UK

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA leading think tank has accused Labour and the Conservatives of a “conspiracy of silence” as it warned voters that tax rises are likely in the next five years.The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) criticised the manifestos of both main parties, saying they leave voters “guessing” and casting their ballots in a “knowledge vacuum”.It also accused Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party and the Greens of poisoning the debate around the painful economic decisions ahead with what it described as unattainable pledges on tax. The next government faces a stark choice between making tax rises beyond what it promises in its manifesto, cutting spending, and increasing borrowing, the think tank warned. Paul Johnson, the director of the IFS, said it would be “a considerable surprise if no other taxes are increased over the next five years”, and that none of the main parties are facing up to the difficult choices ahead.“We’ve called this a conspiracy of silence, and that has been essentially maintained,” he said. “Regardless of who takes office, they will soon face a stark choice: raise taxes by more than they have told us in their manifesto, implement cuts to some areas of spending, or break their fiscal rules and allow debt to rise for longer.“That is the trilemma. What will they choose? I don’t know; the manifestos do not give us a clue.”Mr Johnson also accused Labour and the Conservatives of making “essentially unfunded commitments” to improve the NHS. Paul Johnson, director of the IFS appearing on the BBC One current affairs programme, ‘Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg’ More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailAlistair Carns’s decision to leave the Royal Marines after 24 years’ service to stand for Labour in the coming election came as a huge surprise. The colonel, who won the Military Cross in Afghanistan, was widely viewed as someone who would rise very high in the armed forces.Standing in Birmingham Selly Oak, he is one of 14 former services personnel to stand as prospective Labour candidates in this election, something that does no harm to Keir Starmer’s attempts to portray his party as one that can be trusted with the defence of the realm.Carns, who joined the Royal Marines at 19, was due to be promoted to brigadier this month, which at the age of 44 would have made him among the youngest in that rank. He has served in every major conflict this country has been engaged in for the last two dozen years.Much of Carns’s service history – 14 of his 24 years – cannot be made public for security reasons. He won his Military Cross during a six-month tour that began at the end of 2010. Those of us who reported from Afghanistan remember the fierce, sustained violence of this period as the Taliban made increasing use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and lethal ambushes.But it was during his last posting in a conflict zone that Carns began to think hard about how he could best address the challenges Britain faces in an increasingly dangerous world. The answer, he decided, was to enter politics.“We are seeing a completely different form of warfare. We are seeing, for example, the use of hundreds, thousands of drones, drones destroying battle fleets. How many drones have we got in the army? How many drones are in the navy? What lessons are we learning? Are we moving fast enough to keep up with the character of conflict, and if we go to war tomorrow, are we ready?” Carns says.“We need leadership, and at the moment, Keir Starmer, without a shadow of a doubt, is the person who can provide it. One of the biggest points for me is Labour’s reinvestment in national security being at the centre of the manifesto, and the simple reason is that you can’t have a growing and secure economy without national security in these dangerous times. These [matters] are intrinsically linked, as is our foreign policy. Labour governments have consistently funded defence more than the Conservatives.“I have worked for three defence secretaries in the national security structure, and I feel this gives me the ability to put plans into practice.”Carns says he decided to stand because ‘change is best delivered via the ballot box’ More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA high-flying Royal Marines colonel who has given up his military career to run for parliament has insisted that “only Labour can be trusted on defence”.Colonel Alistair Carns is one of 14 veterans standing for Labour at this general election, in a significant shift since Jeremy Corbyn was leader of the party in 2019.Col Carns was due to be promoted to brigadier at the age of 44, making him among the youngest in Britain to achieve that rank, but is instead campaigning to be the MP for Birmingham Selly Oak.The decorated military hero has spoken exclusively to The Independent about why he decided to go into politics.“We need leadership, and at the moment Keir Starmer, without a shadow of a doubt, is the person who can provide it,” he said. “Only a Labour government can be trusted to defend our country.“One of the biggest points for me is Labour’s reinvestment in national security being at the centre of the manifesto, and the simple reason is that you can’t have a growing and secure economy without national security in these dangerous times. These [matters] are intrinsically linked, as is our foreign policy.”