Sunak: Starmer has given in to Angela Rayner and the left of the Labour party over Diane Abbott selection row Rishi Sunak has accused Keir Starmer of giving in to Angela Rayner and the left of the Labour party over the selection of Diane Abbott as a Labour candidate, and told Conservative activists in Redcar that if Starmer became prime minister, he would give in to to them in government. Speaking as the Conservative party launched its election battlebus in Redcar in England, the prime minister said Starmer didn’t stand for anything, and that “if he was happy to abandon every promise that he made to become Labour leader as soon as he got that job, what makes you think that he wouldn’t do exactly the same thing all over again if he became prime minister?” Sunak said: Just see what’s happened over this Diane Abbott situation, right. And it confirms what we know about him. It’s that he doesn’t stick by anything he says. Just constantly changes his mind. And it’s clear that Angela Rayner is in charge of the Labour party, and not him at the end of the day. And if he’s given into her and the left on that, imagine what he’ll give in to when it comes to higher taxes, the unions’ demands, or weakening our defence and security. “If he doesn’t stand for anything himself, how can he stand up for all of you?” Sunak asked. Asked again about the selection of Diane Abbott while campaigning in Uxbridge this morning, Starmer refused to be drawn further on the issue, saying “I dealt with that issue yesterday.” Yesterday the Conservatives used an image of Rayner on her phone in a social media attack on the Labour party over the Diane Abbott row. Summary of the day … Rishi Sunak has accused Keir Starmer of giving in to Angela Rayner and the left of the Labour party over the selection of Diane Abbott as a Labour candidate, and told Conservative activists in Redcar that if Starmer became prime minister, he would give in to them in government Keir Starmer has said he will lead from the centre ground if elected prime minister and declared wealth creation to be his “number one mission”. In an interview with the Times, Starmer said the centre ground was “where most people are at” and that “people don’t like the extremes of the right or the left” The Conservatives have promised to give another 30 towns in the UK £20m each in levelling up funding over the next decade if they win the election. Sunak said the 30 would be added to the government’s long-term plan for towns, which is intended to pay for the regeneration of underfunded areas. Sunak, whose party has been in power for 14 years, denied it was an attempt to buy votes when asked, and said towns were “neglected” under the previous Labour government. Starmer said the Conservative campaign has been “shredding their economic credibility” with daily unfunded policy announcements Labour announced a Back to Work plan, which aims to get 2 million more people into work. The initiative would include a combined national jobs and careers service, devolved funding and leadership from mayors to “get more people with health conditions and disabilities into work” and opportunities for 18- to 21-year-olds to access training and apprenticeships Labour and the Conservatives launched a campaign battlebus each, with Sunak in Redcar and Starmer, Rayner and Rachel Reeves in Uxbridge. Starmer joked they needed to check Boris Johnson wasn’t hiding in the fridge of theirs as it visited the former prime minister’s old constituency The Liberal Democrats are to call for the abolition of voter ID at polling stations, describing the policy as part of a “Tory war on the younger generation”. On a day when Ed Davey rested from campaigning to care for his son, the party also pledged to make some Premier League football games free-to-air on television, with former leader Tim Farron saying “the slide away from accessible football on our televisions over the last generation is an indicator of unfairness and injustice” A Labour government would “lead to the devastation of employment” in the oil and gas industry in north-east Scotland, first minister John Swinney has said. He also urged people to take part in a “Scottish national service” by using the general election to vote Tory MPs out of office, saying those who had imposed Brexit and austerity on Scotland “deserve the democratic drubbing that is coming their way” Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross accused the SNP of failing rural areas and claimed that Labour and the SNP had “very similar policies” Rhun ap Iorwerth, the leader of Plaid Cymru, has said the Labour party has not appreciated the situation Vaughan Gething is in, as he faces a no-confidence vote in the Senedd next week. Speaking during a campaign visit to Ammanford in south Wales, he said voters are “absolutely” talking about Gething on the doorstep Asylum seekers detained by the Home Office and threatened with deportation to Rwanda are set to take legal action against the government after Sunak admitted that no flights will take place before the general election Liz Truss has told her local newspaper, the Eastern Daily Press (EDP), that Tony Blair was a worse prime minister than her Thank you for reading, and for all your comments earlier. I hope you get to enjoy the rest of your weekend. Yohannes Lowe will be here tomorrow, and I will be back with you on Monday. Andrew Sparrow returns on Tuesday. Take care. Police are assessing a further complaint in relation to former Scottish health secretary Michael Matheson’s near £11,000 iPad roaming bill. PA Media report a Police Scotland spokesperson said: “A complaint which had been received in November 2023 was assessed and no further action was taken. A further complaint has been received which is being assessed.” Matheson has been banned from Holyrood for 27 days this week for incurring the bill on the parliamentary device when his children were using it as a hotspot to watch football while they were on holiday. Today’s campaigning has been rather bus-heavy, with both the Conservatives and Labour launching a battlebus each. Rishi Sunak was in Redcar in north-east England, while Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves were in Uxbridge in London. A Labour government would “lead to the devastation of employment” in the oil and gas industry in north-east Scotland, first minister John Swinney has said. Speaking with media at the Grey Hope Bay cafe on the outskirts of Aberdeen, the SNP leader said: I think the Labour party has got a real problem in the north east of Scotland because their policy programme will lead to the devastation of