should not be 'gaming' state applications as protest against VAT policy

Parents of children at private schools should not be “gaming” the education system to demonstrate against Labour’s policy of VAT on school fees, Anas Sarwar has said. PA Media says:

The Scottish Labour leader was responding to reports that parents in an Edinburgh campaign group are planning on signing up their children for state schools, even if they do not intend to take up the place.

Labour has pledged to charge VAT on private school fees – removing the current tax exemption – and says it could raise around £1.5bn a year.

The Daily Record has reported that a private Facebook group called The Edinburgh Question, which has more than 2,000 members, is encouraging parents to oppose the policy.

Edinburgh has the highest proportion of children attending independent schools in Scotland, thought to be at least 25%.

The group’s description says: “The introduction of VAT on school fees, on top of significant fee increases in recent years, will have a devastating effect on the affordability of private education for many families.

“Estimates from schools suggest that between 15-25% of pupils could be withdrawn as a result (although Labour are working with much lower assumptions), currently the main concern would be what provision is available in Edinburgh to accommodate these children?

“We thought it would be helpful to start a page where parents across Edinburgh could co-ordinate a response, the most obvious being to register your child for a state school place by way of demonstration.

“Even if this is not something you would plan to take up in the next session, we would encourage you to act in order to support the many families who will be adversely effected if this policy is implemented.”

Sarwar supports the VAT policy, saying it will lead to more money for Scottish education through Barnett consequentials.

He told the PA news agency: “I don’t think we should be gaming in this way. I think we have to focus on the fact that we have an education system that is requiring resource, that we have to make some difficult decisions in government, and this is one decision that we are making in order to attract more investment into our schools so we can improve the standard of education for children across the country.”

James Cleverly, the home secretary, got the keys to the Conservative party’s battle bus today. Rishi Sunak has reportedly been spending the day preparing for tonight’s debate.

SNP says Sunak and Starmer must 'come clean' in TV debate about likely cuts facing public services after election

The SNP is challenging Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer to explain what public services would be cut under their plans in tonight’s ITV debate.

In a statement, Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s leader at Westminster said:

The Tories and Labour party are both wedded to austerity cuts, Brexit, creeping privatisation of the NHS and denying Scotland’s right to choose our future. In contrast, the SNP will always stand up for Scotland’s interests and protect our NHS.

At tonight’s debate, Sunak and Starmer must come clean with voters and admit where the axe will fall in their damaging plans for billions of pounds in cuts to public services. They aren’t being honest with families in Scotland over the damage they will do to our NHS if they slash funding.

And they must end the conspiracy of silence on Brexit and admit the damage they will do to the cost of living, businesses and the economy - under their plans to stay out of the single market.

The government has set out headline spending plans for future years that have been criticised by economists as unrealistically low. If the plans were for higher spending, the government would not be able to say it was on course to meet its target of getting the national debt falling in the fifth year of the forecast period. Labour has also said it will accept these plans as a baseline. But the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a leading public spending thinktank, has repeatedly said both parties are not being open with voters about the challenge the next government will face. In an analysis published recently, largely backing up the SNP argument, it said:

If we look at the big fiscal picture, the next government effectively has three options. It can implement the spending cuts baked into existing plans – cuts that will inevitably be painful. It can implement tax rises – over and above those already in the books. Or it can borrow more – something that is highly unlikely to be consistent with a promise to stabilise debt as a share of national income. The parties might well be reluctant to tell us which of these they would opt for upon taking office. That does not mean that we should refrain from asking them.

It is perfectly possible to make a principled case for each of these options. It is perfectly reasonable to hope for more economic growth, and highly desirable for parties to present plans for how they would aim to deliver it. But there is no escaping the tough fiscal realities facing the UK. For a party to enter office and then declare that things are ‘worse than expected’ would be fundamentally dishonest. The next government does not need to enter office to ‘open the books’; those books are transparently published and available for all to inspect. We should use them as the basis for an open and robust discussion during the election campaign.

Drink thrown at Farage during campaign visit

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has had what seems to be a milkshake thrown over him in Clacton, Harry Horton from ITV reports.

According to the Sun, it was a banana milkshake from McDonald’s.

Updated

Vaughan Gething claims he is looking forward to no confidence vote in his leadership in Senedd

Vaughan Gething, the Welsh first minister, has said he is looking forward to taking part in tomorrow’s no confidence vote in the Senedd.

The Tories have tabled the no confidence motion in Gething following weeks of scrutiny on him for taking a £200,000 donation for his Welsh Labour leadership campaign from a company whose owner has been convicted of environmental crimes.