‘Keir’s army’ of former military personnel join the Labour leader in Manchester More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA shock new poll appears to have confirmed that Reform holds a narrow lead over the Tories with just 10 days to go before the general election.According to the Redfield and Wilton survey of 10,000 voters polled after Nigel Farage made his comments blaming the west for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, his Reform UK are one point ahead of the Tories both unchanged on 19 percent and 18 percent.The findings have all top three parties unchanged from the survey on 19 and 20 June last week with Labour on top on 42 percent.Redfield and Wilton’s director of research Philip van Scheltinga told The Independent that the size of the survey meant “it was a very robust sample”.Farage still ahead of the Tories despite being described as pro-Putin More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailKemi Badenoch has hinted she could make another run for the Tory leadership, if the party loses the election next month.During a debate hosted by the Institute of Directors and Bloomberg on Monday, the Business Secretary was asked about her intentions if Rishi Sunak is ousted on 4 July. She claimed there was “no better job” than Business and Trade Secretary, which she described as being “a lot easier and a lot less pressured than being prime minister”.But the senior Conservative suggested she could have bigger ambitions to become a Tory leader wannabe despite losing the 2022 contest.The Conservative right-winger, who is fighting for re-election in the redrawn North West Essex seat, said: “The fact of the matter is, I stood and I lost. And what terrifies me now is not not becoming leader, it is seeing Labour come in.“This is one of the things that I’ve found most difficult doing this job, that people tend not to know what it is, because I’m always asked the leadership question. We’re so interested in the personalities, in the gossip and so on.“We need to focus on this election. The choice is going to be between us or between them. Be afraid if it is them, is all I would say. And we will talk about leadership things after an election, but not before.”The former women and equalities minister is favoured by the right of the party More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe Independent is giving readers the chance to chat directly with candidates from some of the major political parties in a special general election series of Ask Me Anything events.In this question and answer session, our community can chat exclusively with Dr Ellie Chowns, who is hoping to be elected MP in North Herefordshire for the Green Party.Serving as the party’s housing and communities spokesperson, Dr Chowns served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the West Midlands for the party from 2019 to 2020. She has also been a councillor on Herefordshire Council since 2017, representing the Bishops Frome & Cradley ward, and is leader of the council’s Green group.The Greens have pledged to create 150,000 new council homes every year by the end of the parliament, end the Right to Buy scheme, introduce rent controls and end no-fault evictions.The party is also promising to stop “all new fossil fuel projects”; impose a wealth tax of 1% annually on assets above £10m; invest £50bn in health and social care – including making personal social care free at the point of use; and bring water companies, railways, and the big five retail energy companies into public ownership.If you have a question about the Green Party’s manifesto, pledges or policies submit it now, or when Dr Chowns joins you live at 6pm on Friday 28 June for the “Ask Me Anything” event.Register to submit your question in the comments box under this article. Simply scroll down or click here to leave your comment.If you’re not already a member, click “sign up” in the comments section to leave your question. For a full guide on how to comment click here.Don’t worry if you can’t see your question – they may be hidden until the Q&A starts. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailAs the country gears up for a general election in under two weeks, young voters are relying less and less on traditional media to access the news. A substantial 21 per cent of 18- to 34-year-olds say that TikTok and Instagram have been their main source of information during the election campaign, an exclusive Techne poll for The Independent can reveal. Perhaps most surprising is that Twitter and Facebook are the least-preferred source for young voters – being chosen by just 4 per cent. While all of these platforms can share both image and video content, Instagram and TikTok have more of a skew towards visual content, while Twitter and Facebook are more centred on text-based content.All age groups under the age of 54 are more likely to turn to Instagram and TikTok for election coverage than to Twitter and Facebook, the poll suggests. On the opposite end of the spectrum, 55- to 64-year-olds are the most likely of all age groups to get their information from Facebook and Twitter, at 14 per cent. Techne UK chief executive Michela Morizzo said that the parties should take into account voters’ information preferences in their campaign strategies.“Only approximately half of upcoming general election voters rely on traditional media sources, and so we can see, only in the last five years or so, from the election in 2019, significant changes in how voters think about the political parties and where they compare their proposals. This very much affects the campaigning strategy and tools that candidates should use. It is key to correctly match the target audience with the right tools, otherwise the strategy is completely useless.”Though there has been much flurry around politicians dipping their toes into TikTok, Facebook and Twitter have been by and large the primary outlets for investment among the major parties’ social media campaigns. So if the parties are aiming to catch Gen Z voters in their net, this may not have the impact they were hoping.Recent analysis by Who Targets Me, an organisation that monitors political advertising, found that Labour had spent over £2.4m on social media advertising via Meta (which owns Facebook) and Google during this campaign. Sam Jeffers, executive director of Who Targets Me, explained that social media platforms are crucial for