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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Yohannes Lowe (now) and Andrew Sparrow (earlier)

Rishi Sunak hints he might not quit as Tory leader immediately if he loses election – as it happened

James Cleverly ​​Rishi Sunak Sir Keir Starmer Staffordshire
Rishi Sunak sniffs malt whiskey during a visit to a distillery in the Cotswolds.
Rishi Sunak sniffs malt whiskey during a visit to a distillery in the Cotswolds. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Closing summary

  • Rishi Sunak has hinted that he might not quit as Tory leader immediately if he loses the election on Thursday. The prime minister did not give a direct answer when asked if he would stay on if he lost. But he told the BBC he would always put himself at the service of his party, implying that he might stay on for a period.

  • Keir Starmer said that a government in France led by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party would not hamper a Labour government’s intention to negotiate a better EU deal. The RN made historic gains in the first round of France’s snap elections on Sunday with 33% of the vote. Starmer also said that far-right gains in France proves the left must show “only progressives have answers” to problems people are facing.

  • Labour has released a dossier claiming “166 hardcore Trussites” are among Tory election candidates.

  • James Cleverly, the home secretary, claimed Keir Starmer, the Labour party leader, would want to establish “a permanent Labour government” if he won. Cleverly then accused him of indulging in a “dog whistle attack on the Bangladeshi community”, referring to Starmer telling the Sun TV Q&A last week that “at the moment people coming from countries like Bangladesh are not being removed because they’re not being processed”.

  • Sunak defended his claim that Vladimir Putin would welcome a Labour victory in the election. Asked to justify the allegation, which he first made in comments to the Daily Telegraph, Sunak said: “[A Labour victory] sends a signal to our adversaries that we’re not going to take our security seriously.”

  • Thousands of people fear they will be unable to vote in the general election with delays, human error and Brexit being blamed for missing postal ballot packs in the UK and abroad.

  • Tactical voting and disaffection with mainstream parties make this 4 July a once-in-a-lifetime general election that could reshape the political landscape for decades, Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, argued. He said the Lib Dems seemed poised to entrench themselves in a swathe of formerly Conservative territory, particularly in the south.

Thank you for reading and all your comments today. This blog is closing now but you can read all of our politics coverage here.

Thousands of people fear they will be unable to vote in the general election with delays, human error and Brexit being blamed for missing postal ballot packs in the UK and abroad.

Clarissa Killwick, a British citizen living in Italy, said she could not trust the post to deliver her vote in time.

“I decided to leave nothing to chance and will be going to the UK to vote in person,” said Killwick, who runs a Brexit campaign group for UK citizens in Italy.

Another said they had to courier their ballot back to the UK.

Vienna-based Michael Goldrei said Hackney council in London told him his pack had been posted on 17 June but he started to panic when it had not arrived a week later. It eventually arrived on 26 June. Goldrei said he was “determined that my vote was counted” so he sent it back via DHL at a cost of €45 (£38). “But will others do that?”

You can read the full story by my colleagues, Lisa O’Carroll, Caroline Bannock and Rachel Obordo, here:

Tory deputy chairman Jonathan Gullis has criticised Keir Starmer, the Labour party leader, by saying: “let’s hope Putin doesn’t choose 6.01pm” to further escalate the war in Ukraine.

Speaking at a Conservative campaign event, Gullis said:

The leader of the Labour party, who is literally boasting that he plans to clock off at 6pm on a daily basis today.

So let’s hope Putin doesn’t choose 6.01pm when he wishes to go any further with his illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine.

Starmer told Virgin Radio this morning (see post at 11.20) that he intends to finish work at 6pm on Fridays to spend time with his family, adding that protecting time to spend with his son and daughter made him more relaxed and a better decision-maker.

Updated

Rishi Sunak is now addressing a rally in Hinckley, in Leicestershire.

The Guardian’s whitehall editor, Rowena Mason, says the prime minister has told the crowd he’s “not blind to people’s frustrations” with himself and the Conservatives.

Sunak said there are “three days to save Britain” and has urged voters not to “surrender” to Labour.

The Sun’s political correspondent, Noa Hoffman, who is also at the rally, wrote on X that “there’s quite a bit of empty space behind me and the room is not very big”.

Updated

The Liberal Democrats are increasingly confident they can beat the Conservatives in large parts of southern England, buoyed up by polls that show the party – currently in fourth place – picking up support across large parts of the south and south-east.

The party, led by Ed Davey, went into the election focused on 80 seats where it finished second in 2019 – almost all Tory held. A senior Lib Dems source has told Tom Symonds, a BBC home affairs correspondent, that the party could win more than 26 new seats, beating its previous record at the 1997 general election.

He has this report from the Liberal Democrat campaign bus:

Although the Lib Dems had 15 MPs in the last parliament, boundary changes at this election reduces that number to eight.

Winning 26 seats on Thursday would make 34 but some polls are currently predicting they’ll end up with 60 or 70 so they must surely be hoping for many more.

(If you Google it you’ll find they actually won 28 new seats in 1997, but we’re not counting two more which had previously been affected by boundary changes).

