Closing summary
Nigel Farage faced criticism by the other parties for suggesting the west “provoked” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The UK’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said his comments were “completely wrong” and played into Vladimir Putin’s hands, while Keir Starmer described the Reform party leader’s remarks as “disgraceful”.
Officials told Bloomberg that over half of the cabinet is at risk of losing their seats, including Sunak, who represents the constituency of Richmond and Northallerton.
Water companies will not be allowed to “get away” with sewage dumping, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey warned on a campaign visit to Lewes. He has vowed to bring in a Blue Flag scheme to try to stop sewage being dumped in Britain’s rivers and chalk streams.
When asked by broadcasters if he was “deluded” for thinking he could win the election, amid dire poll predications for the Conservatives, Rishi Sunak said Labour should not be allowed to “sleepwalk into Number 10”.
Keir Starmer denied claims made by the business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, that Labour would reverse Brexit if it wins the general election. The Labour party leader told reporters that Labour has no plans to rejoin the EU, the single market or the customs union.
Keir Starmer said he is proud of Labour’s history on women’s rights after JK Rowling said she would struggle to support the party because of its stance on transgender rights. The Labour party leader told reporters on Saturday that he was “very proud of the progress” of past Labour governments, which made a “material difference” to women’s lives. Writing in the Times, Rowling, a former Labour member and donor, said she would struggle to vote for the party “as long as Labour remains dismissive and often offensive towards women fighting to retain the rights”.
The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, promised to re-establish the Home Office’s Windrush unit, promising a Labour government would “turn the page” on the scandal with a series of measures such as expediting compensation claims.
Thank you for reading and all your comments today. This blog is closing now but you can read all of our politics coverage here.
Updated
The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg has said Labour will start to shift its messaging as we enter the final weeks of the general election campaign. The party will tell voters to not vote for minor parties, arguing this could help keep the Conservatives in power.
She has seen a memo that Pat McFadden, Keir Starmer’s election chief, sent out to Labour candidates yesterday.
McFadden is essentially instructing his candidates to tell their voters … ‘Do not assume anything about the result. Do not vote for a minor party, which only help the Tories. The only way to stop the Tories is to vote Labour’ …
I think there is a genuine nervousness about the impact of poll after poll after poll after poll suggesting that they are these sort of crazily wild, enormous majorities for the Labour party. And there is a bit of superstition in there. But there is also the reality that Labour doesn’t really think these numbers stack up.
'We're going to see Labour shifting its message'
— BBC Sounds (@BBCSounds) June 22, 2024
Laura Kuenssberg reveals what Labour HQ is asking candidates to tell voters, on the latest #BBCNewscast pic.twitter.com/MbbUTsrTH6
Updated
You can find out the state of the latest opinion polls here with the Guardian’s tracker.
Our journalists have been crunching the latest polling averages, sourced from all major British polling companies, until election day on 4 July:
Campaigning for the improvement of Scotland’s trunk roads will be one of the “central pledges” of the Scottish Tory manifesto, the party’s leader, Douglas Ross, has said.
Ross has been vocal over the need for the improvement of Scotland’s rural road network, with a particular focus on the A9, which runs from the central belt to the Highlands. It is among the worst for accidents in the country.
2025 was the target year for work to dual the remaining single-carriageway sections of the A9 between Inverness and Perth to be finished, but the plans have faced repeated delays.
Ross said:
Campaigning to fix these essential roads will be one of the central pledges of the Scottish Conservative manifesto.
We know how important these roads are to communities in rural Scotland, so pushing for improvements to them will be one of the top five priorities of Scottish Conservative MPs elected on 4 July.
The SNP have badly let down local people by breaking promise after promise to fix these dangerous roads – including Scotland’s most deadly road: the A9.
This general election in Scotland is an opportunity to get all of the focus on to the issues that really matter, such as fixing the roads.
The Scottish Tories will launch the party’s general election manifesto on Monday.
Here is a clip of Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer condemning Nigel Farage’s comments that the west provoked Russia into invading Ukraine:
Updated
As we mentioned earlier, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has been visiting the constituency of Lewes, which is a key seat the party is targeting to win from the Conservatives at the general election.