At first minister’s questions in the Welsh parliament today, Gething said:

I look forward to the debate, which I will attend. I could and should, in my view, have been elsewhere, but I will be in this parliament to respond to the debate.

Gething rejected claims that accepting the donation was poor judgement and insisted it was the Welsh Tory leader, Andrew RT Davies’ judgement that was off for backing Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. He said: “I am confident about tomorrow.”

The three opposition parties in the Senedd have said they will back the Tory motion but it is likely to be voted down by Labour.

Rhun ap Iorwerth, the Plaid Cymru leader, said he believed the people of Wales had lost confidence in Gething and there was “genuine anger” over the donation.

Faiza Shaheen resigns from Labour party after being blocked as candidate

Faiza Shaheen, the Labour leftwinger who was blocked from standing as the party’s candidate in Chingford and Woodford Green, has announced that she has resigned from the party. In a statement posted on X, she says that she has faced “a relentless campaign of unfair treatment, bullying and hostility” and that that the party’s decision to block her shows the views of local members “mean nothing” to the party’s leadership. She goes on:

I cannot, in all conscience, continue to contribute to a party that seems to think so little of people like me and has moved so far away from my values.

Shaheen has already she is considering running as an independent in the constituency and she says she will make a further announcement about her next steps tomorrow.

Today’s letters page in the Guardian contains multiple letters from people denouncing the way Shaheen has been treated by the party.

Updated

Ben Riley-Smith from the Telegraph has video of Nigel Farage addressing a crowd in Clacton today. It is certainly an impressive turnout. Rishi Sunak’s campaign events have tended to involve a handful of supporters in spaces that look as they are chosen because they are small enough to appear reasonably packed and, while Keir Starmer has been sometimes attracted larger crowds, he hasn’t held an outdoor meeting like this. The last party leader who got this sort of reception may have been Jeremy Corbyn.

YouGov says it will be carrying out a snap poll after tonight’s Sunak/Starmer ITV debate.

YouGov will be conducting a snap poll on tonight’s debate between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer – we will tweet the results as soon as we have them and also post on our website

Council leader will not be Labour candidate for Barking, say sources

Darren Rodwell, the controversial leader of Barking and Dagenham council, will not be confirmed by Labour on Tuesday as the party’s local parliamentary candidate after a series of allegations about his behaviour, Kiran Stacey and Jessica Elgot report.

Marco Longhi, a Conservative MP, has urged Nigel Farage and Reform UK not to stand candidates against rightwing Tories because they will need partners in the next parliament.

In an interview with the Times, Longhi said that Labour were on course for an “overwhelming win” and that he and Farage were “in the same tent … politically”.

He went on:

It feels like there is going to be an overwhelming win by Labour. Why target certain MPs who have a track record of Reform-type politics?

If you want to remove even those with traditional conservative views there will be absolutely no coalition left to have in parliament. If he wins and becomes an MP they will have no one to partner with.

Farage said this morning he would like to see Reform UK peform a reverse takeover of the Conservative party. (See 9.28am.) In the past he has said that he think it is inevitable that he, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Suella Braverman will end up in the same party. But he has also ruled out a deal with the Tories at this election to help them hold certain seats.

Longhi, MP for Dudley North, is contesting the new Dudley seat. According to the YouGov MRP poll published yesterday, Labour are on course to beat the Tories there by 41% to 34%.

Keir Starmer has said that he is looking forward to tonight’s ITV debate with Rishi Sunak. Asked how he was feeling about the encounter, starting at 9pm, he told reporters:

Very good, looking forward to the opportunity to speak directly to voters through the debate to put our case, because at the end of the day it is that clear choice, and I think voters will see that tonight.

More of the same, we’ve had 14 years of this and after 14 years nothing is better than when the Tories started, we can end that, turn the page and start to rebuild our country with the Labour party.

I’m looking forward to be able to make that argument in the debate this evening.

Asked if he had been preparing for the debate, Starmer said:

Well, look, I’ve got a team preparing with me, it’s much the same team as for PMQs, and I suppose the best bit for the staff is that they get the opportunity in the debate to put the difficult questions to them, so they’re relishing that.

We will, of course, be covering the debate live here.

Farage claims Tories and Labour 'not genuinely patriotic' as he tells Clacton crowd it's 'most patriotic town in Britain'

Nigel Farage has told crowds of supporters who gathered in Clacton – the Essex constituency where he is to make his eighth bid to become an MP – that minds of the young were being “poisoned” in schools as he pledged to stand against what he described as “woke nonsense.”

The newly-appointed leader of Reform UK (he appointed himself) pledged to bring investment and jobs to the area, home to some of the most deprived communities in Britain, and claimed that the Tories and Labour were not “genuinely patriotic.”

