Summary of the day …
Diane Abbott has accused Labour of carrying out a “cull of leftwingers” after she and others were blocked or dissuaded from standing for the party. The veteran Labour MP vowed on Wednesday to stay on for “as long as it is possible” after a deal for her to retire from parliament broke down. Labour leader Keir Starmer has again told broadcasters that no decision has been taken over her selection, and he described her as “a trailblazer as an MP”. He said Labour’s selection policy had been clear for a long time, that it wanted “the best quality candidates”
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner has said Abbott has not been treated “fairly or appropriately” by some Labour colleagues and should be allowed to stand again. In an interview with the Guardian, she also suggested it was up to Abbott to decide whether she retired at this election, although she indicated there was an expectation she would do so. “I want to see her be able to retire with her 37 years of service being respected and being celebrated,” she said.
Faiza Shaheen, the candidate blocked by Labour from standing in Chingford and Woodford Green, has announced she will challenge the decision in the courts, claiming she has faced “a systematic campaign of racism, Islamophobia and bullying”. Citing a series of recent issues, including having a local organiser removed from her team and being blocked from producing videos blaming inflation on “corporate greed,” Shaheen claimed Starmer’s party had “a problem with black and brown people”
Rishi Sunak has been questioned over his role in partygate at an event in Milton Keynes by someone who said their mother had died during the pandemic while Conservatives were partying in Downing Street
NEW: Rishi Sunak is confronted about Partygate by a worker who lost his mother during the Covid pandemic.
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) May 30, 2024
“How can anyone trust you, or the party, after things like this?”
pic.twitter.com/fx6gmdnq5H
Keri Starmer appeared with first minister Vaughan Gething and shadow foreign secretary David Lammy among others at a campaign launch event in Wales. While in Wales Starmer has said it was “absolutely clear” that Gething had broken no rules in accepting a £200,000 donation from a company owned by a convicted criminal. Gething faces a vote of confidence in the Senedd next week tabled by the Welsh Conservative party
Darren Jones, Labour’s shadow Treasury minister, has said that Rachel Reeves has “consistently pointing to the fact that we want taxes to come down” and ruled out rises to income tax, national insurance or VAT
Jeremy Hunt was making a similar pledge on behalf of the Tories during the morning media round, but said his party would be keeping the income tax threshold freezes that will bring more 4 million people into paying income tax for the first time between 2024 and 2028.
The Green party of England and Wales launched their campaign in Bristol, saying they aimed to win a minimum of four seats in the election. Outgoing MP Caroline Lucas said she hoped Green MPs would be able to push a future Labour government “to be bolder and braver on everything from housing to the NHS to the accelerating climate crisis”
Plaid Cymru launch their campaign Bangor. Ahead of the launch, leader Rhun ap Iorwerth said that a vote for them is the only way to guarantee fair funding for Wales
Office of Rail and Road (ORR) statistics published on Thursday show the equivalent of 3.8% of services on Britain’s railways were cancelled in the year to the end of March. That is the joint worst performance for that period – matching the figure from the previous 12 months – in records dating back to 2014
The SNP has deleted an election video on TikTok after it emerged it featured a sexually-explicit song by American rap artist Big Boss Vette, which also uses the N-word. The SNP video reportedly promoted party policies calling for a full ceasefire in Gaza and its baby-boxes policy, free bus travel and featured party leader John Swinney
Scotland’s first minister Swinney has apologised to patients on NHS waiting lists in the country after news the number has risen to more than 840,000
Nigel Farage has backtracked on his offer of an electoral deal with Rishi Sunak, claiming that he was being sarcastic and denying that it had led to sharp words with the Reform leader, Richard Tice. Farage was speaking at an event in London where Tice announced a policy of increasing employer national insurance contributions for workers without British passports, which he claimed would raise £20bn over the next parliament
Liberal Democrats announced they would triple the Digital Services tax to fund mental health services for schools in England. Leader Ed Davey staged another photo stunt, this time down a large water slide in Frome in Somerset
Thank you so much for reading and all your comments today. I will be back tomorrow. Take care and have a good evening.
Here is the clip of Rishi Sunak being questioned about how anybody could trust him after he was fined for being at a Downing Street party during the pandemic.
NEW: Rishi Sunak is confronted about Partygate by a worker who lost his mother during the Covid pandemic.
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) May 30, 2024
“How can anyone trust you, or the party, after things like this?”
pic.twitter.com/fx6gmdnq5H
My colleague David Batty has put together this profile of Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, the men vying to be PM in the UK general election. It is chiefly aimed at international readers who may not be quite so familiar with them as regular readers of this live blog are, but I always find these things interesting as a useful reminder of some of the basic facts, and there is always something you have forgotten.
A little detail here that suggests the Conservatives are running more of a defensive campaign than one intended to strike out into new territory. PA Media note that every constituency visited by Rishi Sunak so far this week has been one that the Tories won – or notionally won – at the last general election in 2019. Today he was in the new constituency of Milton Keynes Central which Labour need a swing of 4.7 points to turn into a gain.
Luke Tryl reports for the Guardian on a focus group of undecided voters in Hitchin who blame Liz Truss for their financial woes, are split on Rishi Sunak, and still unsure about Keir Starmer.
Rishi Sunak has now finished taking questions.
Rishi Sunak has been asked about the country’s manufacturing base, and is now taking a final question about national service and whether it could help with the “postcode wars” between kids and knife crimes.
Sunak says that regardless of where you live or what your parents do, you will all be doing something together, and that parents have told him they are excited at the prospect of their children having “something to do”. Sunak says national service will give children a more positive sense of purpose than the sense of identity they might get by being in a gang.
The next question is about net zero. Rishi Sunak says he believes in climate change and he wants to get net zero in place, citing his children as one reason, but says it has begun clear to him that we have to get there a different way to that originally planned. He says he doesn’t want to force people to prematurely rip things out and incur costs of thousands. He says Labour don’t believe in supporting British oil and gas energy from the North Sea.
