Leader targets swing voters in Kent and Essex while shadow chancellor makes vow on taxes and spending

Keir Starmer will declare on Monday that Labour has changed “permanently” under his stewardship, after the party ruled out raising income tax or national insurance if it wins the election.

In his first keynote speech of the general election campaign, the Labour leader will seek to reassure nervous voters that transforming his party has been his “driving mission since day one”.

Unite union says workers are being ‘fleeced’ by supermarket’s changes to pension contribution rules

Almost 1,000 workers at two Morrisons warehouses will strike for the next three days over a cut in company contributions to their pensions which they say is worth up to £10m a year.

The warehouse stock controllers, cooks, canteen staff, and administrators at the sites in Gadbrook, Cheshire, and Wakefield, West Yorkshire, who earn between £12 and £13 an hour, say they will lose out by an average of £500 a year each from the company’s plan to reduce how much it puts into their pension pot while forcing workers to pay more.

Jobs and communities dependent on oil and gas sector must be considered in plan to ban North Sea licences, say GMB and Unite

Peace may have broken out between Labour and its union backers over workers’ rights, but shadow ministers face fierce lobbying in another key policy area: how to make the switch from fossil fuels without causing deep economic scarring.

Unions representing tens of thousands of oil and gas workers – in particular GMB and Unite – are demanding urgent answers about what will happen to members’ jobs as the UK switches to cleaner energy sources.