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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Sunak’s election tour branded shambolic after Titanic Quarter visit inspires sinking ship comparison – as it happened

Sir Keir Starmer Jeremy Corbyn Diane Abbott Claire Coutinho ​​Rishi Sunak Ofgem SNP Scotland Britain Momentum
Rishi Sunak visiting Belfast
Rishi Sunak visiting Belfast Photograph: Henry Nicholls/AP

Labour will pledge in its manifesto to bring back the Rishi Sunak plan to stop future generations smoking, Hugo Gye from the i reports.

The smoking ban is not dead, merely resting.

It will appear in Labour manifesto, @theipaper understands, while Sunak would make it a priority if Tories re-elected.

Labour says Sunak presiding over worst year yet for small boat crossings as arrivals for 2024 reach 10,000

More than 10,000 migrants are thought to have arrived in the UK so far this year after crossing the Channel, PA Media reports. PA says:

Pictures showed groups of migrants, including several children, being brought ashore in Dover, Kent, today amid warm, sunny and clear weather conditions at sea.

As of Thursday, 9,882 people had made the journey from France this year, according to provisional Home Office figures.

This is up 35% on the number recorded this time last year (7,297) and 6% higher than the same point in 2022 (9,326), according to PA analysis of the data.

The number of migrants arriving in the UK after crossing the Channel has already reached a new record high for the first five months of a calendar year.

Commenting on the figures, Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, said:

This is the first time that more than 10,000 people have crossed the Channel in small boats before the end of May, with over a third more people making the crossing this year than last. Far from stopping the boats, Rishi Sunak is presiding over the worst year we have seen since the start of this crisis.

Updated

Rishi Sunak told reporters he was “up for the fight” when he spoke to them on his flight from Belfast to the West Midlands.

As PA Media reports, he told them:

I love doing this. I’ve been doing it since the beginning of the year, I’ve been out and about pretty much two, three days a week since the beginning of the year and I love it.

I love talking to people, I love having the debate, I love having the Q&A with people, answering their questions, making sure they know what I’m about and I’m really confident that over the next few weeks we’re going to have a really good conversation as a country about the future we want.

Getting in just before the purdah curtain falls, education secretary Gillian Keegan has named Sir Ian Bauckham as the government’s “preferred candidate” to be the new chief regulator of Ofqual, England’s exams watchdog.

The candidate has to appear before the education select committee and then be confirmed by the education secretary. Since that now won’t happen until after the election, a new education secretary could have a change of mind.

Bauckham is a former chief executive of an academy trust and was appointed acting chair of Ofqual by Gavin Williamson in 2021, following the exam debacle of that year, and later made permanent chair by Nadhim Zahawi. Bauckham was a regular choice by ministers to run things, including its controversial review of initial teacher training, while Keegan appointed him as Ofqual’s acting chief regulator earlier this year.

A reader asks:

Out of interest does an MP who decides to stand down before the election get a bigger pay-off then one who fights the election but loses? If so, in your view does this explain the large number of MPs stepping down?

No. It’s the opposite. All MPs who don’t come back are eligible for the winding up payment, which is equivalent to four months’ salary, minus tax and national insurance.

But if an MP stands and loses, they can also get the loss of office payment. This is paid at double the statutory redundancy payment rate, but is only available to the MP if they have been in office for at least two years.

There are more details in the Ipsa scheme for MPs’ staffing and business costs here.

Updated

MPs and peers warn Sunak UK 'must be prepared for possibility of foreign interference' in election

A parliamentary committee has warned Rishi Sunak of the risk of foreign interference in the election.

In an open letter to the prime minister, Margaret Beckett, chair of the joint committee on national security strategy, said the committee thought “the UK must be prepared for the possibility of foreign interference” in the election.

She went on:

We have considered a number of ways hostile actors may seek to exploit divisions and weaknesses during the forthcoming election period. They may seek to:

-Undermine trust in electoral processes through cyber-attacks targeted at our institutions, including ransomware attacks. Such attacks could raise questions their security as well as their ability to facilitate and safeguard UK democracy.

- Target high-profile individuals such as political candidates to retrieve sensitive information for exploitation through coercion or publication, thereby undermining trust in politicians.