Updated
He is now asked about national service. Rishi Sunak says he’s been thinking for a long time about how to strengthen the country’s cohesion and resilience. He says it will be like a new “rite of passage” and that young people going through it will end up with a greater sense of pride in the nation.
Updated
Rishi Sunak said he did everything he could to protect people and their families during Covid, “because that’s who I am”. He tells the audience that they probably first got to know him when he “popped up” behind a lectern and announced the furlough plans.
Updated
Rishi Sunak is taking questions in Milton Keynes. The first question is about how can anybody trust Sunak after he was fined during partygate. The question was asked by someone who said they had lost their mum about a month before the parties and was unable to visit her as she died.
Updated
At first glance this seems to be the same stump speech that Rishi Sunak gave yesterday in Devon, leading with a claim that the economy has turned the corner, saying treasury officials have costed Labour’s plans at meaning a tax rise of £2,000 per family. The section on stopping the boats is almost word-for-word from yesterday about the “penny dropping” across Europe that Sunak’s Rwanda plan is the right way forward for immigration planning.
Updated
Rishi Sunak has begun speaking at a campaign event in Milton Keynes. He’s opened by saying Conservative candidates will oppose the building of over 60,000 house in Milton Keynes.
The feed is at the top of the blog and also here:
Updated
Office of Rail and Road (ORR) statistics published on Thursday show the equivalent of 3.8% of services on Britain’s railways were cancelled in the year to the end of March.
PA Media reports that is the joint worst performance for that period – matching the figure from the previous 12 months – in records dating back to 2014.
Labour’s shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh said:
These appalling figures demonstrate that passengers are still paying the price for the Tories’ total failure on the railways.
Delays and cancellations are at record levels – while waste, inefficiency and fragmentation on our railways continue to cost taxpayers dearly.
Britain deserves better. That’s why Labour will deliver the biggest overhaul to our railways in a generation, bringing franchises into public ownership as contracts expire and creating Great British Railways.
Publicly owned Great British Railways will be single-mindedly focused on delivering for passengers and taxpayers – and will be held to account on delivering reliable, efficient and quality services.
Rishi Sunak has just posted to social media “Does anyone actually know what Labour would do if they got into power?”
Does anyone actually know what Labour would do if they got into power?
— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) May 30, 2024
Perhaps the prime minister should ask Jeremy Hunt. 13 days ago, before the election was called, Hunt gave a press conference to launch the publication of a 24 page dossier of Labour’s policies which the Conservatives said had been costed by Treasury officials.
It is far too early in the election campaign to have pictures of dogs at polling stations, of course, but my colleague Ben Quinn noted that at one point a dog started barking during the Richard Tice and Nigel Farage press conference this morning, and he got this picture of the culprit.
He didn’t seem to like Tice’s answer about migration pic.twitter.com/PlzVXmBk2b
— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) May 30, 2024
Ben Quinn was at the Reform UK event in London which featured Richard Tice and Nigel Farage:
Nigel Farage has backtracked on his offer of an electoral deal with Rishi Sunak, claiming that he was being sarcastic and denying that it had led to sharp words with the Reform leader, Richard Tice.
Both men shared a stage at a Reform event in London where they announced an “employer immigration tax” which the party said would raise £20bn.
But Farage distanced himself from remarks made in an interview with the Sun earlier this week when he appeared to extend an olive branch to the prime minister, telling him: “Give me something back. We might have a conversation.”
Sunak has rejected the offer. Farage described his own remarks on Thursday as a joke and insisted there isn’t “a cigarette paper” between him Tice, who had yesterday dismissed the comments as “banter”.
“Unless there is something Richard hasn’t told me, we seem to be getting on reasonably well. Try as hard as you like but you won’t get a cigarette paper between us,” said Farage, when questioned about his comments on an online Sun show, which he said had been made on an “out there programme.”
Farage, who is Reform’s honorary president but has decided not to stand as a candidate, having failed to win a seat as an MP on seven previous occasions, said that the election was “as good as over” and that the Tories would be in opposition,
Reform had limited brand recognition, he conceded, but insisted it would win a number of seats and sought to build on a “six year” programme.
The “Employer Immigration Tax” unveiled by Reform would target companies that choose to employ “foreign workers” over British citizens, said Reform. The proceeds would be used to help young people into high-skilled jobs through apprenticeships.
Blocked Labour candidate Faiza Shaheen to challenge deselection
Faiza Shaheen, the candidate blocked by Labour from standing in Chingford and Woodford Green, has announced she will challenge the decision in the courts, claiming she has faced “a systematic campaign of racism, Islamophobia and bullying”.
Citing a series of recent issues, including having a local organiser removed from her team and being blocked from producing videos blaming inflation on “corporate greed,” Shaheen claimed Keir Starmer’s party had “a problem with black and brown people”.
“This campaign of prejudice, bullying and spiteful behaviour has finally been rewarded by Labour’s NEC [national executive committee] and my name has been added to the list of those not welcome in the candidate club. And it is no surprise that many of those excluded are people of colour,” she said in a statement.
“I have come to the inescapable conclusion that Labour, far from being a broad church encompassing different views, has an ingrained culture of bullying, a palpable problem with black and brown people, and thinks nothing of dragging a person’s good name through the mud in pursuit of a factional agenda, with no thought of the impact on committed members’ mental health and wellbeing.”
Shaheen’s campaign team said she had instructed a lawyer, and was seeking to challenge her exclusion on Wednesday by a panel of Labour’s ruling NEC.
Read more here: Blocked Labour candidate Faiza Shaheen to challenge deselection
Here is today’s now obligatory picture of Ed Davey doing something silly to ensure that his photograph gets into election coverage. He is in Frome, Somerset, and has gone down a massive water slide.
He has actually defended the stunts today, saying “I think my belief is that politicians need to take the concerns and interests of voters seriously but I’m not sure they need to take themselves seriously all the time, and I’m quite happy to have some fun.”
Speaking to the media he said that, like Labour and the Conservatives also promised today, the Liberal Democrats ruled out raising income tax, national insurance or VAT to pay for their plans.