He’s talking about raw sewage being dumped in rivers and chalk streams across the country, giving details on how a “Blue Flag scheme” will limit this from happening in the future. The Lib Dems say rivers and lakes awarded ‘Blue Flag’ status will be protected from sewage dumping, with the status ensuring such areas are monitored all year round for water quality.
Speaking to the media on Saturday, Davey, who was joined by the Lib Dem candidate for Lewes, James MacCleary, said:
We’ve been feeding the chickens and it’s been fun with the children but our main message today is about the environment more broadly.
We’re not happy with the way the regulators have been monitoring and enforcing the law on the water companies. They’ve been allowing them to get away with this filthy sewage dumping.
These (water) companies now they’ve been getting away with it, now they’re not going to get away with it with the Liberal Democrat ideas.
Asked if this means people’s bills would go up, he responded: “First and foremost the money should come from the companies.” “They better well invest,” he told reporters.
Updated
Starmer says he is proud of Labour record on women’s rights after JK Rowling criticism
Keir Starmer has said he is proud of Labour’s history on women’s rights after JK Rowling said she would struggle to support the party because of its stance on transgender rights.
Starmer told reporters on Saturday that he was “very proud of the progress” of past Labour governments, which made a “material difference” to women’s lives.
Writing in the Times on Saturday, Rowling, a former Labour member and donor, said she would struggle to vote for the party “as long as Labour remains dismissive and often offensive towards women fighting to retain the rights”.
She said she had a “poor opinion” of Starmer’s character and claimed he was “dismissive and often offensive” of women’s concerns about sex-based rights.
She wrote that she was considering supporting an independent candidate standing in her constituency who is “campaigning to clarify the Equality Act”.
Asked for his response to Rowling’s comments, the Labour leader said: “I do respect her, but I would point out the long record that Labour has in government of passing really important legislation which has advanced the rights of women and made a material difference.”
You can read the full story by my colleagues Eleni Courea and Mabel Banfield-Nwachi here:
Updated
Starmer denies claims that Labour will reverse Brexit if it wins general election
In an interview with the Telegraph, the business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, said that Labour will reverse Brexit if it wins the general election.
She said Brexit – an issue rarely talked about by the two main parties during the campaign – is a “10 to 20-year project” and that any benefits will disappear if Keir Starmer becomes prime minister.
She said:
One of my biggest challenges is the criticism on the right that we haven’t done things that we actually have done they are trying to tell people that it has not been a success.
This is a 10 or 20-year project. We’ve just started. It’s like building a house and someone comes in and says oh, it’s not done yet, he’s failed. Or you’re cooking something and, five minutes later, it’s not cooked yet, it’s not working, let’s stop.
Making sure everyone is focused on getting those benefits is absolutely critical. I think that’s one area where I’ve tried to do as much as possible, but we need more of that strategy.
That’s something that’s going to disappear if Labour come in; they will take us backwards. They will take us back to square one. They’re just going to copy the EU.
Starmer has hit back, telling reporters on Saturday that Labour has no plans to rejoin the EU, the single market or the customs union.
He said he wanted a better trade relationship with the EU and “much more collaboration” on research and development, education, security, and other areas, adding that it was all subject to negotiation.
“But I do think we can get a better deal with the EU, and if we are elected to government that is what we will endeavour to do,” Starmer said.
Updated
Keir Starmer has described Taylor Swift as “absolutely fantastic” after he was pictured attending her Friday night concert at Wembley Stadium.
The Labour leader shared a photograph of himself and his wife, Victoria, at the stadium on X.
“‘Swift’ campaign pit stop,” the image was captioned.
Asked about his opinion of the American pop star’s performance by reporters on the campaign trail in south London, Starmer replied: “She was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.”
He added: “I know I will be asked what is my favourite song and I am not going to pretend I have got every album and know every song, although Change is the one for obvious reasons.”
The Labour manifesto, entitled Change, shares its name with a song from Swift’s 2008 album Fearless.
Starmer added:
What I learned last night is my daughter knows every album, every song, and every word of every song, and she wasn’t alone among the teenage girls who were there. It was utterly brilliant.