-Spread disinformation online about public figures - including through the use generative AI to create fake videos and audios - to fuel conspiracy theories and undermine trust in UK leaders and institutions.

-Sow division and cause chaos where there are already domestic divides on controversial or politicised topics.

Beckett said the government should take steps to counter these threats, including by issuing guidance to people on how to spot deepfakes and other items of misinformaton or disinformation online.

The election means a number of consultations affecting schools in England are left in limbo, forcing headteachers to wait longer for government guidance on controversial issues such as how to treat transgender pupils.

Recently the government has opened consultations on its changes to faith schools admissions and statutory sex education, while results from a consultation on its guidance for the treatment of transgender children at school were to be published this year. If Labour forms a government after the election it will want to start from scratch, meaning those consultations will be abandoned.

The election also dashes hopes the government would soon publish the School Teachers’ Review Body report on teachers’ pay in England, making it difficult for schools to finalise budgets for next year. That leaves teachers’ pay as something urgent in the next government’s in-try.

A private members’ bill, backed by the current government, that requires councils to keep a register of local home-schooled children may be scrubbed but Labour has also supported the idea so it could be back in some form - when time allows.

Rishi Sunak’s flagship education policy, an Advanced British Standard qualification for sixth formers, ensuring pupils keep learning maths until 18, saw its consultation close in March. A Labour victory in July would mean it goes no further.

Sunak's election tour branded shambolic after Titanic Quarter visit inspires sinking ship comparison

As James McCarthy from BelfastLive reports, Rishi Sunak was visiting the Titanic Quarter in Belfast this morning. This is what happened when Sunak was asked if he was captain of a sinking ship.

(It’s worth watching Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary, who smirks momentarily before reverting to ‘serious face’.)

While harmless on their own, the danger with incidents like this is that quite quickly they enable the media (or at least those parts of the media that aren’t slavishly loyal to the Tories) to establish a ‘loser narrative’, and once that’s in place, it can be near impossible to shift. What then happens is that every trivial mishap gets reported as a campaign calamity.

There is some evidence that Sunak is getting stuck with this label already. His ‘things can only get wetter’ election announcement was as a genuine presentational disaster, and two of the most memorable things that happened on day one (yesterday) were a Euros gaffe in Wales, and a Q&A with workers that was not quite what it seemed. Labour mocked both of these in a vicious campaign video last night.

Ruth Davidson, the former Tory leader in Scotland, thinks those organising Sunak’s tour are to blame. She even jokes about whether a “double agent” in CCHQ is doing the planning.

Iain Dale, the LBC presenter and a former Tory adviser, has made the same point.

I mean seriously. Who is in charge of this shambles? Visiting the Titanic exhibition? What next - Sunak pays visit to local funeral directors? It’s almost unfathomable how many basic errors have been made and it’s only Day 3

Smaller parties may be squeezed out of UK election TV leadership debates

The Lib Dems, Greens and SNP face being cut out of televised leadership debates, as broadcasters plan to focus on two head-to-head contests between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, Jim Waterson reports.

What Harriet Harman, Theresa May, Ben Wallace and Matt Hancock told MPs in their valedictory speeches

Here are some of the highlights from speeches in the debate this afternoon for MPs who are standing down.

Harriet Harman, the former deputy Labour leader and mother of the house (the longest-serving female MP), used her speech to stress the importance of having women in the Commons.

When she was elected in 1982, only 3% of her colleagues were women, she said.

To those people who look back through rose-tinted glasses and with nostalgia and talk about the ‘good old days’ in the House of Commons, I would say the House of Commons is better now than it was.

It is more representative and the women who are in this House of Commons now… they also know that it is not that we are doing them a favour letting them be here.

They are a democratic imperative to make this House of Commons representative. They need to have their voices heard. They will not be silenced and they are an essential part of a modern democracy.

Harman said that, despite the problems with abuse on social media, she would still encourage young women to go into politics.

She also said she had spoken in the chamber 9,880 times. “But I have to say that when you discover the prime minister was only two years old when you were first elected, you realise it is time to move on,” she added.

