The Conservative Party is facing electoral wipeout, the latest poll has revealed, as a close ally of Rishi Sunak’s was forced to deny speculation that the prime minister could quit before the general election on 4 July.
Labour is set for a majority of 416 at the upcoming general election, leaving the Tories at just 37 seats, according to the new Deltapoll survey, which puts Sir Keir Starmer’s party on 46 per cent compared to the Conservatives on 21 per cent – with even the prime minister set to lose his Yorkshire seat.
Mr Sunak is claimed to be despondent over the furious backlash to his decision to skip a D-Day memorial attended by other world leaders, and he appeared to dodge questioning on Saturday after a scheduled press event was cancelled during a campaign visit to a walled garden at Auckland Castle.
With fierce critic Nadine Dorries claiming to have heard rumours on Saturday “that Sunak’s about to fall on his sword”, cabinet minister Mel Stride was forced to insist there was “no question” whether or not Mr Sunak would lead the Tories into polling day.
Workers ‘desperate’ for change, says GMB union leader
Workers are “desperate” for a change of government after 14 years of “chaos and failure” under the Conservatives, a senior union leader said.
Gary Smith, general secretary of the GMB, told the union’s annual conference in Bournemouth that the building blocks of decency at work had been “hacked away” by the Tories.
Workers had suffered low pay, long hours and insecurity and had had enough of the way the country has been run, he said.
But Mr Smith also warned Labour that change cannot be just a “snappy election slogan”.
He told delegates: “The Tories have imposed austerity, hollowed out our public services and left our economy in tatters.
“They are agents of chaos and their time is up.
“My challenge to Labour is to recognise that ‘change’ can’t be just a snappy election slogan. It must be brought to life in the reality of government.”
Mr Smith said Labour’s New Deal for workers was a promising sign of the party’s plans in government, adding: “Our job is to hold the next Labour government to account and bring the New Deal to life.”
“There is the prospect of a better future for workers,” he added, praising Labour for pledging to scrap the controversial legislation aimed at ensuring a minimum level of service during strikes.
Starmer ‘critical’ of early release scheme
At a campaign event in Essex, Sir Keir Starmer said he was “critical” of the early release scheme for prisoners but added that “tough decisions” would have to be taken.
The Labour leader said: “I am critical of the Tories’ early release scheme because what’s happened is that they’re releasing early prisoners who should still be in prison and that’s a shocking state of affairs. Like the many problems that they have left for the country, if we do come into power we’re going to have to fix it.
“Now that will involve building prisons, that will involve taking tough decisions because the money has been allocated for prison building but there are tough decisions about planning and getting those prisons up.”
Starmer accuses Tories of ‘scattergun’ approach on welfare reform
Sir Keir Starmer has criticised the Tories’ “scattergun approach of desperate policy” in response to their latest pledge to halt the rising costs of welfare by reforming the benefits system.
The plan from the Tories would save some £12 billion a year by the end of the next parliament, the party has claimed, by ensuring more working age people currently claiming benefits have a job.
The Labour leader said: “I have never seen such an ill-thought-through proposal that’s been desperately put on the table today, and you will all be picking at it.
“You will have seen the reaction of the various bodies that look at the numbers, and what we’re seeing now on a daily basis is a sort of scattergun approach of desperate policy put on the table that isn’t thought through. We’ve seen this almost every day.
“I do accept that we do need to improve here; I do accept that we need to get the bill down.”
Claims Douglas Ross may have used Westminster expenses to travel for football linesman job
Douglas Ross has “serious” questions to answer on whether he used Westminster expenses to travel for his job as a football linesman, Scotland’s first minister John Swinney has said.
According to the Sunday Mail, the Scottish Conservative leader’s advisers flagged concerns over 28 parliamentary travel claims which may have been combined with his work as a linesman.
Under UK parliamentary rules, MPs can only claim travel from their home airport – which was either Inverness or Aberdeen in Mr Ross’s case when he was MP for Moray. They can also claim for “diverted” journeys, but must supply detailed notes on the diversion.
Mr Ross’s aides reportedly raised alarm in November 2021 over expense claims which included a £58 parking fee at Inverness Airport in July 2018 while Parliament was in recess. It also stated £43 rail travel from Heathrow to central London was claimed the day after Mr Ross was a linesman in a match in Iceland.
Mr Ross told the paper it was “not possible” to go from London to a football game as he would not have had his referee kit with him, saying: “I have only ever claimed expenses related to my role as a member of Parliament and the costs of getting me to and from Westminster.
“These have all been agreed by IPSA, the independent body that oversees MPs’ expenses, but I would have no issue with them being scrutinised again.”
Minister responds to Farage’s claim that Sunak does not understand ‘our culture’
Cabinet minister Mel Stride has said Nigel Farage’s attack on Rishi Sunak for not understanding “our culture” is “deeply regrettable”, reports Oliver Browning.
