When my two daughters have to see and hear Reform people who campaign for Nigel Farage calling me an effing [P-word], it hurts and it makes me angry, and I think he has some questions to answer.
And I don’t repeat those words lightly. I do so deliberately, because this is too important not to call out clearly for what it is.
Asked if it was frustrating for Sunak to know that some former Tory supporters were backing a party whose activists behave like this, Sunak said:
When you see Reform candidates and campaigners seemingly using racist and misogynistic language and opinions, seemingly without challenge, I think it tells you something about the culture within the Reform party.
Andrew Tate isn’t an important voice for men. He is a vile misogynist, and our politics and country is better than that.
And as prime minister, but more importantly as a father of two young girls, it’s my duty to call out this corrosive and divisive behaviour.
This post was amended on 28 June 2024 to make clear it was Rishi Sunak speaking about Reform candidates using racist and misogynistic language.
Filters BETA
Reform UK must be taken seriously.
Speaking exclusively to the Guardian, Kinnock said his party cannot afford to be complacent about the impact Nigel Farage’s party can have on the electorate.
There is no next time. It [targeting Reform] must start now. We have to combat this populist nationalism with words, in explaining to people what these people are, not just who they are.
Rishi Sunak has consistently vowed to ‘stop the boats’ and wants to be able to send those who arrive illegally to Rwanda where their asylum claims will be processed.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast this morning, the Labour leader promised a change in approach and said the Rwanda policy has proven to be the “absolute opposite of a deterrent”.
For years, the system in this country has operated on the basis that if someone claims asylum, they are processed.
Does anybody seriously think that not processing the claims, when now record numbers are coming across the Channel, is operating as a deterrent?
According to the latest Home Office and Border Force figures, a total of 150 migrants arrived on four small boats on 26 June. Over the last week a combined total of 882 migrants have arrived on 16 boats.
detailed polling on how ethnic minority Britons will vote, and what they think about various leaders, parties and issues. In their write-up, Matthew Smith and Tanya Abraham argue that two trends stand out.
As is traditionally the case, Labour has a strong lead among ethnic minority voters. In our polling for Sky News earlier this month, fully 53% intend to vote Labour, with the Conservatives and the Greens trailing far behind in joint-second on 14%.
A further 7% intend to vote for Reform UK, 6% for the Lib Dems, and 5% for other parties …
Breaking the data down into specific ethnic groups highlights two very notable variations. First is that Conservative support is significantly higher among Indian voters than other groups – 32% of Britons of Indian ethnicity intend to vote Tory, although more still intend to vote Labour (40%).
The second is that support for the Greens is significantly higher among Britons of Pakistani or Bangladeshi descent, at 29%.
While the former voting difference has is a longer term trend, the latter is a new development.
YouGov says the relatively high support for the Green party amongst Britons of Pakistani or Bangladeshi heritage is almost certainly a result of the Labour party’s stance on Gaza under Starmer. The Green party has been much firmer in terms of demanding a ceasefire, the end to arms sales to Israel and prosecution of people accused of war crimes.
That is all from me for today. My colleague Cash Boyle is now taking over.
accused of talking “absolute twaddle” by a woman who did not think he was doing or saying enough to protect single-sex spaces. (See 9.56am.)
Starmer said he was committed to protecting women’s spaces. But the caller was not happy with this, because she wanted an assurance that spaces would be safeguarded for biological women and she suggested that she wanted trans women excluded from women’s toilets, changing rooms and refuges. Starmer would not give that assurance, and he spoke about the need for trans people to be treated with respect.
When Starmer is asked about this issue, he tends to talk about protecting women’s spaces, rather than single-sex spaces or spaces for biologicial women, because he does not want to exclude all trans women. This is in line with what the Equality Act says (although the Tories want to change it in a way that would make it easier for trans women with a gender recognition certificate to be excluded from these spaces.)
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, was also asked about this today, and he adopted a similar position to Starmer’s. He said:
I believe in the Equality Act, which gives single-sex spaces and rights for women as a way of balancing rights. I think that is exactly right.
And what the Equality Act does in providing single-sex spaces where trans women are excluded, is it enables people providing services to make those decisions, and that’s quite right.
