Closing summary
We’re now closing this live blog. Thanks for reading and commenting. Here’s a summary of the day’s main events:
Rishi Sunak largely deserted the field after a difficult first few days of the general election campaign. The prime minister held a brief meeting with a group of veterans in his constituency on Saturday morning, but sources had already told the Guardian he’d planned to spend most of the day at home, in discussion with his closest advisers.
A further blow was dealt to Sunak’s campaign as it was announced the number of people arriving in the UK so far this year by irregular means had surpassed 10,000. The prime minister has staked much of his political reputation on ending the crisis.
Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom joined the now record-breaking exodus of Conservative MPs from the Commons, with the former saying it was time for a “new generation” to lead the party. Gove’s announcement in a letter tweeted on Friday evening had been anticipated by some given the strong Liberal Democrat challenge he faces in his Surrey Heath constituency, but adds to the sense of Tories fleeing in the face of a likely general election loss.
The treasury minister Bim Afolami played down the significance of high-profile Tory MPs to be standing down at an election. He told Times Radio: “Look, it’s not unnatural if you’ve got people who served for 20, sometimes 30 or 35 years in parliament in their 50s or 60s coming to retirement or indeed retiring completely, that they choose to bring their political careers to a close. I think that’s fine.”
Ed Davey welcomes Labour’s pledge to seek to lower the voting age to 16, but says “bolder” reform is needed to fix the “broken” political system.
Speaking at a campaign event in Winchester, Hampshire, the Lib Dem leader says his party has “long supported votes at 16”, saying anyone who wants to join the party’s policy ideas was “very, very welcome”. He adds:
The problem is though, the British political system is broken. I think we’ve all seen the last few years that unless we transform our political system, we won’t get the changes in our health service and our economy and the environment that we need.
So, Liberal Democrats are putting forward a much bolder programme of political reform with electoral reform and with putting power out from Westminster and Whitehall into communities for people. And that pretty profound and ambitious form of political change, I think, is what is needed and what people want.
Keir Starmer is defending Labour’s decision to rebrand its package of workers’ rights pledges, following a backlash from one of the UK’s biggest trade unions.
The party leader denies he is watering down policies on areas like zero-hours contracts, parental leave and sick pay after the Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said the plans have “more holes than Swiss cheese”.
It comes after the latest flare-up in a row over Labour’s New Deal for Working People, following reports it would go through a formal consultation process with businesses – potentially delaying or toning down the pledges.
On Friday, Labour rebranded the New Deal as “Labour’s plan to make work pay”. Elements of the deal include a “right to switch off”, a proposed ban on zero-hours contracts and stronger employment rights from day one of a new job.
The party has also said it wants to empower adult social care professionals and trade unions that represent them to negotiate a sector-wide agreement for pay, terms and conditions.
Reacting to the recent rebrand, Graham said the “number of caveats and get-outs means it is in danger of becoming a bad bosses’ charter”. But Unison – one of the largest unions in the UK – welcomed the package. A party spokesperson has said:
Labour’s New Deal for Working People is our plan to make work pay. It’s how we’ll boost wages, deliver secure work and support working people to thrive – delivering a genuine living wage, banning exploitative zero hours contracts, and ending fire and rehire.
The New Deal is a core part of our mission to grow Britain’s economy and raise living standards in every part of the country. Labour will make Britain work for working people.”
The Scottish first minister John Swinney is defending his decision to challenge the sanction ordered against his SNP colleague Michael Matheson, saying the process on a Holyrood committee was “damaged” by “prejudice” from one of its members.
Holyrood’s standards committee backed a 27-day suspension following the row over a near-£11,000 data roaming bill on Matheson’s parliamentary iPad.
But the first minister said he did not support the cross-party committee’s sanction as one of its members, Conservative Annie Wells, had previously made critical comments about Matheson’s explanation for the bill, which Swinney believes prejudiced the decision.
The Conservatives have said voters will punish Swinney for his “shameful defence” of his former ministerial colleague.
Updated
Labour is accusing Rishi Sunak of “hiding away in his mansion”. The prime minister was out campaigning in the morning, meeting veterans in his constituency, though sources have indicated he planned to spend the rest of the day in talks with his advisers.
It comes as the former prime minister Liz Truss, whose mini-budget unleashed economic chaos in 2022, said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph Sunak should scrap all net-zero targets in order to win the election. The shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth says:
While Rishi Sunak spends today hiding away in his mansion, Liz Truss is yet again reminding voters that he has no control over his party and desperate Jeremy Hunt is making more completely unfunded promises.