Farage recalled canvassing with the area’s former Ukip MP Douglas Carswell – without mentioning the bitter falling out between the two men – and went on to claim that the Conservatives had “betrayed the trust” of Brexit voters.

“These people, unlike you in Clacton are not genuinely patriotic people. They don’t believe in Britain and the British people in the way you do,” said Farage, who described Clacton as “the most patriotic town in Britain”.

Farage returned to a bugbear voiced when he announced his U-turn on standing in the election - that half of young adults do not know what D-Day was – describing it as a source of shame. He went on:

It is as if we are telling our youngsters to be ashamed of our past and not proud of our past and this has happened under Labour and Conservative governments.

We want to put voices in Westminster who truly believe in Britain We don’t want the minds of our kids being poisoned and to tell them that actually hey should be proud of this country.

Updated

Green party condemns Farage as 'a crook and a conman'

Hi. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Yohannes Lowe.

As Nigel Farage, the new Reform UK leader (and longstanding owner – he is the majority shareholder) holds a campaign event in Clacton, the Green party has issued a statement condemning him as

Nate Higgins, the Greens’ democracy and engagement spokesperson, said:

Nigel Farage is not just a dodgy salesman. He is a crook and a conman.

He will package his brand of hate filled politics in a way that is populist and that he thinks he can sell to an electorate who are understandably fed up with mainstream politics.

Frankly though, we’re not buying it.

The latest organisation he latched himself onto, “Reform UK”, is another smokescreen. Set up to take money off people without offering them membership like any other established political party.

Greens can see through these smokescreens and his jovial façade and see the divisive hate that pulsates through his politics.

His politics belong on the extreme fringes not at the heart of Clacton, let alone on prime time TV.

If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line (BTL) or message me on X (Twitter). I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word. If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use X; I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos (no error is too small to correct). And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.

Updated

Labour sources have confirmed to Kiran Stacey, a political correspondent for the Guardian, that Darren Rodwell, the controversial leader of Barking and Dagenham council, will not be confirmed by Labour on Tuesday as the party’s local parliamentary candidate after a series of allegations about his behaviour.

Rodwell has come under fire for a number of comments he has made in the past, including once joking he had “the worst tan possible for a black man”.

He was previously approved as a candidate by the party’s national executive committee after apologising for those remarks. But earlier this week the Independent revealed he was being investigated for alleged sexual harassment, after a woman complained he had touched her hands and legs in an inappropriate way. Rodwell has denied any inappropriate behaviour.

Expert thinktank highlights problems with Tory and Reform UK migration proposals

Dr Ben Brindle, a researcher at the Migration Observatory, a thinktank at the University of Oxford, has spoken after Rishi Sunak announced his party’s commitment to capping the number of visas in an effort to make migration numbers fall year on year in a future parliament.

In a statement, he has highlighted problems both with the Tory proposal to impose an annual cap on the number of visas issued to migrants (see 8.55am) and with the Reform UK plan to bring net migration down to zero (see 9.19am).

Dr Brindle said:

The impact of visa caps depends on how much they actually constrain migration. If the goal is to significantly reduce migration, it is more efficient from an economic perspective to impose restrictive eligibility criteria rather than to get a cap to do most of the work.

With a visa cap, the bar applicants need to reach can change unpredictably depending on how many other people apply during that period. This makes it harder for employers to plan ahead than a scenario where you have predictable but restrictive criteria for getting visas.

The impacts on public finances in the long run depend on how restrictive the eligibility criteria. The salary thresholds introduced earlier this year mean that-at least outside the health and care sector-workers will already be making net contributions to public finances. If caps further reduced the numbers beyond what is already expected to happen, we can thus expect there to be a fiscal cost.

However, it is possible that numbers will already be relatively low in the private sector due to the policy changes, and that a cap would be set at a level that did not make much difference. In other words, it’s all in the implementation.

It is not likely that restrictions on migration would have a major impact on the labour market in the medium to long term. The impacts of immigration in the labour market tend to be small. The main question marks are over the health and care sectors, which are publicly funded and where the government effectively controls pay and conditions.

These sectors have relied heavily on migration in large part due to limited funding. The impacts of restricting migration here would thus depend on whether the government was willing to use other polices (eg. on pay in the NHS and social care) to help recruit and retain staff.

It is difficult to imagine any scenario in which net migration falls to zero, even under extremely restrictive immigration policies. In practice, this would likely mean eliminating almost all work and study migration, and only admitting small numbers of family members of British citizens, as well as asylum seekers (which recent history has showed the government struggles to reduce even despite substantial policy efforts).

