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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Politics
Andrew Sparrow (now) and Helen Sullivan (earlier)

Tory government ‘worst in postwar era’, claims expert study – as it happened

​​Rishi Sunak LBC SNP Inflation Sir Keir Starmer United Kingdom Office for National Statistics Jeremy Corbyn Bank of England Greens
Composite of five Tory prime ministers: David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak
Composite of five Tory prime ministers: David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak Composite: House of Commons / PA

Afternoon summary

  • A police officer working as part of the prime minister’s close protection team has been suspended and later arrested over alleged bets about the timing of the general election, Chris Mason from the BBC is reporting.

  • A study of the record of the Tory government over the past 14 years has concluded “it is hard to find a comparable period in history of a Conservative, or other, government which achieved so little, or which left the country at its conclusion in a more troubling state.” (See 1.51pm.)

  • Three MRP polls have been published this afternoon, all suggesting Labour is on course to win by a landslide, but offering very different figures for what its majority might be. More in Common has it on course to win with a majority of 162, YouGov suggests a majority of 200, and Savanta says the majority could be 382. (See 5.36pm.)

Three MRP polls published, suggesting Labour on course for majority of 162, or 382, or 200

There is better news for the Conservative party from YouGov. They have also published an MRP poll this afternoon (their second of the campaign), and it suggests Labour is on course for a majority of 200 (up from 194 when it published its last one).

Savanta has Labour getting a majority of 382. (See 5.23pm) The More in Common one, also out this afternoon, has Labour heading for a majority of 162. (See 4.26pm.)

This is what YouGov says in its summary of its poll.

Labour – 425 seats: The most seats in the party’s history; Labour is poised to win the most seats in each area of Great Britain

Conservatives – 108 seats: 14 ministers who attend cabinet set to lose their seats including Jeremy Hunt, Penny Mordaunt, Mel Stride, Alex Chalk, and Mark Harper

Liberal Democrats – 67 seats: Party set to comfortably overtake Conservatives in South West

SNP – 20 seats: Party set to lose half its seats but leader Stephen Flynn set to be returned to Westminster

Reform – 5 seats: Nigel Farage, Richard Tice, Lee Anderson, Stephen Conlay and Rupert Lowe all projected to win

Plaid Cymru– 4 seats: Including beating Government Chief Whip Simon Hart in Caerfyrddin

Green – 2 seats: Party set to hold Brighton Pavilion and gain Bristol Central from Labour

Labour projected to beat Jeremy Corbyn in close-fought contest in Islington North

This morning the Daily Telegraph splashed on a story about the UK having cancer survival rates 20 years behind those in other European countries. The next most prominent story on the front page was about the Conservatives attacking Labour on the grounds that they are not as committed as Rishi Sunak is to lower taxes. If anyone at the paper could spot a possible link between the two stories, it was not immediately obvious.

This afternoon the paper has an even greater shock for its Tory-inclined readers. It reports the results of new MRP polling by Savanta suggesting the Conservatives are on course to be left with just 53 MPs after the election – and that they won’t include Rishi Sunak, because he will lose his seat.

At least five organisations have published MRP polls during the campaign. All of them suggest Labour will win by a landslide, but none of the others have suggested that the Conservatives will lose as badly as this.

In his write-up Ben Riley-Smith says:

The Conservatives are also on track to slump to just 53 seats, with around three-quarters of the Cabinet voted out, a major opinion poll for The Telegraph has revealed.

The Liberal Democrats are on course to be just behind the Tories on 50 MPs, according to the Savanta and Electoral Calculus polling analysis, leaving them in touching distance of becoming the official opposition.

Labour is forecast to have 516 seats and an estimated House of Commons majority of 382 – double that won by Sir Tony Blair in 1997 - as Sir Keir Starmer becomes prime minister.

Meanwhile Reform, despite a surge in the polls, is predicted to get zero seats. For Nigel Farage, the recently returned Reform leader, it would mean an eighth defeat as a parliamentary candidate in a row.

On its website the Telegraph is running an enormous banner headline saying: “Tory wipeout.”

And these Telegraph charts illustrate the Savanta figures.

Updated

The Workers Party of Britain, which is led by George Galloway, has published its manifesto. It proposes a referendum on withdrawal from Nato and, launching the document in Manchester, near Rochdale where Galloway is standing for re-election, Galloway said:

We are potentially headed to Armageddon and if we don’t get out of this death spiral, then none of this will have been worth arguing over at all.

If Keir Starmer becomes the prime minister, within six months, Britain will be at war. I mean an actual war with British troops deployed.

Don’t arm these dangerous people with a super-majority in parliament.

Zia Yusuf, an entrepreneur who co-founded the luxury concierge app Velocity Black, has given hundreds of thousands to Reform UK, the Telegraph reports. He told the paper:

My parents came here legally [from Sri Lanka in the 1980s]. When I talk to my friends they are as affronted as anyone by illegal Channel crossings, which are an affront to all hard-working British people but not least the migrants who played by the rules and came legally.

I think Britain can be an amazing country, it’s the country of Dyson and DeepMind, but we have completely lost control of our borders, that is just factually correct.

The Telegraph does not say exactly how much Yusuf has donated, although all donations have to be disclosed to the Electoral Commission which publishes the figures in due course.

Last week Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, would be “very, very at home” with the Liberal Democrats.

Today, campaigning in Godalming and Ash, where Hunt is facing a very tough challenge from the Liberal Democrats, Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader, said Hunt absolutely would not be welcome in her party. She said:

The fact of the matter is that Jeremy Hunt has endorsed the plans of Liz Truss. He said that he’s been trying to pursue more of her policies.

So, absolutely not, the Liberal Democrats are trying to beat Jeremy Hunt in this election because he and his party have been responsible for an appalling cost-of-living crisis and for sending people’s mortgage bills spiralling and for food prices being sky high.

The More in Common MRP poll published this afternoon, which is one of the MRP polls most favourable to the Tories, has Hunt on course to lose to the Lib Dems.

Rishi Sunak has accused the SNP of focusing on “constitutional wrangling”. Responding to the publication of the SNP manifesto, he said:

All the SNP do is focus on constitutional wrangling. They’re the ones that aren’t focused on what people care about day to day.

They have already made Scotland the highest tax capital of the UK, and if Labour are elected, they would just do the same, hike up everyone’s taxes, just like the SNP have done.

A vote for anyone who’s not a Conservative candidate at this election is just a vote for higher taxes. I don’t want to see that happen. That’s not how you deliver financial security.

Here is Libby Brooks’ story about the SNP manifesto launch.

The Conservatives are in a “deep hole”, a pollster has said after a survey of more than 10,000 people suggested the party would hold just 155 seats, PA Media reports.

The MRP poll by More In Common projected a Labour majority of 162, just shy of its 1997 and 2001 landslides, with the Conservatives slumping to their worst seat total since 1906.

High-profile casualties forecast in the More In Common projection include chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who would lose his Godalming and Ash seat to the Liberal Democrats, and defence secretary Grant Shapps, who would lose Welwyn Hatfield to Labour.

The results are the most favourable for the Conservatives of recent large-scale polls, after a similar study by Ipsos on Tuesday projected the party would hold 115 seats with Labour securing a majority of 256.

The poll suggested Labour would make gains across the North of England and the Midlands, while becoming the largest party in Scotland and winning much of Wales.

It also forecast the Conservatives being almost wiped out in London, holding on to only a handful of constituencies on the fringe of the capital and neck-and-neck with either Labour or the Liberal Democrats in constituencies such as Romford, Bexley and Old Sidcup, and Carshalton and Wallington.

Full details of the poll are available here. Under the projection, Labour would win 406 seats, the Conservatives 155, the Liberal Democrats 49 and the SNP 18.

Luke Tryl, executive director of More In Common UK, said:

The fact that this projection showing the Conservatives barely holding 150 seats is one of the most favourable to the Conservatives shows how deep a hole the party finds itself in – with barely two weeks to go for them to change the dial. Far from the narrowing in the polls many expected to see by now the Conservatives position instead appears to be getting worse and only a small move away from them could see them reduced to 107 seats.