The policy the party were pushing today was a plan to triple the Digital Services Tax and use the money to fund mental health professionals for all England’s state schools.
The Digital Services Tax was introduced in 2020 and levies a 2% charge on the revenues of search engines, social media services and online marketplaces which derive value from UK users.
The picture opportunities may well provide a way of Davey making sure his party get greater coverage during the election, but it does potentially pose him a problem how, after a month of silly photoshoots, he expects to settle back down to being a serious figure who is due to appear before the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry on Thursday 18 July, just two weeks after the election. Other former Liberal Democrat ministers Jo Swinson and Vince Cable are also due to appear before the inquiry in July.
Scotland’s first minister has apologised to patients on NHS waiting lists in the country after news the number has risen to more than 840,000.
PA Media reports statistics from Public Health Scotland this week showed the number of people waiting for treatment or tests has increased.
John Swinney said he is the “first to acknowledge we face challenges in the National Health Service” after the pandemic.
“I’m sorry for the amount of time people are having to wait for treatment,” he said. “We are reducing the longest waits, we’re making headway on that.”
Angela Rayner has told Sky News she felt her “wings had been clipped” by the police investigation into the sale of her former council house and that it caused a “distraction” from Labour’s election campaign.
She that the investigation had been “shaming” and that “as a working class person it taints you”.
On 19 May the chief constable of the police force examining the claims, Stephen Watson, told the Guardian it was a letter from the Conservative deputy chair, James Daly, that led to his force reversing an initial decision not to investigate.
PA Media reports Rayner told the broadcaster:
I had my house that I got when I was a single mum and it mattered to me. It was a big deal. I never felt secure when I was a child. I never felt safe. So for me to be in a position to provide for my son and to get the house, it was a massive deal.
She said she regretted the public scrutiny the row had put her family under, and that it was a waste of police time. “It was horrible,” she said. “I feel a sense of regret that I put my family through this. But they also know that I’m trying to do some good.”
Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor
The Scottish National party has deleted an election video on TikTok after it emerged it featured a sexually-explicit song by American rap artist Big Boss Vette, which also uses the n-word.
The track, Pretty Girls Walk, carries an explicit lyrics warning on streaming platforms and starts with the verse: “No matter what the fuck these hoes talkin’ ‘bout, just know you a bad bitch, every motherfucking time that you wake up, and you look in that motherfucking mirror”.
The SNP video reportedly promoted party policies calling for a full ceasefire in Gaza and its baby-boxes policy, free bus travel and featured party leader John Swinney.
The breakaway nationalist party Alba, set up by former party leader and first minister Alex Salmond, complained the video also featured the n-word.
Tony Osy, Alba’s candidate in Glasgow South West and a member of its African Scots for Alba caucus, said: “The stigma of that word embodies and invokes painful memories and inhumane ill-will.
“We must not condone, award, or engage in political messaging that uses the n-word in any capacity, or in any artistic endeavour that does not allude to the historical context of the word, or that does not highlight the prejudicial nature of the word.
“Political parties that do not understand the deeply hurtful and dehumanising use of that racist word should not be using it in clickbait political adverts.”
There have been a few campaign launch events today. Here are some pictures from them.
Diane Abbott should be allowed to stand for Labour, says Angela Rayner
Diane Abbott has not been treated “fairly or appropriately” by some Labour colleagues and should be allowed to stand again for the party at the election if she wishes to do so, Angela Rayner has said.
Labour’s deputy leader confirmed the veteran MP had not been barred from running again despite reports to the contrary and that she “doesn’t see any reason” why she could not do so now the party whip had been restored.
In an interview with the Guardian, she also suggested it was up to Abbott to decide whether she retired at this election, although she indicated there was an expectation she would do so. “I want to see her be able to retire with her 37 years of service being respected and being celebrated,” she said.
Read more here: Diane Abbott should be allowed to stand for Labour, says Angela Rayner
The campaign has been quite quiet today from senior Conservatives after Jeremy Hunt’s appearances on the morning media round. We are expecting Rishi Sunak to appear at an event in south-east England later this afternoon, but in the meantime they have been driving a van around Westminster carrying a new poster with the message “If you think Labour will win, start saving”. The small print on the poster threatens that Labour’s policy promises will “cost working families £2,094”.
Have you seen it? pic.twitter.com/7StIDgjZWC
— Conservatives (@Conservatives) May 30, 2024
Faiza Shaheen has attacked Labour leader Keir Starmer directly on social media, accusing him of undermining her credentials and saying “Haven’t you hurt me enough already?”
In a message posted to social media she wrote “Please don’t undermine my credentials Keir Starmer. I came from a family with a violent father and spent part of my childhood on benefits. I’m now a visiting professor and teach at LSE. Public services really helped me, and I had to work so hard to get to this point in my life.”
She added “Haven’t you hurt me enough already?”.
In an earlier post Shaheen, who reduced Iain Duncan-Smith’s majority in his constituency to just over 1,200 at the last election, said “I’m in such shock, but I’m a fighter,” adding in a statement:
At 9pm last night, by email, I learned that Labour has removed me as its candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green, less than six weeks before the general election after working to win this seat for over four years.
I want to thank everyone that has been in touch lending their support. I feel that a huge injustice has been done, not just to me, but to our community.
As you can imagine, I’m a little overwhelmed right now, so will use this morning to meet with my campaign and legal teams to discuss my next steps, as well as have some hugs with my baby. This is not the end of my story and I will be releasing all the detail of what has happened to me publicly very soon.
I’m in such shock, but I’m a fighter. Sign up to my mailing list below. I’ll put out more later today.
— Faiza Shaheen (@faizashaheen) May 30, 2024
It’s hard for me to put me into words how much your support means to me, from my heart, thank you https://t.co/0sqHZJwov3 pic.twitter.com/5GxXvXIE3U
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper has been speaking to the media while campaigning in Maltby, South Yorkshire, and was asked about the situation with Diane Abbott, whose selection to defend her Hackney North and Stoke Newington appears up in the air.
PA media report Cooper told assembled reporters that “Diane is now back a member of the parliamentary Labour party, and that is really welcome.”