Five more years of the Tories will mean more of this chaos – with the British public left paying the price every single day.
The Conservatives say it would be inaccurate to suggest Sunak has not been out on the trail; pointing to his meeting with veterans.
Updated
The shadow environment secretary Steve Reed has commented on the potential contamination of London’s drinking water. He has said:
Our water industry is broken. Just days ago, a parasite outbreak was making people sick in Devon, now London’s drinking water may not be safe to drink.
The Conservatives 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 our nation’s health at risk.
It’s time for change. A Labour government will put the water companies under tough special measures to end this scandal. We will give the regulator new powers so law-breaking water bosses face criminal charges and see their huge bonuses being blocked until they clean up their toxic filth.
It is a simple question – and it will be at the heart of the general election campaign. After 14 years of Conservative government, people are asking: am I any better off?
After the chancellor hinted at tax cuts for high earners, the shadow chancellor criticises the government’s plans for further “uncosted, unfunded tax cuts” and suggests they would cause a repeat of the mini-budget in 2022. Speaking on the campaign trail in west London, Rachel Reeves has said:
I want taxes on working people to be lower, but the Conservatives have now put forward a number of uncosted, unfunded tax cuts similar to what Liz Truss did just 18 months ago.
The Conservatives haven’t learned that lesson and putting forward unfunded commitments is something that I would never do, because when you play fast and loose with the public finances, it is ordinary working people that pay the price.
“We saw that with the Conservatives’ mini-budget, the risk of another five years of Conservatives is that they do exactly the same thing all over again.
Reeves adds that Labour’s manifesto is “ready” to be published.
Updated
After Jeremy Corbyn’s announcement that he’ll be standing as an independent candidate at this election, the Guardian headed to his Islington North constituency to gauge voters’ reaction.
Amid the pre-lunch clatter of pans at Islington’s Nag’s Head market, Danni Cane didn’t hesitate when asked if she still would be supporting Corbyn.
“Of course we’ll be voting for Jeremy. He’s the person who made it possible for my mum to get her own house. He’s loved around here,” said Cane, owner of the Avva Cuppa cafe and an example of the sort of deep personal connection with many voters that Corbyn has built up over the course of 40 years of representing the north London constituency.
Islington North is a bedrock of support that could yet make Corbyn unbeatable for the Labour party, not least when his track record on other fronts – such as Palestine – is also finding a particular local resonance.
The conflict in Gaza was among factors cited by a group of men gathered at Majid Akguche’s Tagine 2 Go stall, who spoke of Corbyn in heroic terms.
“He has come here many, many times and is a man who listens to the people, whether it’s housing or emigration,” said the stall owner, who identified, like the others, as a Labour supporter, but planned to put loyalty to Corbyn first.
“He comes to our mosque after prayers and makes speeches, makes himself known and just opens himself up to what the people need.”
Updated
Channel crossing figures provide further blow to Sunak
More than 10,000 people have arrived in the UK so far this year after crossing the Channel. Home Office figures show 288 people made the journey in five boats on Friday, taking the provisional total for 2024 to date to 10,170.
The news will be a blow to the prime minister, who has staked much of his political reputation on ending the crisis that has seen thousands of people make desperate journeys across the Channel in small boats in recent years – apparently judging they have no better choice than to attempt such a dangerous crossing.
Campaigners have argued opening safe and legal routes would alleviate the crisis, arguing that a government policy focused on closing them and criminalising those who still feel compelled to cross has only exacerbated the problem.
But Sunak has persisted with ever-more-stringent measures – including the flagship Rwanda policy. Yet even that has done little to improve the situation – both in the Channel and politically for the prime minister, who had to admit recently that no deportation flight would land in the East African country before the election, as his government had said they would.
This has put Sunak in a difficult position: the Rwanda policy, and the broader campaign of crackdowns on migration, tend to be unpopular outside of conservative circles. And his failure to deliver on it is likely to also anger the Tory right.
Updated
It was a disastrous first day of campaigning for Rishi Sunak: his audience of warehouse workers in Derbyshire was discovered to contain undercover Tory councillors, and his small talk in Barry, south Wales, was decried when he asked everyone whether they were looking forward to “all the football”: Wales did not qualify for the Euros.
