Sunak rejects claim he plans to move to California if he loses election Rishi Sunak has given an interview to Robert Peston, ITV’s political editor. Here are the main lines, according to ITV. Sunak rejected claims he is planning to leave the UK to move to California if he loses the election. He refused to say what sanctions 18-year-olds might face if they refuse to take part in his planned compulsory national service. He claimed he had enjoyed the opening of the election campaign. And he claimed not to be bothered about whether Keir Starmer was or wasn’t taking time off. Yesterday Richard Holden, the Tory chair, claimed Starmer was resting for a party – part of a concerted CCHQ briefing campaign alleging Starmer lacks energy. (See 10.36am.) Early evening summary Rishi Sunak’s faltering election campaign suffered a fresh blow tonight when the outgoing MP Lucy Allan resigned from the party and backed the Reform UK candidate to replace her in Telford. Explaining her decision, Allan said: I have resigned from the Conservative party to support Alan Adams to be Telford’s next MP. I have known Alan for many years and he is genuinely the best person for the job. I want the best for Telford and I can’t just let the Labour candidate have a walkover. ” As a Royal Navy veteran, Alan knows what it means to serve. He is the candidate who is most in touch with Telford people and best able to represent them. He will serve all residents, not just those who vote for him. Keir Starmer has delivered his first proper campaign speech, insisting that voters can trust him on on security – “economic security, border security and national security”. (See 12.20pm.) The Conservative campaign pledge to introduce mandatory national service was dreamed up by advisers and sprung on candidates, Steve Baker, a Northern Ireland minister, has said. Labour said the national service plan was “unravelling by the minute”. (See 9.07am.) Sunak has rejected claims that he plans to leave the UK and move to California if he loses the election. (See 5.31pm.) These are from my colleague Peter Walker, who was at the Rishi Sunak event in Amersham this afternoon. Look who has just turned up at a rugby club in Amersham, the Home Counties seats nicked by the Lib Dems to begin the blue wall era. This is, frankly, the sort of seat that in most elections the Conservatives should win without breaking a sweat, let alone a PM visit. Gareth Williams, the local Tory candidate, gave a flavour of the area with his own stump speech by naming as the first problematic Labour policy the imposition of VAT on private school fees. Sunak mentions national service in his stump speech - but not first. Has a long go at Labour too. Says Labour is taking the electorate for granted. We are promised some off-camera media questions after the speech. Let’s see if this largesse extends to the Guardian. Questions from the PM were granted to Telegraph, Express, Mail, i, BBC, Politico, but *not* the Guardian. Rishi Sunak has accused Keir Starmer of not offering a “single new idea” in his speech this morning. In a speech in Buckinghamshire, Sunak described his announcement of a new form of national service as a “bold decision”. As PA Media reports, he went on: In contrast, Keir Starmer has made yet another half hour speech today, but was there one single new idea in that speech? “No,” Tory members replied. Sunak added: They have had 14 years to think about what they want to do and they have got nothing to say about the future of our country and that is what we are going to show. We are going to show that we have got a plan for the future. Conservative MPs Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) and Rob Butler (Aylesbury) could be seen in the audience. Sunak rejects claim he plans to move to California if he loses election Rishi Sunak has given an interview to Robert Peston, ITV’s political editor. Here are the main lines, according to ITV. Sunak rejected claims he is planning to leave the UK to move to California if he loses the election. He refused to say what sanctions 18-year-olds might face if they refuse to take part in his planned compulsory national service. He claimed he had enjoyed the opening of the election campaign. And he claimed not to be bothered about whether Keir Starmer was or wasn’t taking time off. Yesterday Richard Holden, the Tory chair, claimed Starmer was resting for a party – part of a concerted CCHQ briefing campaign alleging Starmer lacks energy. (See 10.36am.) Theresa May criticises politicians who blame civil servants when they can"t do what they want, in apparent dig at Liz Truss Theresa May, the former PM, has said she is is concerned that it “has become almost the done thing if you’re not getting something through as a politician to blame the civil service, and I think that is wrong.” Speaking at the Hay festival in Powys, the former prime minister described the existence of a politically neutral civil service as “a huge benefit here in the UK”, and that “if ministers aren’t getting what they want through”, as she experienced when her Brexit bill was blocked, then “it’s down to them and it’s not down to the civil service”. May seemed to be referring in particular to Liz Truss, another former PM who recently published a book accusing the civil service, and other establishment forces, of obstructing radical things she wanted to achieve as a minister. May also said that she hoped, if it had been raining when she called an election outside No 10 in 2017, that those around her “might have provided [her] with an umbrella”. Lucy Allan MP suspended by Tories after backing Reform UK candidate Lucy Allan has had her Tory membership suspended, and the whip withdrawn, James Heale from the Specator reports, because she endorses a Reform UK candidate. (See 4.40pm.) Although MPs won’t return to parliament before the election, she will remain an MP