Theresa May, the former prime minister, urged MPs to remember that democracy was under threat, not just from foreign powers, but from within. She said:

Democracy has raised living standards in countries, it has led to the betterment of people in so many parts of the world, but sadly democracy today, I fear, is under threat.

“And while it is easy to answer the question ‘what is the greatest threat to democracy’ by saying ‘well, an autocratic state like Russia or China’, actually we should never forget the dangers to democracy from within.

She also included a jibe at Liz Truss, another former PM.

I was always a Conservative, I’ve never been a member of another party, I have always been a Conservative in the room and I will continue to be a Conservative in the room.

That was a reference to the title of Truss’s recent book, Ten Years to Save the West: Lessons from the Only Conservative in the Room.

Ben Wallace, the former Tory defence secretary, urged all parties not to neglect defence spending. Referring to the line used by the Labour party about when it will raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, he said:

Defence is not an add-on after health and education. When we come to our manifestos please invest in defence, make sure it is core. Don’t let leaders say things like ‘when economic conditions allow’.

We don’t say that about health, we don’t say that about education.

And Matt Hancock, the former Tory health secretary, said that as an MP he had always “tried my hardest”. And, referring to what he would miss, he said he would have liked to have been in the Commons to vote for assisted dying.

I’ll miss the ability to contribute to national debates. The single vote I’m regretting not being able to take part in is the vote on assisted dying which surely will come, and which I’ve come to support very passionately.

Updated

Labour has chosen Praful Nargund as its candidate in Islington North. He will be standing against Jeremy Corbyn, the former party leader, who is running as an independent.

In a post on X Nargund, a local councillor, said:

It’s an honour to have been chosen as Labour’s candidate for Islington North and I look forward to the campaign ahead. I promise to be a truly local MP, that represents all families and businesses that call this special place their home.

Only Labour can change the country and fix 14 years of Tory failure.

Corbyn had a majority of more than 26,000 at the last election, when he was the Labour candidate and party leader. Normally independent candidates find it very, very hard to win in parliamentary elections, but Corbyn has a huge profile and a strong personal following, and even his critics accept he has been an assiduous local MP.

Number of Tory MP stepping down at election hits post-war record

A post-war record number of Conservative MPs are standing down ahead of the general election, PA Media reports. The total not seeking re-election on July 4 hit 75 on Friday, surpassing the previous record of 72 who quit prior to Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide win for Labour. It came after outgoing Tories Matt Hancock and Bob Stewart both had the party whip restored and former minister John Redwood announced he is stepping down, PA says.

Northern Ireland affairs committe warns Tories ECHR withdrawal would be harmful to Northern Ireland

We still don’t know what the Conservative manifesto will say about the European convention on human rights, and whether Rishi Sunak will bow to the wishes of those Tories who want it to float the prospect of ECHR withdrawal. In an open letter to the goverment, the Commons Northern Ireland affairs committee says withdrawal would be a mistake. It has taken evidence on this issue recently and in his letter Sir Robert Buckland, the committee chair and a former Tory justice secretary, says:

Witnesses concluded that that if the UK were to withdraw from the ECHR it would have a detrimental impact on Northern Ireland. They argued that the government would knowingly be in breach of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and a promise to the people of Northern Ireland that their human rights would be protected “and not subject to political will or change of government”. Alyson Kilpatrick [chief commissioner at the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission] added that “we all know how dangerous it is to breach promises. To do it without reason, justification or any real rationale would be very troubling”.

Party leaders normally have a pack of journalists travelling with them during an election campaign. Here is Rishi Sunak speaking to reporters on a plane taking them from Northern Ireland to Staffordshire.

A reader asks:

How (if at all) pre-election purdah will affect GMP’s investigation of Angela Rayner?

Not at all, if a report by Fiona Hamilton and Steven Swinford in the Times today is correct. They write:

The police investigation into Angela Rayner is expected to be concluded before the election with Labour increasingly confident she will be cleared, The Times understands.

An announcement on the fate of the Labour deputy leader, who has faced questions over where she lived in the 2010s and the sale of her former council house in Stockport, is expected within about a week.