engaging with voters, whether via ads, news, or more lighthearted content. “The campaigns will be hoping to reach younger voters with fun, viral videos on TikTok, but they’re also going to try to find them with ads on Instagram, YouTube and elsewhere. You have to look at it all together, as part of a broader, more complicated media diet. In the end, it all adds up to the social media platforms being incredibly important in how voters, particularly younger ones, get their politics.”He added: “TikTok doesn’t allow paid political ads, so the parties can’t run their target campaigns there. But social media users tend not to spend their time on just one platform. Even if people happen to use TikTok a lot, they’ll still also hop around other services looking for interesting and entertaining stuff.”For the most part, traditional news outlets remain the preferred source of election coverage for half (48 per cent) of all voters, a figure that remains broadly similar across all age groups.Around one in 10 voters relies on the personal views of family and friends to guide them during the run-up to the general election.Young voters are least likely to turn to family and friends as a primary source of election information (8 per cent), while over-55s are most likely to do so (14 per cent). More

Tory election betting probe: ‘Totally unacceptable’ if rules broken says Welsh secretarySign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe betting scandal continues to dominate the campaign trail for under-fire Rishi Sunak, who has been forced to confirm he is not personally under investigation. The prime minister said he is not aware of any other Conservative candidates being investigated, following the revelations that alleged bets connected to two Tory candidates are being looked at by the Gambling Commission. Amid warnings that the saga will damage the party’s results on 4 July, a recent poll by Savanta revealed the Tories are set for a wipeout in London.The survey found 55 per cent of Londoners are planning to vote for Labour and only 22 per cent for the Conservatives. Nigel Farage has been speaking in Kent on the campaign trail and doubled down on widely criticised claims about Nato’s role in the build-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Reform leader hit back at Boris Johnson’s criticism over his comments branding the former prime minister the “worst PM of modern times” as he unveiled a giant version of the i newspaper frontbage with the headline “Boris blames EU for war in Ukraine”. Show latest update 1719239758Labour is on course for a 250-seat Commons majority, according to new pollLabour is set to win a 250-seat majority in the House of Commons, according to a new poll released on Monday afternoon.The Focaldata survey said the Conservatives are set to lose an astounding 262 seats, leaving the party with 110 MPs.According to the research the Labour Party would gain 250 seats, which would culminate in 450 seats in the Commons.The Liberal Democrats would gain 42 seats, while the SNP would lose 34.Joe Middleton24 June 2024 15:351719239049Tories doing own inquiry into betting allegations, says SunakThe Conservative Party is conducting its own internal inquiry into allegations that officials and candidates bet on the date of the general election, Rishi Sunak said today.Speaking to journalists, Mr Sunak said: “(The Gambling Commission) don’t talk about the individuals that they are investigating,” the Prime Minister told journalists on the campaign trail in Edinburgh on Monday.“What I can tell you is I am not aware of any other candidate that they are looking at.”He added: “What I can tell you is, in parallel, we’ve been conducting our own internal inquiries and of course will act on any relevant findings or information from that and pass it on to the Gambling Commission.”The party’s chief data officer Nick Mason is the latest figure understood to be taking a leave of absence amid claims he placed bets on the election date, along with director of campaigning Tony Lee.Mr Lee’s would-be MP wife Laura Saunders and fellow candidate Craig Williams, who was a parliamentary aide to the prime minister, are also under investigation by the Gambling Commission.Joe Middleton24 June 2024 15:241719238466Watch: Nigel Farage defends Ukraine war comments and attacks Boris JohnsonNigel Farage defends Ukraine war comments and attacks Boris JohnsonJoe Middleton24 June 2024 15:141719236960What are Labour and the Conservative positions on transgender rights ahead of the 2024 general election?Labour has clarified its position on transgender rights as Wes Streeting says the party would “modernise and reform” gender laws if it comes into power on July 4.The shadow health secretary has said Labour’s policy aims to allow transgender people to “live their lives with freedom, dignity and respect”. His comments come after all the major parties unveiled their manifestos over the past few weeks, outlining their visions for the country. Each covers transgender policy, with the issue becoming a major cultural talking point over the past few years.You can read The Independent full story below.Salma Ouaguira24 June 2024 14:491719236720Rishi Sunak insists he got general election timing rightThe prime minister has insisted he was “right” to choose 4 July as the day for the general election. During a media huddle in Edinburgh, he was asked if he would have wanted more months to make his case.He said: “No – The most important job I had when I was Prime Minister was to restore economic stability back to our country after what has been a really difficult few years with Covid and the war in Ukraine.“My priority was bring inflation down, because inflation was eating into everyone’s pay packets, their savings, making everyone feel the challenges of the cost of living.”Rishi Sunak speaks to the media after the launch of the Scottish Conservative manifesto at the Apex Grassmarket Hotel in Edinburgh More