Despite us trying, Sir Ed Davey’s team won’t discuss the actual number of seats they hope to take on Thursday, so let’s have a look at what the party’s strategists are saying “off the record”.

While the Lib Dems are mainly targeting the Conservatives, senior officials claim the vote for Labour is “softer” than it was for Tony Blair’s landslide in 1997.

People who don’t love the idea of Keir Starmer as prime minister might be persuaded to change their allegiance for tactical reasons.

Another big source of Lib Dem votes used to be Remainers. But the party strategists believe they’re thinking less about Britain’s relationship with Europe and more about the state of public services. And sewage.

Which is why, in between the stunts, Davey talks endlessly to reporters about the NHS, social care, and clean water.

Updated

Aletha Adu is a political correspondent for the Guardian

Keir Starmer has said that a government in France led by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party would not hamper a Labour government’s intention to negotiate a better EU deal.

The RN made historic gains in the first round of France’s snap elections on Sunday with 33% of the vote, bringing the possibility the party could emerge as the largest in the final round of voting next Sunday.

The Labour leader was asked if he was concerned that a victory for Le Pen would hamper his ability to gain closer economic ties with the EU if he becomes prime minister.

“I genuinely don’t want to get ahead of myself. Firstly, we haven’t seen the final outcome in France, we’ve also got a big outcome of our own on Thursday, so we need those two pieces to fall into place and to be clear, I don’t think it affects the overall intention that we have, which is to negotiate a better deal with the EU,” he said.

You can see our coverage of the French election results here and the rest of the above report in this story below:

Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, said she is “under no illusion” of the “mountain” her party has to climb.

She told the Citizens UK general election assembly:

For too long, the people running our country have not just had the wrong ideas but the wrong priorities too. They’ve lost sight of what’s important. The basic things in life that we all need.

Standing in front of you today I am under no illusion about the mountain we have to climb. But I take comfort in knowing I am one voice in a movement. A movement which is greater than any politician’s promise. We seek power so we can hand it back to you – the people.

Labour are widely expected to win the general election on 4 July with a healthy majority, and possibly even in a landslide bigger than Tony Blair’s in 1997.

Faiza Shaheen says she has 'enough self respect' to not rejoin the Labour party if elected

Faiza Shaheen, the candidate blocked by Labour from standing in Chingford and Woodford Green, is standing as an independent in the north-east London seat.

Shaheen, who is seen to be on the left of the Labour party, stood in the seat in 2019, but was beaten by 1,262 votes by Iain Duncan Smith. She has been speaking with the Times Radio journalist John Pienaar. He asked her: If you were to be elected, would you hope to get the Labour whip and rejoin the Labour family?

Shaheen replied:

I don’t see that. To be honest, I think having an independent voice, given that there is going to be this huge majority Labour government and given how the Labour leadership is very strict about what they say and the treatment of anyone vaguely seen to be going against those lines, I think we will need an independent voice. And honestly the way I was treated and the lack of regard I have to have enough self-respect to say no.

Pienaar then put it to Shaheen, an academic who specialises in the study of inequality, that she could split the “anti-Tory vote” in her constituency, allowing Iain Duncan Smith, a former Conservative secretary of state for work and pensions, to cling on to the seat, which he has represented since its creation in 1997.

Shaheen said she had thought about the potential of splitting the vote a lot, which made her hesitant to run as an independent. But she was urged to run as an independent candidate by people in the local community, and believes, unlike many other independent candidates across the country, she could actually win in the Chingford and Woodford Green seat where she grew up.

“We are going to get a Labour government, we are going to get a majority government. This is about having a local voice that will stand up with Labour at times and at other times push them to be more progressive and be a different voice,” Shaheen said, stressing that an independent would not have to “toe the party line” in parliament.

Shaheen was deselected by Labour after liking a series of posts on X that allegedly downplayed antisemitism allegations. She has claimed Keir Starmer’s party had “a problem with black and brown people”.

“This campaign of prejudice, bullying and spiteful behaviour has finally been rewarded by Labour’s NEC [national executive committee] and my name has been added to the list of those not welcome in the candidate club. And it is no surprise that many of those excluded are people of colour,” Shaheen said in a statement.

Updated

The Daily Mirror has been sent a survey – of more than 1,000 NHS employees – showing that as many as 22% would think about leaving if the Conservatives remain in power after the general election, while 15% of respondents said they would definitely quit.

Find Out Now, which conducted the survey, interviewed 1,025 NHS employees on 25 June and 26.

Labour has promised to clear the NHS waiting list backlog in England within five years.

The shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, told the Guardian that in another Conservative term the total waiting list in England could grow to 10m cases, with healthcare becoming as degraded as NHS dental services.

There are over 110,000 vacancies in the NHS England workforce, which creates huge pressure on staff and affects the quality of care patients receive.

Updated

Twice as many Britons support tax increases to pay for public services as those who believe they should be reduced even if it means further public service cuts, according to new a report.

A study released by abrdn Financial Fairness Trust, a research body set up by the fund manager, said the public are willing to support policies that they don’t think will benefit their own finances, despite almost two in five (39%) of households now classed as having serious financial difficulties. The number of households with finances in distress has increased by 2.9 million since the last election in 2019, when 28% were in that situation.