Rayner’s allies hope that Greater Manchester police will make a clear public statement so that questions about the investigation do not plague her campaign for re-election.

Former business secretary Greg Clark says he's standing down

And Greg Clark, who was business secretary when Theresa May was PM, and very briefingly levelling up secretary at the end of the Boris Johnson premiership, has announced he is standing down. He says that, after nearly 20 years as an MP, it is “time to pass the baton on”.

Clark is MP for Tunbridge Wells, which is normally seen as a true blue constituency. But his majority was 14,645 at the last election and the YouGov MRP polling suggests the Liberal Democrats are on course to win it narrowly.

James Heale from the Spectator says the number of Tory MPs standing down has now reached 75.

Greg Clark has now announced he’s quitting. We have now reached the same number of Tory MPs who stood down ahead of the 1997 election - 75. There will be more.

Tory MP Craig Mackinlay says he's quitting parliament

Craig Mackinlay, the Conservative MP for South Thanet, explained why will not be a candidate again in a post on Facebook. He said:

The snap election announcement has caused me 36 hrs of intense soul searching.

Whilst my heart tells me to stand again, there being so much unfinished business across local regeneration and national issues which are important to me, my head knows this to be impossible at this time. It would be difficult to withstand the rigours of an all-out election campaign, a campaign that I’d always wish to lead from the front. Thereafter, upon being re-elected it would be difficult for me to sustain 70 to 80 hour working weeks which were the norm prior to my illness.

I had hoped to phase my return to the House of Commons over the coming months as my abilities improved. Since leaving in-patient rehabilitation a month ago my life now revolves around various medical appointments. I face numerous future operations as a result of the serious sepsis that I suffered which very nearly took my life. I have only just started the prosthetic journey and I have weekly physiotherapy and occupational therapy sessions.

I had the most memorable appearance of my time as an MP at this week’s PMQs: it was emotional and the experience quite surreal. I shall never forget it. I had expected it to be the start of my return. It will, however, be remembered as my last hurrah.

Mackinlay had a majority of 10,587 at the last election. The constituency has been renamed East Thanet after boundary change and the YouGov MRP poll suggests Labour is easily ahead there, by 45% to 27%.

Craig Mackinlay, the Conservative MP who returned to the Commons on Wednesday after almost losing his life to sepsis, and having his feet and hands amputated, will not be a candidate again, Darren McCaffrey from Sky News reports.

NEW: Craig Mackinlay, the Conservative MP who lost all his limbs to sepsis, will not run for his South Thanet seat in the upcoming general election

The MP only returned to the Commons on Wednesday to loud applause, hours before Rishi Sunak confirmed the polls will open on 4 July

Updated

In the Commons MPs have now started a general debate which is primarily a chance for members who are standing down to deliver farewell speeches. Harriet Harman, mother of the house (the longest-serving female MP) and a former Labour deputy leader, opened the debate and Theresa May, the former PM, is speaking now. I will post some highlights later.

The Conservative party says the Telegraph report is wrong, and Lord Frost is not being banned from standing as a candidate. (See 12.02pm.)

Landlord organisation criticises failure to pass renters reform bill, saying market now faces 'crippling uncertainty'

Of all the bills that are being dropped because MPs and peers have run out of time to pass them, there is particular anger about the renters reform bill, which was supposed to ban no-fault evictions. The Tories promised this in their 2019 manifesto and the bill to enact this was originally published a year ago. Since then ministers have been dragging their feet, partly because the bill is very unpopular with some government MPs seen as representing the landlord lobby.

The failure to pass the bill has been criticised by the opposition, and by groups representing renters. Tom Darling, campaign manager for the Renters’ Reform Coalition, said:

Renters in England – trapped in an unhealthy, unaffordable and insecure renting system – have been waiting five long years for action on that pledge. Today we get confirmation that the renters reform bill won’t pass – meaning the Bill is dead and the task of fixing England’s broken renting system will fall to the next government. Renters have been so badly let down.

Matthew Pennycook, shadow minister for housing, said Labour would now have to deliver the bill.

