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As political leaders mark the end of the first week of the election campaign the fight for Downing Street has reached a pivotal moment.
Keir Starmer’s campaign appears to be close to getting derailed over the Diane Abbott row.
The veteran Labour MP, a trail blazer who was the first black female MP, has vowed to stand again after apparently being told she would be barred. Or has she? Sir Keir says not.
It comes as Sir Keir Starmer’s campaign is being linked to a wider purge of the left – something even Tony Blair did not do – with Chingford candidate Faiza Shaheen finding out last night she was barred.
The Labour leader has denied the claims and praised Ms Abbott as a trailblazer who “overcame incredible challenges”, but further fueling spiraling speculations, he said the party has not taken a decision regarding her future.
Jon Stewart calls suspension of UK candidate for liking one of his sketches ‘dumbest thing since Boris Johnson’
“This is the dumbest thing The UK has done since electing Boris Johnson… what the actual f****…,” the comedian wrote on X when he was notified of the controversy.
The clip in question, dating from July 2014, sees Stewart introducing a segment about an Israeli ground offensive – during the 2014 Gaza War – at which point he is immediately swarmed and rebuked by four of the Comedy Central show’s correspondents, barracking him as a “self-hating Jew” for daring to question the country’s actions.
Farage: I was being sarcastic over Conservatives deal
Nigel Farage was asked whether he would still be open to a deal with the Tories.
Denying the claims, he said: “This was a deeply sarcastic answer given to Harry Cole, the political editor of the Sun, on his new programme Never Mind the Ballots.
“I’ve been asked this for 25 years. For 25 years I’ve been asked what are you going to do for the Conservatives? Why don’t you stand aside, so-and-so’s a frightfully good chap, he was at Eton, really, he was… I think in 2019, we did the Conservatives the biggest favour anyone’s ever done them.
“With the complete catastrophe of the May premiership we formed the Brexit Party and within six weeks we reduced the Conservatives to their most humiliating election result in nearly 200 years. And that led directly to Theresa May going, that was the first bit of very significant help we gave the Conservatives in 2019.”
Diane Abbott in meetings with union chiefs about standing as Labour candidate
The veteran MP for Hackney North has revealed unions have offered her support and backing to stand as a Labour candidate.
In a X post, she said: “I am very grateful to all the trade unionists who have offered me support.
“I have met with a number of leading trade unionists, including general secretaries who have offered me their backing to be a Labour candidate at next week’s NEC.
Nigel Farage: ‘Illegal migration is bold and innovative policy’
The Reform UK president said legal migration is the “really big elephant in the room”.
He adds: “I really do believe this should be the immigration voters. You ask voters, what are their priorities? The subject of immigration has gone from fifth a few months ago to second or third depending on which pollster you look at.
“So what are the big priorities of the electorate? Well, cost of living clearly is one of them. What greater cost of living is there for the average family, for ordinary folk, in this country than the cost of either renting a property or the cost of buying a property? It is the biggest capital outlay that people face.
“We need to build one new property every two minutes just to accommodate current levels of net migration.”
Revealed: Just one in five prisons have enough riot officers in ‘scandalous’ shortage
Nearly four in five prisons do not have enough officers trained to deal with riots as part of so-called “Tornado” squads despite rising violence and disorder behind bars, The Independent can reveal.
Reform UK launches its legal immigration policy
Leader Richard Tice is speaking from Central London on the party’s plan for migration.
Attacking the main parties, he says: “I am sick of this pathetic identity politics that is designed purely to smear and suppress debate and discussion.”
Mr Tice launches Reform’s Employer Immigration Tax, a policy that will push businesses to pay higher insurance rates of 20% as instead of 13.8% for employees who don’t hold a British passport.
‘No austerity under Labour,’ vows Sir Keir Starmer
It was put to him that without tax rises, there would need to be public spending cuts to unprotected departments of £20 billion after the election, according to forecasts, Archie Mitchell reports.
At a Wales campaign event, the Labour leader told Sky News: “We are not returning to austerity. That did huge damage, so we’re not going to return to austerity.
“Tough decisions will have to be made, of course they will. And we’ll make sure that everything that we put forward is fully costed and fully funded.
“But I’m absolutely determined – and that’s why I’ve made economic growth our number one mission and our number one first step – to pull the lever that is economic growth. Because there’s a reason that we’ve got very high tax over the last 14 years, the highest tax burden since the Second World War, the reason for that is because we’ve got low growth.
“We have to turn that around, and therefore I’ll be laser focused on the growth that we need to drive our economy forward and ensure that we can properly fund the NHS, our public service and so much else that at the moment feels to some people using it completely broken.”
Will ousted Labour candidate stand as an independent?
Ousted Labour candidate Faiza Shaheen has hinted at an independent run against the party in Chingford and Woodford Green, Archie Mitchell reports.
The left-winger, who was deselected by Labour for liking a tweet seen as controversial, said she is “in shock, but I’m a fighter”.
She urged backers to sign up to a mailing list with a further statement to come “later today”.
She has been campaigning locally since narrowly falling short against former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith in the seat in 2019.
But on Wednesday night she was told she would not be the Labour candidate for the seat.
Her independent candidacy would risk splitting the Labour vote and handing the seat back to Sir Iain in a blow to Sir Keir Starmer.
Faiza Shaheed hails ‘this is not the end’ after Labour ban
The left-wing Labour candidate has teased supporters she could run follow Jeremy Corbyn’s footsteps and run as an independent candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green.
In a statement, she said: “I feel that a huge injustice has been done, not just to me, but to our community.
“As you can imagine, I’m a little overwhelmed right now, so will use this morning to meet with my campaign and legal teams, as well as have some hugs with my baby.”
Ben Wallace says Labour ‘has no money’
The former defence secretary referenced Liam Byrne’s infamous letter to warn voters against Labour.
Taking to social media, he posted a picture of the letter, captioned “just in case you forgot Labour’s record in 2010.”
Mr Byrne said in th original message at the time: “Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid there is no money. Kind regards – and good luck!”
Source: independent.co.uk