Updated

Labour on Tuesday marginally widened its lead to 22.3 points over the Tories (up from 21.5 points on Monday), according to Bloomberg’s polling composite, a rolling 14-day average using data from 11 UK polling companies.

A YouGov poll on Monday night suggested the Conservative party could fall to 140 seats. It showed Labour’s Keir Starmer could win a 194 majority, bigger than Tony Blair’s 179 in 1997.

Labour’s Barking candidate Darren Rodwell has been removed from the list of election candidates being approved by the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) this lunchtime, BBC News reports.

In 2022, he apologised after saying he had the “worst tan possible for a black man” at a Black History Month event.

The NEC, the party’s ruling body, which is dominated by supporters of Keir Starmer, will probably make a decision over who will be Labour’s candidate in the seat in the next 48 hours, according to BBC News.

Updated

The leaders of the main parties have been warned by a watchdog not to mislead voters with dodgy statistics.

The UK Statistics Authority chairman, Robert Chote, said misusing official data in the campaign could lead to a “loss of trust” in whoever has the keys to Number 10 after the general election.

He has written to the leaders of all main political parties calling for the “appropriate and transparent” use of statistics during the campaign, the PA news agency reported.

Robert said: “The work of the UK Statistics Authority is underpinned by the conviction that official statistics should serve the public good.

“This means that when statistics and quantitative claims are used in public debate, they should enhance understanding of the topics being debated and not be used in a way that has the potential to mislead.”

He acknowledged the use of statistics in political communication is “often necessarily succinct and devoid of lengthy explanation”, but “a good rule of thumb is to consider how a reasonable person would interpret the statement being made and ensure that this is not likely to be misleading in the absence of additional information”.

He added only official statistics and publicly-available data should be used rather than unpublished figures “to which ministers have privileged access”.

The Office for Statistics Regulation will be monitoring the use of statistics during the campaign and will be willing to call out parties using them in a misleading way.

Updated

The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has been outlining the Labour party’s economic policy at an event in Edinburgh.

“This is a change election, and stability is change after the 14 years that we have had,” she was quoted by Sky News as saying.

“It’s only with stability that we can grow our economy and improve living standards for ordinary working people.”

The shadow chancellor said this stability would be achieved through a “tough set of economic rules” – including paying for “day-to-day spending through tax receipts”.

Reeves faces a challenge in the coming weeks to illustrate how she can promise to keep a tight hand on the public finances while also rejuvenating ailing public services with fresh investment.

She has promised that Labour will not oversee a “return to austerity” and has ruled out increases to income tax or national insurance.

The Scottish government has been accused of “sitting on their hands” as accident and emergency waiting time figures continued to stagnate.

Monthly data released by Public Health Scotland show 67.4% of patients in April were seen and subsequently admitted, transferred or discharged within the four-hour target - the same as the month before.

The proportion of people waiting more than 12 hours jumped from 4.5% to 5.2% between March and April, while the number waiting more than eight hours increased from 11.2% to 11.7%.

Meanwhile, weekly figures show 68.5% of patients were seen within the target time in the week to 26 May, up from 66.1%.

Along with the improvement in those seen within four hours over the latest week, there was a sharp drop in the proportion waiting more than half a day, falling from 5.2% the previous week to 4%.

A similar drop was also logged in those waiting eight hours or more, from 12.2% to 10.1%.

But despite the slight improvements, Scottish Conservative health spokesperson Dr Sandesh Gulhane said the summer period should have yielded bigger changes.

He said:

SNP ministers shamefully continue to sit on their hands while our A&E departments remain in permanent crisis mode.

With the NHS’s peak winter period well behind us, we should be seeing significant improvements. But due to SNP mismanagement we’re not – and lives are being needlessly lost as a result.

The double whammy of the SNP’s dire workforce planning and the failure of (former health secretary and first minister) Humza Yousaf’s flimsy recovery plan mean it is the shocking norm that over a third of patients have to wait over four hours to be seen.

As a practising GP, I know how hard my frontline colleagues are working to provide the highest standard of care for patients, but they simply don’t have the resources to meet the huge demands placed upon them.

Health secretary Neil Gray praised the performance improvements, but admitted waiting times are still unsatisfactory.

Rajeev Syal is home affairs editor of the Guardian

Commenting on proposals for caps on migration, Adis Sehic, senior research and policy officer at the employment charity Work Rights Centre said:

While ministers and candidates are focusing heavily on the numbers of migrant workers, they would do well to also consider the welfare of people coming to the UK to work and those already here.

It is clear that there are growing problems with the existing visa systems – hundreds of migrant care workers have been left scammed and destitute, while seasonal horticultural workers have reported mistreatment on multiple UK farms. Reform of these visa routes is desperately needed.