Labour on the other hand look set to inherit a historic majority while still remaining largely undefined in the eyes of the electorate. While creating such a broad electoral coalition, that will span from Blue Wall Worthing to Blyth in the “red wall” is a good problem to have in the short term, it points to potential difficulties in creating a governing agenda that unites such disparate tribes - especially when electoral cynicism is so high.

The Ipsos MRP published yesterday suggested Labour was on course for a majority of 256.

Updated

Max Kendix from the Times has some interesting statistics on the constituencies that Rishi Sunak has been visiting.

Rishi Sunak’s hyper-defensive election strategy in numbers:

* The prime minister has spent the election campaign visiting seats with an average majority of 11,894

* Over the past 10 days that average has increased to **14,317**

* One in five of the seats he has visited have majorities of more than 20,000

* Just under half of his visit are to seats with 15,000 majorities

IFS says it is reasonable for SNP to say rejoining EU could eventually boost government revenue by £30bn per year

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published its assessment of the SNP’s manifesto. It says what the SNP is proposing would amount to a “genuinely significant funding boost” for the NHS.

The IFS says, to pay for this, taxes in England would rise for higher earners. And it also says it is reasonable for the SNP to assume that rejoining the EU could eventually increase government revenues by £30bn a year.

Here is an extract from the analysis, written by David Phillips, an associate director at the IFS.

The SNP propose a range of tax rises at the UK level. The biggest would be big income tax increases for higher-income individuals to match Scotland’s system, raising an estimated £16.5bn in 2028-29. This would see income tax for someone in England, Wales and Northern Ireland earning £50,000 a year rise by £1,600, while those earning £125,000 would see an increase of £5,200. By far the biggest revenue-raiser, though, is the proposal that the UK rejoin the EU. The SNP assumes that the resulting boost to economic growth would increase revenues by £30bn a year. In the seemingly unlikely event that the UK did rejoin the EU within the next parliament, this would not be an unreasonably high figure for the eventual boost to revenues.

Updated

Reform UK says a poll in Clacton, where its leader Nigel Farage is the party’s candidate, suggests he is on course to beat the Conservative’s Giles Watling by 42% to 27%.

The poll was carried out by Survation, who surved 506 people between 11 and 13 June.

Damian Lyons Lowe, the Survation chief executive, said:

The projected swing in Clacton from the Conservative party to the Reform UK party is 43.5%. This is considerably larger than many significant historical swings.

The swing currently projected in Clacton, from a 72% Conservative vote share in 2019 to a 42% vote share for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in 2024, would indeed be unprecedented in modern UK electoral history.

Sunak and Starmer both condemn Just Stop Oil paint attack on Stonehenge

Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have both condemned the Just Stop Oil after activists who targeted Stonehenge with orange powder paint.

Sunak said:

This is a disgraceful act of vandalism to one of the UK’s and the world’s oldest and most important monuments.

Just Stop Oil should be ashamed of their activists, and they and anyone associated with them, including a certain Labour party donor, should issue a condemnation of this shameful act immediately.

Sunak was referring to Dale Vince, who contributed to Just Stop Oil in the past but gave up doing so last year.

And Starmer said:

The damage done to Stonehenge is outrageous. Just Stop Oil are pathetic.

Those responsible must face the full force of the law.

Two people have been arrested in connection with the incident.

Alexander Stafford, the Tory candidate in Rother Valley, posted this on X today.

It’s one thing betraying your principles, but another to throw your friends under a bus. The population of the Ninth Circle has increased today.

According to Geri Scott from the Times, Stafford is referring to Natalie Elphicke, the rightwing Tory who defected to Labour, and a letter she sent to voters.

Understand this is in reference to a letter delivered in constituencies from Natalie Elphicke trashing the Rwanda scheme, criticising Rishi Sunak, and describing Keir Starmer as a “patriot”

Sunak claims Starmer would face frosty reception at Nato summit days after election due to his defence spending plans

Rishi Sunak was in Suffolk this morning, where he visited the Sizewell B nuclear power station. Here are some of the points he made when he spoke to reporters.

  • Sunak claimed Labour wanted to “whack taxes up for everyone”. He said:

This election is about the future, I want to build on this economic foundation that we now have and I want to keep cutting people’s taxes at every stage in their lives.

In contrast, Labour would reverse the progress that we’ve made and just whack taxes up for everyone, and I don’t want to see that happen.

  • He claimed today’s meeting between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un highlighted why Labour was a threat to national security. He said, while the Tories were committed to raising defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, Labour has not matched that promise. He went on:

I made the decisions to increase investment in defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, because we’re living in the most dangerous and uncertain time that our country has known since the end of the cold war.

Just from the conversations I’ve been having at the G7, and the Ukraine peace summit, that is a view that is shared widely across the world, that’s why it’s the right thing to do to invest more in our defence, to keep everybody safe.

Keir Starmer has not matched that pledge and that deeply concerns me ’cause the first duty of government is to protect the country.

If Keir Starmer is elected, one of the first things he will do is head off to a Nato summit having cut British defence spending from the planned increases that I’ve announced, and I think that sends exactly the wrong message, both to our allies, where we want to lead so that they invest more in their defence as well, but also to our adversaries, like Putin, and like the North Koreans, and actually we need to deter them with strength.

The Nato summit starts in Washington on Tuesday July, in the week after the general election on Thursday 4 July.

  • Sunak said he was “pretty confident” that the decision by former Tory donor John Caudwell to start backing Labour was not something that voters would raise with him. “I’m pretty confident not a single person is going to talk to me about that,” he said.

Updated

Johnson and Sunak should retain Covid convictions, says Starmer

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak should not have their convictions removed for breaking Covid rules, Keir Starmer has said, amid calls from Conservative former cabinet ministers to nullify criminal convictions for Covid rule-breakers. Jessica Elgot has the story.

Labour says the latest small boat arrival figures (see 10.27am) show that Rishi Sunak’s policy is not working. Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, said:

Far from stopping the boats, Rishi Sunak is presiding over the worst year our country has ever seen for Channel crossings, with an arrivals total yesterday higher than any day in the last 18 months.

While he has focused all his efforts on trying to get 300 migrants sent to Rwanda, 40 times that many people have crossed the Channel already this year, the trafficking gangs have got ever richer and the amount the government is spending on hotels for asylum seekers remains stuck at £8m a day.

Tory government from 2010 to 2024 worse than any other in postwar history, says study by leading experts

As John Stevens reports in a story for the Daily Mirror today, Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, was complaining at a private Tory dinner earlier this year about the electorate’s “total failure to appreciate our superb record since 2010”.

But just how good is the Conservative party’s record in government over the past 14 years? Thankfully, we now have what is as close as we’re going to get to the authoritative, official verdict. Sir Anthony Seldon, arguably Britain’s leading contemporary political historian, is publishing a collection of essays written by prominent academics and other experts and they have analysed the record of the Conservative government from 2010 to 2024, looking at what it has achieved in every area of policy.

It is called The Conservative Effect 2010-2024: 14 Wasted Years? and it is published by Cambridge University Press.

And its conclusion is damning. It describes this as the worst government in postwar history.

Here is the conclusion of the final chapter, written by Seldon and his co-editor Tom Egerton, which sums up the overall verdict.

In comparison to the earlier four periods of one-party dominance post-1945, it is hard to see the years since 2010 as anything but disappointing. By 2024, Britain’s standing in the world was lower, the union was less strong, the country less equal, the population less well protected, growth more sluggish with the outlook poor, public services underperforming and largely unreformed, while respect for the institutions of the British state, including the civil service, judiciary and the police, was lower, as it was for external bodies, including the universities and the BBC, repeatedly attacked not least by government, ministers and right-wing commentators.

Do the unusually high number of external shocks to some extent let the governments off the hook? One above all – Brexit – was entirely of its own making and will be seen in history as the defining decision of these years. In 2024, the verdict on Brexit is almost entirely negative, with those who are suffering the most from it, as sceptics at the time predicted, the most vulnerable. The nation was certainly difficult to rule in these fourteen years, the Conservative party still more so. Longstanding problems certainly contributed to the difficulties the prime minister faced in providing clear strategic policy, including the 24-hour news cycle, the rise of social media and AI, and the frequency of scandals and crises. But it was the decision of the prime minister to choose to be distracted by the short term, rather than focusing on the strategic and the long term. The prime minister has agency: the incumbents often overlooked it.