Updated
Nadine Dorries has said Sue Gray, a senior civil servant who looked into the reports of illegal gatherings at Downing Street during Covid lockdowns, “lulled Boris into a false sense of security” by implying she thought Partygate was “all a fuss about nothing”.
On X, the former secretary of state for culture, media and sport, said:
Sue Gray – supposedly a neutral civil servant – lulled Boris into a false sense of security, implying she thought Partygate was all a fuss about nothing. Then, after being turned down for a plum job, she plunged in the knife …
In the tweet, she linked to a story she had written for the MailOnline.
In a quote tweet, she added:
Sue Gray will be one of the first people Starmer pops into the House of Lords.
She got rid of the person Starmer feared most. The person he knew he could never compete with or win against.
She will be rewarded.
Updated
While out speaking to reporters, Keir Starmer said veterans minister Johnny Mercer is “sad and desperate” for his claims that Labour candidate Fred Thomas was “bloating” his military service. Thomas, a former Royal Marine, is standing for Labour in the Plymouth Moor View constituency against Mercer.
Mercer has claimed Thomas was never “in combat missions” as was reported in the Guardian last year.
Starmer said:
I think this is sad desperation that the veterans minister is attacking another veteran who’s got a proud record of service. It’s desperate.
It underlines everything I’ve thought for a long time, which is that this Conservative party now is party first through and through and country second and in my view, that is the wrong way round, is why we’re in the mess we are in this country.
And my Labour party will always put country first and party second. So it couldn’t be a starker difference between us. But it’s sad and desperate from Johnny Mercer.
Writing on X, on Thursday night, Mercer said a question-and-answer event at which Thomas also appeared was “one of the most unpleasant experiences I’ve had in public life”.
“My opponent lied throughout,” he said. “He was then challenged on his claim to have served ‘in combat’ by an 11-tour veteran, which he could not stand up.”
“I cannot believe I am standing against a real life Walter Mitty in Plymouth. If there is one place you don’t want to lie about your military service, it is this city.,” Mercer added.
Hustings before and after..
— Rt Hon Johnny Mercer (@JohnnyMercerUK) June 20, 2024
One of the most unpleasant experiences I’ve had in public life. My opponent lied throughout. He was then challenged on his claim to have served “in combat” by an 11 tour Veteran, which he could not stand up. I cannot believe I am standing against a… pic.twitter.com/Br9dbINhrE
Saturday 22 June marks the sixth national Windrush Day, commemorating the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks in Essex in 1948 with hundreds of British Caribbean citizens on board.
Windrush Day began in 2018 to celebrate the continuing contribution Caribbean migrants and their families have made to the UK.
Keir Starmer has today outlined his party’s plans to tackle delayed compensation for those affected by the Windrush scandal, in which thousands of people were misclassified as being in the UK illegally, some of whom were wrongly deported.
He said:
Today is Windrush day so it’s a day about telling the history of Windrush, the great contribution that’s been made to this country and the change that brought about, but it also needs to be a reset day.
And that’s why I was very pleased to be able to talk to people about this reset today because the compensation scheme which is there to deal with the real injustice is going too slowly. We’ve got too many examples of people who’ve died before they’ve got the compensation that they’re entitled to.
The Windrush unit needs to be re-established in the Home Office and we will set up a permanent commissioner to be a champion and an advocate for the Windrush generation to make sure that these injustices are put right.
In an interview with the Guardian, the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said Labour would appoint a new “Windrush commissioner” who would “oversee the delivery of the compensation scheme” and be a “voice” for families and communities, if elected.
The Windrush compensation scheme was launched in April 2019. Just over £90m had been paid out by the end of May, according to data from the Home Office. However, victims and campaigners have said compensation payments should be speeded up and increased. There have been concerns that victims may miss out on compensation due to payment delays.
Updated
Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, who is on a visit in the constituency of Lewes, a key target seat to win from the Conservatives at the general election, has been asked about Nigel Farage’s comments on Ukraine.
Davey said that he doesn’t “share any values” with the Reform UK party leader and that the Ukraine issue was another example of that, as he stressed that Vladimir Putin launched an illegal invasion of Ukraine, BBC News reports.