Visa caps do nothing to improve the lives of exploited workers, while a cap on family migration will arbitrarily punish British citizens as well as migrants, by separating them from their loved ones.

Seven Slough councillors quit Labour over 'profound disillusionment and anger' at the party

Seven Labour councillors in Slough have reportedly resigned after accusing the Labour party of institutional racism (the Slough and South Bucks Observer have a report here).

The councillors were Zaffar Ajaib, Sabia Akram, Haqeeq Dar, Mohammed Nazir, Naveeda Qaseem, Waqas Sabah and Jamilia Sabah.

In their resignation statement, posted to X by Taj Ali, co-editor of Tribune magazine, they wrote:

We, the undersigned members and Labour Councillors of the Slough Constituency Labour party, express our profound disillusionment and anger.

For over two years, since our CLP was placed into special measures by the south-east region and the NEC, we have been systematically deprived of our democratic rights. Our ability to form, debate and influence policies has been dismantled.

They cited grievances over the treatment of Faiza Shaheen and Diane Abbott as well as the party’s stance on Israel’s war in Gaza.

Shaheen, who was blocked by Labour from standing in Chingford and Woodford Green, shared Ali’s tweet, saying “thank you, and you’re right about the institutional racism”.

Last year, all the Labour councillors (18 at the time) in Slough called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza – a position that was at odds with Keir Starmer’s position.

In a joint statement, they said: “human rights and adherence to international law must prevail”.

Kiran Stacey is a political correspondent based in Westminster

Labour will launch an investigation into the treatment of migrant workers in the British social care sector if it wins the election, the party has announced, after dozens of cases of alleged exploitation were uncovered.

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, called the allegations revealed by the Guardian “a disgrace”, accusing the government of turning a blind eye to the problem.

She said Labour would back calls by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) for a full investigation into the experience of people who say they have been left trapped in the UK with debts of up to £20,000 and little or none of the work they were promised.

Cooper said: “The government has turned a blind eye to widespread exploitation of migrant care workers, putting vulnerable people at risk and undermining our immigration system and standards.

“Stories of people being unfairly charged thousands of pounds by agencies and employers who are profiting from overseas recruitment are a total disgrace. There must be a full investigation into these reports to ensure standards are upheld, and exploitative employers are prosecuted.”

She added that the crackdown on exploitation in the care sector would be led by the new enforcement body Labour plans to introduce to oversee new employment rights.

The Guardian last week reported the experiences of more than 30 people who have arrived from India in the past two years to work in the British care sector.

All of them paid thousands of pounds to immigration agents, and in one case to a UK care provider itself, to secure visas to come to the country. But almost all were told when they arrived that there was not enough work to provide the full-time employment they had been promised.

As a result most remain stuck in the UK, struggling to pay off the debts they have incurred. Many have appealed to the Home Office, police and the care regulator, but none has been fully reimbursed.

You can read the full story here:

Starmer dismisses Tory plan for cap on migration visas, saying government has 'lost control' of arrival numbers

Keir Starmer has also been asked about immigration by reporters in Bolton. He said it has become “out of control” under the Conservatives and said the Tory announcement for a cap on migration visas (see earlier post at 08.55) was meaningless as they have not given a number. It is a “cap without a cap”, he said.

“Net migration is far too high, this government has lost control. It’s more than twice as high as it was when we were in the EU, that’s the irony of it,” Starmer told the media.

“This prime minister is actually, for all his tough talk, the most liberal prime minister when it comes to immigration, those numbers have gone through the roof.”

But the Labour party leader refused to give a figure for his migration target, only saying he wants it to come down and to focus on tackling skills shortages and bad employment practices.

Last year’s net migration figure of 685,000 has “got to come down,” Starmer told The Sun on Sunday.

Updated

Keir Starmer has met people at the Bridge cafe in Bolton on a campaign visit before Tuesday’s 9pm ITV debate with Rishi Sunak. The Labour party leader is accompanied by shadow work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall.

Starmer told journalists that he had not spoken to Diane Abbott since the controversy over her selection as a candidate, but added his team had been in touch with her.

He told broadcasters at the Bridge cafe in Bolton:

I have spoken to Diane two or three months ago, my team have obviously been speaking to her, but that decision is taken, that’s clear.

The question now before the country is about the decision, the choice, that will fall to be made on 4 July, which is continuing with this chaos and division or turning the page and starting to rebuild the country with Labour.

The Guardian understands that Abbott will be reselected to fight her Hackney North and Stoke Newington seat at a meeting of the Labour party’s executive this afternoon.

She was suspended from the party last year after writing a letter to the Observer saying that Jewish people and Travellers suffered prejudice but not racism, comparing their experiences with those of people with red hair.