About a third of the 5,572 people surveyed said they supported raising their taxes if it benefited other people with more hours of free childcare, cheaper energy tariffs for lower-income households and an increase in child benefit.

The Conservative candidate challenging Nigel Farage, the Reform UK party leader, in Clacton on 4 July has described the atmosphere at Reform UK rallies in an interview with PoliticsHome.

Giles Watling, who has been the MP for the Essex seat since 2017 (and was re-elected in the December 2019 general election with an increased majority), reportedly said that recent rallies were “chilling”.

He told PoliticsHome:

I’m not ascribing any of these sort of things to Nigel Farage himself but the method, the process is just sort of reminiscent of the big rallies at Nuremberg with people standing to one side. It’s a personality cult that’s been created. There may be no evil intent, but it feels wrong and bad.

Watling said there was “beautiful irony” that there has been “defacement” of his campaign posters by people “painting over my face and turning me into Adolf Hitler”.

His comments come after a Channel 4 undercover investigation found a Reform campaigner called Rishi Sunak, the UK’s first prime minister of colour and the first Hindu prime minister, a “fucking [P-word]”.

Separately, Reform last week withdrew support from Raymond Saint, who was its candidate in Basingstoke, after the Guardian informed the party he had been on a list of members of the BNP.

In another incident, earlier last month, Grant StClair-Armstrong, who was Reform’s candidate in North West Essex, resigned after it was discovered he had previously encouraged people to vote for the BNP.

Updated

Rory Stewart says he's 'very worried' Starmer government will use 'class warfare as cover for inaction'

Rory Stewart was a cabinet minister for about three months, made an unsuccessful bid for the Conservative party leader and now has new, second career (or third or fourth or fifth – he is also a writer, academic and former diplomat) as co-host of the enormously successful podcast, the Rest is Politics. The other host is Alastair Campbell.

The podcast is regarded as gospel in centrist dad circles and Stewart and Campbell broadly agree on quite a lot. But Campbell has failed to persuade Stewart to get excited about the prospect of a Labour government. In an interview with Times Radio, Stewart said he was “very, very worried” about what a Starmer government would do. He explained:

They [Labour] think that the problem is that the Tories screwed up the country because they were nasty people who were out of touch. The fantasy seems to be that if they bring in nice, good-willed people from difficult backgrounds, everything’s going to be fine.

I don’t feel that they have yet taken on board just how difficult government is … So I’m very, very worried that this is going to be a very stale, inactive government that’s going to be using class warfare as a cover for inaction.

That is all from me for tonight. My colleague Yohannes Lowe is taking over.

Updated

There are some headlines around claiming Keir Starmer has said he won’t work beyond 6pm if he becomes prime minister. This seems to be a misunderstanding based on Starmer telling Virgin Radio earlier (see 11.20am) that if he became PM, he would protect family time.

Asked to respond, Rishi Sunak said he never finishes work at 6pm, the Telegraph reports.

Updated

In his BBC interview, Rishi Sunak was asked by Chris Mason if he had an equivalent of the Jude Bellingham kick that might rescue the match for the Tories. Sunak replied with a reference to his favourite game, cricket. He said:

Mine is probably more a kind of flashy, cover drive or off drive, or something instead, but there we go.

Look, it is not over till it’s over.

Sunak hints he might not quit as Tory leader immediately if he loses general election

Rishi Sunak has hinted that he might not quit as Tory leader immediately if he loses the election on Thursday.

In an interview with the BBC’s Chris Mason, he did not give a direct answer when asked if he would stay on if he lost. But he said he would always put himself at the service of his party, implying that he might stay on for a period.

Asked if he would remain an MP for the whole of the next parliament, regardless of the election result, Sunak replied:

Yes. I love my constituents, I love serving them. You know that was my day job and … you know how passionate I am about our life and my home in north Yorkshire.

But when Mason asked if he would consider staying on for a few months as leader if he lost the election, Sunak replied:

Look my priority is focused on this election. I love this party dearly, and of course I’ll always put myself at the service of it, and the service of my country.

In recent years main party leaders who lose elections have tended to resign very quickly. But Sunak may come under pressure to stay on for a period to allow the party to have a proper inquest into what went wrong, assuming it loses badly, and to stop it rushing into a leadership election before it has had time for a period of reflection.

After losing to Tony Blair in 2005, Michael Howard stayed on as Tory leader for about six months to allow the party time to revise the leadership election process and to enable a new generation of MPs promoted to the shadow cabinet to build a reputation. This resulted in the party electing David Cameron as leader, who was thought to be Howard’s preferred choice and who went on to lead the Tories back into office at the subsequent election.

Last week the ConservativeHome website published an article by William Atkinson saying Sunak should follow Howard’s example.

And yesterday the Sunday Telegraph published a story by Gordon Rayner and Paul Nuki saying senior Tories have discussed urging Sunak to delay the next leadership contest to allow proper time for reflection. Rayner and Nuki claim that Kemi Badenoch’s supporters were particularly keen on this idea because they thought it would boost her chances of beating Penny Mordaunt. Rayner and Nuki said:

Last weekend a Zoom meeting attended by a number of candidates and party figures argued for a delay in any leadership contest to ensure the party does not rush into such a vital decision, though it soon became clear, according to one source, that Mrs Badenoch was at the centre of that plan.