Farage's comments on Ukraine were 'disgraceful', Starmer says
The Labour party leader, Keir Starmer, has said Nigel Farage’s comments on the reasons behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were “disgraceful”.
Nigel Farage claimed in a BBC Panorama interview that “we provoked this war”, while drawing a link between Nato and European Union expansion in recent decades and Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade neighbouring Ukraine.
Speaking to reporters during a campaign visit in London on Saturday, Starmer said:
On the question of Farage, his comments were disgraceful. Anyone who is standing for parliament ought to be really clear that Russia is the aggressor, Putin bears responsibility, and that we stand with Ukraine, as we have done from the beginning of this conflict, and parliament has spoken with once voice on this since the beginning of the conflict.
I have been really clear that we stand with Ukraine, I have been really clear that we are unshakeable in our commitment to Nato because this is about defending Ukraine, but it is also about defending our hard-won democracy and freedom, and anybody standing for public office ought to understand that.
Britain’s shadow foreign and defence ministers have told Kyiv that little would change when it came to British support for Ukraine if Labour won the general election.
The shadow defence secretary, John Healey, has said Labour backed all the commitments made to Ukraine by the current government, including a recent pledge to provide Kyiv with £3bn of military aid a year, which a future Labour government would continue.
Updated
Full Fact’s tax analysis continues:
The Conservatives are proposing a number of tax decreases which they say will cost £17.2bn a year by the end of the next parliament. The largest of these is their pledge to reduce employee national insurance Contributions (NICs) by a further 2 percentage points by April 2027, which they say will cost £10.3bn per year by 2029/30.
They have also committed to abolishing self-employed NICs (which they say is worth £2.6bn a year by 2029/30), increasing the personal allowance for pensioners (£2.4bn a year), abolishing stamp duty for first-time buyers (£590m a year), and reforming the high income child benefit charge (£1.3bn a year).
The Conservatives have also pledged to reduce tax avoidance and evasion, which they claim will raise £6bn a year by 2029/30. The party’s manifesto commits to not increasing VAT, income tax rates, corporation tax, capital gains tax or stamp duty, or introducing “any new taxes on pensions”.
According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), both Labour and Conservative plans would see the tax burden increase over the next five years.
Under Labour’s plans the IFS says the tax burden would increase at a slightly higher rate than under current OBR forecasts, reaching 37.4% by 2028/29. This would be the highest level on record.
The Conservatives’ plans would see the tax burden increase at a slightly lower rate than under current forecasts, reaching 36.8% by 2028/29. This would still be the third highest level on record.
Full Fact has done some analysis on the so-called “tax burden”- tax revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) – with Labour claiming it has reached its highest level under the Conservatives in 70 years.
Rishi Sunak repeated claims this morning (see post at 10.55) that people’s taxes will go up under Labour if they win the 4 July general election. The prime minister said the Conservative party would “continue” cutting taxes if he continues on in No 10.
Full Fact has been digging into such claims. It reports:
We’ve seen several senior Labour figures claim that the tax burden is the highest in 70 years.
According to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the independent government economic watchdog, this was the case in 2022/23 when the tax burden reached 36.3%-the highest level since 1949 (when it stood at 36.9%) and the second highest since records began in 1948, when the tax burden was 37.2%.
It’s since fallen slightly in 2023/24 to 36.1%. But current OBR forecasts-which are based on existing government plans-show the tax burden is set to increase in each of the next five years, reaching 37.1% in 2028/29. That would be the second highest level on record.
Labour has committed not to increase national insurance, VAT (other than removing exemptions for private schools), income tax rates or the main rate of corporation tax.
It has said it would raise:
£1.2bn on average a year over the next parliament by increasing the ‘windfall’ tax on oil and gas companies
£1.5bn a year by 2028/29 from removing VAT and business rate exemptions from private schools
£5.2bn a year by 2028/29 from “closing further non-dom tax loopholes” and “reducing tax avoidance”
£565m a year by 2028/29 from closing the “carried interest tax loophole”
£40m a year by 2028/29 from “increasing stamp duty on purchases of residential property by non-UK residents by 1%”.