The Tories’ decision to cave in to vested interests and abandon their already weakened renters reform bill leaves in tatters the promises they made to private tenants five years ago …

Labour will turn the page on 14 years of Tory chaos, deliver where the Tories have failed and pass robust renters reform legislation that abolishes Section 21 no-fault evictions immediately and decisively levels the playing field between landlords and tenants.

Helen Morgan, the Lib Dem housing spokesperson, said:

This is another Conservative promise abandoned and left in a ditch, they should be ashamed.

This means the vast majority of renters still face being evicted from their homes through no fault of their own, all because of Conservative infighting.

More surprisingly, the axing of the bill has also been criticised by the National Residential Landlords Association. Landlords were originally opposed to the bill, but the government offered them a string of concessions that watered it down. Now the sector faces the prospect of Labour renters reform bill, not the more anaemic Tory version.

Ben Beadle, chief executive of the NRLA, said the market now faces “crippling uncertainty”. He said:

If true, it is hugely disappointing that this bill will not now make it into law. The news comes despite the fact that the bill was in a state which would work for tenants and responsible landlords.

There has been too much dither and delay in government, and a failure to be clear about how to ensure changes would work in practice. Critically, the market now faces yet more crippling uncertainty about what the future of the private rented sector looks like.

Updated

Rishi Sunak won’t be making much of an effort to persuade Boris Johnson to join him on the campaign trail, judging by what he has been saying today. Asked if he wanted to campaign with the former PM, Sunak said he was “very proud” of what they achieved together. Asked if he would be asking Johnson to join the campaign, according to Sky News Sunak replied:

I’d welcome for any Conservative to come and join the campaign. And I’ve been in touch with Boris in the past. I’m very proud of the work that we did together.

Which sounds like a no.

Johnson and his allies still blame Sunak for, as they see it, helping to bring Johnson down by resigning from his cabinet in such a way as to trigger mass resignations by other ministers.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Lord Frost has been told he won’t be allowed to stand as a Conservative party candidate. Frost, a rightwinger, served as Brexit minister under Boris Johnson, but has frequently criticised the way Rishi Sunak is running the party (normally in columns in the Telegraph).

As a member of the House of Lords, Frost is not eligible to be an MP, but peers can resign from the Lords if they want to sit in the Commons.

I’ve asked the Conservative party for a comment, and will post their response when I get it.

UPDATE: The Conservative party says the Telegraph report is wrong, and Lord Frost is not being banned from standing as a candidate.

Updated

The Liberal Democrats would give patients a right to see a GP within seven days, Ed Davey, the party leader, said today.

Speaking in Eastbourne, a target seat for the party where the Lib Dems came second behind Conservative MP Caroline Ansell at the last election, Davey said:

So many people tell us they can’t get a GP appointment in the time they want.

They’re having to wait days and weeks in some cases.

We’re so excited that we’re coming forward with new ideas about how we can transform our health system that will really help people struggling at the moment.

Davey also said that John Redwood’s decision to stand down (see 10.10am) was a sign the Lib Dems were on course to win in Wokingham.

Sunak says he's 'disappointed' anti-smoking bill didn't pass, but it's evidence of 'bold action' he's willing to take

Rishi Sunak has said that he is “disappointed” not to be able to pass the tobacco and vapes bill, to stop future generations being allowed to buy cigarettes, before the election. Speaking in Belfast, he said:

There’s always a normal process at the end of a parliament to see which legislation you can pass in the time that’s available.

He said he was “of course disappointed not to be able to get that through at the end of the session given the time available”. He went on:

But what I’d say is that’s evidence of the bold action that I’m prepared to take. That’s the type of prime minister I am. That’s the type of leadership that I bring.

I stepped up to do something that is bold, that will make an enormous difference in the future of our country.

Updated

Rishi Sunak is in Belfast this morning. He has been touring all four nations of the UK in the past 24 hours. Here he is returning from a boat tour during a visit to a maritime technology centre at a dockyard in Belfast.

Starmer accuses SNP of lacking ambition for Scotland

Keir Starmer used his speech at the Scottish Labour campaign launch this morning to accuse the SNP of lacking ambition for Scotland.

Referring to an SNP claim that Scottish voters should use the election to send a message to Westminster, Starmer said Scotland should be a leading voice.