Overall, it is hard to find a comparable period in history of a Conservative, or other, government which achieved so little, or which left the country at its conclusion in a more troubling state.

In their concluding essay, Seldon and Egerton argue that poor leadership was one of the main problems with the 14-year administration. They say that Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were “not up to the job” of being prime minister, and they have a low opinion of most of the other leading figures who have been in government. They say:

Very few cabinet ministers from 2010 to 2024 could hold a candle to the team who served under Clement Attlee – which included Ernest Bevin, Nye Bevan, Stafford Cripps, Hugh Gaitskell and Herbert Morrison. Or the teams who served under Wilson, Thatcher or Blair. Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt and Philip Hammond were rare examples of ministers of quality after 2010 …

A strong and capable prime minister is essential to governmental success in the British system. The earlier four periods saw two historic and landmark prime ministers, ie Churchill and Thatcher, with a succession of others who were capable if not agenda-changing PMs, including Macmillan, Wilson, Major and Blair. Since 2010, only Cameron came close to that level, with Sunak the best of the rest. Policy virtually stopped under May as Brexit consumed almost all the machine’s time, while serious policymaking ground to a halt under Johnson’s inept leadership, the worst in modern premiership, and the hapless Truss. Continuity of policy was not helped by each incoming prime minister despising their predecessor, with Truss’s admiration for Johnson the only exception. Thus they took next no time to understand what it was their predecessors were trying to do, and how to build on it rather than destroy it.

Seldon’s first book, published 40 years ago, was about Churchill’s postwar administration, and he has been editing similar collections of essays studying the record of administrations since Margaret Thatcher’s. He is a fair judge, and not given to making criticisms like this lightly.

The book is officially being published next week, and I’m quoting from a proof copy. In this version, the subtitle still has a question mark after 14 Wasted Years? Judging by the conclusion, that does not seem necessary.

Updated

Starmer says Tory claims Labour would penalise people with savings shows Sunak's party 'out of touch'

Keir Starmer has claimed that the Tory claim he would penalise people with savings (see 9.39am) as evidence they are out of touch with the experience of real people.

This morning the Times and the Daily Express both splashed on Conservatives claims that what Starmer said about how he defined “working people” in his LBC phone-in yesterday showed Labour would tax savings. Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, said anyone who did not meet Labour’s “narrow and misguided” definition of working would pay more.

In response, Starmer said today:

Of course, our definition covers people who’ve got savings, but it covers people who can’t just afford on top of that, to pay for other things. And nobody wants to use their savings to pay the bills of the day because the government’s lost control of the economy.

So, I’m afraid that’s an attack, which has backfired spectacularly, in terms of showing just how out of touch they are.

Asked if he would consider himself a “working man”, Starmer said:

Yes. I’m a working person.

I come within my own definition of a working person, which is earning my living, paying my taxes and knowing what it means to save money, and when you do save money, not wanting to use that money to get out of a cost-of-living crisis which is of the government’s making.

Labour has accused Rishi Sunak of patronising a billionaire former Tory donor who has said he is backing Keir Starmer’s party.

John Caudwell, the Phones4U founder, announced his switch to Labour yesterday. His declaration coincided with Jim Ratcliffe, another billionaire businessman, saying he could no longer support the Tories.

This morning, on his LBC phone-in, Sunak dismissed these stories, saying Caudwell and Ratcliffe could both afford the higher taxes he said they would face under Labour. (See 8.12am.)

Asked about his comments, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, told reporters:

We’re clearly proud to have the support of businesses. John Caudwell is one of the most successful entrepreneurs and businessmen in this country.

If Rishi Sunak wants to do him down, that’s up to him. But we’re really proud to have the support of a former Conservative donor and one of the most successful entrepreneurs in our country.

And, asked about Sunak’s comment, Starmer said:

He’s talking nonsense and not for the first time …

Rishi Sunak should stop lecturing anybody else about the economy. Ask people as you meet them around the country as we do, ‘do you feel any better off now than you did 14 years ago?’ And there is a resounding no to that question.

Labour suspends candidate after he reportedly shared pro-Russia posts

Labour has suspended one of its candidates after reports that he shared pro-Russian material online, Aletha Adu reports.

Welsh secretary David Davies says you would have to be stupid to ignore polls pointing to 'large Labour majority'

David TC Davies, the Welsh secretary, has admitted that Labour is on course to win a large majority. In an interview with Harry Cole from the Sun, he said:

I look at the opinion polls right, can’t hide, can’t run away. They don’t always get it right. They never get it 100% right. But they’re clearly pointing at a large Labour majority. I don’t know how large that will be. But you know, I’m not stupid either. You cannot dismiss every single opinion poll.

Davies also said that, while the Conservative government was unpopular, there was also a lot of unhappiness with politicians generally.

Davies’ comment about Labour winning is just a statement of the obvious. But politicians on course to lose elections normally find it hard to admit things that are obvious, and Davies’ cabinet colleagues have generally not been as blunt as this.

Swinney says SNP getting majority of MP would be mandate to demand Westminster allows second independence referendum

Q: When you say having a majority of SNPs would give you a mandate to start independence talks with Westminster, are you talking about a section 30 order to allow a referendum?

Swinney says a referendum would be the best way forward. That would be the focus of the negotiations he would start, he says.

At the last election the SNP won 48 of the 59 seats available.

The number of seats has been cut, and at this election there are only 57 seats. A majority of seats would be 29.

Yesterday Ipsos MRP poll suggested the SNP are on course to win just 15 seats, although other polling results suggest they might do much better.

And that is the end of the Q&A.

Updated

Q: What have SNP MPs at Westminster achieved, apart from squabbling?

Swinney says Marion Fellows is here. She is one of the MPs who has compaingned most on the Post Office Horizon scandal. Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminster, has taken a lead in pressing for another approach to Gaza. Stewart Hosie has led in highlighting the scandal of Russian money in politics. And Alison Thewliss has led in demanding the abolition of the two-child benefit cap. Those are some examples of what SNP MPs achieve, he says.

Updated

Q: This manifesto is full of policies that the SNP has failed to deliver on. It’s a sign of a party that has given up, isn’t it?

Swinney does not accept that. He says the SNP’s record on child poverty, or green energy, for example, are significant.

The manifesto says how the SNP could seize the opportunites of independence, he says.

Updated

Q: What can you say to people like Brian Cox who says you are backing away from independence?

Swinney says the manifesto has the title “A Future Made in Scotland”. That should give a pretty clear indication, he says.

Q: There are two banners here boasting of achievements of the Scottish government, on free prescriptions and free tuition fees, which are both measures from more than a decade ago. Is your government running out of scheme?

Swinney does not accept that. There is another banner about free childcare. And they could have put up one about taking 100,000 children out of poverty, he says.

Updated

Q: What makes you think Labour will listen to you and give you more devolution. Labour’s manifesto did not include plans for things like devolution of immigration policy?

Swinney says that’s a question for Labour. Are they just going to carry on as now?

Q: Is the SNP’s problem a deficit of enthusiasm?

Swinney says he does not accept that. He has visited 40 seats. The party is working hard, he says.

The SNP has had a tough time. But he wants to make progress.

Q: If you do not get a majority of seats, do you accept that you cannot carry on with independence talks with the government?

Swinney says the UK government should respect the mandate the Scottish government got at the last Holyrood elections.

Swinney says Labour's stance on two-child benefit cap, on fiscal rules and on Brexit shows it's not offering change

Q: You have said vote SNP to deliver independence, and that did not happen. And you said vote SNP to stop Brexit, and that did not happen. What is the point of voting SNP now?

Swinney attacks Labour for not committing to get rid of the two-child limit. If Labour is going to carry on with the two-child limit, with the fiscal rules, and with Brexit, “where’s the change?”

You can read the SNP manifesto here.

And here is the text of Swinney’s speech.

Q: Support for the SNP is projected to fall. Why do you think that is?