She continued:
It’s not just that she’s been a trailblazer, but she’s also done some immensely important work through the years. So that’s why I think everybody wants to see this resolved as quickly as possible.
Diane is a really important figure in the Labour party and in the Labour movement. And, I saw the immensely important work that she did, for example, exploding the Windrush Scandal and getting justice for huge numbers of people who were really badly treated by the Home Office, and that’s really important.
A vigil last month marked six years since the Windrush scandal emerged, with victims and campaigners still appealing for the Conservative government to speed up the payment of compensation.
Asked whether Labour leader Keir Starmer was forcing the left out of the party, Cooper said:
I think we’ve got people from all different perspectives within the Labour party standing behind a Labour plan for government, and that means getting more neighbourhood police back on the beat, it means cutting waiting times in our NHS, it means fixing the broken Britain that the Conservatives have left us with.
And, I think that is something that pulls the entire Labour party together but also means there are a lot of people who haven’t voted Labour before who we hope will be voting Labour this time in order to put and end to the Tories’ chaos and get our country back on track.
Steven Morris reports from Bristol for the Guardian
It also felt like the end of an era for the Greens at the party’s launch in Bristol as Caroline Lucas spoke after she ceased being MP for Brighton Pavilion at midnight.
She said: “I have absolutely loved my time in parliament and it’s been the privilege of my life to have been chosen four times by the wonderful people of Brighton Pavilion.”
Lucas, too, banged the drum for the idea that Green MPs could put pressure on an incoming UK Labour government to be bolder.
She said it was good news that the Tories were heading for defeat but added: “What I think even better news, even better news would be that when a Labour government is formed, that government was pushed to be bolder and braver on everything from housing to the NHS to the accelerating climate crisis and that would happen by having more Green MPs in parliament.”
Updated
Steven Morris reports from Bristol for the Guardian
The Green party of England and Wales has promised to push a UK Labour government to be bolder if it wins seats at the general election and taken a swipe at Keir Starmer over his party’s approach to the climate emergency, the NHS and housing.
Launching the campaign in Bristol, the party’s joint leader, Carla Denyer said the party believed it could win four seats, which she said could help push Labour to be more radical.
Denyer told the Guardian that having just a few Green MPs could make all the difference. She said: “We know from the experience of our elected Greens at all levels of government, including our fantastic London assembly members and now over 800 Green party councillors across England and Wales, that even just one or two or a handful of Greens in the room can make all the difference. Greens can ask the questions, no one else is asking, put forward the proposals that nobody else is putting forward.
“We’ve seen the huge impact that just one Green MP in the fantastic Caroline Lucas has had in Westminster. Imagine the impact we could have with four MPs. To pick up the baton from her, carry on her fantastic work.”
The Green launch took place at St George’s, a concert hall converted from a Georgian church close to the party’s Bristol office and to one of street artist Banksy’s most famous works, Well Hung Lover, which depicts a naked man dangling from a window ledge. Earlier this month the Greens celebrated a spectacular win at the council elections in Bristol, winning 34 of the 70 seats and leaving Labour trailing a distant second with 21. It leads the city council.
At the launch event, Denyer said: “People are disappointed by the way Starmer has backtracked on his promises on green investment, his weak offer on housing, and now we have Wes Streeting telling us that more privatisation of the NHS is a good thing.”
She continued: “When the challenges we face are so huge, people tell us they’re disappointed by the lack of ambition from the Labour party. Our politics is broken. Our public services are on their knees and people are worse off now than when the Conservatives came to power 14 years ago. The case for change is obvious, but it has to be real change that offers real hope. Half measures and broken pledges will not do.
“The Conservatives are clearly on their way out of government, but Labour is failing to offer the real change needed. We have the practical solutions to the cost of living crisis, building new affordable homes, protecting our NHS from creeping privatisation and cleaning up our toxic rivers and seas.
“That’s why it’s so important that when Labour form the next government, they are pushed beyond the tiniest change they are offering. They are pushed to be more ambitious, braver, not to skirt around the edges of the massive crisis facing our country, but to actually make real change that benefits people’s lives every day.”
The Greens’ co-leader, Adrian Ramsay, said: “Real change means not cosying up to the fossil fuel lobby and abandoning commitments on climate targets.
“Only by having more Greens in parliament can we be confident that we’ll have the strong voices to stop the backsliding on the urgent climate action that we so desperately need.”
Speaking at a Reform event in London, Nigel Farage has said that the election is already over and that Keir Starmer will be prime minister, but that the Conservatives “will be in opposition. But they won’t be the opposition.”
He said of the Conservatives “They can’t be the opposition. They don’t agree on anything. The party is completely split. It serves no real purpose of any kind at this moment in time. They pretty much all hate each other.”
Farage argued that Reform would win seats, despite the first past the post system, because over the course of the campaign Conservative supporters will realise “that actually the Conservatives can’t win.”
He said that once they realise that, and that “really, they agree with much of what we say, and what we stand for” he said then “they are much freer to vote for us, and it’s on that basis I believe we are going to win seats. Maybe not a huge number, but we are going to win seats. And we intend to be the voice of opposition to a Labour government over the course of the next five years. That’s the aim.”
First minister Michelle O’Neill has welcomed the news that “strong and fearless” outgoing Royal College of Nursing (RCN) chief Pat Cullen is seeking to represent Sinn Féin in the election.
PA Media reports O’Neill said:
Pat Cullen is a formidable leader. She is a strong and fearless advocate for social justice with a proven track record of delivery for over half a million nursing staff. She has worked on the coal face of our health service for almost 40 years as a nurse and has played a key role in the development of nursing across these islands. I know that she will bring the same grit, determination and leadership qualities as MP for the people of Fermanagh and South Tyrone. Pat will provide strong leadership and be a voice for positive change.
Sinn Féin MPs do not take up their seats in Westminster. As Paul Maskey, who was elected in Belfast West in 2011, once explained, “Sinn Féin goes to the electorate seeking a mandate for that position.”