He went on:

Send a message? Send a message? That is the height of the SNP’s ambition. To send a message, a protest in Westminster.

I don’t want Scotland to send a message. I want Scotland to send a government, a Labour government, that can stop the chaos and division, that can turn the page and rebuild Scotland and Britain.

As an example of failure under the Tories, Starmer also shared a story about meeting a seven-year-old girl during a recent visit to a food parcel centre near Glasgow.

He said the child – who had a “hell of a personality” – had become fascinated by him reading from an autocue. He invited her to have a go herself, but she told him: “I don’t read, me.”

Starmer went on:

I though about those words all the way back home. I don’t read’ – a seven-year-old girl – I thought about her, I thought about her future.

I thought about the cost she is paying for the failure here under the SNP and the failure down at Westminster. She is paying that price.

Only Labour can stop the chaos, and turn the page.

Labour says fall in energy price cap won't compensate for other cost of living increases

In her interviews this morning Claire Coutinho, the energy secretary, also claimed the decision by Ofgem to bring down the energy price cap by 7% to the equivalent of £1,568 a year this summer was “welcome news for families”.

Ed Miliband, the shadow energy secretary, said this argument showed the Tories were complacent and out of touch. In a statement he said:

Only Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives could look at energy bills still being hundreds of pounds a year higher for families and call it good news.

This government is totally out of touch with the cost of living crisis families face. The British people know that they are paying the price for 14 years of failed Conservative energy policy.

If the Tories get back in, Britain will remain vulnerable to dictators like Putin, and family finances will continue to be rocked by sky-high energy bills.

A Labour government will cut bills by setting up Great British Energy, a new publicly-owned company to invest in homegrown clean energy so we can boost energy independence and cut bills for good.

Energy secretary Claire Coutinho defends Sunak not passing anti-smoking bill, saying he's 'won the argument' on it

Claire Coutinho, the energy secretary, was doing interviews this morning to promote the (rather minimal) energy price policies being announced by the Conservatives (see 10.57am), and on the Today programme she was challenged about Rishi Sunak’s failure to pass the legislation to ban future generations from buying cigarettes that he has promoted as a flagship measure.

When it was put to her that not being able to pass the bill showed weakness, Coutinho claimed he had “won the argument”. She said:

If you look at these smoke-free generation, he took a very bold decision to do something … It was controversial in certain quarters.

When it was put to her that he had not got this through, she went on:

I think what he’s done is won the argument on it. And that is exactly what Rishi Sunak is like as a politician. I’ve known him a long time, and the whole time I’ve known him he’s been the kind of person who does take on big arguments.

Coutinho also said that, if the Tories were re-elected, Sunak would bring the bill back.

Updated

Tories propose measures intended to help keep down energy bills

Households could find it easier to switch to cheaper, more consumer-friendly energy suppliers under plans announced by the Tories, PA Media reports. PA says:

Price comparison services will be made easier to use and regulator Ofgem could publish league tables showing how long energy firms take to respond to customer complaints under the proposals.

To coincide with Ofgem announcing the latest energy price cap figure, the Conservatives committed to maintaining that policy throughout the next parliament if Rishi Sunak wins the general election.

The Tory proposals involve:

– A call for evidence on price comparison services to help consumers make more informed choices about when to switch tariffs.

– Working with Ofgem to develop options to enable customers to see the performance of energy firms, potentially including league tables ranking companies by helpline wait times and customer service responses.

– Consulting on regulating energy brokers and price comparison websites to prevent rip-off hidden fees, inaccurate bills and high-pressure sales tactics.

– A new code of practice covering the installation and use of smart meters.

– An expectation that Ofgem’s review of standing charges will ensure they are kept as low as possible.

Claire Coutinho, the energy secretary, said: “Labour does not have a serious approach to Britain’s energy security and they aren’t honest about the costs that their reckless net zero targets would place on households.”

But Labour retaliated, dismissing the Tory approach as a “bunch of empty buzzwords” which would do nothing to lower bills.