Swinney says the SNP has had a tough time recently. He is here to address that.

Second, people are desperate to get rid of the Tories. And they are considering voting Labour. But he says he would say to people “be careful what you wish for”.

Q: If the SNP does not get a majority of seats, what is the consequence for independence?

Swinney repeats the point about a majority of MSPs wanting independence.

He will not predict the results of the election, he says.

Swinney says Labour has accepted that its economic policies will require the cuts outlined by thinktanks like the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Voting Labour will lead to cuts in Scotland, he says.

Updated

Swinney has finished his speech. He is now taking questions from reporters.

Q: [From James Cook from the BBC] The manifesto says if you win a majority of seats you will start negotiations with the UK government for independence. Are you saying you could become independent without a referendum, or without even a majority of votes?

Swinney says the democratic wish of the Scottish people was expressed at the last Holyrood election. There is a majority of MSPs in favour of independence.

But he says he has long held the view that the best way for Scotland to become independence is via a referendum. The Westminster government is blocking that, he says. He says this election gives people the chance to put the case for change.

Swinney returns to the theme of independence.

We must never lose faith in the power of the democratic voice of the people of Scotland.

In 2021 they voted for a Scottish parliament with a clear majority for independence and for a referendum.

That democratic choice must be respected.

At this election we have the opportunity to reinforce the case for Scotland becoming an independent country.

And an independent Scotland would rejoin the EU, he says.

When we look at independent European countries similar to Scotland there are grounds for optimism and hope.

Countries like Denmark, Ireland and Sweden are wealthier per head than the UK.

They are fairer with lower inequality.

They have higher productivity – the key driver of living standards.

And they have lower poverty.

So with all our resources; all our talent, with everything we have to offer and all our ambition – why not Scotland?

Updated

Swinney says the SNP is opposed to the “obscene waste” of billions of pounds on nuclear weapons.

The SNP would abolish the House of Lords, he says.

It also wants to end the “devolution-busting Internal Market Act”.

The SNP would also end exploitative zero hours contracts, he says.

And it would repeal the Tory anti-strikes law, the Minimum Services Level Act.

Swinney says the main focus of his government will be cutting child poverty.

And he says the two-child benefit cap (introduced by the Tories, and which Labour has not committed to abolishing)) is making child poverty much worse. “It is the exact opposite of what the UK government should be doing,” he says.

The future of the 2 child cap is a simple test.

Are you in government to help children out of poverty?

Or are you so morally lost, that you push more kids into poverty?

Our choice – to abolish the cap – is obvious and it is driven by our values.

Updated

Swinney attacks Labour for backing Tory fiscal rules that would require £18bn spending cuts

Swinney claims they are the only party opposed to the spending cuts due to be implemented at Westminster after the next election.

That is because Labour has adopted the fiscal rules enforced by the Tories that would require cuts of £18bn.

The SNP would push for new, sensible fiscal rules, he says.

John Swinney launches SNP's manifesto

John Swinney, the Scottish first minister and SNP leader, is talking now at the launch of his party’s manifesto.

He says, in an age of turmoil, political parties need a set of values to guide them. People are crying out for leadership, he says.

He says he will set out the SNP’s values. They are a left-of-centre party in the mainstream of Scottish opinion.

They believe in independence because they believe that no one else cares as much about this wonderful country as anyone else.

The SNP manifesto launch is about to start.

There is a live feed here.

Small boat arrivals up 18% on same point in 2023 after 882 people arrived yesterday, figures show

More than 800 migrants arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel in a single day – a new record for the year so far, PA Media reports. PA says:

The Home Office said 882 people made the journey in 15 boats on Tuesday, suggesting an average of 59 people per boat.

The latest crossings take the provisional total for the number of arrivals so far this year to 12,313.

This is 18% higher than this time last year when 10,472 crossings were recorded, and up 5% on the total at this stage in 2022 (11,690), according to PA analysis of government figures.

Last year, 29,437 migrants arrived in the UK, down 36% on a record 45,774 arrivals in 2022.

More than 2,000 arrivals have now been recorded since the election was called on 22 May (2,431), with immigration a key campaign battleground.

Sunak denounced as liar and 'pound shop Nigel Farage' during brutal encounters with callers on LBC phone-in

When the election is over, and analysts have to explain the likely Labour landslide, there will be a lot of talk about living standards, real-terms wage growth, political dealignment, the efficiency of the Labour vote, the volatility of the electorate, tactical voting, populism and the like, but the real story is very simple. People are just absolutely fed up, and there is nothing that Rishi Sunak can say or do to change that because he is the leader of the party that has been in charge for 14 years.

That is what the LBC phone-in illustrated very effectively. The callers were brutal. Apart from the man who started comparing Frank Hester to Hitler (allowing Sunak to claim the moral high ground, for once – see 8.23am), they were mostly sensible, persuasive and compelling. At least two of them denounced Sunak as a liar.

Here are contributions from three of them.

Ellen from Bethnal Green asked what the Tories had done for young people.

As a young person in this country, everything about my future feels more uncertain after 14 years of Tory austerity. Housing is insecure and unaffordable. Tuition fees have risen. Public services like the NHS are crumbling. And you’ve now wasted 14 years taking absolutely no direct action. How could you possibly argue that life is better for young people after consecutive Tory governments?

And, after listening to Sunak’s response (see 8.21am), she said:

Frankly, you are lying through your teeth. You’ve had a decade and a half to improve housing, to improve rental conditions, to improve any of the issues that you talk about and you haven’t, and I think young people just don’t believe your promises anymore.

Sophie in Bury asked why the number of food banks has risen from 35 to 1,200 since 2010. She went on:

I work in the health service. I work with children who are suffering daily. They aren’t able to eat. They’re expected to go to secondary school, primary school, with hardly any food. It affects the health service because we have poorly children who are unable to get the nutrition that they require. How, as a prime minister who is richer than the king, can you relate to any of our needs and struggles?

After hearing Sunak’s reply (see 8.59am), she also told him he was a liar.

I think it’s an absolute lie that you supported people during Covid. I supported food banks myself, but with a mortgage increase of £700 pounds a month as a health professional, I’m going to struggle to help other people. I don’t think that you understand what it’s like to be on the shop floor to speak. You’re richer than the king. I don’t believe that you understand how hard it is for people to support food banks.

And this is what Paul from Manchester told Sunak.

I’m a gay person and lived with HIV for over 16 years. I’ve got a trans male best friend, and I know many members of the trans community

Mr Sunak, you didn’t vote for gay marriage to be extended to Northern Ireland. You never wearing a red ribbon on World Aids day. And also it behaved disgracefully when it comes to the trans community. And also you behaved disgracefully the day Brianna Ghey’s mum came to Parliament. So is it fair to say that you’re anti-LGBT rights, that you don’t care about the HIV cause, and you’re obsessed with divisive culture wars. Personally, I think you’ve become a pound-shop Nigel Farage, and you’re not succeeding.

Phone-ins like this tend to attract politically engaged callers, and the deference shown by members of the public to politicians a generation ago is long gone. People might be more comfortably about calling politicians liars to their face now because Boris Johnson so obvious was a liar.

But, still, this was unrelenting for Sunak. As Iain Dale, an LBC presenter who knows a thing or two about phone-ins points out, there was no sense that he was getting a hearing, or that anyone is willing to be persuaded anymore.

A brutal phone-in for Rishi Sunak with @NickFerrariLBC just now. A torrent of anti callers. He survived it with no knock out blows, but repeated the same lines far too often. I can’t think a single floating voter was persuaded. That wasn’t the case yesterday with Keir Starmer

The best that can be said about it, from Sunak’s point of view, is that as the campaign goes on, he seems to be getting more thick-skinned, and that this morning he stuck his head in the stocks for a full hour of punishment without losing his composure.

Reeves says Labour's definition of 'working people' includes people with savings

In his LBC phone-in yesterday, Keir Starmer was asked what he meant by “working people” when he said that he did no want to raise taxes for working people. He said he was talking about people who relied on public services and who could not just write a cheque when they had a problem.