I strongly support the Equality Act and its provision for single-sex spaces.
But Davey was less evasive than Starmer on the topic of trans women using ladies’ toilets. Asked what toilet a trans woman with a penis should use, Davey replied:
It would all depend on what they want to use.
I’m not sure if we’re going to have people standing outside toilets and deciding what identity they have, I think that would be quite an odd society.
a report saying that what he does in the first few days and weeks will determine whether or not he can succeed. The IfG says:
Major barriers include lack of grid capacity (with generators paid £1.38bn in 2022 to reduce the supply of cheap renewable energy when supply was high), stretched supply chains, shortages of workers with the necessary skills, insufficient public engagement, and a need to make the planning system work much faster if energy targets are going to be hit. Average waits to get consent for nationally significant infrastructure increased from 2.6 to 4.2 years between 2012 and 2023.
But historical successes – such as the 4,000 miles of transmission lines built in 12 years from the 1950s, the switch over of 13.5m buildings and 40 million appliances from coal or oil to natural gas between 1967-77, or the 40 gas power stations built in 10 years during the 1990s ‘dash for gas’ – show that the UK can deliver large scale projects …
If elected on 5 July Labour will have under six years to meet its goal of delivering clean power by 2030. The next two or three years will be critical to whether this is achievable. The UK has shown previously that it is able to deliver ambitious projects quickly under the right circumstances. It will need to do so again.
Reform UK activists recorded secretly by Channel 4 News. on a campaign visit to Little Paxton, Cambridgeshire, he said:
I heard the comments on the television, and they were clearly racist, homophobic and abhorrent, and I hope the party deals with these and any other people who speak like this.
The Guardian has published its leader on who we want to win the election. It’s Labour, of course. Here is an excerpt.
The party’s poll lead has induced a rush to place Sir Keir in historical perspective before he actually makes history. That may be because people are yearning for the “change” of Labour’s campaign rhetoric. It is what the country needs. The greater the inequality, insecurity and sense of injustice, the more vulnerable democracies are to capture by rightwing demagogues. Imagine the dread of waking up to Rishi Sunak winning. Labour’s vision is calming rather than exciting. Sir Keir may not be inspiring, but he does inspire confidence. He offers compassion, where a lack of it has become a matter of principle for the Tories.
Lurking in Labour’s manifesto is a plan to give ordinary people opportunity, security and dignity. Bliss in this dawn to be alive? Maybe not quite, but viewed amid the debris of the last decade, Labour’s putative parliamentary majority seems an almost unimaginably hopeful starting point. To create a more equitable society, power must be in the hands of politicians prepared to shape the country that we want to see. That is why the Guardian would vote, with hope and enthusiasm, for Labour to lead Britain to a better future.
And you can read the article in full here.
Reform UK to establish if any of the activists who were recorded were committing an offence.
A spokesperson for the force said:
We are aware of comments made during a Channel 4 News programme and we are urgently assessing them to establish if there are any criminal offences.
Keir Starmer government could have “possibly the most working class cabinet of all time”.
Speaking about class to reporters, Ashworth said:
I’m definitely working class. My dad was a croupier – given that betting is very topical in this campaign, I know a little bit about it.
My dad was a croupier in the Playboy club in Manchester, which is where he met my mum, who was a bunny girl, so I know all about gambling and I know all about class.
I’m from a working-class background and I’m very proud that if we get a Labour government next week, you’ll have – actually, you should check this out, somebody should – it could possibly be the most working-class cabinet of all time, actually.
Keir Starmer would be the most working class Labour PM since James Callaghan. Ashworth also named Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting, Bridget Phillipson as some of his working class colleagues, as well as Rachel and Ellie Reeves, whose parents were teachers. He went on:
So, I think it’s certainly the most working class and ‘state comprehensive’ shadow cabinet and potential cabinet of all time – I think, I suspect.
Ashworth was responded to a question prompted by David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, telling the New Statesman the Tories were not the right class to be running Britain. Lammy said:
There was a sort of demob happiness about them, a sort of casual frippery, a certain kind of public-school smallness.
They are not the class of people that Britain needs to run it now, and that’s what my own life story tells me.
Source: theguardian.com
