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The Conservative party could make a surprising U-turn on its flagship pledge to bring National Service after defence secretary Grant Shapps suggested the scheme would last less than a month.
The Tory manifesto published 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.
Meanwhile, the Green party has launched its manifesto, which includes a pledge to raise taxes on the ‘super rich”, nationalise water, railways and energy companies as well as scrapping university tuition fees.
It comes as Mr Shapps claimed that the Tories are fighting hard to prevent Labour from securing a “supermajority” bigger than the 1997 landslide. With the ‘Blue Wall’ threatened to be knocked down in the polls, chancellor Jeremy Hunt has warned he faces a battle to save his Godalming and Ash seat, which is a key target for the Lib Dems.
Labour is campaigning in Grimsby where Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak are set to face grilling interviews by locals tonight on Sky News.
Sunak urges voters not to hand Labour ‘blank cheque’
Rishi Sunak urged voters not to give Labour a “blank cheque” because “they’re not telling people what they would do with it” as he repeated his contested £2,000 tax hike accusation.
Speaking to journalists on the campaign trail, the prime minister said: “The choice at the election is pretty clear because Labour are just going to put up your taxes.
“And what they’re asking people for is a blank cheque.
“They’re not telling people what they would do with it, how much it’s going to cost them, but I can tell them it’s going to cost them £2,094.”
Sunak reveals he is an ‘avid’ Solitaire player
Rishi Sunak said he had been playing online games including Wordle, Connections and Solitaire while travelling on the campaign.
The Prime Minister revealed he is an “avid games player” on the road.
“Connections is really fun. My kids got me on to it,” he told journalists.
What are the Greens tax plans?
The Green party has just unveiled their manifesto with plans to bring a new tax system to make the UK economy “fairer and greener”.
They have crafted a plan to include a new wealth tax that will charge the “super rich” one per cent on all assets worth more than £10m.
The tax for the rich would be declared in a self-assessment tax return and will be increased to two per cent on all assets above £1b.
Party co-leader Carla Denyer has said by taxing the ones with the “broadest shoulders” would generate “billions” that would be used to pay for public services.
Watch: Ed Davey falls into water during agility course in latest campaign stunt
Ed Davey falls into water during agility course in latest campaign stunt
Sir Ed Davey fell into water as he attempted to complete a floating assault course while campaigning in Warwickshire on Wednesday, 12 June. The Liberal Democrat leader was championing the party’s plans for a new clean water authority to replace Ofwat (Water Services Regulation Authority) as he paid a visit to Spot-On-Wake in Henley-in-Arden. The party has promised to “end the sewage scandal” by changing water firms into public benefit companies, banning bonuses for water bosses until discharges and leaks stop, and replacing Ofwat with a new regulator. It comes after Sir Ed fell off a paddleboard into Lake Windermere as he hit the campaign trail in May.
Parties urged to recognise Uighur genocide
Campaign group Stop Uyghur Genocide has written to Labour, the Lib Dems, and the Conservatives urging them to recognise that China’s Uighur ethnic minority group are being subject to a genocide.
The main parties have been asked to commit to taking “appropriate action in government” if they win the general election.
The letter, signed by Rahima Mahmut, the campaign group’s executive director, and Maira Aisaeva, president of the UK Uyghur Community, calls on the next government to “raise the alarm for the community and bring international pressure against the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) to end the genocide”.
They also asked the next government to instigate an import ban on products which might be linked to slave labour in China’s Xinjiang province, which is the homeland of the Uighurs.
Rishi Sunak: I was very fortunate growing up
Rishi Sunak said he was “very, very fortunate” growing up after a backlash over his claim that he went without “a lot of things” as a child, Archie Mitchell reports.
The Prime Minister said he was most grateful to his parents for providing him with an “enormous amount of love” more than “the material things.”
On whether he accepted he had had a privileged upbringing, he told journalists on campaign trail: “I was very, very fortunate that my parents had good jobs.
“My dad was a GP, my mum was a pharmacist, and they worked really hard to support me and my brother and sister and I’m really grateful to them for that and actually more importantly than material things, what they did for all of us was instil in us a sense of hard work, and service, but also just provide an enormous amount of love.
“And that’s the most important thing that they did for us. And I’m very grateful for that. And that’s why I say I’m very fortunate. But the reality of the situation is my grandparents emigrated in this country, with very little and in three generations, I’m sitting here talking to you as Prime Minister.
“And I think that says an enormous amount about our country because I don’t think my story will be possible, pretty much anywhere else.”
NHS chief executive says managers are key after Tories pledge to cut numbers
In a speech at one of the largest healthcare conferences of the year, NHS ConfedExpo, NHS England Chief Executive Amanda Pritchard said: “It really shouldn’t be controversial to say that the NHS needs well trained, well supported managers at every level, Rebecca Thomas reports.
“That’s what makes well performing teams and is fundamental to getting back to our pre pandemic productivity growth, driving the best possible use of taxpayers investment and clinicians time.”
Her words come just after the Conservative Party pledged to cut the number of managers working in the NHS by 5,500 in its manifesto on Tuesday, claiming it would save the NHS £550m.
Greens: Parties are running away from climate promises
Adrian Ramsay, co-leader of the Green Party has accused the main parties of “running away” from climate promises.
Mr Ramsey said at the manifesto launch: “If you look at the other parties, the climate crisis has been pretty much absent from this election campaign so far.
“The other parties are running away from their promises on climate. Only the Greens understand that the solutions to the climate crisis are also the solutions to the cost of living crisis. The climate crisis is the most serious we face as a global community. Our commitment to you is that protecting our climate and nature lies at the heart of all of our policies. “
Source: independent.co.uk