Updated
Richard Adams is the Guardian’s education editor
The next government faces “unpalatable” choices between raising tuition fees, making direct grants or capping student numbers to rescue universities in England from their financial black hole, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned.
The thinktank said universities that relied on teaching UK students for the bulk of their income were most vulnerable, calculating that undergraduate tuition fees would now be £12,000 if they had kept pace with inflation, rather than the £9,250 rate frozen since 2016.
Josh Hillman of the Nuffield Foundation, which funded the report, said:
The incoming government faces an unpalatable legacy that parties have not confronted in their manifestos.
Higher education funding needs a drastic overhaul, it is just a question of who pays for it – graduates or taxpayers. It seems this unpopular message is one that no one wants to deliver ahead of a general election.
Sunak says Labour should not be allowed to 'sleepwalk into No 10'
We have some more comments from Rishi Sunak, who has been speaking with the media in London.
Labour has maintained its poll lead of up to 20 points and many constituency-level surveys point to a near wipeout for the Conservatives.
Sunak, who is now reportedly at risk of losing his own seat of Richmond and Northallerton, said Labour should not be allowed to “sleepwalk into Number 10” amid claims colleagues are focusing on preventing a Labour “supermajority”.
Earlier this month, the defence secretary, Grant Shapps, signalled a change in Tory electoral strategy by saying the Conservatives were fighting to prevent Keir Starmer winning a “supermajority” even bigger than Labour’s 1997 landslide victory.
When asked by broadcasters if he was “deluded” for thinking he could win the election, Sunak said on Saturday:
Of course I’m going to fight hard until the last day of this election because there is a choice for the country.
Continue having your taxes cut with the Conservatives, providing you with that financial security, protecting your pension, getting down immigration. The alternative is handing a blank cheque to the Labour party, and once you’ve handed them a blank cheque you won’t be able to get it back. And that means your taxes are going to go up by thousands of pounds.
Don’t let Labour sleepwalk into Number 10, scrutinise their plans, ask what it means for you and your family.
Can you really afford Labour’s thousands of pounds of tax rises? I want to keep cutting your taxes. That’s the choice that everyone has in front of them in a couple of weeks’ time.
Updated
Sunak says Farage's Ukraine comments were 'completely wrong' and only 'play into Putin's hands'
The UK’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has said Nigel Farage was “completely wrong” to say the west “provoked” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
During an election campaign visit in London on Saturday, the prime minister told reporters:
What he said was completely wrong and only plays into (Vladimir) Putin’s hands.
This is a man who deployed nerve agents on the streets of Britain, who’s doing deals with countries like North Korea. And this kind of appeasement is dangerous for Britain’s security, the security of our allies that rely on us and only emboldens Putin further.
'What Nigel Farage said was completely wrong'
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 22, 2024
Rishi Sunak responds to Reform UK leader's assertion that the West "provoked" Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Live updates: https://t.co/LYhvEadgRu
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/OtiXGxvdli
Speaking to BBC’s Panorama on Friday evening, Farage said: “I stood up in the European parliament in 2014 and I said: ‘There will be a war in Ukraine.’ Why did I say that? It was obvious to me that the ever-eastward expansion of Nato and the European Union was giving this man a reason … to say: ‘They’re coming for us again,’ and to go to war.”
The Reform party leader has faced a stream of criticism since making the remarks, including from the former defence secretary, Ben Wallace, and the home secretary, James Cleverly, who said that Farage is excusing Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Nigel has been clear that he wants to destroy our party
— James Cleverly🇬🇧 (@JamesCleverly) June 22, 2024
He excuses Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine
And he is more focussed on inflammatory rhetoric than delivering for working people
We can’t concede to his style of politics, nor allow him in our partyhttps://t.co/0XYc2OwTa9
Updated
Labour says waterborne diseases have 'put over 10,000 people in hospital' since 2019 as it highlights Tory 'sewage scandal'
Water companies in England have come under mounting criticism for the level of raw sewage being discharged into rivers and seas (data revealed raw sewage was discharged for more than 3.6m hours last year, a 105% increase on the previous 12 months).
Both the Labour party and the Lib Dems have stepped up their attacks on what they have framed as the Conservative sewage scandal.
