Rishi Sunak claims there has been ‘no change’ to his plan to call election in second half of year – UK politics live

Labour councillors from Lancashire have resigned in protest at the party’s national leadership. As Ben Quinn reports, they have complained that Labour HQ is imposing too much control over what they are allowed to say.

Mohammed Iqbal, one of the councillors leaving the party, told the BBC:

In the last few weeks there has been a culture developing from the national Labour party that seems to want to control anything that any councillor wants to say.

Pat McFadden, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, was on the Today programme this morning. Asked about Iqbal’s comment, he said that having someone leave the party was “something to be regretted”, but he rejected claims the party was preventing councillors from expressing their views. He said:

Everybody is allowed to have their own views and I understand why people feel really strongly about this issue.

8.36am.)

In his first answer to Bailey, Sunak again gave a very generalised answer. But when Bailey pressed him again, and asked “what’s so difficult about committing to a date”, Sunak replied:

Because there’s an official way we do that. I’ve said very repeatedly and clearly that my working assumption would be that we have a general election in the second half of the year. There’s been no change to that. So I’ve been very clear about that.

Sunak seems to have been planning for an election in October or November. But there has been a lot of speculation in recent days that Sunak could call an election in June or July, as a means of closing down a leadership challenge prompted by dire results for the Tories in the May local elections.

This morning’s answer probably won’t do a lot to quell that. Instead of just saying ‘I expect it to be in the second half of the year’, he delivered a convoluted answer referencing his previous line to take, which is normally a sign of a politician not wanting to engage with a question.

Also, an election in July would be in the second half of the year anyway.

these figures.

Sunak replied “those numbers are different to what I’ve got”. He repeated the claim about child poverty falling since 2010.

Experts generally prefer to measure poverty by using the relative poverty figures, which show how many households have an income below 60% of the average. But Sunak was referring to the absolute poverty figures, which show how many households have an income below what the relative poverty figure was in a baseline year (2010-11 for this government), adjusted for inflation. In a growing economy, absolute poverty figures should always be going down.

Sunak is right to say that absolute poverty numbers have fallen since the Tories came to power. But recent figures show they are starting to rise.

press release. It starts like this.

Thousands of parents of two-year-olds across the country are getting help with their childcare costs as the first phase of the biggest ever expansion in childcare starts.

In this first stage, working parents of two-year-olds are now able to access 15 hours a week of government-funded childcare from 1 April.

The rollout of support is part of the government’s plan to help families – freeing thousands of couples from having to choose between having a family and a career, as over 150,000 children are on track to secure government-funded places from this week.

The Labour take is a bit different. Here is the start of the rival press release it issued yesterday.

Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson today slammed the Conservatives’ “childcare pledge without a plan” after a new dossier published by the party revealed families across the country struggling to access childcare.

The dossier contains:

-New data obtained by Labour from Ofsted showing that the number of childcare places fell by more than 1,000 in the six months between March and December 2023 alongside a fall in the number of providers.

-Testimonials from parents and nurseries in every region of England revealing a childcare system in disarray, with families unable to access already scarce places and struggling under the weight of sky-high childcare costs.

-Warnings from providers that they will be “forced to go bust” under the Conservatives’ new childcare offer.

As Eleni Courea reports, Labour is also launching a website today claiming Conservative turmoil under Rishi Sunak has cost the taxpayer £8.2bn and nearly a year in lost time.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Rishi Sunak is on visits in the north-east of England.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

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Source: theguardian.com