Abbott apologised for her remarks but was placed under investigation and lost the Labour whip.

The Guardian also understands that Apsana Begum is also on the list of party candidates to be nodded through by the NEC despite speculation that she could be blocked.

The Guardian’s Scotland Correspondent, Libby Brooks, has this report on the first leaders’ debate in Scotland last night:

The SNP has accused Scottish Labour of “completely rewriting” Rachel Reeves’s spending plans, as the party leaders took part in the first televised debate of the election campaign.

The clash between the SNP, Scottish Labour, Scottish Conservatives and Scottish Liberal Democrats was screened by STV, without a studio audience, and involved intensive cross-examination of each leader by his political rivals.

With recent polling suggesting that Labour could make significant gains on 4 July, in particular in seats in Glasgow and across the central belt, the SNP leader, John Swinney, told Anas Sarwar that his pledges for more spending on the NHS, schools and renewables projects contradicted the constraints laid out by Reeves.

“You have completely rewritten the Labour finance strategy. You cannot escape the fact that you have signed up to the Tories’ fiscal agenda, the austerity agenda,” said Swinney. “You are locked into that and you will not be able to deliver those commitments.”

On Tuesday Reeves, the shadow chancellor, will visit Edinburgh, where she will unveil plans to boost the country’s financial services industry and promise to “unleash Scotland’s economic firepower to deliver jobs and growth”.

Sarwar, Swinney and the Scottish Conservative leader, Douglas Ross, also clashed over the future of the oil and gas sector, with the SNP and Tories facing off in a number of seats in north-east Scotland most affected by transition plans.

Sarwar accused Swinney of being “on the side of BP and Shell, not nurses” in the middle of a cost of living crisis.

You can read the full story here:

Updated

Keir Starmer, the Labour party leader, is due to make a campaign announcement on Labour’s energy policy this morning.

He will say his party would “close the door on” the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, by reducing Britain’s reliance on fossil fuel from overseas.

Starmer will claim his party’s plan to set up a publicly owned clean energy company, GB Energy, will help to protect the UK from spikes in the price of fuel like those that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Labour has said GB Energy would be headquartered in Scotland as a “homegrown, publicly owned champion in clean energy generation” to enable the creation of jobs and manufacturing in Britain’s renewables sector.

The party has, however, been accused of putting jobs at risk over its commitment to not issue any new oil and gas licences if it wins power at the general election.

The SNP said the proposals, along with Labour’s plan to increase taxes on companies’ profits, would put thousands of Scottish jobs at risk.

Former Conservative MP Mark Logan has arrived at a Labour party campaign event in Greater Manchester.

The former MP, who announced his support for Labour after the start of the general election campaign, spoke to pensioners while waiting for Keir Starmer’s arrival at the event. The picture below was taken by the Sun’s political correspondent Noa Hoffman.

Logan, who represented Bolton North East for the Tories until parliament dissolved last week, has said the Tory party was “now unrecognisable” from the one he joined a decade ago and that Labour could “bring back optimism into British life”.

Natalie Elphicke and Dan Poulter crossed the floor this year, while Christian Wakeford defected to the Labour party in 2022.

The Guardian’s visuals team has produced an interactive boundary map for the UK general election which shows you if your constituency has been altered because of boundary changes. You can check it out here:

Ed Davey has been speaking about his party’s plan to provide free personal care for adults. The Liberal Democrats leader said he wants carers to have a special, higher minimum wage.

The Liberal Democrats said that day-to-day care for adults in need, including elderly people and disabled, would be free in England if they were in power.

Davey said: “As a carer for my disabled son, and after caring for my ill mother when I was young, care is deeply personal for me.”

In an emotional clip published last night, Davey opened up to ITV’s tonight programme about juggling responsibilities as the leader of his party and caring for his disabled 16-year-old son, John.

Updated

Pat McFadden, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, has said that a YouGov poll which forecasts a landslide win for his party at the 4 July general election “makes no difference to us”.

YouGov’s first MRP constituency projection, before Farage’s announcement put Labour on 422 seats (+222 from the 2019 election, based on new constituency boundaries), the Tories on 140 (-232), the Lib Dems on 48 (+40) and the SNP on 17 (-31).

“No votes have been cast, we are the challengers in this election, we are not the incumbents,” McFadden said.

“The incumbents are the Conservatives, and the last thing I would want is for anybody to believe that the result has somehow been decided.

“The result hasn’t been decided – we still have a month to go in this election campaign.”

McFadden said the Labour party wants to secure a majority at the election and dismissed any talk of a deal with other parties if they fall short of one.