Keir Starmer brushed aside questions about Jeremy Corbyn, his predecessor, standing against Labour as an independent candidate in Islington North during his interview round this morning. Asked about Corbyn on Sky News, Starmer said:

I’m very clear, the first thing I said as Labour leader is that I would tear antisemitism out of our party by the roots.

That was my first solemn promise, and I followed through on that, and that is why I took the decision that Jeremy Corbyn would not stand as a Labour candidate at this election.

Now what’s happened with Jeremy standing as an independent, that’s a matter for him.

We will have an excellent Labour candidate in Islington North making the same argument as we will across the country, which is it’s time to end 14 years of chaos and division, it’s time to turn the page and a fresh start and rebuild our country together.

But Momentum, the Labour group set up to defend Corbyn’s agenda when he was leader, said that Starmer had made a big mistake. In a statement about Corbyn running as an independent, Kate Dove, the Momentum chair, said:

Jeremy Corbyn has loyally served the people of Islington North as their Labour MP for over 40 years. He wanted to run again as the Labour candidate and the local party backed him too. But Starmer and his Westminster clique again denied local people the chance to choose their own candidate and blocked Jeremy. Starmer has treated the people of Islington with contempt, setting the stage for a divisive and distracting election campaign.

We urge the Labour leadership not to repeat this damaging debacle in Hackney with Diane Abbott. Britain’s first black woman MP, who Keir Starmer rightly called a ‘trailblazer’, deserves to run as the Labour candidate, as local members voted.

Keir Starmer has been speaking at the launch of Scottish Labour’s election campaign.

Making his pitch to voters alongside Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, in the constituency of Glasgow East, Starmer insisted that Scotland was “central to the mission of the next Labour government”.

“This is an election about change and Scotland’s voice is vital,” he said to noisy cheers and whoops.

He spoke directly to voters who hardened supported his party at the last election “because they didn’t think we could win”, telling them “we have changed the party”.

Diane Abbott will find out 'in a few days' if she can stand as Labour candidate, Starmer says

In his interviews this morning Keir Starmer said that Diane Abbott will find out very soon whether or not she will be allowed to stand again as a Labour candidate. She is currently suspended from the parliamentary Labour party because of a disciplinary inquiry triggered by a letter she sent to the Observer more than a year ago suggesting antisemitism was not as serious as the racism experienced by black people. Abbott has apologised for the letter and believes she is being penalised because the party is purging leftwingers.

Asked when the disciplinary hearing against Abbott would conclude, Starmer told Sky News this morning:

The final decisions on candidates is coming up in a few days’ time, I think June 4, it may be a little earlier, a little later, I can’t quite remember.

But within a relatively short period of time the final list of candidates will be decided, and that will be a matter for the Labour party’s national executive committee.

Starmer refused to say if he wanted Abbott to stand as a candidate. Asked if he had a view, he told the Today programme that Jeremy Corbyn expressed his views on party disciplinary matters and that he did not want to do the same because it was “a very slippery slope”.

Abbott herself said this morning in a post on X that Starmer was wrong to claim that the decision had nothing to do with him.

Just heard @Keir_Starmer on @BBCr4today claiming that the decision about whether to let @HackneyAbbott back into @UKLabour has “nothing to with him” It has EVERYTHING to do with him

Jeremy Corbyn to stand as independent at general election

Jeremy Corbyn has confirmed he will stand as an independent candidate in Islington North, vowing to fight for equality, democracy and peace, Aletha Adu reports.

John Redwood says he is standing down at election because he has 'other things I wish to do'

John Redwood, the former Welsh secretary who challenged John Major for the Tory leadership in 1995 and who was a leading Eurosceptic and then Brexiter, has announced he is standing down at the election. In a post on his blog, he says he is going because he has “other things I wish to do”.

Redwood has been MP for Wokingham since 1987. When first elected he had a majority of more than 20,000, but at the last election his majority was 7,383, over the Liberal Democrats. The YouGov MRP poll in April said the Tories and the Lib Dems are now neck and neck in the constituency.

