Steve Barclay says RCN left him with no choice but to go to court to block unlawful strike – as it happened

RCN chief Pat Cullen with nurses outside the high court in London. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

5.40pm BST

Afternoon summary

• A strike by tens of thousands of nurses starting this Sunday will be cut short after a high court judge ruled that the plans were unlawful.

• Thousands of schools across England were fully or partially closed on Wednesday as teachers vowed to continue taking strike action until the government resumed talks over pay and working conditions.

• A minister has repeatedly refused to tell MPs whether the number of voters turned away from polling stations because of a lack of ID at local elections next week will be properly recorded, arguing that it is ultimately up to individuals whether or why they decide to vote.

Striking teachers on a picket line in Bristol today. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

Updated at 5.41pm BST

5.37pm BST

Starmer says Labour would prioritise stimulating growth over raising taxes as means of funding better services

Keir Starmer has told the Economist that a Labour government would prioritise stimulating growth over raising taxes. In an interview, asked if he accepted the tax burden needed rise to closer to the European average, to fund European-quality public services, he implied that he didn’t. He replied:

I resist the idea that the first place you go is tax, and I think that it’s very important for me to say that as leader of the opposition wanting to be the Labour prime minister, heading a Labour government. Because the instinct is always to think that’s where Labour wants to go first, and it isn’t because we’ve got to get economic growth.

I do think that through the model I’ve been describing we have the potential for that [growth] which doesn’t involve huge change to the tax regime. We have obviously set out some changes that we want to make: what we do about the non-dom status, which we said we would get rid of and use the proceeds to fund the expansion of the NHS workforce; the private-equity loopholes; private schools. So we’re prepared to say when we are looking at tax changes where we want to go.

Quite often we’re challenged on capital-gains tax. We don’t have plans actually on capital-gains tax. It’s important that I make that clear.

But I, and Rachel [Reeves], intend to resist the pull that so many people urge on us that the first place a Labour government goes is to tax. The first place the next Labour Government will go is to grow.