Labour, which says waterborne diseases have “put over 10,000 people in hospital” since 2019, has reiterated its pledge to put water companies dumping sewage into UK rivers and seas under special measures to force them to “clean up their act”.
The party highlighted new analysis of NHS hospital admissions data showing the number of people diagnosed with diseases transmitted via waterborne infection nearly doubled over the last two years, rising to a record high of 3,261 cases last year.
The steepest increase was in the number of typhoid fever cases, which doubled to more than 603.
Labour shadow environment secretary Steve Reed said:
It is sickening that the Conservative sewage scandal has put over ten thousand people in hospital.
They just folded their arms and looked the other way while water companies pumped a tidal wave of raw sewage into our rivers, lakes and seas, putting the nation’s health at risk.
It is time for change. The next Labour government will put the water companies under special measures and strengthen regulation to force them to clean up their act.
We will give the regulator tough new powers to make law-breaking water bosses face criminal charges and ban the payment of their multimillion pound bonuses until they clean up their toxic filth.
The Lib Dems, meanwhile, set out a plan to save chalk streams, which the party’s analysis suggested suffered nearly 49,000 hours worth of sewage dumping in 2023 – more than double the previous year.
The streams, which spring from underground chalk reservoirs, are one of the world’s rarest freshwater habitats and are found primarily in the south of England and Yorkshire.
The Lib Dems repeated its proposal to launch a public consultation within the first 100 days of the next government which could see rivers and lakes awarded a new Blue Flag status to protect them from sewage dumping, the PA news agency reports.
Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, said:
Water firms are destroying our precious rivers and chalk streams all whilst making massive profits. Conservative ministers have let these water firms get away with it for too long, while their toothless schemes have failed to protect swimmers and wildlife.
We need urgent action to save our precious chalk streams from this environmental disaster. The swimmers made ill, the wildlife killed and the chalk streams dried up should act as a watershed moment to put an end to the sewage scandal.
Every vote for the Liberal Democrats at this election is a vote for a strong local champion who will tackle the sewage scandal and clean up our rivers, lakes and beaches.
The conservatives have defended their record in government, saying monitoring of water quality has increased and thatthe party has put legal requirements for water companies to implement sewage discharge reduction plans while also“fast-tracking record levels of investment”.
Updated
Peter Walker is a senior political correspondent for the Guardian
Increased disenchantment with the Conservatives could result in the Greens taking two rural seats from the Tories in the general election, a Green co-leader has said, after internal polling showed they were ahead in both constituencies.
Adrian Ramsay said the polling in the seats, including Waveney Valley, which he is contesting on 4 July, demonstrated how recent local election successes had helped the party move beyond its traditional strongholds in urban, Labour-facing seats.
A lot of usually Tory voters “feel deeply left out by a Conservative party that’s torn up the rulebook on standards in public life, and also deeply care about the environment”, Ramsay, who co-leads the Greens in England and Wales with Carla Denyer, told the Guardian.
“Voters in rural constituencies are very connected with the environment, and very angry about sewage in rivers,” he said. “Time after time I’ve spoken to Conservative voters who say they’re thinking about what the future is going to be like for their children or grandchildren and that they’re voting Green for the first time.”
Ramsay said another major worry for wavering Tories was the decline in public services, including a lack of NHS dental services in areas such as Waveney Valley, which straddles Norfolk and Suffolk.
Previous polling has shown that the Greens could win two urban seats: Brighton Pavilion, which the party has held since 2010 under the now departed Caroline Lucas; and Bristol Central, where Denyer could unseat Labour’s Thangam Debbonaire.
Surveys for the party by the pollsters WeThink suggest the party is ahead in its two other major target seats, Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire.
You can read the full story here:
Updated
Keir Starmer has given a (relatively) revealing interview to Charlotte Edwardes, the Guardian’s feature writer and interviewer. Here are some of the interesting takeaways:
Starmer says he has never been to therapy
He sometimes refers to himself in the third person
Starmer’s two teenage children – whom he refers to as “my boy” and “my girl” to protect their identities – each “thinks the other is the favourite”
His first memory, aged four, was his dad bringing home a blue Ford Cortina
The last time he “physically lashed” out at someone was playing football a couple of years ago
Starmer insists he would never go private for health treatment
He said he felt like Boris Johnson’s character would bring him down so he did not need to resort to personal attacks in the Commons
Updated
The comments on this blog will be turned on at about 10am. Thanks for following along.