“There was a really big push on the idea of going long, which meant December,” the source said. “The people arguing for it said it would give people time to get settled in after the election, but it quickly became obvious that ‘people’ meant Kemi.”

“Allowing a longer process would allow time for Kemi’s people to be put in place in Conservative head office, and for her to be given a prominent shadow Cabinet role and build up her public profile,” the source added.

Updated

Labour claims '166 hardcore Trussites' among candidates standing at election for Tories

One party that wants to keep talking about Liz Truss – and the mortgage payments blamed on her government – is Labour, which has released a dossier claiming “166 hardcore Trussites” are among Tory election candidates.

Such a group could form a “praetorian guard” that might even pave the way for the former prime minister’s comeback, a press conference convened by shadow Cabinet Office minister Jonathan Ashworth was told.

Ashworth said that the Conservative party’s “economic extremist wing” will assemble on 9 July for the second annual Popular Conservative convention, an event around the so-called ‘PopCon’ movement which Truss co-founded. This would be the “unofficial launch of a “Liz Truss takeover” of the Tories, he claimed.

He said:

In the 25 years or so I’ve been involved in politics now I cannot remember any occasion when an incumbent government has got their candidate selection so obviously wrong as the Tories have at this election.

Not even the professional exorcist standing for the Tories in Cardiff East could expel all the diabolical forces haunting their candidate list. The one person who will never take that action is Rishi Sunak, a man too weak to enforce basic standards within his own party

Referring to the “166 hardcore Trussites”, Ashworth added:

Most of them share the core ‘PopCon’ belief which is that Trussonomics was sabotaged by the so-called big state establishment in the autumn of 2022 and has never been given a proper chance to succeed.

Labour’s 12-page dossier comes name checks dozens of Tory candidates although it requires something a leap of the imagination to believe that they form the backbone to a new Trussite resurgence. They include the Tory candidates in places like Tottenham, where the party would have to overcome a majority of more than 30,000 that was racked up at the last election by Labour’s David Lammy.

Sunak defends saying Putin wants Labour victory, saying Starmer's policy on raising defence spending 'simply waffle'

Rishi Sunak has defended his claim that Russia’s President Putin would welcome a Labour victory in the election. (See 1.22pm.)

Asked to justify the allegation, which he first made in comments to the Daily Telegraph, Sunak said:

[A Labour victory] sends a signal to our adversaries that we’re not going to take our security seriously.

In an interview with Kate McCann from Times Radio, when she put it to him that he told the Telegraph Labour would “appease” Putin and that that was a strong claim to make, Sunak again defended it. He said it was fair:

Because they wouldn’t invest more in our defence, and that does embolden Putin.

Sunak’s claim is based on the fact that Labour has not committed to match his plan to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030. The Labour manifesto says: “We will set out the path to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence.”

When it was put to him that this was similar to the Tory plan, Sunak said that without an implementation date, this propopsal was “totally and utterly meaningless” and “simply waffle”.

James Bagge, the independent candidate who is running an energetic campaign against Liz Truss in South West Norfolk, has sent out a news release claiming canvas returns suggest he is getting close to 50% support in some villages in the constituency. Figures like this are not reliable, but some of the MRP polling suggests that Truss, who had a majority of more than 26,000 at the last election, will lose to Labour, and if so the Bagge campaign might be a factor. Robert Hutton from the Critic has written a wondeful sketch from the constituency saying many voters in the area are very keen to get rid of her. He explains:

Bagge is the wild card in this election, a shire Tory of the old school, running, he says, out of a sense of duty, a belief that the area needs an MP who cares about it. I am picking up a sense that however much the rest of Britain may feel it dislikes Truss, there are people in South West Norfolk who have disliked her longer, harder, and with greater specificity. By a stroke of good fortune, these are also the only people in the country who actually get a vote on her future.

Rishi Sunak has dismissed suggestions there is a contradiction between saying he still thinks the Tories can win, and warning people not to let Labour take power with a huge majority. When it was put to him that his messaging was confused, he told reporters:

No, I think it’s the same.

I’m fighting hard for for every vote. I am out there fighting my hardest to talk to as many people as possible to win this election.

The point I was making is that if these polls are replicated, what that means is people will, I think as I said, unwittingly – I don’t think that’s their intention – I don’t want them to sleepwalk into inadvertently doing something that hands Labour an unchecked majority to do what they want in the country.

Starmer rejects claim Labour won't be able to improve Brexit deal with EU if National Rally takes power in Paris

Keir Starmer said a victory for the far-right National Rally in the French parliamentary elections would not damage Labour’s goal of negotiating a “better deal” with the European Union.

Speaking to reporters, and asked if a Labour government would work with Marine Le Pen’s party, which won the first round of voting in France yesterday (the final round of voting is on Sunday), Starmer said:

I will work with any government in Europe and across the world if we are elected in to serve the country. For me, that’s what serious government is about.

When it was put to him that Le Pen favoured bilateral deals over EU-wide ones, he said:

I’ve always supported bilaterals as well as EU-wide agreements. They’re not mutually exclusive.

