UK

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe UK’s official statistics regulator is investigating Rishi Sunak’s claim that Labour will hike household taxes by £2,000 if they win the election.The Office for Statistics Regulation launched the probe after the figure became the centrepiece of the prime minister’s attack on the opposition in Tuesday night’s TV debate.It sparked a barrage of condemnation from Labour’s shadow cabinet, with a slew of the party’s top politicians accusing the PM of deliberately lying to the public. In response, a defiant Conservative leader doubled down, repeating the assertion.Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer clashed on the implications of Labour’s spending plans (PA) More

Energy Secretary admits Rishi Sunak’s £2,000 tax attack on Labour spread over four yearsSign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak’s claim that Labour will hike household taxes by £2,000 is being investigated by the UK’s official statistics regulator. The Prime Minister has come under attack as Labour Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves accused him of lying 12 times during last night’s ITV debate, with shadow Cabinet Office minister Jonathan Ashworth saying he has “exposed himself as no better than Johnson”. It comes as the Treasury has poured cold water on Mr Sunak’s claim that Labour will put up taxes by £2,000 for every household. In the first televised debate of the general election campaign, the prime minister repeatedly pointed to a £38.5bn black hole in Sir Keir Starmer’s spending plans. However, Treasury permanent secretary James Bowler wrote to the Labour Party on Monday to dismiss the claim. The figure “includes costs beyond those provided by the civil service and published online by HM Treasury”, he told shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones.But it appears the prime minister is not backing away from the claims. Instead, he doubled down on the accusations and warned voters that Labour would cause a “£2,094 tax hike” if they win.Show latest update 1717593570Breaking: Sunak’s £2,000 Labour tax hike claim investigated by UK statistics regulatorThe UK’s official statistics regulator is investigating claims made by the Conservatives about the tax burden families could face if Labour wins the general election.The Office for Statistics Regulation – which is the independent regulatory of the UK Statistics Authority – is looking into the veracity of the Tory claim that Labour tax rises would amount to just over £2,000 over four years per working household.The body hasn’t detailed how long the inquiry will take.Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Robert Chote has written to leaders urging to use statistics “appropriately and transparently”. Sir Robert Chote said: “We believe official statistics should serve the public good. This means that when statistics and quantitative claims are used in public debate, they should enhance understanding of the topics being debated and not be used in a way that has the potential to mislead.”Salma Ouaguira5 June 2024 14:191717599271Tories slam Starmer over tax burden amid statistics regulator investigation Salma Ouaguira5 June 2024 15:541717599007 More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailJames Bowler, the most senior civil servant in the Treasury, may have just hammered the final nail into a misfiring Tory general election campaign.With Labour more than 20 points ahead in most polls and the Conservatives heading for less than 100 seats there was a sense of desperation for Rishi Sunak ahead of televised debate. It was a do or die situation.Well he did and now the party may die.Mr Sunak’s team alighted on the threat of a £2,000 tax rise for every household as one of his two main attack lines. And on the night it worked.The two men went head to head on ITV in the first debate of the campaign More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe Treasury has rubbished Rishi Sunak’s claim Labour will put up taxes by £2,000 for every household – a major line of attack for the prime minister in Tuesday night’s TV debate.In the first televised clash of the general election campaign, Mr Sunak repeatedly pointed to analysis by Treasury civil servants showing a £38.5bn black hole in Sir Keir Starmer’s spending plans.This would lead to each working household paying £2,094 more in tax under a Labour government, the PM said.His claims immediately started to unravel on Wednesday morning when Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho conceded on the Today programme that the £2,000 figure was spread over four years.Click here for our live coverage of the general election campaign.Then, within minutes in a dramatic and humiliating intervention for Mr Sunak, a letter emerged from Treasury permanent secretary James Bowler which he wrote to the Labour Party to pour cold water on the claim.Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer met for the first time on the campaign trail as they went head-to-head in a debate hosted by ITV (Jonathan Hordle/ITV) More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe Conservative Party must recapture young voters and not “chase Nigel Farage” to win back the electorate, Rory Stewart has warned.The former Tory leadership hopeful and government minister warned the party has not recovered since the “chaos” of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss and must return to the centre rather than pandering to the far-right.Mr Stewart’s comments come as the latest polls show the Conservatives on course for a landslide defeat as they lag more than 24 points behind Labour.Rory Stewart said that, since 2019 the Tories have ‘bet the house on voters over 65’ and given up on young voters More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailLabour have branded Rishi Sunak a “desperate