Summary of the day …
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Here is a summary of events from this Saturday:
In an interview with the Times, the foreign secretary, David Cameron, said that Nigel Farage is trying to destroy the Conservatives and criticised his “inflammatory language” on migration. “I think with these populists what you get is inflammatory language and hopeless policy,” Cameron told the Times. He also warned that a vote for Reform or any other party would make “Britain less safe”.
In the Times interview, Cameron said that being prime minister was a “good apprenticeship” for serving as foreign secretary and he still thinks the Tories can win the election.
Keir Starmer has ruled out imposing capital gains tax on the sale of people’s homes and said it was “desperate” tactics from the Tories to suggest that he would. The Labour leader said he could “absolutely” guarantee that would not happen. Starmer told reporters on a visit to a hospital in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, on Saturday: “There was never a policy so it doesn’t need ruling out, but let’s rule it out in case anybody pretends that it was.”
Voters will choose who the leader of the opposition is, not Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, Starmer said. The Labour leader told the press: “Well, I don’t think it’s for Nigel Farage to declare himself leader of the opposition. I’m actually leader to the opposition just at the moment. I’m hoping to change that.”
Starmer said a Labour government would take “tough” decisions to drive through plans for new homes. He was responding to questions about Labour candidate Marsha de Cordova’s opposition to a development in the Battersea constituency where she is standing for re-election. While planning rules would be changed, Starmer said Labour would “listen to local communities” who had concerns about infrastructure. But, he added, “we have to build those homes and we are going to take tough decisions in order to fix that”.
Conservative leadership hopefuls are already lobbying for support to take over from Rishi Sunak amid widespread fears the party is heading for a disastrous defeat on 4 July, the Guardian has learned. The early favourites for leader include former secretaries of state Priti Patel, Suella Braverman, Robert Jenrick, Kemi Badenoch, Penny Mordaunt and Grant Shapps. Several of those, however, are fighting to retain their seats, leaving their contention highly uncertain.
Rishi Sunak has committed to staying on as an MP for the full five-year term if the Conservative party loses the general election. Speaking to journalists in Puglia, Italy, where he is attending the G7 summit, the prime minister said he intended to serve a full parliamentary term regardless of the overall result on 4 July.
Three out of five people in the UK back spending more on the NHS even if it means their personal taxes would increase, a poll has found. Pollster Ipsos found 61% of people would accept higher personal taxes if it meant the next chancellor put more money into the NHS, with only 16% saying they wanted tax cuts even if it meant less money for the NHS.
Labour candidate Rosie Duffield has announced she has withdrawn from hustings events due to safety concerns. In a statement posted on X, Duffield said she had made “the extremely difficult decision not to attend local hustings events during this general election campaign”. She said a “few fixated individuals” had now made her attendance at husting events “impossible”.
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner has said her party’s manifesto offer for working people is not “timid” and will “transform working people’s lives for the better”. She was campaigning in West Lothian on Saturday with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, meeting parents at the Broxburn Family and Community Development centre. Rayner also emphasised her party’s message on economic growth, saying confidence in the UK had been undermined by the “chaos of the Conservatives and the SNP”.
Away from the UK election, Rishi Sunak attended the trooping the colour in London on Saturday and then flew to Switzerland to join the Ukraine peace summit. World leaders – not including Vladimir Putin – are attempting to envision a path to peace in Europe at the summit.
The number of children attending private schools in England has risen, new figures show, despite claims that families are being priced out by Labour’s plan to add VAT to school fees. The Independent Schools Council (ISC) said last month that pupil numbers had fallen – a sign, they said, that schools were already starting to see “the impact of VAT looming on the horizon”. But official Department for Education (DfE) data published last week shows that as of this January, the number of pupils in independent schools in England was 593,486, up from 591,954 the year before and an increase of 24,150 on 2020/21.
A Labour candidate runs a lobbying firm that represents the organisation battling Keir Starmer’s flagship private schools policy, the Observer has revealed. Kevin Craig, Labour’s candidate for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, is the founder and chief executive of lobbying firm Political Lobbying and Media Relations (PLMR). Craig told the Observer that PLMR “has given hundreds of thousands of pounds to charities over the years” and works on campaigns for major charities, including Cancer Research UK.
Anti-abortion campaigners are running as independent candidates in the general election against prominent MPs seeking re-election who supported decriminalisation. The seats of Labour’s Diana Johnson and Stella Creasy and Conservative Caroline Nokes are all being targeted by anti-abortion activists.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall defended Labour’s claim that NHS waiting lists could rise to 10 million despite the Institute for Fiscal Studies saying that was “highly unlikely”. She told Sky News it was a “reasonable assumption” that was based on what had already happened under the Conservatives and “if the trend continues in the future, as it has done in the past, that’s what we’re likely to see”.
Jeremy Corbyn is to warn the Labour party that more austerity and privatisation is “not the answer” to the NHS crisis, reported the PA news agency. The former Labour leader will tell a rally on Saturday in Islington North, where he is standing as an independent, that the party’s manifesto failed to rule out cuts to the NHS. Corbyn will accuse the government of showing “contempt” for NHS staff, who have been on strike over pay.
Veterans minister Johnny Mercer acknowledged the Tory campaign had been “up and down” but warned voters against giving Labour “unchecked” power. In a message to would-be supporters of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK he said: “If you vote for Reform, you’re going to get a Labour government, you’ll get unchecked power from a Labour government to come in and change the face of this country into something that I don’t believe it is, I don’t think it is a left-wing country.”
Texts reportedly sent from the phone of a Conservative Senedd member, appearing to ask a member of staff to inflate her expenses claims, have been seen by BBC Wales. South Wales police had received information from the Senedd Commissioner for Standards, which remains under investigation, the force said. The Guardian has not seen the messages, other than the screenshots published by the broadcaster.
The Scottish Conservatives have criticised the SNP’s opposition to Trident, the UK’s nuclear deterrent. Deputy leader Meghan Gallacher highlighted a report from the GMB union which said thousands of jobs depended on the Faslane base – 6,500 military and civilian staff at the base and 4,000 in the supply chain and local economy.
Jeremy Corbyn is to warn the Labour party that more austerity and privatisation is “not the answer” to the NHS crisis, reports the PA news agency.
The former Labour leader will tell a rally on Saturday in Islington North, where he is standing as an independent, that the party’s manifesto failed to rule out cuts to the NHS.
According to the news agency’s report, Corbyn is expected to say: “Voters of Islington North need to know that if they want an MP that will stand up for a publicly run NHS then they have to vote for me as an independent, not Labour, on 4 July. Unlike Labour and the Tories, I do not believe the expansion of the private sector is the answer to the NHS crisis.”
The PA news agency also says that Corbyn will accuse the government of showing “contempt” for NHS staff, who have been on strike over pay, adding: “Our NHS is nothing without the cleaners, doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and reception staff that keep it running.”