Updated
HuffPost’s Kevin Schofield has pointed out that the Conservative party is yet to give an official response to Nigel Farage saying the west provoked Russia into invading Ukraine (see earlier post at 08.52 for more details). James Cleverly, the home secretary, criticised Farage’s comments, saying he was “echoing Putin’s vile justification for the brutal invasion of Ukraine”, but there has been nothing from Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, David Cameron, the foreign secretary, or from a Conservative party spokesperson.
12 hours on from when Farage’s comments first emerged, the Tory Party (Cleverly’s tweet aside) have yet to give their response.
— Kevin Schofield (@KevinASchofield) June 22, 2024
Nothing from a Conservative spokesman, nothing from foreign secretary Lord Cameron.
Read into that what you will. https://t.co/QVCnFmbb9i
Yvette Cooper has promised to re-establish the Home Office’s Windrush unit, promising a Labour government would “turn the page” on the scandal with a series of measures such as expediting compensation claims.
Writing for the Guardian to mark Windrush Day she said the party would appoint a new “Windrush commissioner” who would “oversee the delivery of the compensation scheme” and be a “voice” for families and communities, adding that trust needed to be rebuilt between Windrush victims and campaigners and the Home Office.
A Labour government, she said, would start by ensuring that the Windrush compensation scheme is “delivered effectively”. It would also restore “community engagements to encourage applications, as well as the reconciliation events promised after the Wendy Williams Lessons Learned review but abandoned by the Conservatives”.
You can read the full story here:
Over half of cabinet at risk of losing seats in the general election - report
Bloomberg has got sight of some internal Conservative polling this week that confirms public polling that projects a parliamentary majority for Labour as high as 200.
A senior Conservative minister, who was briefed on the polling, said he anticipated election night being like the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest of the first world war, in which more than one million people were killed or injured.
Officials told Bloomberg that over half of the cabinet is at risk of losing their seats, something that would be unprecedented in British electoral history.
It has been reported previously that Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, could lose his seat to the Lib Dems, with fellow cabinet ministers Grant Shapps and Mark Harper among those who could be ousted by Labour.
Alex Wickham, Bloomberg UK’s political editor, wrote:
There are now growing concerns among Tory officials that Sunak’s own constituency of Richmond and Northallerton is no longer completely safe, after one poll implied he could be the first serving premier in history to lose his seat.
NEW: @BloombergUK Saturday read
— Alex Wickham (@alexwickham) June 22, 2024
* Tory internal polling this week showed that as things stand they’re set for a worst case scenario in line with MRP polls projecting a 200 Labour majority
* senior Tory: “it’s going to be like the Somme”https://t.co/gXpr0Fut7v
At the end of the interview, Nick Robinson asked Ben Wallace if there are some wishing that Boris Johnson stayed leader of the Conservative party given the dire position of the Tories in the polls.
Asked to comment on Johnson’s legacy as prime minister, Wallace said: “All I know is when I served with Boris Johnson as his defence secretary, and with Rishi Sunak, they both leant in and supported defence.”
He added: “I suspect my Labour counterpart (John Healey) if he were to be defence secretary will be wanting more from Rachel Reeves and will get precisely zilch.”
Labour has said it would have an “iron-clad commitment” to supporting Ukraine if they form the next government. Rishi Sunak has said the party would not match Tory defence spending.
Farage is repeating Vladimir Putin's 'speaking notes' on Ukraine, former defence secretary says
The former defence secretary Ben Wallace has been on the Today programme, speaking about Nigel Farage’s comments about the west provoking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He said what threatens Vladimir Putin are the values embodied by the EU and Nato, adding that Putin’s “very bizarre view of the world” ignores the fact that Ukraine has been separate from Russia in its history longer than it has been together and ignores the treaties signed by Russia in the 1990s upholding the right for states to choose their own alliances.
