General election – latest: Sunak hits back at Labour ‘supermajority’ claim as Tories U-turn on National Service
Tories fighting hard to prevent Labour ‘super-majority’ bigger than 1997, minister says
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Rishi Sunak has insisted he has “absolutely not” lost hope of winning the 4 July general election despite Tory allies warning of the risk of Labour winning a “super-majority”.
Defence secretary Grant Shapps claimed the Tories were fighting hard to prevent Labour from securing a crushing win bigger than the 1997 landslide. The Tories fear the Blue Wall could be knocked down with chancellor Jeremy Hunt warning he faces a battle to hang on to his Godalming and Ash seat, a key Lib Dem target.
It comes as the Conservative Party could make a surprising U-turn on its flagship pledge to bring National Service after the defence secretary suggested the scheme would last less than a month. The Tory manifesto confirmed the scheme would be a “year-long full-time placement in the armed forces or cyber defence”. But he today said it would be much shorter.
Elsewhere, the Green Party launched its manifesto, which includes a pledge to raise taxes on the “super-rich” and nationalise water, railways and energy companies, as well as scrapping university tuition fees.
Meanwhile, Mr Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer are preparing to face a grilling live interview in front of an audience for Sky News in Grimsby.
Opinion | With his ‘fairytale’ manifesto, Sunak has Trussed himself up
“Crucially, all the measures are paid for by the sort of imaginary funding sources that opposition parties turn to because they think they don’t have to make the numbers add up. A crackdown on tax avoidance and evasion, efficiencies in the civil service, and the big item: a £12bn-a-year cut in welfare spending.
“This last pledge is to be achieved by “better targeting” disability benefits and tightening up “how the benefits system assesses capability for work”. It is pie in the sky – precisely the type of nonsense that Sunak so rightly criticised Truss for peddling in the Tory leadership campaign two years ago.”
Salma Ouaguira12 June 2024 17:00
Greens promise to cancel oil licences and end sewage scandal
Energy
The Green Party said it would “accelerate clean energy investment and delivery” by cancelling recent oil and gas licences such as those for the Rosebank oil and gas field, removing all oil and gas subsidies and stopping all new fossil fuel extraction projects in the UK.
The party also said it wants to see “the phase-out of all nuclear energy” and will push for wind to provide 70% of UK energy by 2030.
Nature
On nature, the party has outlined extensive plans to protect and restore the UK’s environment by “giving rights to nature itself”.
The party will work to end the sewage scandal, extend people’s access to nature with a new English Right to Roam Act, and end the emergency authorisation of bee-killing pesticides.
On protecting animals and habitats, elected MPs will call for an end to all blood sports, badger culling, factory farming, routine use of antibiotics in farm animals and close confinement in cages.
Farming
For more on agriculture, the Greens have pledged to “work with farmers and other stakeholders to transform our food and farming system”.
Their manifesto includes measures such as almost tripling financial support for farmers to transition to nature-friendly farming, improving biodiversity and soil health, and linking farm payments to reduced use of pesticides.
Jane Dalton12 June 2024 16:40
Environmental groups hail Green party manifesto for tackling climate crisis
Several environmental campaigners have welcomed the Greens’ manifesto for “grasping the reality” of the climate crisis.
The party pledged to stop all new fossil fuel projects, tax the wealthy and “mend broken Britain” as it launched its manifesto in Hove, East Sussex.
According to the document, elected Green MPs will push for measures that restore the UK’s depleted nature, increase the energy efficiency of homes and spend £50 billion per year on health and social care by 2030.
Mike Childs, head of policy at Friends of the Earth, said: “The Green Party is so far the only political party that has grasped the reality that unless we properly invest in reducing carbon emissions from our homes, industries, farming and transport, it will be impossible to avoid the huge financial and human costs of the climate crisis in the future.”
Dr Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK policy director, said the manifesto “clearly recognises” that there is no long-term prosperity or security for anyone without tackling the climate and nature crisis.
“Both the Green Party and the Lib Dems have now drawn a clear line in the sand between them and the Labour Party on the common sense notion that the very richest people should pay more to fix our crumbling country,” he said.
Salma Ouaguira12 June 2024 16:30
Rishi Sunak’s final election gamble
Rishi Sunak drew comparisons with his predecessor Liz Truss and her disastrous mini-Budget as he unveiled a manifesto containing £17bn of tax cuts.
The grand unveiling at the Silverstone Formula One racetrack was seen as a last chance for Mr Sunak to turn around his party’s flagging fortunes in an election campaign that has been filled with missteps as the Tories remain stuck at around 20 points behind Labour.
It came on the same day as a YouGov poll showed that Reform UK is closing in on the Tories at just one point behind, with 17 per cent to the Conservatives’ 18 per cent.
Salma Ouaguira12 June 2024 16:20
Greens pledge £40bn a year to change economy
The Green Party has pledged to raise taxes for the wealthiest in society and mend “broken Britain” in its election manifesto.
A tax on multimillionaires and billionaires will be used to raise additional revenue of between £30-70 billion to help fund improvements to health, housing, transport and the green economy, the party said.
In its manifesto, the Greens also said “privatisation has failed” and promised to bring water companies, railways and the five big retail energy companies into state ownership.
Other measures include a pledge to invest £40 billion a year to shift to a green economy, a £12.4 billion investment pledge in green skills and training, and a carbon tax to drive down emissions – all during the next parliament.
Jane Dalton12 June 2024 16:10
Nadine Dorries: I’m not even sure why candidates are bothering to go out and deliver leaflets
Former cabinet minister and Boris Johnson ally Nadine Dorries has said “its over” for the Conservatives, Joe Middleton reports.
She told Times Radio: “I’m not even sure why candidates are bothering to go out and deliver leaflets. It’s over.”
She said that Labour are likely to have a tough five years if they do win the general election as politics is harder now due to “social media and other factors”.
Ms Dorries added that another problem Labour could have is that “there is not a lot of love” from the electorate towards Sir Keir Starmer.
She said that unlike Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage the Labour leader did not have a big personality.
Salma Ouaguira12 June 2024 16:05
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Salma Ouaguira12 June 2024 16:00
Sunak ‘hardened on the battlefield’, Tory minister says
A Conservative minister has said that Rishi Sunak has been “hardened on the battlefield” by almost a decade in Westminster.
Postal minister Kevin Hollinrake told ITV: “We all kind of entered Parliament in 2015 full of the joys of spring.
“And I think we’ve all got a dose of political reality, which I think every politician gets when they enter the fray.
“So I think he’s been probably hardened on the battlefield.”
Salma Ouaguira12 June 2024 15:38
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