Welsh government shelves plan to shorten summer school holidays after 'mixed response' to consultation

Sally Weale is the Guardian’s education correspondent

The Welsh government has shelved plans to shorten school summer holidays after “a mixed response” to its consultation.

The controversial proposal to take a week from the long summer vacation and add it to the autumn break creating a two-week half-term was expected to be introduced next year.

While a “narrow” majority of the 16,000 responses were in favour of the change, Wales’s minority Labour administration said “the findings from the consultation were equivocal and contradictory which highlights more discussion and exploration is needed”.

The plans, which would have meant a five-week summer break rather than six weeks, was driven in part by research which suggested that parents struggle to find childcare over the long summer holiday.

Welsh education secretary Lynne Neagle said:

Opinion was hugely divided on this. To ensure we get this right, we need to continue listening to and engaging with schools, teachers, unions, as well as children, young people and parents, on how best we can implement any changes in the future.

I want to prioritise ongoing school reforms and improving attainment and therefore no changes will be made to the school year this Senedd term. In the meantime, our priority will be to maximise the support available to learners during the summer holidays including doing more to target that provision towards the poorest communities through a range of policies and activities.

Eithne Hughes, director of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) Cymru, welcomed the decision, saying: “As the consultation proved, and as we knew all along, there is no unanimous call from parents or teachers for changes to be made to the school holidays.”

Updated

Nigel Farage says he wants to 'take over' the Conservative party

We mentioned in the opening summary that Nigel Farage told ITV’s Good Morning Britain his goal was to take the Conservative party over, rather than join it. Here are the fuller quotes from the interview.

“You can speculate as to what’ll happen in three or four years’ time, all I will tell you is if Reform succeed in the way that I think they can, then a chunk of the Conservative party will join us – it’s the other way around,” he said.

Farage pointed to Canada, where “Reform did a reverse takeover of the Conservative party, rebranded it and Stephen Harper – who was elected as a Reform MP – became the Canadian prime minister for 10 years”.

He said: “I don’t want to join the Conservative party, I think the better thing to do would be to take it over.”

Farage – who had previously suggested he could be open to talks with the Tories – has said his ambition was to “reshape the centre-Right”. He has suggested a “chunk” of the Conservatives could join his party and says that many Labour voters, not just Conservative ones, will vote for Reform as they don’t see much of a difference between the two main parties.

Farage’s bid to win in Clacton, which was the first to elect a Ukip MP in 2014 and has a Tory majority of 24,702, will be his eighth attempt to enter parliament. He has failed on each of the previous seven occasions.

Updated

Nigel Farage says the UK should aim for 'zero' net migration

Nigel Farage has made no secret of his intention to put immigration at the heart of his campaign.

“Net migration at zero would be the target,” he told Mishal Husain on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, acknowledging this figure depends how many people are leaving the country each year (500,000 people left last year; net migration is about 600,000).

Farage was asked if people eligible for skilled workers visas, including paramedics and primary school teachers, could continue to come in. He said they could but in limited numbers.

The Reform UK party leader said:

We cannot go on as we are. We have to limit numbers. Our quality of life in this country is and if that means in some sectors there’d be shortages – what that then means is that wages woud then go up and we would start to encourage people to learn skills, rather than heading off to university and doing social sciences.

James Cleverly also told Sky News that he was surprised at the decision by Nigel Farage to stand in Clacton.

“The last time I heard him make reference to Clacton, he was saying that he didn’t want to spend every Friday in Clacton,” he said.

“Reform has always been a vehicle for Nigel Farage’s self-promotion, I think Richard Tice is now discovering that rather painfully.”

He added that Keir Starmer would very much like people to vote for Reform because it “opens the door” to a Labour government.

Farage had been expected to choose to run either in Clacton or in Thanet East in Kent, which includes much of the old constituency where he made two failed bids to become an MP in 2015 and 2005.

But Clacton would now appear to be a better bet for Reform UK, even though the Tory candidate Giles Watling, who backed remain, is defending a majority of 24,702.

A poll that was published minutes after Farage announced his candidacy, and so was conducted some time before, indicated that Reform UK were not on course to win any seats, as things stood.

Updated

James Cleverly has also been speaking to Sky News. The home secretary acknowledged he would prefer Tory poll ratings to be better than they are.

Shortly after Nigel Farage’s announcement yesterday, a YouGov survey showed Keir Starmer heading to No10 with Labour set to get a huge majority of 194, more than Tony Blair’s 179 in 1997.

The Tories would be crushed, losing 232 seats and dropping to just 140, according to YouGov’s projection.

Cleverly told Sky News the only poll that mattered was election day, but added: “If you are asking ‘would I prefer going into the last few weeks of this election campaign with the polls in our favour?’, of course I would prefer that.”