At the Reform event in London to launch the party’s immigration policy, Richard Tice has announced the party would introduce an “employer immigration tax”. Employers would pay a national insurance contribution rate of 20% as opposed to 13.8% for employees who did not hold a British passport.
He said “there should be an exemption for very small businesses, five people and under, and of course, there should be an exemption for health care and social care.”
Keir Starmer has said it was “absolutely clear” that Vaughan Gething had broken no rules in accepting a £200,000 donation from a company owned by a convicted criminal.
PA Media report he told GB News:
I think it’s absolutely clear that no rules were broken and Vaughan Gething has answered all the questions that are put to him. The argument that I’m putting forward this morning is what a gamechanger it would be if we were able to elect in a Westminster Labour government that would work with the Welsh Labour government delivering for people across Wales, because up until now there’s been conflict.
So I’ve been working with Vaughan as leader of the opposition, I want to be able to work with him as prime minister because that will absolutely turbo-boost the work that we can do delivering for Wales.
Gething faces a vote of confidence in the Senedd next week tabled by the Welsh Conservative party.
By the way, I’ve seen a few people asking when manifestos come out. I went and looked at how far ahead of the 12 December polling day parties published their manifestos last time out in 2019. Here are the dates of the launches:
19 November Green party of England and Wales
20 November Liberal Democrat
21 November Labour
22 November Plaid Cyrmu
24 November Conservative
28 November SNP
28 November DUP
28 November Alliance
2 December Sinn Féin
4 December SDLP
4 December UUP
The Reform party, who currently sit third in our poll tracking aggregator, are holding an event in London at noon to unveil their immigration policy. I will keep an eye on that and bring you any key lines. Richard Tice is speaking.
Note that the tracker doesn’t include SNP polling. In Great Britain-wide polls, the SNP vote sits between 2% and 4% of national vote share.
Starmer: 'no decision' taken to bar 'trailblazer' Diane Abbott
Labour leader Keir Starmer has again told broadcasters that no decision has been taken over the selection of Diane Abbott as a candidate, and denied that left-wing candidates were being blocked by the party.
Denying claims that a purge was taking place, Starmer said “No. I’ve said repeatedly over the last two years as we’ve selected our candidates that I want the highest-quality candidates. That’s been the position for a very long time.”
Speaking to broadcasters in Monmouthshire, PA Media report he said:
The situation in relation to Diane Abbott is that no decision has been taken to bar her and you have to remember that she was a trailblazer as an MP, she overcame incredible challenges to achieve what she achieved in her political career.
She carved out a path for others to come into politics and she did all that while also being one of the most abused MPs across all political parties.
But I’ve always had the aspiration that we will have the best quality candidates as we go into this election.
Keir Starmer’s speech in Wales today, coupled with what he has said over the last couple of days, appear to have set out a stall that Labour isn’t going to do much in the way of announcing new policies beyond their already published six first steps in government.
Yesterday Rishi Sunak appeared to be attempting to open up a new attack line against Labour, saying that they had not announced any new ideas since the election was called, and contrasting that with what the prime minister described as the Conservative “bold ideas” on national service, the triple lock plus, and 100,000 new apprenticeships.
It seemed obvious in his speech today that Starmer has decided he isn’t going to be goaded into an arms race of new policy announcements, describing the Tory campaign as “rummaging around in the toy box of bad ideas, and putting one on the table every day, unfunded and uncosted”
As a reminder, Labour’s six steps are:
Deliver economic stability with tough spending rules
Cut NHS waiting times with 40,000 more evening and weekend appointments each week
Launch a new border security command
Set up Great British energy
Crack down on antisocial behaviour, with more neighbourhood police
Recruit 6,500 new teachers in key subjects
Sky News have been trying to make a bit of a gotcha moment out of chancellor Jeremy Hunt appearing not to know how much dog food costs. “There are lots of different tins of dog food,” he said in reply to the question earlier this. While it doesn’t seem that important in the whole scheme of things, it does provide an excuse to publish a picture of his dog Poppy.
Green co-leader Denyer: 'We've made no secret about it. We are looking to win at least four MPs'
The co-leader of the Green party of England and Wales, Carla Denyer, has said the party has made no secret of the fact that it intends to win at least four MPs in the July election.
She said:
The polls are showing that we will soon be shot of this awful Conservative government. But the incremental change Labour has put on the table just isn’t going to cut it to get this country back on track. We need more Green MPs to drive that real change for us.
Co-leader Adrian Ramsay also said the country needs more than just “a few tweaks” from the next government. He said that the election being called had lifted the mood, telling activists at a launch event in Bristol:
Until a couple of weeks ago, when I spoke to people on the doorstep, things felt bleak. Housing. Climates. Health care. Public services. All in a mess, all in crisis, no solutions in sight.
After so much damage by the outgoing Conservative government, we need more than a few tweaks from a new Labour government. Green MPs will push the next government for bold action to achieve the real changes that are needed to confront the big challenges that our country faces. And people know that.
Denyer has said that if she is elected, she will “keep the pressure on Labour over fair treatment for renters, and for warm, secure, affordable homes for everybody.”
She said:
We will push for the right homes to be built, at the right price, in the right place, in consultation with the communities that need them. Somewhere for families to grow up with all the infrastructure they need to thrive.
She listed the party’s priorities as “Our NHS. Housing. Climate and nature. Public services and the quality of our water.”
The four constituencies that the Greens have as their targets are:
Brighton Pavilion – Siân Berry
Bristol Central – Carla Denyer
North Herefordshire – Ellie Chowns
Waveney Valley – Adrian Ramsay
Caroline Lucas has said that “Conservatives are being shown the door by the voters and we think that’s good news. Even better news will be the when a Labour government is formed and that government was pushed to be bolder and braver on everything from housing to the NHS to the accelerating climate crisis. And that was happening by having more Green MPs in parliament.”
Co-leader Carla Denyer has started by saying “It’s on, and we’re ready.”