Sunak is now probably in a helicopter somewhere, self-soothing with the truism that all prime ministers make football gaffes. It’s so common that it’s almost part of the office; that you be inauthentic in your love of the beautiful game. For sure, all prime ministers do mess something up, but every clanger tells its own story, about the man (or woman), the time, the expectation and the choice of team.
Here are some of the highest-profile football gaffes committed by politicians over the decades:
Say this for Keir Starmer: he’s lucky in his enemies. From Rebecca Long-Bailey to Liz Truss to Humza Yousaf, they flop as heavily as solo projects from lesser members of Take That. And then we come to Rishi Sunak.
It shouldn’t be said of a man wealthier than the king, but: poor Rishi. The defining images of this first week of the election campaign will be of a downpour and D:Ream, and the ostensible leader of the country standing drenched on his doorstep as if, Withnail-style, he’d called an election by mistake. For his launch, Starmer kept in the warm and looked prime ministerial. What a contrast.
Or is it? Elections bring out such binaries: incumbent v insurgent, chump v champ. But these two rivals are more alike, personally and politically, than is in either’s interest to let on.
Both non-London southerners, they come from well-paid jobs outside Westminster, Sunak in finance and Starmer in law. SW1 is stuffed with lifers, yet these two only became MPs in 2015, gifted ultra-safe seats and swift promotion to the frontbench.
Conservative donors have poured more than £2.5m into key election battlegrounds to shore up support for MPs, such as Liam Fox and Penny Mordaunt, who are in danger of losing their seats.
Rowena Mason, Henry Dyer and Aletha Adu write that the 2024 election will be the highest-spending UK contest, after the government raised national election limits to £34m per party – leaving the Conservatives and Labour in an arms race to raise cash.
Tory candidates and their associations in some of the most closely contested seats have been bringing in £50,000–£100,000 from donors over the last year, as tight local spending limits kick in only during the last five weeks of the campaign.
A last-minute splurge by candidates is expected next week before the campaign deadline of 30 May. MPs and activists across the parties said they were rushing out mailshots before the regulated period for spending kicks in, and tens of thousands of pounds were being spent on targeted letters and surveys.
A briefing pack for Conservative candidates, shared with the Guardian, urges them:
Spend as much as possible between now and 30 May getting targeted social media adverts and campaign material out. This is important, as whatever you can deliver and post between now and 30 May will not count towards candidate election expenses.
Experts warned that the parties were increasingly getting their funds from a small number of big donors with the power to influence results in marginal seats – despite Labour’s commanding lead in the national polls.
The prime minister has made light of his disastrous general election announcement; during which he became increasingly drenched by rain as he was also drowned out by the strains of the anthem to Labour’s victorious 1997 general election campaign.
Sunak said he avoided catching pneumonia while speaking outside 10 Downing Street, but admitted he was not sure what state his suit was in. The prime minister was meeting local ex-servicemen at one of their regular Saturday breakfast meetings in Northallerton in North Yorkshire, in his Richmond constituency.
The prime minister met the group of eight veterans and sat in the Buck Inn, a Wetherspoons pub on the High Street, where the group were sipping tea and eating breakfast.
Vicky Rudd, sat next to her husband Doug, from Richmond British Legion, asked Sunak about his health, concerned he might have caught pneumonia “after seeing that picture” of the election announcement speech. The prime minister said:
It was wet. The number of people who have given me an umbrella over the last couple of days...
He reflected it was still right to make the announcement in the rain, saying:
When the moments happen, that’s what you do. That’s our tradition, the prime minister, in the big moments, they call the election and they go out there. I thought, come rain or shine, it’s the right thing to do. But no pneumonia yet, my suit on the other hand... I’m not quite sure what state it will be in when I get back down to London.
Updated
The Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar will visit Wishaw in North Lanarkshire following the official launch of the party’s campaign on Friday. He says:
This chaotic and dysfunctional Tory government has let down Scots and put their own party interest ahead of the national interest – but the same is true of the SNP.
This is a pivotal moment for Scotland and a chance to reject the division and decline of both the Tories and the SNP.
The next six weeks will decide Scotland’s future and I know what path I want us to take. This election is an opportunity for change that we cannot afford to miss.
The Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross was joined by Stephen Kerr, the party’s candidate for Angus and Perthshire Glens, as he visited a railway station in Brechin. Ross said:
Our campaign to beat the SNP and end their obsession with independence is going full steam ahead. John Swinney’s shameless defence of Michael Matheson is turning more and more local people away from the SNP.
We’re asking voters to come together and take the opportunity to remove the SNP from every seat possible. We have a big chance in this election, but we need to seize it.
The Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said it was time to “tear down the acid yellow wall of the SNP” as he campaigned in Mid Dunbartonshire, which he claimed would be the tightest-fought seat in Scotland.
The Scottish first minister will lead a “day of action” for the SNP as the first weekend of general election campaigning begins. John Swinney will be travelling around Scotland as he and other party leaders make their case.
He is expected to discuss the SNP’s end to tuition fees, the doubling of NHS funding, the Scottish child payment, free bus travel for young, and disabled and elderly people, and baby boxes. Swinney says:
I am proud to stand on the SNP’s record in government, and to contrast it with the record of the Westminster parties.
We have managed to achieve so much in the face of 14 years of Westminster austerity because we are the only party that will always put Scotland first – and which is focused on people’s priorities.
But just imagine how much more we could achieve if all decisions about Scotland were made in Scotland, rather than by Westminster parties for whom Scotland will always be an afterthought and who are both doubling down on austerity and cuts.
This general election is the opportunity to put Scotland first and unite behind an alternative to austerity and the SNP’s message of hope – protecting the NHS, tackling the cost-of-living crisis and eradicating child poverty.
Tories claim Sunak is not taking 'day off'
Bim Afolami is seeking to counter the narrative that Sunak’s plan to spend Saturday in discussion with his advisers amounts to a “day off”.
Three sources have told the Guardian the prime minister is taking the unusual step of a day away from public events on the first Saturday of the campaign, spending the day at home in his constituency and in London.
Afolami tells Sky News Sunak is not “taking the day off” from campaigning, with the broadcaster saying it understands he plans to meet a group of veterans in the morning. The City minister says it’s “not right” to say Sunak is taking the day off campaigning, claiming: “He’s going to be campaigning in Yorkshire.”
But, asked what campaign events Sunak has planned, he admits he does not know.
Updated
'Not unnatural' for high-profile MPs to step down before election, says minister
The treasury minister Bim Afolami insists it is “not unnatural” for high-profile Tory MPs such as Gove to be standing down at an election. The MP for Hitchen and Harpenden, where the Conservatives have seen their majority diminish in recent elections, has told Times Radio:
Look, it’s not unnatural if you’ve got people who served for 20, sometimes 30 or 35 years in parliament in their 50s or 60s coming to retirement or indeed retiring completely, that they choose to bring their political careers to a close. I think that’s fine.
Afolami said he thinks the party has a “good balance” of Tory big beasts, such as the chancellor Hunt, and newer MPs such as him. He denied it had crossed his mind to stand down or being worried about losing his seat, saying the party is “pretty confident here”. He has added:
The Lib Dems are strong but, you know, we’re confident that we’ll hold the seat and we’ll beat them.
Updated
The Liberal Democrats, who are targeting so-called blue wall seats in southern England, claim that, in standing down as an MP, Michael Gove is “running scared” from the prospect of an electoral drubbing.
Ed Davey’s party continues its trail across the south-eastern England on Saturday, with the leader hitting two marginal constituencies to highlight sewage-dumping as a key electoral battleground in areas near the coast.
The Lib Dems say party analysis shows water company bosses have pocketed some £54m in bonuses since 2019 as the party announces plans for a new, strengthened water industry regulator to replace Ofwat.
It is time to get rid of this toothless and weak regulator that is sitting idly by while water firms destroy our rivers and beaches with filthy sewage.
This is a national scandal which has got far worse under the Conservatives’ watch. Their record is one of rising sewage levels and water firms stuffing their pockets with cash.
The Liberal Democrats have led the campaign against sewage, with our plans for a new regulator, an end to disgraceful bonuses and profits, and a focus on protecting our previous environment.
Saturday’s campaigning is expected to centre on the economy, with Keir Starmer focusing on the cost-of-living crisis and Jeremy Hunt signalling support for tax breaks for high earners.
The chancellor indicated the Conservatives would seek to end the impact of tapering of personal allowances on larger incomes, were they to be reelected, while his opposite number Rachel Reeves vowed to deliver financial stability with a Thatcher-style commitment to “sound money”.
Workers lose £1 of their tax-free personal allowance for every £2 their earnings rise above £100,000, and anyone on more than £125,140 gets no allowance.
Hunt used an interview with the Daily Telegraph to dangle the prospect of a change to the current system.
If you look at the distortions in the tax system between £50,000 and £125,000, they are bad economically because they disincentivise people from doing what we need, which is to work, work harder. And we are the party of hard work.
