Labour reiterates claims that pensions will have to be cut to fund Tory idea to scrap national insurance

Labour has opened applications for a string of new safe seats after half a dozen MPs announced last-minute retirements, with key allies of Keir Starmer expected to be lined up to take their place.

Those standing down include the former shadow minister Barbara Keeley, the chair of the parliamentary Labour party Jon Cryer, as well as John Spellar, Virendra Sharma and Kevin Brennan.

Pensioners used to have a bigger personal allowance than people of working age – it was the Conservatives who got rid of it.

So this is one of many examples actually of tax policy that has been reversed by the same Government. George Osborne got rid of it in the 2010s when the personal allowance of people under pension age continued to rise.

Labour leader says prime minister’s claims about UK are ‘form of disrespect’ due to high taxes and commitment to abolishing national insurance

Starmer is now running through his six first step promises.

Starmer says he is fed up with hearing Rishi Sunak says the UK has “turned the corner”.

Labour leader says he take part in televised debates with PM without giving further details

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Keir Starmer brushed aside questions about Jeremy Corbyn, his predecessor, standing against Labour as an independent candidate in Islington North during his interview round this morning. Asked about Corbyn on Sky News, Starmer said:

I’m very clear, the first thing I said as Labour leader is that I would tear antisemitism out of our party by the roots.

That was my first solemn promise, and I followed through on that, and that is why I took the decision that Jeremy Corbyn would not stand as a Labour candidate at this election.

Jeremy Corbyn has loyally served the people of Islington North as their Labour MP for over 40 years. He wanted to run again as the Labour candidate and the local party backed him too. But Starmer and his Westminster clique again denied local people the chance to choose their own candidate and blocked Jeremy. Starmer has treated the people of Islington with contempt, setting the stage for a divisive and distracting election campaign.

We urge the Labour leadership not to repeat this damaging debacle in Hackney with Diane Abbott. Britain’s first black woman MP, who Keir Starmer rightly called a ‘trailblazer’, deserves to run as the Labour candidate, as local members voted.

Bills, including smoking ban for people born after 2009, unlikely to become law before 4 July vote

• Why is Rishi Sunak calling an election now?
• Questioners at Sunak warehouse speech turn out to be Tory councillors

Rishi Sunak is now speaking at an event in Ilkeston in Derbyshire. It is in the Erewash constituency, where the Tory MP Maggie Throup had a majority of 10,606 at the last election.

He repeats the claim that a Labour government would cost every family £2,000.

Labour’s spending promises cost £16 billion per year in 2028-29, or £58.9 billion over the next four years.

But their revenue raisers would only collect £6.2 billion per year in 2028-29, or £20.4 billion over the next four years.

I don’t really think the arrangements in Scotland for the school holidays have really been anywhere near the calculations made by the prime minister …

I think it would be respectful if that was the case but it’s pretty typical of the lack of respect shown to Scotland that we’re an afterthought from the Westminster establishment and particularly the Conservative establishment.

Prime minister announces early summer election with date putting parties on campaign trail for six weeks

• Sunak calls UK general election for 4 July
• Why is Sunak calling an election now?

In an interview with Sky News this morning, Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, was asked if the UK would follow Ireland, Spain and Norway in formally recognising a Palestinian state. No, he replied. He told Sky:

We have a long-standing position on this that we will be prepared to recognise the state of Palestine at the time that it most helps the peace process, and we will continue to keep that under review.

We will continue to keep that under review. But our position is that this is not the right time to do it at the moment.

Dubbed “Sue’s shit list” by one senior Labour official, it has been drawn up by the former civil servant to identify the most immediate problems Labour would face in office if it wins the election expected this year.

Senior Labour officials said that any one of the areas on Gray’s “government risk register” could puncture a honeymoon period for a new administration led by Sir Keir Starmer.

Prime minister says there will be a general election ‘in the second half of the year’ when asked at PMQs

In an interview with Sky News this morning, Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, was asked if the UK would follow Ireland, Spain and Norway in formally recognising a Palestinian state. No, he replied. He told Sky:

We have a long-standing position on this that we will be prepared to recognise the state of Palestine at the time that it most helps the peace process, and we will continue to keep that under review.

We will continue to keep that under review. But our position is that this is not the right time to do it at the moment.

Dubbed “Sue’s shit list” by one senior Labour official, it has been drawn up by the former civil servant to identify the most immediate problems Labour would face in office if it wins the election expected this year.

Senior Labour officials said that any one of the areas on Gray’s “government risk register” could puncture a honeymoon period for a new administration led by Sir Keir Starmer.

John Glen, Cabinet Office minister, tells Commons that those infected will be able to claim compensation as well as the estates of those who have died

• Infected blood scandal victims to get compensation payments before end of year

Gove claims that the anti-Israel protests that have sprung up on university campuses around the world have not appeared in a vacuum, and are the product of “years of ideological radicalisation”.

He says the decolonisation narrative is attractive to authoritarian states, because the iddea that “the success of liberal Western nations is built on plunder” undermines their legitimacy.

There are no BDS campaigns directed against Bashar Assad’s Syrian regime guilty of killing more Muslims in living memory than any other.

There are no student encampments, urging university administrators to cut all ties with China given what is happening in Xinjiang or Hong Kong, or what happened in Tibet.

PM gives statement following report that found ‘subtle, pervasive and chilling’ cover-up by NHS and government

GB News has described the Ofcom ruling against it today (see 10.51am and 11.01am) as an “alarming development” that should “terrify” anyone who believes in a free media. Here is its response to the judgment in full.

Ofcom’s finding against GB News today is an alarming development in its attempt to silence us by standing in the way of a forum that allows the public to question politicians directly.

The regulator’s threat to punish a news organisation with sanctions for enabling people to challenge their own prime minister strikes at the heart of democracy at a time when it could not be more vital.

In considering whether the programme was duly impartial, we took into account a range of factors, such as: the audience’s questions to the prime minister; the prime minister’s responses; the presenter’s contribution; and whether due impartiality was preserved through clearly linked and timely programmes. Our investigation found, in summary, that:

-while some of the audience’s questions provided some challenge to, and criticism of, the government’s policies and performance, audience members were not able to challenge the prime minister’s responses and the presenter did not do this to any meaningful extent;

Given the very high compliance risks this programme presented, we found GB News’s approach to compliance to be wholly insufficient, and consider it could have, and should have, taken additional steps to mitigate these risks.

We found that an appropriately wide range of significant viewpoints were not presented and given due weight in the People’s Forum: The Prime Minister, nor was due impartiality preserved through clearly linked and timely programmes. As a result, we consider that the prime minister had a mostly uncontested platform to promote the policies and performance of his government in a period preceding a UK general election.