Keir Starmer has finished speaking in Wales. The Green party of England and Wales are about to launch their campaign in Bristol with launch in Bristol with co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay. Caroline Lucas is getting it under way. I will bring you any key lines that emerge …
Keir Starmer is now going through his promises of a first six steps if Labour get into government. He also addressed again in this speech the way he says he has changed the party, in a passage that also referenced his previous work before entering politics. He told an audience in Wales:
When I was heading up the Crown Prosecution Service, we had to change it. It was difficult. Many people said don’t do it, slow down. But we changed.
When I worked in Northern Ireland, it was difficult work. We were trying to change the police service so it served all communities. It was difficult, painstaking work. But we did it.
And here in the Labour party we’ve had to change our party and put it back in the service of working people. It wasn’t easy. Lots of people said don’t do it that way. Don’t go so fast. We did it. We’ll never shy away from that. Because driving through all this for me has always been country first, party second.
Labour's treatment of Abbott is a disgrace, says Corbyn
Jeremy Corbyn has called Diane Abbott’s treatment by the Labour party a “disgrace” and said the way this saga has been handled shows “blatant double-standards, hypocrisy and contempt for local democracy”.
In a statement, the former Labour leader who is standing as an independent in Islington North, said
The way that Diane Abbott has been treated is an utter disgrace – and I am disgusted by the blatant double-standards, hypocrisy and contempt for local democracy, in plain sight for all to see. Take a look at her social media and you will see the horrific levels of racist abuse she is forced to endure, and she has been hung out to dry.
I remember the day she was elected as the first Black female MP, and I have been proud to campaign alongside her for social justice and human rights ever since. And you know what? If parliament had listened to Diane Abbott, we wouldn’t have invaded Iraq, Black Britons wouldn’t have been deported in the Windrush Scandal, and our country wouldn’t have been decimated by austerity and privatisation.
In blocking Diane from standing, they are trying to silence a female Black voice who has the courage to stand up for a better world. Whatever Diane chooses to do, I’ll support her.
Updated
Keir Starmer has said that Rishi Sunak managed to catch himself in his own ambush by calling a general election that he thought would be a trap for Labour but is, he says, a huge opportunity for the country.
“You don’t have to put up with it any more,” he told an audience of activists in Wales.
“We are humbly asking permission for the opportunity to change our country, and put it back in the service of working people,” he said.
He said:
Now is the time of change, change and hope for a better future with that sense of national renewal. Taking our communities, our countries forward for the future. And so I say to you, if you’re a family that’s been struggling with the cost of living for a long time now, and I mean struggling. If you’re a business that’s been absolutely up against it these past few years. If you’ve been serving your country, or serving your communities, then this election is for you.
I don’t know about you, but I think we’ve all had enough 14 years of chaos and division, chaos of division, feeding chaos and division. And it feels like we’re spinning round and round in circles and getting absolutely nowhere and there’s a cost to that.
He described the Conservative campaign so far as “rummaging around in the toy box of bad ideas, and putting one on the table every day, unfunded and uncosted.”
Keir Starmer has come on stage after a former lifelong Conservative voter called Michael who explained why they would be voting Labour this time around – citing partygate among other things, and saying of the government “It was so clear. They don’t support people like me, like us, and we’re still suffering. So it’s time to change.”
Starmer opened by saying:
It’s a big thing to come up here and say what you just said. It is a big decision to change the party that vote for. As a lifelong Tory voter, that is a really big thing. For me it vindicates all the hard work of the last four-and-a-half years. I was determined to change this Labour party and put it back in the service of working people. And your words are so important to all of our candidates, to all of our staff, to the whole Labour movement.
It is unclear how deliberate the timing is, and how much planning Starmer had in the event being held by the Welsh Labour party and the order of speakers, but the optics of him opening a speech by praising attracting former Conservative voters on the day the party is being accused of purging left-wing candidates is unlikely to go unnoticed.
Keir Starmer is about to speak in Wales, as a reminder you can watch that here:
Rather frustratingly if, like me, you are trying to cover both events, Labour’s Wales campaign launch appears to be over-running, and is now overlapping with the Plaid Cymru launch. There is also a Green party event expected at 11am. There will be a live stream from Plaid here …
Gwyliwch lawnsiad ymgyrch Plaid Cymru i Etholiad Cyffredinol 2024 yn fyw.
— Plaid Cymru 🏴 (@Plaid_Cymru) May 30, 2024
Dros degwch, dros uchelgais, dros Gymru. 🏴https://t.co/kWGoze0TGG
Faiza Shaheen, who has been told by Labour that she will not be standing for election in the Chingford and Woodford Green constituency that she has been campaigning in for some considerable time, has thanked Diane Abbott for her support on social media, describing Abbott as “my hero”.
In a message quoting Abbott’s comment “Whose clever idea has it been to have a cull of left wingers?”, Shaheen said “Thank you so much for your support, you’re my hero”.
Thank you so much for your support, you’re my hero x https://t.co/aJbujoUJQQ
— Faiza Shaheen (@faizashaheen) May 30, 2024
In 2019, Shaheen reduced Iain Duncan-Smith’s Conservative majority in the constituency to 1,262.
Lammy: government's Rwanda plan is nothing but a 'shameless gimmick'
Labour’s shadow foreign secretary David Lammy has described the government’s “failed illegal migration bill” as “nothing more than a shameless gimmick”.
Speaking in Wales as first minister Vaughan Gething and Labour leader Keir Starmer launched Labour’s general election campaign there, Lammy said:
Today, the world’s challenges are Britain’s challenges and Britain’s challenges are indeed the world’s. Organised crime gangs exploit the vulnerable not just in Wales, but right across Britain, and of course across the continent, creating modern slave-running drug gangs and tricking people onto dangerous small boats that arrive on Britain’s shores.
The numbers of people crossing the Channel in small boats has surged under the Tories, while tens of thousands remain in asylum hotels permanently in limbo, with no prospect of removal due to the government’s failed illegal migration bill.
And this not only causes disorder across our country, but as shadow foreign secretary, I’ve seen it from the other side. It takes more than £3bn off of our overseas aid budget, which would stop them coming in the first place.
The Rwanda scheme the government has put forward is nothing more than a shameless gimmick.