And some of the agreements we’ve got with France are bilateral in any event. I think they need to be stronger and better and deeper, particularly in relation to smashing the gangs that are running the vile trade of putting people into boats.

But there are also EU measures. The security agreement we want with the EU when it comes to dealing with smuggling gangs is really important.

Asked whether he was concerned having a Eurosceptic government in France could make it harder for Labour to achieve close economic ties with the EU, Starmer replied:

I genuinely don’t want to get ahead of myself. Firstly, we haven’t seen the final outcome in France. We’ve also got a big outcome of our own on Thursday.

I don’t think it affects the overall intention we have, which is to negotiate a better deal with the EU. I think the deal we’ve got is botched. I think that anybody who’s trading with the EU feels that it’s botched, and we can do better than that across not just trade, but actually research and development, also on the security front.

Updated

Starmer defends changing Labour with 'ruthlessness' - but rejects Corbyn's claim he's imposed 'straitjacket of conformity'

Keir Starmer has rejected Jeremy Corbyn’s claim that he has imposed “a straitjacket of conformity” on the Labour party.

Corbyn, the former leader who is now standing for re-election as an independent having been thrown out of the party under Starmer, told the i in an interview that marginalising the left would turn out to be a mistake.

Corbyn said:

I don’t see any appetite for political diversity by the Labour leadership at all. I just see a straitjacket of conformity.

You’ve got to keep the trust of people. If they crush dissent in the Labour Party, which they’ve been very good at doing then they actually give themselves a fool’s paradise of agreement and they have driven the other people out, who are actually very constructive.

Corbyn said Starmer should be listening to the left because “the shimmer of winning an election having a big majority will disappear pretty quickly, unless they start delivering on people’s worries and concerns”. The left had answers to problems like student debt and the shortage of affordable housing, he suggested.

Asked about Corbyn’s comment, Starmer told reporters today:

I changed the Labour party to put us in a position to win an election ... Yes, we did it with a steely determination, some say ruthlessness, and I’m not going apologise for that.

But he said there was a “diversity of views” in Labour, and that that was “a good thing”. He said he was going to remain focused on changing the country for the better.

Updated

Craig Hoy, the chair of the Scottish Conservative says they “are not running scared of anybody” as he unveiled a new campaign in unseat SNP’s Kirsten Oswald, in the affluent constituency of East Renfrewshire in Glasgow.

“Vote Scottish Conservative. Beat the SNP,” was the slogan unveiled on a damp day by Hoy and the candidate Sandesh Gulhane.

Hoy said:

We’re not running scared of anybody. We’re going out into the country to point out that in key seats from the north-east, the south-west, and including here in East Renfrewshire, it’s the street fight between the Scottish Conservatives and the SNP and a vote for any other party, including Reform or staying at home, or simply mean that the SNP within those seats.

Gulhane, who is a GP, says it is going to be “a very tight race” in the constituency that has see sawed between SNP and Conservative since 2015 with the number one priority the NHS.

“This isn’t just rich people, you know, we are in a very affluent area, but there’s not everyone is rich, and they’re spending their life savings on on getting operations,” he said.

Nine candidates are running for the seat. One estimate says the SNP’s vote share will be slashed from 44.9% to 26.8% but with the party remaining ahead of Tories in second place.

Sunak criticises racist culture in Reform UK, as Farage says he wants 'much stricter control' on candidate selection

Speaking to reporters this morning, Rishi Sunak accused Nigel Farage of not doing enough to tackle racism in Reform UK. Farage had “questions to answer”, Sunak said.

Referring to the Reform UK activist who was secretly recorded using a racist slur to describe Sunak, the PM said:

I think [Farage] described the comments as inappropriate last time I heard. They weren’t inappropriate. They were racist and appalling.

And the person who made them has apologised to Reform for the impact it’s had on them.

And as I said, you’ve got now multiple Reform candidates and campaigners openly espousing racist and misogynistic views, seemingly without challenge, tells you something about the culture within the Reform party.

In an interview with Times Radio this morning, Farage said that he wanted to impose “much stricter” control on Reform UK candidate selection. Many of its candidates have been exposed as having said racist or extreme comments in the past. Farage said that he only took full control as leader a month ago. He went on:

There were some people there that should never, ever have been there. And I’m sorry for that. And nobody is angrier than I am, particularly as we’re doing so well with black and ethnic minority voters.

Yes, some bad apples in a start-up. They’re gone. And I won’t have anyone like it in the future in the party. I’m going to put this thing under a much, much stricter control.

Farage said, despite all the controversy about racism in his party, recent YouGov polling suggests Reform UK has higher support among black and minority ethnic voters than the Liberal Democrats.

Farage only became Reform UK leader at the start of the election campaign. But before that he was, in effect, owner of the party. It is set up as a company, and he is the majority shareholder.

This is from Tom Peck from the Times on Ed Davey’s stunt this morning.

Can’t help feeling that the last big twist in this election campaign is when we, as a nation, have to ask ourselves whether we were to blame. Why did we keep cheering him on? Why did we keep demanding more? Wasn’t the bungee jump enough?

It prompted this reply.