The Tories have taken that as a hint that Labour would tax savings. The Daily Telegraph has a story today that starts:

Sir Keir Starmer has opened the door to tax rises for millions of Britons by defining a working person as someone who relies on public services and doesn’t have savings.

In her Today interview this morning, asked about this, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said Labour’s definition of working people did include people with savings. She said:

Working people are people who get their income from going out to work every day, and also pensioners that have worked all their lives and are now in retirement, drawing down on their pensions.

Many working people do have savings, but the truth is, during the cost-of-living crisis, loads of working people have had to run down those savings and have very little left, very little to draw upon.

Rachel Reeves says fall in inflation 'welcome', but insists cost of living crisis not yet over

Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, was on the Today programme while Rishi Sunak was doing his phone-in on LBC. While she welcomed the fall in inflation, she accused the Tories of suggesting the cost of living crisis was over, and she insisted it wasn’t. She told the programme.

Well, of course, it’s welcome that inflation has returned to target for the first time in nearly three years.

But, unlike Conservative ministers, I’m not going to claim that everything is all fine – that the cost of living crisis is over – because I know that pressures on family finances are still acute, because, while inflation is down, of course, those higher prices still remain.

Whether that’s the cost of the weekly food shop, the cost of the energy bills, or indeed people who are looking to re-mortgage this year or have seen their rents increase.

In fact, ministers generally aren’t claiming the cost of living crisis is over. But they are claiming that a corner has been turned, and that the economy is recovering.

Q: Do you have a message for Boris Johnson on his 60th birthday?

Sunak says he does, “Happy Birthday”. It is great to have him supporting Tory candidates.

Ferrari asks if there is anything he admires about Keir Starmer.

Sunak says these jobs take a toll on family. He thinks Starmer is good at making time for his family, he says.

And that’s it.

The final caller asks why Sunak made a joke about his sugar consumption when sugar is a serious problem, responsible for an increase in child tooth decay.

Sunak says he will not apologise for eating Twixes.

Q: The number of food banks has increased hugely since 2010. I work with people how are hungry every day. Given you are richer than the king, how can you relate to the people who need them.

Sunak says he is grateful to people who support food banks. But he wants to bring down the need for food banks, and reduce the number of them.

Ferrari asks what practical measures he would propose to ensure that.

Sunak says he wants people to have good jobs.

The caller says it is an “absolute lie” for Sunak to say he supported people during Covid.

Q: Do you accept you are rich?

Yes, says Sunak. He has been very fortunate. But he is not going to apologise for that, he says. He says his parents worked hard to give him opportunities.

Ferrari asks about how he can relate, and asks about an expensive coat Sunak was reportedly wearing on a campaign visit.

Sunak says he does not know what Ferrari is talking about. No one has asked about his clothing, he says.

Updated

Q: You have failed to get any asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Sunak says he is the only candidate with a plan. He claims, over the past year, small boat numbers are down. (Ferrari points out that the arrival numbers for 2024 are up.) There is a real choice at the election, he says.

Q: Why could you not get a flight leaving earlier?

Sunak says it took time to get the legislation through parliament.

Ferrari asks about a poll saying, if people had to have someone as GP, they would choose Keir Starmer over Sunak by 60% to 40%.

Sunak jokes that would be a disappointment to his GP dad.

Ferrari says the poll produced similar figures when asked who they would choose as a lawyer.

The next caller, Olivia, is a junior doctor who has been on strike. Why have you not made any progress?

Sunak says the government has reached agreements with other health workers. It is frustrating that they have not been able to reach a deal with the junior doctors.

Olivia says what Sunak said is not technically true. The nurses are still in dispute over pay; it is just they have suspended strikes. Junior doctors are not the only people in the workforce still in dispute, or unhappy.

Sunak says the junior doctors want a 35% pay rise. He says that is not fair, and he won’t put up taxes to pay for it.

LBC plays a clip from Figen Murray asking why Sunak has not kept his promise to bring in “Martyn’s law” in honour of her son, one of the victims of the Manchester Arena bombing. It would require venues to have better security measures.

Sunak confirms he met Murray before he called the election. He said he told her they would pass the law before the summer recess and he says that is still his intention, if they win the election.

The next caller is a gay man with HIV. He says Sunak has never spoken up for gay rights, and he has behaved disgracefully with regard to trans people. He calls him a “pound-shop Nigel Farage”.

Sunak says he is sorry the caller feels that way. He says he wants people to be treated with compassion. He says the Tories brought in same sex marriage, and he would have voted for that if he had been in parliament at the time.

He says he does not wear LGBT ribbons. But he does not wear ribbons for any cause, except poppies for poppy day.

On trans, he says he believes in protecting same-sex spaces.

The caller says Sunak did not vote for same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland.

Sunak says he cannot recall why. It may have been a constitutional matter. But he backs same sex marriage, he says.

Asked about his anti-trans joke when the mother of Brianna Ghey was in the Commons, Sunak says he was not being disrespectul. He was making a point about Keir Starmer.

Updated

Q: Will your resignation honours list continue the tradition of a a PM stuffing the Lords with cronies. Will you put people of integrity in there instead, like Alan Bates and Harvey Proctor?

Sunak says he broadly agrees with the caller. He says candidates get vetted for the Lords, and he always accepts their recommendations.

UPDATE: Sunak said:

I broadly agree with you.

I think, actually, when it comes to the House of Lords, one of the things that it benefits from is people who have all the backgrounds that you described.

That’s why we have, actually, an independent committee that vets all the appointments, and I’ve always followed their recommendations in the past.

Updated

Q: How can you win an election when you could not even win a vote in your own party?

That is a reference to Liz Truss beating him in the Tory leadership contest in 2022.

Sunak says he did lose to Truss, but he was right in what he said about her plans.

I was right in that Liz Truss election and I’m right about the economy now.

Q: Waiting lists went up in April? But there was no industrial action then. So you cannot blame strikes, can you? Your plan is not working.

Sunak says there will always by monthly variation.

During the pandemic 6m referrals did not happen. So it will take a long time to bring waiting lists down, he says.

Q: Why has the NHS gone from five stars to one stars?

The caller has breast cancer, and, when Ferrari asks, she says her treatment has been horrible. She claims what is happening in the NHS is frightening. If she had known how bad it would be, she would have gone private.

Sunak says how sorry he is about what the caller has gone through.

It has been difficult, he says. The caller got her diagnosis during the pandemic. That made a difference, he says.

He talks about breast cancer measures being implement. Community diagnostic centres are opening. And the government is hiring more oncologists.

The NHS now has a long-term workforce plan, he says.

Q: But what about conditions in the hospital you were in?

The caller says it was a London hospital. She says she could not have a shower because there was no lock on the door. And there were no staff. If she needed someone, just an auxiliary came.

Ferrari asks about a story in the Telegraph saying the UK is 20 years behind Europe on cancer care.

Sunak says he has not seen the story.

Ferrari says he should have been briefed on it. Sunak says he has not seen the details.

Q: How does that make you feel?

More determined to improve things, Sunak says.

Q: How can you say your plan is working? People are still struggling with the cost of living.

Sunak says the most important thing he can do for people is to keep cutting their taxes.

Q: How worried are you about wage inflation?

Sunak says it depends if wage growth is linked to productivity growth. But he says productivity is growing, which is healthy.

Q: If the plan is working, why did you not wait a bit longer until calling the election?

Sunak says he does not see politics live that. When he called the election, inflation was effectively back to normal.

At that point there was economic stability. It was the time to consider the future.

He says Ferrari used to criticise him for not calling an election.

Q: You took money from Frank Hester who made racist comments about Diane Abbott. That means all Tory candidates are funded by racist money. How does this fit with your commitment to integrity. And just saying he has apologised won’t cut it.

Sunak says what Hester said was hurtful and unacceptable. He says when someone apologises, he thinks that should be accepted.

The caller says he does not accept that. He says, if Hitler had apologised, that would not have been acceptable.

Sunak says he does not think that is a fair comparison.

Q: How can you possibly argue the Conservatives have made life better for young people?

Sunak says there are lots of things he could talk about, but he focuses on houses. He says the Tories would abolish stamp duty for first time buyers and keep the Help to Buy scheme to help them.