until Thursday, when parliament is dissolved. New: Tory MP Lucy Allan has been suspended from the party with immediate effect. It follows her endorsement of a Reform candidate to succeed her in Telford. Tory spox: “A vote for Reform is a vote for Keir Starmer.” Confirmation that Allan has lost the whip as well as having her Tory membership suspended. Think that’s the first time a Tory MP has lost the whip after an election was called since Charles Wardle in 2001. George Gardiner lost the whip for backing the Referendum party in 1997 - but that was nine days before the election had actually been declared Starmer says he "couldn"t care less" about CCHQ briefing he is tired Keir Starmer has said he “couldn’t care less” about Tory HQ claiming he is finding campaigning too tiring. Asked about the briefings, which have come from anonymous party figures and from the Tory chair, Richard Holden (see 10.36am), and whether he found them annoying, Starmer told ITV’s Anushka Asthana I couldn’t care less. I think they’re rummaging around in the toy box of ideas because they haven’t got a clue, they haven’t got any strategy. Starmer says he would call himself a socialist - but he defines it in terms of putting country first Keir Starmer has said he would call himself as socialist – although when asked to define socialism, he just said it was about putting the country first. In his interview with Chris Mason for the BBC, asked if he would call himself a socialist Starmer replied: Yes, I would describe myself as a socialist. I describe myself as a progressive. I’d describe myself as somebody who always puts the country first and party second. Asked how he would describe his socialism, he replied: Let me just explain exactly what I mean by that. Because, for me, politics is about putting the country in the service of working people. Politics is about service for me, and that’s why I changed the Labour party in the service of working people. What I’m doing now is humbly asking voters to trust us to change the country and put the country back in the service of working people. Normally socialism is defined in terms of having some commitment to public ownership – or at the very least the collective provision of public services. Starmer declines to rule out raising main rate of VAT - but claims Labour"s plans don"t require further tax rises Keir Starmer has declined to rule out putting up the main rate of VAT. In an interview on BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg yesterday, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said: “What I want and Keir wants is taxes on working people to be lower and we certainly won’t be increasing income tax or national insurance if we win at the election.” In an interview today with the BBC’s political editor, Chris Mason, Starmer refused to give the same assurance about VAT. He said that “working people have been overburdened with increased taxes” and that none of Labour’s plan required them to raise taxes, beyond the small number of tax increases aready announced (like putting VAT on private school fees). But he would not give a firm assurance. Asked if he was saying the main rate of VAT would not change, he replied: I think working people have been overburdened with tax increases in recent years. We have gone through all of our plans, and none of them require us to raise taxes. Starmer gave the same answer in an interview with Anushka Asthana from ITV. The main rate of VAT is currently 20%. It has been at that level, the highest it has been since VAT was introduced in the 1970s, since 2011. In the 2019 manifesto the Conservative ruled out raising the rate of income tax, national insurance and VAT. Outgoing Tory Lucy Allan backs Reform UK candidate to succeed her as Telford MP Conservative MP Lucy Allan has said she will back Reform at the election in a further blow to Rishi Sunak and his faltering campaign. The MP for Telford, who announced last year that she was standing down, said that she would support her local Reform candidate in the coming contest. Richard Tice, the Reform leader, said he welcomed Allan’s support, as the Conservative MP tweeted a link to the party’s local candidate, Alan Adams, to allow people to help up and donate to his campaign. The Conservatives have been approached for comment but MPs who support another party normally have the whip or their membership suspended. Election campaigns are largely tedious photocalls interspersed with moments of high drama. This is what PA Media has filed on Rishi Sunak’s visit to a garden centre in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, this afternoon – which seems to be firmly in the first category of election event. The prime minister met Nigel Gardner, the Conservative candidate for the new constituency of Harpenden and Berkhamsted. The two stacked plant pots onto shelves together as Gardner remarked about the “huge new constituency” he was standing to represent. Sunak exited the garden centre, passing by the cashiers and out onto the high street, with shoppers surprised to see the prime minister in their midst. Some members of the public could be heard attempting to heckle him as he walked down the street outside. Rishi Sunak has been campaigning in Chesham and Amersham, a former Tory seat that turned Lib Dem in a byelection in 2021, and he has attended a training event with Chesham United Youth. Harvey Whitby, who was president of Birmingham Young Conservatives, has defected to the Liberal Democrats. He is particularly concerned about the national service policy, although in an open letter posted on X he cites other factors. Tory MPs should have made Penny Mordaunt leader, he suggests. Momentum, the leftwing Labour group, has criticised Keir Starmer for not committing in his Q&A this morning to getting rid of the Tory rule requiring people to show photo ID when they vote. (See 12.20pm.)