‘The public inquiry was told that all safety checks were carried out on the cannon and safety net.’

Labour dismisses Sunak's claim that Putin hoping for Tory election defeat as 'desperate'

Rishi Sunak has revived his claim that British support for Ukraine would be at risk under a Labour government.

Speaking to journalists this morning, when it was put to him that Labour backs the government’s stance on Ukraine, Sunak said:

You have to back up words with actions, that’s what we are doing, we’re investing more in defence.

You have to have strength to signal to your adversaries that we’re not going anywhere,. That’s why under the Conservatives we’re increasing defence spending to 2.5% of GDP. If Keir Starmer is in charge those plans are going to be cut. That’s going to send a signal of weakness to our adversaries and to our allies and crucially will mean that we won’t have the funding to continue providing multi-year support to Ukraine.

Sunak went further in comments given to the Daily Telegraph for a story published this morning in which he claimed that Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, wanted Labour to win. Sunak told the paper:

The Conservatives have stood up to our adversaries to protect British interests and British values time and time again. We have stood shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine against Russian aggression, and we will keep doing so if re-elected.

It is clear from the evidence Russia does not want us to be re-elected. Putin would like nothing more than for Britain to step back, to appease his aggression rather than face it down, and that is what will happen with another party in power.

Nigel Farage has talked of appeasing Russia, which will only play into Putin’s hands, and Labour will cut UK defence spending on day one. This will embolden our enemies and send a signal to our allies that Britain is not with them any more. We cannot allow that to happen.

Labour says it does want to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, but it has not matched the Tory plan to achieve this by 2030. The Conservatives say they would fund this by cuts to the civil service, but Labour argues that those savings are not realistic.

This morning, asked about Sunak’s Putin comment, Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, dismissed this as a desperate claim. He said:

If Rishi Sunak wants to play this type of politics, maybe he should tell us about all the money that has flowed into the Tory party, which people suspect is connected with Russian business people.

He’s making a desperate, desperate intervention, because he knows that his authority is crumbling, and that Mr Nigel Farage is eating into a lot of his traditional support.

Ed Davey uses bungee jump to urge voters to 'do something you've never done before' and vote Lib Dem

It was not entirely clear, from reports this morning saying that he was about to do a bungee jump, why Ed Davey had chosen this particular stunt. In the BBC Question Times leaders’ special, when a woman complained that his daredevil election photocalls were a bit silly and did not look very prime ministerial, Davey argued that they were all intended to make a serious point.

You can imagine various political messages from a Lib Dem bungee jump: that you can go down a long way without hitting rock bottom; that if you go down a lot, you tend to bounce back; that principles can be elastic, but also strong enough to function.

Davey, though, had a simpler message. He wants to encourage people to “do something you’ve never done before” and vote Lib Dem. Peter Walker has the video of Davey shouting his message as he was dangling mid-air.

Voting Lib Dem is also safer, and not as scary, Davey might have added.

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One problem the SNP have at this election is that, having been in power at Holyrood since 2007, Scottish voters regard them as in incumbent government and may be inclined to vote on that basis – even though they have never been in power at Westminster, and these are elections for MPs, not MSPs.

As Rajdeep Sandhu reports for the BBC, this was evident when John Swinney, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, took part in a phone-in on Radio 5 Live this morning. Many callers wanted to complain about Holyrood isssues, Sandhu says. She explains:

Even though this isn’t an election for Holyrood - that will happen in 2026 - Scottish voters may intentionally or perhaps accidently end up punishing the SNP if they feel things in Scotland aren’t working as well as they should.

Some of that frustration was clear from the questions callers had on BBC Radio 5 Live for SNP leader John Swinney. They wanted to know about ferries, drug deaths and NHS waiting times.

At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning the PM’s spokesperson said Rishi Sunak was not concerned that some people could be disenfranchised by delays to receiving their postal ballots. The spokesperson said the problem was being addressed.

He told reporters:

We are aware of some concerns around the printing and delivery of postal ballot packs in some local areas.

We’re working closely with the Electoral Commission, returning officers, Royal Mail and the print suppliers to support the resolution of these issues.

We understand that the Royal Mail will also be conducting sweeps of their delivery system on polling day to make sure that any ballot packs still in the postal system are identified and passed to returning officers ahead of polls closing.

And anyone who hasn’t received their postal ballot yet may want to contact their returning officer or arrange for it to be reissued, or to arrange for an alternative avenue to cast their ballot.

Scotland’s first minister John Swinney has said there is “nothing that can be done” about delayed delivery of postal votes across Scotland.

When Rishi Sunak called the elections at the start of the Scottish school holidays, Swinney said the decision showed lack of respect for Scotland.

Over the weekend councils, including those in Edinburgh, Glasgow and East Renfrewshire, set up units for those going on holidays to pick up alternate documents or vote ahead of polling day.

Swinney said there had been “significant reports” of people not receiving their vote. The Electoral Management Board for Scotland said there had been “many difficulties experienced with the delivery of postal votes” across the country. In an interview this morning he went on:

Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done.

There are no other proxy arrangements that can be put in place, but I think it’s illustrative of the fact that there was no thought given to summer school holidays.