Q: You have not delivered on some of your housing targets?

Sunak says it was right to have a stretching target. But the government has build 1m homes, he says. And in future it would build more on brownfield sites, and get rid of some EU laws blocking housebuilding.

Q: You did not abolish no-fault evictions?

Sunak says he is sorry they have not been able to do everything they wanted. Covid interrupted things for two years, he says.

The caller says Sunak is “lying through his teeth”. She says the Tories have had a decade and a half in power, and have not done anything to help renters like her.

The next caller is a 17-year-old who asks why she should do national service?

Sunak says volunteering can be very valuable. He says people can learn about contributing to society. He says his daughters are positive about the idea.

Sunak refuses to say Nigel Farage should never be readmitted to Tory party in future

Q: Would you welcome Nigel Farage into the Conservative party?

No, says Sunak. He says he is fighting against Nigel Farage at the election.

Q: What about in the future?

Sunak says he is focused on winning the election.

Ferrari tries again. And Sunak just says he is focused on the election.

Ferrari asks what he thinks of the FT report saying Tory MPs are focused on the next leadership contest. Sunak says he is just focused on the election.

Sunak says he will stay in parliament for another five years even if he loses election

Sunak says he intends to serve another five years as an MP, even if he loses the election.

UPDATE: Asked if he would commit to serving as a backbencher for five years, Sunak said:

I have to win first. And that’s up to my constituents in Richmond.

I hope very much I have the chance to represent them for another parliament. I love doing that job. And of course I’ll do that.

Updated

Sunak plays downplays news two prominent billionaires backing Labour, says they 'can afford Labour's tax rises'

The first question comes from a woman who asks how well he thinks the campaign is going.

Sunak says he has been energised, and he has been talking about his plans to cut taxes.

The caller says she is not enamoured with any of the parties. She says she claism PIP, the personal independence payment, a disability benefit. That will be cut by the Tories, she says.

Sunak says the caller does not need to worry. People who need help will still get it.

But he says there has been a massive rise in the welfare bill. That is not right. He wants to put it on a more sustainable basis.

Q: How many points out of 10 would you give your campaign?

Sunak says that is for the voters to judge on 4 July.

Q: Two of Britain’s richest men have said they are backing Labour, including a major donor. (This is a reference to John Caudwell and Jim Ratcliffe.)

Sunak says, as two of Britain’s richest men, “they can probably afford Labour’s tax rises”.

UPDATE: As PA reports, asked about Phones4U founder John Caudwell and Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe throwing their weight behind Labour, Sunak said:

They’re two of Britain’s richest men. They can probably afford Labour’s tax rises.

Updated

Sunak says fall in inflation 'very good news', and that economic stability could lead to Tory tax cuts

The LBC phone-in with Rishi Sunak is starting. Nick Ferrari is presenting.

Ferrari starts by asking about the inflation figures.

Sunak says this is “very good news”. The govenment stuck to its plans, he says. He has restored economic stability. And as a result he has been able to start cutting taxes, he says.

Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Helen Sullivan.

James Murray, a shadow Treasury minister, has just been interviewed on LBC. He was asked about the Daily Mail splash, setting out tax proposals in a submission from the Tribune Labour MPs. He said these ideas were not party policy, and Keir Starmer had nothing to do with them.

Politico UK is leading its website on the place Sunak might escape to, should he lose: a $7.2m beach house in Santa Monica.

The area is even home to an English-style pub, and several expats, one of whom was not excited at the prospect – and another of whom suggested Sunak might have to buy his own pints:

James Stokes, an English expat living nearby, said he didn’t realize Sunak owned a home in the area until a week prior, when he saw an Instagram reel about Sunak’s past. Initially hopeful that Sunak would bring much-needed diversity to the office of prime minister, ‘he’s just disappointed me,’ Stokes said.

‘If he ended up moving back here, I think he’d be a bit of a target,’ he said. ‘There’s a big expat community, and I don’t think he’d be welcomed particularly warmly here.’ (‘I don’t think many people here would buy him a pint,’ said his friend, Tom Walker, gesturing around the pub.)

On that note, this is it from me, Helen Sullivan, this morning. Andy Sparrow will be back with you in a moment to bring you Sunak’s LBC interview – and the rest of the day’s politics news.

Updated

The fall is mainly due to food prices easing, my colleague Julia Kollewe reports on the business live blog:

Here’s more detail on what happened to food prices. Breakfast cereals, potato crisps and bars of chocolate have become cheaper.

The main downward effects on the inflation rate came from bread and cereals, vegetables, and sugar, jam, syrups, chocolate and confectionery. In each case, prices fell between April and May this year, compared with a monthly rise a year ago.

The resulting annual rates were the lowest since October 2021 for the first two categories and since June 2022 for sugar, jam, syrups, chocolate and confectionery, the statistics office said.

Annual rates eased in nine of the 11 food and soft drink categories, with the exception of oils and fats, and milk, cheese and eggs.

Meanwhile the fall in inflation cannot disguise “the worst period for living standards in modern times”, Trades Union Congress general secretary Paul Nowak said.

PA reports that Nowak said:

Over the last three years UK families have suffered the highest prices rises in the G7 - with inflation going up more over that period than it usually does over an entire decade.

Ministers can try to rewrite history all they like. But the Conservatives have presided over the worst period for living standards in modern times.

Food and energy bills have surged. Rents and mortgages have skyrocketed. And real wages are still worth less than in 2008.

Working people have paid the price for this Government’s failure with household debt also increasing at record levels.

We can’t go on like this. We need a government that will make work pay.”

Updated

Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride: inflation fall will allow Tories to 'bear down on taxes'

The fall in inflation is great news for the Conservatives, and Sunak should be feeling especially pleased as he prepares to field questions on the LBC phone-in starting in half an hour.

Sunak called the general election on the day that the last inflation figures – a drop to 2.3% – were announced in May. Sunak took the final decision to call a summer election on the drop in inflation and falling net migration, Guardian deputy political editor, Jessica Elgot, wrote at the time.

Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride has told Times Radio that the fall to the official Bank of England target of 2% is “very significant news” which will allow the Tories to “bear down on taxes”.

Stride told Times Radio:

We’re doing the right things for the economy and as you’ve just heard there, in terms of inflation now, very significant news this morning.

That is now down at 2%. That is bang on the Bank of England’s target of 2%. You’ll recall back in the autumn, it was up above 11%. And the Prime Minister quite rightly made it his key priority to get that figure down.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has responded to the new inflation figures, saying stage is now set for the Bank of England to cautiously cut interest rates, PA reports.

CBI principal economist Martin Sartorius said:

Another fall in inflation in May will come as welcome news to households as we move towards a more benign inflationary environment.

However, many will still be feeling the pinch due to the level of prices being far higher than in previous years, particularly for food and energy bills.

Today’s data sets the stage for the Monetary Policy Committee to cut interest rates in August, in line with our latest forecast’s expectations.

However, rate-setters will still need to weigh the fall in headline inflation against signs that domestic price pressures, such as elevated pay growth, are proving slower to come down.

This means that they are likely to move cautiously beyond August to avoid putting further upward pressure on inflation, especially as the growth outlook improves at home and geopolitical tensions remain heightened.”

As an instant vignette highlighting just how much trouble the Conservatives might face in their English heartlands, Calum Miller’s 10 minutes or so of chats in the neat cul-de-sacs of Langford would be hard to beat.

Knocking on doors in the community on the fringes of Bicester, just north of Oxford, the Liberal Democrat candidate spoke to locals with all manner of political backstories and motivations, some who had previously voted Tory, Labour or neither, as well as those who had either backed Brexit or wished to remain.

All, however, had arrived at a common conclusion: this time they would vote for him, to try to defeat the Conservatives.

The idea of the “blue wall”, traditionally Conservative seats whose affluent, remain-minded populations were left aghast at the antics of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, is not new. But on 4 July, a lot of Tory candidates could find out it is a bigger and politically broader phenomenon than anyone guessed.

Miller’s intended seat, Bicester and Woodstock, newly created under the boundary review, would have had a notional Conservative majority of about 15,000 in the 2019 election. However, according to constituency-extrapolated polling, Miller should win it.