The home secretary claimed that people were “completely unconvinced by Labour” and Keir Starmer.

“At these turbulent times, handing control of the country to a man who doesn’t even really seem to be in control of his own shadow cabinet is probably not a good idea,” he said.

Updated

Conservatives announce plan to reduce the number of migrant visas every year

The home secretary, James Cleverly, has been asked about the Conservative’s commitment to capping the number of visas issued to reduce overall migration.

It came after Rishi Sunak announced that the number of visas available to migrants would be reduced each under a new Conservative government. The figure would be recommended by the migration advisory committee before being put to MPs for a vote.

Asked on BBC Breakfast why they are not putting a number on the annual cap in visas, Cleverly said:

Well, we know that immigration, legal migration, has been too high over the last couple of years.

We’ve taken measures already which, as your report said, has now started to bring those figures down, measures that were opposed at the time by the Labour party.

But we also recognise, as your report said, there are benefits to migration. My mother came here as a migrant, as did many other people in the UK who have contributed enormously to our society and to our economy.

But migration – just as with every other public policy – comes at a cost and balancing the benefits and cost is what our new policy is going to do.

So, for the first time, we’re going to get the migration advisory committee to crunch the numbers to look at both the benefit and the costs of migration levels. The Government will then set a cap on the number of visas it will issue in that year, something that will then be voted on by parliament.

This will make sure we properly balance both the numbers of people coming here and the benefit they bring, but also the cost, whether it’s school places, housing demand, health places, etc.

Last month, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that overall migration into the UK for 2022 was 606,000, which represented a 24% increase on the previous high of 488,000 last year.

Rishi Sunak was forced to concede this figure was too high as he was accused by right wing MPs of abandoning control of UK borders after net migration and the backlog of asylum claims reached record highs.

Updated

Opening summary

Good morning, and welcome to our continued coverage of the 2024 general election campaign.

Rishi Sunak has proposed an annual visa cap to try to reduce immigration ahead of his debate with Keir Starmer, the Labour party leader, on ITV tonight.

The Conservatives will propose an annual cap on worker and family visas in their efforts to try to reduce immigration year on year in a future parliament.

The proposed plan would give parliament a direct role in setting levels of migration, with MPs having a vote on the number.

The already under pressure prime minister, who, according to most polls, is on course to lose the 4 July general election many are now saying he called prematurely, is focusing on immigration as this is an area the Conservatives feel particularly vulnerable to Reform on.

On BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Farage said the UK should aim for “zero” net migration – the difference between numbers of people arriving and leaving. We will have more for you on this shortly.

Suank’s campaign suffered a damaging blow yesterday after Farage, the former Ukip and Brexit party leader, called a surprise press conference in London to announce he intended to stand as an MP in Clacton, Essex and lead the Reform party for the next five years. Farage had previously said he would not stand in July’s general election.

In a further blow to Sunak, YouGov’s first MRP constituency projection, before Farage’s announcement, showed Keir Starmer could win a 194 majority, bigger even than Tony Blair’s 179 majority in 1997.

It put Labour on 422 seats (+222 from the 2019 election, based on new constituency boundaries), the Tories on 140 (-232), the Lib Dems on 48 (+40) and the SNP on 17 (-31). One senior Tory described Farage’s return as an “existential” risk.

Farage has suggested his long-term aim was to effectively take over the Conservative party, which has been in damage limitation mode since the announcement.

He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Tuesday that he could not stand for or seek to lead the Conservative party “as they currently are”.

But he added:

You can speculate as to what’ll happen in three or four years’ time, all I will tell you is if Reform succeed in the way that I think they can, then a chunk of the Conservative party will join us – it’s the other way around.

Here is a list of what is on today’s agenda:

  • Keir Starmer is to make energy policy announcement on a campaign visit to the north-west.

  • Labour’s ruling body, the National Executive Committee, is expected to meet to endorse the party’s candidates for the general election.

  • James Cleverley and Nigel Farage are answering broadcast questions on the morning rounds.

  • Nigel Farage to launch general election campaign in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex.

  • Lib Dem leader Ed Davey campaign visits to Cheadle this morning and North Shropshire this afternoon.

  • Rachel Reeves and Anas Sarwar will hold a Q&A in Edinburgh with staff working in financial services.

  • Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer will face each other in the ITV general election debate at 9pm. The debate will be followed at 22:10 by interviews with leaders of other parties. The Liberal Democrats, SNP, Reform UK and the Greens have been invited.

It is Yohannes Lowe here for the next couple of hours. If you want to get my attention then please do email me on yohannes.lowe@theguardian.com.

Updated

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