Wallace told the BBC:
It is not about Nato. Yes, he wants that to be played across our constituencies and played into the hands of the likes of Mr Farage who is only too keen often to what looks like repeat what looks like some of president Putin’s speaking notes. But certainly that is not the actual historical case.
Farage expanded on his position on Ukraine, writing on X yesterday evening that he is “one of the few figures that have been consistent and honest about the war with Russia”.
I am one of the few figures that have been consistent & honest about the war with Russia.
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) June 21, 2024
Putin was wrong to invade a sovereign nation, and the EU was wrong to expand eastward.
The sooner we realise this, the closer we will be to ending the war and delivering peace. https://t.co/o1nJt8mDlR
Wallace, who is not standing in the upcoming general election, said Farage has been “consistently wrong” on the issue, stressing that Nato is a defensive alliance.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
I think Nigel Farage is a bit like that pub bore we have all met at the end of the bar who often says if ‘I was running the country’ and presents very simplistic answers to actually I am afraid in the 21st century complex problems. It is not that easy to govern a country but also to find international solutions to problems …
If he became prime minister tomorrow morning, what is his solution to dealing with a President Putin that he alleges he admires? A man who remember was involved in the murder of a British citizen Dawn Sturgess with deployment of nerve agent on Salisbury. Is his answer to that we provoked him? He is going to have to deal with the real world.
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Good morning, and welcome to our continued coverage of the 2024 general election campaign.
Nigel Farage, the Reform party leader, has been criticised for suggesting the west “provoked” Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine by expanding the EU and Nato eastwards.
He told Nick Robinson in the BBC Panorama interview that aired last night:
I stood up in the European parliament in 2014 and I said – and I quote: ‘there will be a war in Ukraine’. Why did I say that? It was obvious to me that the ever eastward expansion of Nato and the EU was giving this man a reason to his Russian people to say they are coming for us again and to go to war.
Robinson said that Farage was echoing Vladimir Putin’s narrative in justifying the war. Farage replied:
Sorry I have been saying this actually since the 1990s – ever since the fall of the wall. Hang on a second: we provoked this war. Of course, it is his fault.
Challenged on his beliefs over the invasion of Ukraine, and his stated admiration for Putin, Farage said he disliked the Russian president personally but “admired him as a political operator” because of the extent of his control over Russia.
James Cleverly, the home secretary, criticised Farage’s comments, saying he was “echoing Putin’s vile justification for the brutal invasion of Ukraine”, while the former defence secretary Ben Wallace said the Reform leader was voicing “sympathy” to someone who “deployed nerve agents on the streets of Britain”.
John Healey, the shadow defence secretary, called the comments “disgraceful”, adding that Farage has “shown that he would rather lick Vladimir Putin’s boot than stand up for the people of Ukraine. That makes him unfit for any political office in our country, let alone leading a serious party in parliament.” You can read more on this story here.
Here is some of what to expect on the campaign trail today:
Labour’s shadow environment secretary Steve Reed will visit a county on the south coast to talk about sewage. Reed has threatened to put water bosses in prison, ban their bonuses and impose fines for sewage spills. Water companies would also be unable to mark their own homework, with new independent water monitoring. The Labour party leader, Keir Starmer, meanwhile, will be out in London to unveil his party’s plans to expedite payments for the thousands of victims of the Windrush scandal.
Rishi Sunak will trail his party’s plan for pubs, clubs and festivals, which include ways to “crack down” on councils setting “disproportionate conditions and restrictions on licences” in an attempt to cut red tape for businesses in the entertainment sector.
Reform UK campaigning continues on the Tendring Peninsula in Essex, as Nigel Farage hosts a bumper set of campaign days in the Clacton constituency he is contesting.
SNP leader John Swinney will visit the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh, where he will put the spotlight on his party’s drive for “sustainable funding for farming” with financial backing rising “to at least pre-Brexit levels”. The party has also called for a rural visa pilot scheme to “mitigate against the severe labour shortages” which it attributes to Brexit, and a veterinary agreement with the EU.
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey will also visit a farm on the campaign trail in a week where the Conservatives have sought support from rural communities.
It is Yohannes Lowe here for the next couple of hours. If you want to get my attention then please do email me on yohannes.lowe@theguardian.com.
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