liar” after new figures suggest that the number of people coming over on small boats has increase not gone down as he has claimed.The party calculated that more than 40,000 asylum seekers have now crossed the Channel in small boats since Mr Sunak made his pledge to stop them altogether in January 2022.It comes after fiery exchanges in the leaders debate on ITV last night where Mr Sunak insisted the number of illegal migrants on small boats was coming down.Labour’s calculations came as the Home Office have confirmed that 234 people crossed the Channel on small boats on Tuesday 4 June, taking the total for 2024 up to 10,745. This is 41.2 per cent more than up to the same point last year (7,610), and 7.6 per cent more than the previous record year in 2022 (9,984).Sunak said Starmer did not have a plan More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailEver since Rishi Sunak made his announcement in the rain in Downing Street, the election campaign has been characterised by an inability to budge Labour’s lead – but past contests suggest movement is still possible.This week’s polls show a massive lead for Sir Keir Starmer, with the party at about 45 per cent and the Tories hovering around 20. Labour has hopes of surpassing Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide victory. But the game is not over yet. In 1983, a SDP-Liberal Alliance came from well behind to run Labour close for second place in the popular vote.More recently, in 2017 the Tories’ 20-point lead seeped away under the challenge of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour, and Theresa May was left to form a minority government. With four weeks still to go, Tuesday’s fractious debate exposed weaknesses in both leaders and the introduction of Nigel Farage for Reform UK will shake up the maths in a number of constituencies.Reform UK and the Lib Dems are a factor, currently polling at 12 per cent and 11 per cent respectively, according to Techne UK. That makes nearly a quarter of the popular vote shared between the two parties.Lib Dem president and polling expert Dr Mark Pack said: “I think there is a difference for smaller parties like the Liberal Democrats, where the campaign can really make a difference to how many seats the party wins. “But if you’re looking at Labour and Tories, whichever one of them starts ahead of the other is, historically, the overwhelming favourite to end up ahead at the end of it.”In 1983, the SDP-Liberal Alliance, which later became the Lib Dems, came incredibly close to driving Labour out of its top-two spot in the vote share.One month before the ballots, Labour was polling at 32 per cent – 14 points ahead of the Alliance. But that gap rapidly shrank in the final 30 days. In the end, the margin between the two parties was just two points; Labour won just 27.6 per cent of the vote and the Alliance won 25.4. The first-past-the-post electoral system meant Labour was a distance ahead for the number of MPs – 209 to 23 – and Margaret Thatcher won a 144-seat majority but the Alliance threatened the 60-year dominance of the two parties.The Social Democratic Party (SDP) had been formed in 1981, by the “Gang of Four” senior Labour figures as a more moderate left-wing party. It teamed up with the Liberal Party to form the Alliance, led by former Labour chancellor Roy Jenkins. The Labour Party had swung to the left under Michael Foot, alienating some voters. The Alliance acted as a centre-left antidote for those deterred by his manifesto commitment for more “radical, socialist policies”.In 2024 the Tories are very unlikely to win the election, but the scale of their loss matters, and Labour is not the only challenge. Dozens of Tory seats are seriously threatened by smaller third parties, be that Reform, the Greens, or the Lib Dems, who are projected to win 48 seats by YouGov.In June 2017, although Theresa May’s Tories came out as the biggest party with 318 seats, they received just 2.3 per cent more than Labour’s 40 per cent of the vote share.Polls at the end of April 2017 had been showing a 23-point Conservative lead.With her approval ratings high, Theresa May was criticised when she declined the TV debates, while the exposure saw Mr Corbyn’s support grow. When Mrs May did appear on television in the final stretch of the campaign, the then-prime minister was seen as evasive on key issues – in particular the Brexit deal-or-no-deal debate. Labour support rose from 26 per cent to 40 per cent in a matter of weeks, while the Lib Dem numbers shrank from 13 per cent to 7 per cent, following a trend of voters gravitating towards the two main parties as election day approaches.Rishi Sunak undoubtedly has a mountain to climb ahead of 4 July, but history tells us it is more than possible the gap will close. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailJeremy Corbyn said the Labour’s Party’s behaviour towards Diane Abbott and Faiza Shaheen was “deplorable”, as he handed in his nomination papers to officially stand as an independent candidate in the upcoming general election.The 74-year-old veteran socialist was joined by comedian Rob Delaney and local residents to kickstart his campaign to regain the Islington North seat he has held since 1983.Dozens of campaigners sang “Oh Jeremy Corbyn” and cars peeped their horns as the former Labour leader stood on the steps outside Islington Town Hall.He said: “I hope those who have always supported Labour will understand that I am here to represent the people of Islington North with the same principles I’ve stood by my entire life: equality, democracy and peace. These principles are needed now, more than ever.”The 74-year-old added that he wanted to bring back public ownership of the UK’s major utilities, such as water and also wants to stop what he sees as privatisation of the NHS.Supporters gathered in Islington for Mr Corbyn’s launch More