Twice as many Britons want tax rises as want cuts, survey finds

Twice as many Britons support tax increases to pay for public services as those who believe they should be reduced even if it means further public service cuts, according to a new report. Hazel Sheffield has the story.

Updated

Swinney says he is committed to leading SNP into 2026 Holyrood election, regardless of what happens at Westminster election

John Swinney, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, said this morning that he would remain party leader regardless of how well his party does in the general election. He told the Today programme:

I became leader of the SNP eight weeks ago today and I came into leadership in the SNP to bring my party together and to bring my country together.

I committed to do that for the long term, I committed to that task, to take my party well beyond the 2026 Scottish parliament elections, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.

Sunak sidesteps question about far right doing well in French election

Back at the Q&A, a man called Jordan says the far right have done well in the French election because of their stance on immigration. Does that affect Sunak’s thinking?

Sunak says he is starting to bring down legal migration. The net migration levels are forecast to halve. And, if he wins the election, he will let parliament vote every year on a cap on legal migration.

On illegal migration, he says he thinks it is unfair. He says that as someone coming from a family of immigrants, he says – jumping the queue is unfair. That is why he wants to stop people arriving illegally from applying for asylum.

He claims that 15 other European countries are now in favour of Rwanda-type policies.

If Labour wins, the numbers will go up, and the problem will not stop, he says.

He says Keir Starmer backed “free movement” when he was standing for Labour leader.

He avoids the the main thrust of the question, which was about the far right’s success in yesterday’s French election.

Updated

This is from my colleague Rowena Mason, who is covering the Sunak campaign today.

Rishi Sunak giving a stump speech at a warehouse in Stoke… which happens to be owned by Tory donor Lord Choudrey - one of the few businessmen left donating to his campaign

Rishi Sunak is now taking questions at the event in Staffordshire. He is at a warehouse, and the questions are from workers, not journalists.

The first one is about funding for pharmacies.

Sunak says his worked in his mother’s pharmacy when he was a child. And he used to deliver prescriptions on his bike. He knows what pharmacies can do for people. That is why he introduced Pharmacy First, he says. If he wins the election, he will build on that, he says.

Rishi Sunak is speaking at a campaign event in Staffordshire. As the advance briefing predicted, he has just told his audience.

I tell you this: once you have handed Keir Starmer and Labour a blank cheque, you won’t be able to get it back.

Under Labour, taxes will go up, he says. He says his priority will be to cut taxes.

Starmer says, if he becomes PM, he will not work 24/7 because having time for family 'makes you better decision maker'

In an interview with Virgin Radio this morning, Keir Starmer said that if he becomes prime minister after the election, he will ensure that work does not stop him spending time with his wife and two teenage children. He said that he is strict about spending Friday evenings with his family and that, as PM, he would like to keep that habit going. He said:

We’ve had a strategy in place and we’ll try to keep to it, which is to carve out really protected time for the kids, so on a Friday – I’ve been doing this for years – I will not do a work-related thing after six o’clock, pretty well come what may.

There are a few exceptions, but that’s what we do.

This Friday will probably be one of those exceptions. On Friday evening Starmer is likely to be forming a government, and doing all the other immediate tasks required of a new PM (including writing letters to the commanders of nuclear submarines telling them what to do if war breaks out and London can’t send orders any more because it has been destroyed).

In his interview, Starmer also said he thought making time for family made people better decision makers. He said:

[In politics] some people think, if you fill your diary 24/7 and don’t do anything else, that makes you a much better decision maker. I don’t agree with that, I think you’ve got to make space, so we do it …

Actually, it helps me, it takes me away from the pressure, it relaxes me, and I think, actually, not only is it what I want to do as a dad, it is better.

Updated

Starmer says he is confident people will be 'truly better off' and public services 'working properly' after five years of Labour

At the Labour even in Hitchin, Beth Rigby from Sky News put it to Keir Starmer that he was about to enter No 10 with the lowest personal approval ratings of any election-winning Labour leader. She asked him if he was worried about having “the biggest wedding … and then the shortest honeymoon ever”. Was he worried about having a wide mandate, but a shallow one?

In response, Starmer made the point that he regularly makes about how his record transforming Labour as leader showed that he was a person capable of delivering change. He went on:

Is it possible to bring around the change that we offer? Yes, it is. We have that determination, that intention, and in five years’ time we will be able to look back and say ‘You are truly better off, your public services are working properly and the economy is working for everyone.’ I’ll be very, very happy to be judged on that record.

Updated

Starmer says far-right victory in France proves left must show 'only progressives have answers' to problems people facing

Q: [From ITV’s Robert Peston] In France millions of people have voted for the far right. What lessons do you take from that?

Starmer says the lesson he draws from that is that people are disaffected, and that they do not trust politicians.

The lesson I take from that is that we need to address the everyday concerns of so many people in this country who feel disaffected by politics, who feel that either the country is too broken to be mended or that they can’t trust politicians because of what the Tories have done for the last 14 years.

We have to take that head on and we have to show, on Thursday for the United Kingdom, and across Europe and the world, that only progressives have the answers to the challenges that are facing us in this country and across Europe.