If he does, the Oxfordshire councillor and public policy academic, who only entered politics three years ago, would not be lacking in local company.

Here is what we can expect politicians to tell voters around the UK today, via PA:

‘Cheaper energy, no shocks’: Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, and Rachel Reeves, Labour’s shadow chancellor, will visit a supermarket as the party pledges to put family finances first by cutting household energy bills by £300 and protecting Britain from future energy shocks. Reeves will reiterate Labour’s pledge to make Britain a clean energy superpower by 2030, which the party says will slash energy bills, boost the UK’s energy independence, and create 650,000 jobs.

‘A moral mission’: Sunak is expected to continue fighting the campaign on taxes as he announced it is his “moral mission” to further slash national insurance. Sunak shocked even those in his own party when he chose to call the General Election after favourable inflation figures in April. As the party continues to languish some 20 points behind Labour in the polls, he will be hoping positive figures for May will help to sell the Conservatives’ message that “the plan is working”.

‘Don’t let the Tories bet the house again’: Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper will urge voters in Godalming and Ash not to let the Conservatives “bet the house again” on mortgage prices as she unveils a Lib Dem poster van. Cooper will address activists with the new attack poster in Surrey, where the Liberal Democrats say they “are neck and neck” with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

‘A different approach’: SNP leader John Swinney will be in Edinburgh to launch the party’s manifesto, which he claims “will set out a different approach in line with Scotland’s centre-left values”. Swinney will be joined by SNP Westminster candidates and activists to unveil the party’s plans, which will call for the next UK government to generate an additional £1bn a year for Scotland’s health service.

Inflation falls to 2%, returning to Bank of England target

UK inflation fell to 2% in May, returning to the official target rate for the first time in nearly three years.

In a boost to the Bank of England’s efforts to bring down the consumer prices index (CPI), the Office for National Statistics said price pressures eased between April and May.

Lower prices growth will also boost Rishi Sunak after the prime minister made bringing inflation under control one of his main aims. The release of the inflation figures represents the one of the last significant economic indicators before the general election on 4 July.

The fall in inflation was in line with predictions from City economists, who expected a fall to 2%.

The Bank is expected to keep interest rates at 5.25% when it publishes its latest decision on Thursday. Rates are expected to remain on hold for much of the year in response to concerns about a halt in a long downward trend in prices growth.

In May last year, inflation rose by 8.7%, down from more than 11% in October 2022, the highest rate in more than 40 years.

Updated

Here is more on our front page story this morning: NHS money will be used to buy thousands of beds in care homes under Labour plans to reduce overcrowding in England’s hospitals, long waits in A&E and patients becoming trapped in ambulances.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said the move would tackle the huge human and financial “waste” of beds being occupied by patients fit to leave but stuck there because a lack of care outside the hospital. There are 13,000 beds in England – enough to fill 26 hospitals – being occupied by such patients.

If Labour wins the general election on 4 July it will funnel some of the NHS’s £165bn budget into the plan as one of a series of immediate changes intended to relieve the crisis in the health service.

Streeting made clear in a speech that a Labour government would expect hospitals across England to follow the example of Leeds teaching hospitals NHS trust, which spends £9m a year buying up care home beds in order to cut delayed discharges and free up beds.

That initiative – which it launched as a way of avoiding a “winter crisis” in 2022-23 – has freed up 165 beds, helped reduce the number of patients who are admitted avoidably and saved the trust between £17m and £23m, it has estimated.

This morning's front pages

As we wait for the latest inflation figures to be published – they’re expected in 10 minutes’ time – let’s take a look at what the papers are saying.

The Guardian’s lead story is that Labour plans to use NHS money to buy thousands of beds in care homes as a way to reduce overcrowding in England’s hospitals, long waits in A&E and patients becoming trapped in ambulances.

Health Policy editor Denis Campbell reports, “Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said the move would tackle the huge human and financial “waste” of beds being occupied by patients fit to leave but stuck there because a lack of care outside the hospital. There are 13,000 beds in England – enough to fill 26 hospitals – being occupied by such patients.”

The Times, Daily Express and Daily Mail are leading on Labour’s tax policies, with the Times reporting that Starmer “has defined “working people” as those who cannot afford to write a cheque when they get into trouble, prompting claims by the Tories that he is preparing to target savers.”

The Financial Times reports on the Tories hoping to become leader after a predicted Labour win.

Potential contenders touted by MPs include former home secretary Suella Braverman, business secretary Kemi Badenoch and home secretary James Cleverly, the FT reports.

The paper quotes an unnamed party insider saying, “The shadow boxing has begun,” and that Tory hopefuls are already, “doing visits to other seats, helping MPs where possible, making sure they’re visible and prominent with the grassroots”.

The Daily Telegraph reports that Britain’s cancer care is two decades behind Europe’s:

The Morning Star calls Starmer’s performance in the LBC interview, “sleepy”, “dozy” and “lacklustre” when it comes to Jeremy Corbyn, energy nationalisation and Gaza:

Keir Starmer calls for review of late kick-offs at football matches

Keir Starmer has called for a review into late kick-offs at football matches, warning they are increasing costs for supporters who want to travel to games, the Guardian’s Kiran Stacey reports.

The Labour leader told the Guardian’s Football Weekly podcast he wanted a new football regulator to look into whether the Premier League should be allowed to hold games late in the evening, such as at 8pm on Saturdays.

Late kick-offs have become controversial with supporters because while they allow broadcasters to show more live games, they make it more expensive for travelling fans, many of whom have to book overnight accommodation.

Starmer, who has a season ticket at Arsenal, told Football Weekly in an interview:

[Going to football matches] is too expensive, particularly the upper end, and I’d link that to some of the late kick-offs.

If you’ve got, for example, an 8 o’clock kick-off on a Saturday, then the away fans in all likelihood have got to pay to get to the ground, they have got to pay quite a lot of money then to get into the ground.

And then if the game finishes at 10 o’clock at night, and it’s the other end of the country, in all likelihood they’re also then having to pay for overnight accommodation. It becomes a very expensive package.”

Updated

Tuesday's campaigning – in pictures

And here are some of the best pictures from yesterday’s campaigning. As more voting people than ever appear poised to turn away from the Tories, Sunak appeared in several photographs with sheep and lobsters as he visited North Devon, held by the Tories since 2015. The Guardian’s Archie bland named the sheep the “Dubious photo opportunity of the day”, after the sheep ran away:

Starmer, meanwhile, appeared on LBC where he clarified that Premier League Football Clubs would not be subject to a 10% transfer tax to fund clubs lower down the pyramid. “Let me just kill it dead, we’re not looking at that,” Starmer said. He also visited a tennis club and a pub in Reading West and mid Berkshire.

Here is what more of what we expect to happen on the campaign trail today.

  • We’ll learn the number of people who have registered to vote.

  • The Office for National Statistics to publish inflation figures

  • Rishi Sunak has an hour-long LBC morning phone-in

  • The SNP publishes its manifesto in Edinburgh where, PA reports “leader John Swinney will be joined by candidates and activists at Patina, a net zero building powered entirely by renewables.”

  • Rochdale MP George Galloway launches his manifesto in Manchester.

  • Sunak will launch his “moral mission” to cut taxes and will visit Suffolk.

  • Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves will outline Labour’s energy policies and Keir Starmer and Reeves will visit a supermarket in Wiltshire.

  • Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper will unveil a new poster van in Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s seat of Godalming and Ash, which the Lib Dems are targeting.

  • Akshata Murty, Lucia Hunt and Susie Cleverly are campaigning with Lucy Frazer in Cambridgeshire.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves to outline Labour's energy policies

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves will outline how Labour’s energy policies will aim to save £300 for families, PA reports, while Rishi Sunak embarks on his “moral mission” to cut taxes, as campaigning continues.

Reeves will visit the South West and accuse the Conservatives of being “staggeringly out of touch with the struggles facing ordinary families” in comments ahead of the release of May’s inflation data.

She will reiterate Labour’s pledge to make Britain a clean energy superpower by 2030, which the party says will save families up to £300 per year off their energy bills, boost the UK’s energy independence, and create 650,000 good jobs.