Labour will stop the chaos … we will reform our system and clear the asylum backlog, allowing more overseas development aid to be spent overseas.
Updated
First minister of Wales Vaughan Gething has begun launching the Labour general election campaign in Wales. He has said:
This is the moment that we have been waiting for. A moment when the longed for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme. 4 July represents a moment at last where we can unleash Wales’s full potential. The UK can once again be led by prime minister and a party that believes in public service. A leader who believes in the potential of our communities who respects and understands devolution and as a plan to breathe fresh life into our politics.
He says Wales will no longer be held back by “14 years of Tory economic vandalism chaos that has pushed Welsh families to the edge.”
He has been highly critical of the Conservative government in Westminster, saying Rishi Sunak wouldn’t even pick up the phone to his predecessor Mark Drakeford “to help save thousands of steelworkers jobs in Port Talbot.
Gething said:
At every turn over these last 14 years the Tories have tried to block Welsh Labour from delivering transformational change for our country. They slashed our budget, blocked our legislation, and day after day after day they put politics above people. Treating politics as a game. Not a route to opportunity, hope and security.
He boasted of Labour’s record in government in Wales, saying:
Despite 14 years of swimming against the Tory tide, let me give you just six changes that we have made to make Wales a stronger, fairer and greener country. We have protected free prescriptions, repealed anti-trade union legislation, rolled out universal free school meals in our primary schools, introduced a young person’s guarantee with jobs, education, training, or apprenticeships. We’re leading the world on recycling and the climate agenda. And we have led the UK by passing domestic violence legislation.
He says “It is time for two Labour governments, working together for your future. delivering on our nation’s promise. It is time for young people to feel hopeful for a brighter future, right here at home.”
Keir Starmer is in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, launching Labour’s general election campaign in Wales with beleagured first minister Vaughan Gething. Next week Gething faces a confidence motion in the Senedd. We’ll bring you any key lines that emerge. You can watch it here, the event has just started …
The Liberal Democrats have again criticised ITV’s decision to host a debate featuring just Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer and excluding themselves. The Liberal Democrats were the fourth largest party in the House of Commons after the 2019 election.
Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain, PA Media reports education spokesperson Munira Wilson said:
Well obviously, I’d love it if Ed Davey and the Liberal Democrats did have a voice in the TV debates, and we are setting out our stall every single day – our fair deal for the British people, our focus on the NHS and care system, the cost-of-living crisis and sewage in our rivers and seas.
When it announced the debate – which will be at 9pm on Tuesday 4 June – ITV said in a statement “ITV plans to broadcast additional programming including an interview programme with other party leaders and a multiparty debate. Details on the further programmes will be announced in due course.”
There was also a tacit acceptance from Wilson that Ed Davey’s campaign tactics were very much based around his photographable stunt antics – he has already been photographed falling off a paddleboard and freewheeling down a hill on two wheels.
GMB presenter Richard Madeley asked her: “Are you happy with your leader’s channelling of his inner Boris Johnson?”, to which she replied “Well, it’s got you talking about sewage in our rivers and seas.”
Plaid Cymru are launching their campaign today in Bangor. Ahead of the launch, leader Rhun ap Iorwerth has told ITV that a vote for them is the only way to guarantee fair funding for Wales.
He said:
It is clear that people across Wales have called time on this disastrous and destructive Conservative government. Voting Plaid in constituencies like Ynys Môn is essential in keeping the Tories away from Westminster and out of Wales. At the same time, voting Plaid in Carmarthen and Bangor Aberconwy keeps Labour in check too. Plaid’s positive message of a fairer, more ambitious Wales, shows that we are the only party putting the interests of the nation ahead of party interests.
Political correspondent Eleni Courea reports:
Diane Abbott has accused Labour of carrying out a “cull of leftwingers” after she and others were blocked or dissuaded from standing for the party.
The veteran Labour MP vowed on Wednesday to stay on for “as long as it is possible” after a deal for her to retire from parliament broke down.
The row, which has angered and frustrated some Labour MPs and staff, escalated on Thursday after two leftwing candidates were blocked from standing for the party in the general election.
Faiza Shaheen, who had been Labour’s candidate in Chingford and Woodford Green, told BBC Two’s Newsnight she received an email telling her she had been deselected after the decision was first made public in the Times.
Responding to the news on X, Abbott said: “Appalling. Whose clever idea has it been to have a cull of left wingers?”
Lloyd Russell-Moyle, the MP for Brighton Kemptown, announced he had been suspended from the party on Wednesday afternoon and would not be allowed to stand for Labour at the election.
Read more here: Diane Abbott accuses Labour of ‘leftwing cull’ after two fellow MPs barred from standing
Guardian’s economics editor Larry Elliott published this column earlier today, arguing that if Labour wins a 1945-style landslide, it will have no excuse for playing it safe:
Labour’s pitch to voters in 2024 is a lot different from the radical makeover it was offering in 1945. On the one hand, it says that the failures of the Tories in the past 14 years require a change of direction. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem able to sketch out much of a vision of what that change might be, beyond reform of the planning system, a focus on skills and the new deal for workers.
Unions already fear that the last in that list – a package of new employment rights – will be watered down as a result of lobbying by business. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, says that what Britain needs more than anything now is stability, and in a speech earlier this week she went so far as to claim that – in somewhat Orwellian fashion – “stability is change”.
Stability would make a change, that’s for sure, and Reeves and Keir Starmer might be right in thinking that many voters are small-c conservative, don’t really favour radical policies, and just want to get on with their lives.
Liz Truss’s 49-day stint in Downing Street has made it even more difficult for Labour to deviate from the economic and financial orthodoxy in which an independent Bank of England sets interest rates and an independent Office for Budget Responsibility passes judgment on tax and spending decisions. Not, to be frank, that there was much evidence of the current Labour party wanting to rock the boat anyway.