He explicitly confirmed a Tory government would aim to correct these “distortions” within five years.
Hunt also branded inheritance tax “profoundly anti-Conservative”, but refused to be drawn on whether cuts to death duties would feature in the party manifesto.
Rachel Reeves will meet with supermarket workers in London to talk about the cost-of-living crisis; seeking to attack the Conservative record on the economy as she pitches Labour as the party of “stability and tough spending.” In an article on the front page of the Daily Mail, Reeves said:
Back in the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher proclaimed that the Conservatives were the party of sound money. But three decades on from when she left office, it was the Conservatives who crashed the economy, put pensions in peril and sent the average monthly mortgage repayments up by £240 a month.
I will never play fast and loose with your money... I believe in sound money and public spending that is kept under control.
Reeves appeared to hint she may eventually be able to cut taxes “for working people” under a Labour government, saying saying she supports reductions when there is “a plan to pay for it”.
Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom to stand down at general election
Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom have joined the now record-breaking exodus of Conservative MPs from the Commons, with the former saying it was time for a “new generation” to lead the party.
Gove’s announcement in a letter tweeted on Friday evening had been anticipated by some given the strong Liberal Democrat challenge he faces in his Surrey Heath constituency, but adds to the sense of Tories fleeing in the face of a likely general election loss.
Leadsom released her own letter shortly after, writing to Sunak: “After careful reflection, I have decided not to stand as a candidate in the forthcoming election.”
It puts the total number of sitting Tories saying they will not stand again at 78, beating the previous record of 72 from 1997.
An MP since 2005, Gove has been central to Tory fortunes ever since. The levelling up secretary had previously served as education secretary, justice secretary, environment secretary and chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
In his letter, Gove wrote that he knew “the toll office can take, as do those closest to me … No one in politics is a conscript. We are volunteers who willingly choose our fate. And the chance to serve is wonderful. But there comes a moment when you know that it is time to leave. That a new generation should lead.
Leadsom reached the final two of the 2016 Conservative leadership contest to replace David Cameron, but withdrew, putting Theresa May in No 10.
Conservative jitters about the campaign were distilled on Friday afternoon in a searing article by Fraser Nelson, the editor of the right-leaning magazine the Spectator, in which he argued Sunak was making a mistake by trying to make himself the sole focus of the campaign.
“A popular leader may run a personal campaign, but Sunak’s approval ratings are worse than almost any prime minister in postwar history,” Nelson wrote in the Telegraph.
A Conservative source called the idea that Sunak was hoping to reset his campaign “ridiculous”. But another campaign operative added: “Prime ministers don’t normally spend the first weekend of the campaign at home talking to their advisers.”
A Conservative spokesperson did not respond to a request to comment.
Sunak retreats from campaign trail after hapless start
Rishi Sunak will retreat from the campaign trail today, spending the day at home in his constituency and in London after a difficult first few days of the general election campaign.
Three sources have said the prime minister is taking the unusual step of a day away from public events on the first Saturday of the campaign and instead will spend it in discussion with his closest advisers.
Conservatives aides said the move was not part of an attempt to reset his campaign after a first week plagued by missteps and high-level resignation announcements.
Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, is in contrast planning to use the day at public events designed to focus on his argument that the Conservatives have damaged the economy and raised living costs. He is understood not to be planning any days off the campaign trail for the next six weeks before polling day.
Sunak’s decision to take a day away from public campaigning comes after an error-strewn start to the campaign for the prime minister.
He began by announcing the election in the pouring rain to the booming sounds of the 1997 Labour anthem Things Can Only Get Better, played by a nearby protester.
He then attended a public question-and-answer session at a factory at which it was revealed that two of the questioners were Tory councillors, before asking workers in Wales whether they were looking forward to the Euro 2024 football tournament, for which Wales has not qualified.
On Friday, the prime minister travelled to Belfast where he visited the Titanic Quarter and was asked by a journalist whether he was captaining a sinking ship.
Good morning
Just three days after kickstarting a six-week general election campaign, Rishi Siunak is taking a day off.
Three sources have told the Guardian the prime minister is taking the unusual step of a day away from public events and instead will spend it in discussion with his closest advisers.
The news comes as Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom joined the now record-breaking exodus of Conservative MPs from the Commons, with the former saying it was time for a “new generation” to lead the party.
Stick with us throughout the day and we’ll bring you the latest political news from around the UK.