Starmer confirms he will debate Sunak, but says Tory calls for multiple debates shows PM 'increasingly desperate'

Opinion polls are a good guide as to who might win an election, but almost as reliable is asking which candidate is demanding debates, and who is keen to mimimise them. Political leaders who are winning regard them as an avoidable risk, while underdogs, with nothing to lose, want as many as possible. The Conservatives have been demanding one a week for the next six weeks, which is a sign they’re in trouble.

This morning Keir Starmer said the challenge from Rishi Sunak was a sign of desperation. He told Sky News: “He is sounding increasingly desperate, I have to say.”

Starmer said “of course” he would debate Sunak, but he would not go into any further detail. His team were dealing with the negotiations, he explained. He went on:

Of course there are going to be TV debates. They are part and parcel of the election cycle now.

I obviously want to spend as much of my time talking to voters directly.

I can do a hundred debates with Rishi Sunak, but I know what he is going to say, he is going to say everything is fine, the cost-of-living crisis is over, the health service hasn’t got any problems. That is all he ever says.

On Newsnight last night Nicholas Watt said Labour will agree to two Sunak/Starmer debates, one on the BBC and the other on ITV.

Keir Starmer says he won't promise 'ideal world' policies, only what he can deliver after election

Good morning. Keir Starmer has been giving interviews this morning, including on the Today programme. Labour is promising “change” but today Starmer seemed determined to temper expectations, repeatedly stressing that that there were things he would like to do in “an ideal world” which voters should not be expecting after 4 July.

When Starmer was running for the Labour leadership in 2020, he said he supported abolishing university tuition fees. On the Today programme, asked by Mishal Husain if he still believed in that, Starmer said he certainly wanted to change the current arrangements. He said since 2020 there had been “huge damage” to the economy. He said he thought the government could not afford to put more money into the NHS and to abolish tuition fees, and he had decided to not abolish tuition fees. People would understand this, he argued.

I came into politics, as you know, late. It’s actually how most people think, which is look, yes, in an ideal world I would like a number of things, but in the real world, I can’t have them all and I’ve got to make some difficult choices.

I’d rather make the choice now, this side of the election, than say something now in my heart of hearts which I know is not deliverable on the other side of the election.

Husain then asked if Starmer would scrap the two-child benefit cap if he secured economic growth (generating more revenue for the Treasury). Starmer replied:

Well, in an ideal world, of course, but we haven’t got the resources to do it at the moment.

Husain pressed him again. If Labour did secure the highest growth in the G7, as it is committed to doing, would the two-child benefit cap go? Starmer reverted to the same answer.

Well, in an ideal world, we’ll be able to do that. I’ll be clear, we want to grow the economy so we can absolutely put the money where it’s needed.

Husain asked at what point the world ever gets ideal. Starmer dodged the question, and instead talked about the “huge damage” done to the economy by Liz Truss.

Then Husain switched tack, asking about another policy, apparently shelved by Starmer, that does not cost much: abolition of the House of Lords. Starmer did not say this was an ideal world policy, and he said it was still something he would like to do, but he said it was not a priority. He went on:

I think one of the big mistakes that governments make is not to be clear enough in their project – what are the things that matter most that we’ve got to tackle first?

I will post more from this and from Starmer’s other interviews shortly. For much of the Today interview he sounded defensive and vulnerable, but his best moment came right at the end when Husain set him up for an open goal by asking if, on becoming PM, he would deliver a speech outside No 10 “rain or shine”. Starmer replied:

Yeah, absolutely, but I’ll tell you what – I will have an umbrella.

The image of a man who says ‘I’m the only one with a plan’ standing in the rain without an umbrella is, to put it politely, pretty farcical …

You can’t say ‘I’m a man with a plan’ and sit in the rain without an umbrella. I’m sorry, that just doesn’t stack up.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Rishi Sunak is on a visit in Northern Ireland. In the afternoon he will be in Staffordshire.

9.30am: MPs sit for the final day before the general election, where they are due to pass the victims and prisoners bill, and the leasehold and freehold reform bill. Peers are also sitting from 10am where they are due to approve a series of mostly minor bills.

10.30am: Keir Starmer is doing a campaign event in Scotland with Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader. At 4pm he will be in Lancashire, for an event related to the green prosperity plan.

Morning: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is on a campaign visit in Eastbourne.

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

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