He told BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme that comments from the Reform UK leader were “ill-advised”. Mr Farage told the same programme that the prime minister was “disconnected by class [and] by privilege” from ordinary people.
“I feel very uncomfortable with that … I’ve sat around a Cabinet table that’s the most diverse in history,” Mr Stride said. “I’m very proud of the fact that we have a British Asian who is right at the top of our government.”
Watch: Labour candidate parachutes into Normandy to raise money for British Legion
Emily Thornberry quizzed on Labour spending plans
Emily Thornberry has given a series of combative media interviews this morning, appearing to take issue with the line of questioning taken by multiple different presenters.
Speaking to Kate McCann of Times Radio, Ms Thornberry was asked how Labour would avoid cutting £20bn of unprotected funding for prisons, justice and local government, to which the Labour frontbencher at one point said: “I thought I was going to talk about my announcement on prisons.”
“If you want better answers, you’d better get somebody from the Treasury team in,” Ms Thornberry later said, adding that Labour doesn’t yet have a detailed analysis of what money government does or does not have. Asked how she can then promise not to raise taxes, Ms Thornberry said: “Because the new things we’ve said we’re going to spend money on, we’ve said where the money is coming from.”
On LBC, Ms Thornberry criticised as “odd” Lewis Goodall’s question of whether she would be happy for Sir Keir Starmer to stay on as PM if he lost a Commons no-confidence vote, after she dismissed the vote lost by Labour’s first minister Vaughan Gething in the Senedd.
And the frontbencher accepted to GB News that school class sizes may have to rise because Labour’s imposition of VAT on private schools, saying: “There may well be complaints, but I am afraid if I have a choice between putting VAT on private schools and making sure the children in my area can have breakfast before they start learning, I know where I am.”
Sunak’s D-Day blunder ‘flawless in its perfection of wholesale stupidity’
Rishi Sunak’s D-Day blunder was “flawless in its perfection of wholesale stupidity”, biographer Sir Anthony Seldon has said.
Sir Anthony, who has written biographies of every prime minister through from John Major to Liz Truss, told Times Radio: “I do think it was obviously a spectacular own goal.
“If you had an AI team to design the most perfect cock up for what the prime minister could possibly do, it would be that. I mean, it was peerless, flawless in its perfection of of wholesale stupidity,” Sir Anthony said.
“And, you know, you can blame the aides, but the prime minister signs things off … He doesn’t have that political nous. In the last analysis, prime ministers alone need that hard-to-define quality of judgment or nous.”
Tory councillor accused of trying to ‘smear’ opponent over D-Day attendance
While Rishi Sunak has been heavily criticised for skipping the international D-Day event in Normandy, one Tory councillor has sought to do the opposite – criticising a Labour candidate for being in France rather than campaigning.
Bayo Alaba, a former parachute regiment veteran who is Labour’s candidate for Southend, took part in D-day commemorations by doing a parachute jump in Normandy to raise money for the Royal British Legion and Trust Links charities.
In a Twitter post, Tory councillor Daniel Nelson is reported by LabourList to have said it was “great to be with [Conservative candidate Gavin Haran] in the constituency talking to residents”, adding: “Is the Labour candidate still in France?”
In a new post on Sunday, Mr Nelson said he wholeheartedly apologised to Mr Alaba, absolutely supported his decision to be in France, and had donated to his campaign, adding: “As a brother of a serving member of the Armed Forces I understand the sacrifice of our veterans and would never want to disrespect that in any way.”
Labour’s Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting had both criticised his previous remark, with the party’s deputy leader saying: “Tories smearing Bayo Alaba Labour’s candidate for Southend for visiting France? We see you … We’re proud of him. Shame on you.”
Southend Council’s Labour leader said the incident had seen donations to Mr Alaba’s fundraising page increase by £2,000.
£2 hourly pay rise could ease care worker shortage, says Ed Davey
A £2 hourly pay rise could help tackle the care worker shortage, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has said.
He told Sky News: “If you paid this extra money to care workers, I think people would make a choice of not working in supermarkets or Amazon warehouses and things like that because they would feel that the tough job of being a carer would be properly rewarded.”
Sir Ed, who has previously spoken of his own caring responsibilities for his disabled son, added: “There are millions of people who have similar experiences to me and my family where they are doing a lot of the caring. If we support carers who are caring for their loved ones at home, then actually a lot of the caring will be done by families.
“If you are more generous with respite care, with carers’ allowance and helping people into work so they can balance caring and working – we have got a full package so yes, it is about paying care workers better and valuing them more. It is also [about] looking after the millions of family carers.”
He said one of the reasons why the Conservatives have got things “so badly wrong” is that they have been relying on people coming in from other countries.
Sir Ed added: “They have issued hundreds of thousands of healthcare visas and those people are doing a fantastic job and I think we should recognise that but imagine if we were paying healthcare workers more – I don’t think we would need to issue all those visas.
“I think that a lot of people in this country would be more willing to work in the care sector.”