We have to make that progressive call. But we have to, in making that, understand why it is, certainly in United Kingdom after 14 years of chaos and failure, that people do feel disaffected with politics, return politics to service, and continue to make that argument that politics is a force for good.

Starmer’s reference to “progressives” may do something to assure people on the left alarmed by the briefing in the Sunday Times yesterday, from a Labour insider, saying that if Starmer wins the election, he will use his first speech as PM to “show that politics can be a force for good rather than the utopian view of progressive liberalism”.

Updated

Keir Starmer is taking questions at an event in Hitchin.

Asked about James Cleverly’s claim this morning that Labour would try to “gerrymander” the system so that it can stay in power (see 8.47am), he says he is “not taking any lectures from him” about elections.

The Tories have inflicted 14 years of chaos on the country, he says.

Cleverly accuses Starmer of 'dog whistle attack on Bangladeshi community'

James Cleverly has accused Keir Starmer of indulging in a “dog whistle attack on the Bangladeshi community”.

He made the point in at least two of his interviews this morning, telling BBC Breakfast:

The only intervention recently [on small boats] that Keir Starmer has had on this is this weird dog whistle attack on the Bangladeshi community where he’s claiming that that we are not returning people to Bangladesh which was, A, not true and, B, not relevant, because the Bangladeshi community make a tiny, tiny, tiny, less than a half a percent of small boat arrivals.

In another interview, Cleverly claimed he was “quite shocked” by Starmer’s remarks about Bangladeshi migrants.

He was referring to Starmer telling the Sun TV Q&A last week that “at the moment people coming from countries like Bangladesh are not being removed because they’re not being processed”. The comment caused considerable offence in the Bangladeshi community, and Starmer later sought to clarify what he meant, saying that Bangladeshi people have made a big contribution to Britain, that he was talking about returns agreements, and that it is a good thing the UK has one with Bangladesh.

While the Conservatives are implying that people should vote on Thursday not in the realistic hope of a Tory government, but to stop Labour winning with a massive majority (see 8.47am), Labour’s message this morning is that its supporters cannot take victory for granted. Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, was giving interviews this morning and this is what he told Sky News:

There’s an election on Thursday and if people want to bring an end to the chaos, to the scandals from the party in No 10 to the insider gambling scandals, if people have had enough of being stuck on an NHS waiting list, if people who’ve had enough of having their family finances hammered and pay more on their mortgage, they’ve got to come out and vote Labour.

Labour has been making this point on its social media advertising.

And on the Labour battlebus this morning, Steve Reed, the shadow environment secretary, was handing out “Don’t wake up to five more years of the Tories” pillows to reporters.

Cleverly says Banksy’s Glastonbury migrant boat ‘celebrated loss of life’

James Cleverly, the home secretary, has condemned the Banksy artwork of an inflatable boat holding dummies of migrants at the Glastonbury music festival, describing it as a “celebration of loss of life”. Matthew Weaver has the story.

Ed Davey’s election campaign tour may have been sponsored by Visit England. While other leaders have been doing conventional visits, the Lib Dem leader seems to have been engaged in a month-long tour sampling outward bound activities, and today he is bungee jumping. These are from my colleague Peter Walker.

Starmer will try to set up ‘permanent Labour government’ if he wins, James Cleverly claims

Good morning. Rishi Sunak has always sounded unconvincing when he tells interviewers that he genuinely thinks the Conservative party could win the general election but last night, after England’s victory in the Euros, he was able to post this message on X giving Tories a crumb of hope. “It’s not over until its over,” he said.

Of course, the analogy is not exact. England were rescued by a player capable of brilliance.

With only three full days of campaigning left to go, the parties are reverting to their core messages and, for the Conservative party, it is not in fact ‘we could still win’, but ‘don’t let Labour win with a massive majority’. James Cleverly, the home secretary, has been doing an interview round this morning and he claimed Keir Starmer would want to establish “a permanent Labour government” if he won. Cleverly told the BBC:

The reason that this is so important is because Labour have already said they are going to gerrymander the system, they have said they’re going to pack out the House of Lords, they’ve said they’re going to get votes at 16, they’re going to get votes for foreign nationals, they’re probably going to get votes for criminals.

They are determined to have a permanent Labour government and they are quite willing to distort the British political system to get that – that is what is at stake. This is not an election which is about giving the Conservatives a bit of a telling off, and many people might think that is legitimate …

[Labour] have said they’re going to distort the political system and I think there’s a real risk, there is a genuine risk, that they take a majority if that is what they get to try and lock in their power permanently, because they don’t really feel confident that they’re going to be able to make a credible case to the British people at the next general election.

As Kiran Stacey reports, Rishi Sunak will be making a similar argument in speeches today.

Here is the agenda for the day.

8.30am: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is campaigning in Eastbourne. Later he will be in Wokingham and the Cotswolds.

9.45am: Keir Starmer is campaigning in Hertfordshire. Later he will be in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire.

10.30am: Rishi Sunak has a campaign visit in Staffordshire, where he will take part in a Q&A. In the afternoon he will be in the West Midlands, and in the evening in the East Midlands.

If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line (BTL) or message me on X (Twitter). I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word. If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use X; I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos (no error is too small to correct). And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.

Updated

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