Read more from Larry Elliott here: If Labour wins a 1945-style landslide, it will have no excuse for playing it safe
Labour’s shadow Treasury minister Darren Jones has denied the party is carrying out a last minute purge of the left as the election approaches. He told viewers of BBC Breakfast:
You know, there are colleagues, friends of mine in the parliamentary Labour party who would define themselves as being on the left of the party, who have been endorsed as candidates and are standing at this election. This isn’t a purge. It’s just the fact that snap election had been called and an accelerated process to resolve outstanding issues must then be followed. And that’s what’s happening this week.
The row over the disciplinary process applied to Diane Abbott, and the rapid and surprising deselection of Faiza Shaheen are among the topics tackled by my colleague Archie Bland in our First Edition newsletter today, which is worth a couple of minutes of your time.
Read more here: Thursday briefing – Diane Abbott, Faiza Shaheen, and how the Labour party is changing
Labour rule out rises to income tax, national insurance and VAT, say spending plans still fully funded
Darren Jones, Labour’s shadow Treasury minister, has said that Rachel Reeves has “consistently pointing to the fact that we want taxes to come down” and ruled out rises to income tax, national insurance or VAT.
He told viewers of BBC Breakfast:
We’re not raising VAT. We’re not raising income tax. We’re not raising national insurance. The way we talk about these taxes is as taxes on working people because the majority of working people will know that the big taxes they pay are those that are set out in their payslip, in their shopping and bills on a day to day basis. So we have consistently said we want the tax burden on working people to come down, because it’s the highest it has been in 70 years.
Pressed by Naga Munchetty on where the money for spending commitments would come from, Jones said:
So our first six steps – you will have heard us talk about 40,000 additional appointments in the NHS, 6,500 teachers in our schools, some issues around extra police officers, setting up GB energy – these six first steps that we will implement if we win the election are all fully costed
And they’re fully funded by closing a number of tax loopholes. And those loopholes are VAT on private school fees, private equity bonuses, closing some of the loopholes in the non-dom tax system, and then tackling tax avoidance.
And all of those loophole closures, and some investment in the systems at HMRC will generate the billions of pounds that we need to fully fund those six first steps that we set out.
Jones also stressed that Labour had plans to take advantage of opportunities the government had failed on, despite starting from a difficult position if they come to power. He said:
The fiscal inheritance is going to be really hard, it’ll be the worst that any party has inherited since the second world war. So I make no secret of the fact that it will be really tough to begin with. We need to get growth back into the economy. More tax receipts to be able to fund public services, which by themselves also need reforming. And there are a whole host of issues that are preventing private sector investment and labour market productivity that the Conservatives fail to grapple with.
Updated
Labour shadow Treasury minister Darren Jones has also been on the media round talking about tax this morning. He told listeners of the BBC Radio 4 Today programme:
We’ve been very, very clear – even before the election was called – that we want the burden of taxes to come down on working people. That’s why we’ve supported the last two cuts to national insurance and why we’ve been consistent in saying we have no plans, no expectations to increase taxes on working people.
Of course, I would love to do lots of other things that cost lots of money, but I can’t because the Conservatives have crashed the economy, debt has gone through the roof, the cost of the national debt is a huge burden on the Treasury.
Jeremy Hunt pledges a Tory government would not increase income tax, despite keeping planned threshold rises
Jeremy Hunt has been using the morning media round to try to pledge that a future Conservative government would refuse to increase income tax, national insurance, VAT. This is despite the fact that income tax rises are currently baked into funding plans up until 2028.
“Have I been able to cancel out all those tax raises? No”, the chancellor said, when asked about the plans to freeze income tax thresholds each year until that time.
Nick Robinson on the BBC Radio 4 Today put it to Hunt that as a result of the changes 4 million people will pay income tax for the first time, and 3 million will move into paying some income tax at the higher rate of 40%. Hunt said:
Let’s be crystal clear, in the autumn of 2022 I took the very difficult decisions, yes, to increase taxes. And now in my budget, and in the autumn statement last year, I have started to bring them down.
Have I been able to cancel out all those tax rises? No. But I can absolutely undertake that the threshold freeze that we introduced until 2028 will not continue after that. It means that we’re not going to increase it beyond the levels it is currently set at, nor national insurance. In fact, we hope to bring down national insurance.
Hunt was appointed chancellor by Liz Truss in October 2022, in the wake of the dismissal of Kwasi Kwarteng after her disastrous mini-budget.
The chancellor also raised the prospect that a future Labour government would be forced, by contrast, to raise taxes furthers. He said:
In an election campaign, it is legitimate to be concerned about a Labour party that doesn’t seem to be able to make up its mind on these basic issues. Four times this week Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves had the chance to deny that they were going to increase VAT, and they chose not to until late last night. On national insurance cuts they said they were in favour of it, and now they say they are against further cuts to national insurance
When you have an economy that since 2010 has created more jobs, attracted more investment, and grown faster than nearly any other European economy it is a big risk to hand that to a party that can’t make up its mind on basic issues. Because when the Labour can’t make up their mind, taxes go up, as sure as night follows day.
Updated
Welcome and opening summary …
Good morning. The election campaign agenda is about taxation today, with both the Conservatives and Labour promising there will be no rises to income tax, national insurance or VAT. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has been in difficulty as people point out tax rises are baked in to the system from his previous decisions, while Labour are being pressured on where the extra spending they are promising might be funded. More on that in a moment. Here are your headlines …
Diane Abbott has promised to stay on as an MP for “as long as it is possible”
Rishi Sunak has ruled out a deal with Nigel Farage after the latter, who is not running for election, suggested they should “have a conversation” before the election
Diplomatic sources have said the EU is keen to deepen ties with a Labour PM, but will not offer the UK radical concessions
A leading City lobby group is calling on the next government to bring in scams legislation that forces big tech and social media companies to cough up to £40m a year to reimburse customers and fight fraud
Keir Starmer is campaigning in Wales, Sunak will be in the south east of England. Plaid Cymru and the Green party both have campaign launch events this morning.
It is Martin Belam here with you today. I do try to read all your comments, and dip into them if I think I can be helpful, but if you want to get my attention the best way is to email me – martin.belam@theguardian.com. It is especially helpful if you have spotted a mistake.