Updated

Why are more and more Britons voting by post – and who are they?

The popularity of postal voting is a fairly recent phenomenon: from 1945 to 2001, the proportion of votes cast by post in general elections was never higher than 5% according to data compiled by the House of Commons Library.

But the figure jumped sharply in 2005 to 12.7% and increased at each subsequent general election, hitting 21.7% in 2017.

It fell slightly in 2019 to 21.0%, but this still means at least one in five votes has been cast by post at each of the three most recent general elections.

Which means that it is important to know who they are. Jon Tonge, a politics professor at the University of Liverpool, told PoliticsHome, that the UK’s political parties are, “behind the curve on it, to be quite honest”.

A 2023 study published in the journal Parliamentary Affairs found that the people most likely to vote are those who want to reduce the costs of in-person voting, or those for whom those costs are high, so, for example, elderly people and those with disabilities.

The authors of the study wrote, “We also find that voters who are unlikely to derive expressive benefits from in-person voting at the polling station, such as voters without a partisan identity, are happier to cast the more private, but convenient, postal ballot.”

According to Philip Cowley, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, postal voting is, “one of the biggest, and yet often unremarked, changes in British elections over the last 20 years”.

PoliticsHome has outlined the likely postal voters this election:

According to a briefing from the House of Commons library in November, the seat with the highest proportion of registered postal voters in England was Blaydon in Tyne and Wear, where 43.6% had a postal vote. The seat has been abolished by the boundary changes at this election, but there were similar numbers to be seen in other neighbouring constituencies across the North East.

In Houghton and Sunderland South, represented by Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, 43.4% of the electorate were registered for a postal vote, and in Newcastle upon Tyne North, the rate was at 42.9%.

Many of the seats with lower postal vote take up were in the West Midlands, with Birmingham, Ladywood at the bottom of the table, with 7.6% postal vote registration, followed by Birmingham Hodge Hill on 8.6% and Birmingham, Perry Barr on 8.9%.

Today is the last day to apply for a postal ballot paper in England, Scotland, Wales

This is your reminder that anyone intending to vote by post in the General Election but who has yet to apply for a ballot paper has only a few hours left to do so.

The deadline to submit a postal vote application for people in England, Scotland and Wales is 5pm on Wednesday. The deadline for people in Northern Ireland has already passed. Applications can be made online at gov.uk/apply-postal-vote.

PA has details: Completed postal votes must have reached councils by 10pm on polling day, July 4. They can be returned by post or handed in at council offices. They can also be handed in at a polling station on election day.

John Caudwell urges public to vote Labour

On Tuesday evening John Caudwell, traditionally a Conservative party donor who donated £500,000 to Boris Johnson’s campaign in 2019, announced he will vote for Labour on 4 July.

Caudwell, who founded the mobile phone retailer Phones4U, made the announcement last night, in comments first reported by the Times and the BBC.

It comes after a recent meeting between Caudwell and Starmer, Labour said.

Caudwell, 71, said:

For many years now, I have been rather despairing about the performance of the party that I have supported for the last 51 years: the Tories. Only five years ago, I donated half a million to the Conservatives to help avert the disaster that would have been Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street.

But I’ve been increasingly critical of Tory failures since then, particularly over Rishi’s mismanagement of the economy during Covid, Boris’s lowering of ethical standards – and, of course, associated with that the accusation that Tory cronies benefited improperly regarding Covid PPE – and then the Liz Truss debacle.

When Labour launched its manifesto last Thursday, I was delighted to see that accelerating economic growth was front and centre, and that projected growth is clearly tied into making Britain a clean energy superpower.

So, I can declare publicly that I will vote for Labour and I encourage everybody to do the same.”

Interest rate cut unlikely and inflation likely to rise again, says economist

But despite the expected good news on inflation, an Investec economist interviewed by PA says the fall in inflation is unlikely to boost chances of an early summer interest rate cut.

PA reports that most economists believe the Bank of England will hold rates at 5.25% on Thursday, with the election denting hopes of a reduction before 4 July.

Investec economist Sandra Horsfield said: “Welcome though a return to target inflation would be, the MPC (Monetary Policy Committee) is unlikely to be fully satisfied should the numbers meet our expectations.

“In the (Bank’s) May Monetary Policy Report, the baseline forecast was for a 1.9% inflation rate.

“Nor it is clear that inflation will stay at 2% from now on – in fact, we expect a small rise again over the second half of the year.”

While a return to target is symbolic, the Bank is keeping a watchful eye on inflation in the services sector, which is proving more stubborn and has been partly responsible for staying its hand in bringing rates down from their 16-year high.

Inflation expected to fall to 2% target

Inflation is expected to fall back to the 2% Bank of England target for the first time in nearly three years in official figures on Wednesday, Bloomberg and PA report.

The figures will be released just a day before the next rates decision and at a crucial time for the Conservatives.

Most analysts are forecasting official figures will show the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) dropping to 2% in May, down from 2.3% in April.

It would mark the first time inflation has been at the Bank of England’s target since July 2021, before the cost-of-living crisis saw inflation shoot up – at one stage hitting levels not seen for 40 years.

This would be good news for Sunak, who called the election the same day last month’s inflation figures were released, showing a fall to 2.3%. Sunak took the final decision to call a summer election based on two figures: the drop in inflation and falling net migration.

Labour landslide projected with dozens of Tory-held seats on knife-edge

In case you missed this yesterday: Labour is heading for a landslide win in the election, according to a new projection, but more than 100 Conservative-held seats appear to be on a knife-edge with the results in the hands of millions of undecided or swing voters.

In its first MRP model of the 2024 general election, Ipsos estimated Labour could win 453 seats and the Conservatives 115, giving Keir Starmer’s party a majority of 256 and inflicting the Tories’ worst ever defeat.

The Liberal Democrats could win 38 seats and the Scottish National party 15, three for the Greens and three for Reform UK. According to the projection, Nigel Farage is on track to overturn a huge Tory majority to win in Clacton while Jeremy Corbyn, standing as an independent, is predicted to lose to Labour in Islington North.

Labour has an implied vote share of 43%, with Rishi Sunak’s Tories on 25%, Reform UK on 12%, the Lib Dems on 10%, the Greens on 6%, the SNP on 3% and Plaid Cymru on 1%.

Sunak to appear on LBC phone-in as SNP prepares to launch manifesto

Good morning, and welcome to the Guardian’s live politics coverage with me, Helen Sullivan. Andy Sparrow will be along just before Rishi Sunak’s LBC phone-in appearance at 8am.

The latest inflation figures are due to be published by the Office for National Statistics this morning and are expected to fall to the target of 2% for the first time since July 2021, Bloomberg and PA report. The figures will be released at 7am.

This would be good news for Sunak, who called the election the same day last month’s inflation figures were released, showing a fall to 2.3%. Sunak took the final decision to call a summer election on the drop in inflation and falling net migration, Guardian deputy political editor, Jessica Elgot, wrote at the time.

If 2% is the figure, Sunak will be riding high on the news when he appears on an LBC phone-in at 8am. Keir Starmer appeared on Tuesday, and “came out pretty well” according to Andrew Sparrow. He was evasive on Jeremy Corbyn, and raising council tax. Guardian columnist Marina Hyde said the performance was “woolly”.

As Andy wrote ahead of Starmer’s appearance yesterday, “Political leaders talk to members of the public every day, but if broadcasters select their callers carefully, and choose articulate, informed, persistent people with serious concerns (and LBC are very good at doing this), then a phone-in can be perilous.”

And the Scottish National Party will publish its manifesto today. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar launched its manifesto yesterday. It largely mirrors the Labour pledges on growing the economy, cutting NHS waiting lists and more support for young people set out by Keir Starmer last week.

It is now just before 6am. Here is this morning’s schedule:

  • 7am: Office for National Statistics to publish inflation figures

  • 8am: Sunak has an hour-long LBC morning phone-in

  • 11am: The SNP publishes its manifesto in Edinburgh from 11am

  • 12pm: Rochdale MP George Galloway launches his manifesto in Manchester

You can reach me on Twitter here if you have any questions or comments.

Updated

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