employment in the north east of Scotland through the proposals that they are bringing forward, which will have a significant and damaging impact on employment within the oil and gas sector. And what I want to make sure of is that people understand the dangers of Labour’s plans and the damage that could be done to employment. And, you know, we’ve got a commitment to manage to transition to net zero and that’s what the SNP will work with the oil and gas sector to deliver because we’ll need the oil and gas sector to contribute to our economy, but we will also ensure that there is the support that that sector can give, to enable the transition to renewables to be undertaken. Swinney said windfall taxes, which he described as a “tax grab that is being perpetuated by the Conservative and Labour parties” were “having a real damaging effect on investment in the oil and gas sector.” Lee Anderson, Reform UK’s only MP, has been campaigning in Ashfield, accompanied by Nigel Farage. Earlier leader Richard Tice, who unlike Farage is standing for election, published a video in which he claimed whistleblowers had informed the party of what he called the “big university degree rip off” of international students, which Tice said was “a form of legal backdoor immigration”. Tice is standing in Boston and Skegness constituency. The Brexit party did not put up a candidate in 2019, and in 2017 Ukip’s Paul Nuttall came a distant third in the constituency, with just 7.7% of the vote. However in 2015 Robin Hunter-Clarke only lost to Tory Matt Warman by just over 4,000 votes. Plaid Cymru have been campaigning in Cardiff West, and their candidate Kiera Marshall has had an emoji dig at her Labour opponent Alex Barros-Curtis, who she says has been parachuted in to the constituency which was won for Labiour in 2019 by Kevin Brennan, who is standing down. In the post she says “Cloudy skies means a bumpy landing for Keir’s 🪂 candidate in Cardiff West, but there is no stopping the Plaid Cymru campaign.” John Swinney has posted to social media to say that his SNP campaigning today has taken in the constituencies of West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Aberdeen South and Aberdeen North. Rhun ap Iorwerth, the leader of Plaid Cymru, has said the Labour party has not appreciated the situation Vaughan Gething is in, as he faces a no-confidence vote in the Senedd next week. Speaking during a campaign visit to Ammanford in south Wales, he said voters are “absolutely” talking about Gething on the doorstep. He said: “We have a very, very troubled first minister, it seems that Keir Starmer doesn’t appreciate the trouble that his leader in Wales is in. But it’s very clear to me from conversations on doorsteps, from emails I’ve received, from messages I’ve received, from just conversations on the street that people absolutely recognise that we have a leader, a first minister in Wales, that isn’t up to the high standards to which we should hold our political leaders.” Ap Iorwerth continued: “The opposition parties haven’t got confidence in Vaughan Gething, more importantly than that, we’re clear that the people of Wales don’t have confidence in him. This one is down to Labour, if Labour members of the Senedd, and more importantly, Keir Starmer want to keep him in place, he will stay in place. It’s their call.” All opposition parties in the Senedd have indicated that they will support the no-confidence motion, with a vote taking place on 5 June. Liz Truss: Tony Blair was a worse prime minister than I was Liz Truss has told her local newspaper, the Eastern Daily Press (EDP), that Tony Blair was a worse prime minister than her. She said Blair, who won three general elections and who was in Downing Street for ten years and seven days more than she was, “created things like the Equality Act, the Human Rights Act and the Climate Change Act,” making him “the worst prime minister in recent years.” In April she wrote for the Telegraph that Blair had trashed the UK constitution, telling its readers: Until 2005, the Lord Chancellor held a special constitutional position not only as a Cabinet minister but also as the head of the judiciary and Speaker of the House of Lords. These were historic duties dating back to before Magna Carta. The Constitutional Reform Act 2005 changed this by denuding the Lord Chancellor of much of this power. One of the justifications for this act of constitutional vandalism was a desire to fit in with the rights-based philosophy of continental Europe. These constitutional arrangements were tried, tested and successful for centuries. Hopefully, in time, the experience of the last couple of decades, following Blair’s trashing of our precious judicial system, will come to be seen as a temporary aberration. In the EDP interview, published today, she also criticised the role of media, saying “The media tend to go for the politicians instead of asking ‘what the CEO of Natural England is doing? What’s the governor of the Bank of England doing?’ These people have a lot of power.” She repeated in the EDP her claim that “unelected” establishment figures forced her out of power. Earlier this week, appearing on the Lotus Eaters podcast, which was founded by ex-Ukip candidate Carl Benjamin, Truss said “What we need to do is, we need to repeal the Human Rights Act. We need to abolish the supreme court. We also need to repeal the Equality Act. We also need to make the civil service more accountable. You also need to scrap the OBR.” Benjamin sent a tweet to Labour’s Jess Phillips in 2016 saying “I wouldn’t even rape you.” He added to the comments in a subsequent video saying: “With enough pressure, I might cave, but let’s be honest nobody’s got that much beer”. Phillips has called on prime minister Rishi Sunak to take action against Truss for appearing on the podcast. Truss left office after 49 days as prime minister, having been forced to sack her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng after a disastrous mini-budget spooked the markets and forced his successor, Jeremy Hunt, to raise taxes. Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has told a media briefing on Saturday morning that it was “emotional” to stand down from his Moray seat. Ross claimed that a “lot of key seats” in the election were “a straight choice between the Scottish Conservatives and the SNP” and claimed that Labour and the SNP had “very similar policies”. PA Media report Ross said “I don’t think anyone can honestly say that the SNP, their remaining representatives in rural areas or the Government as a whole, have done enough for rural Scotland. The SNP have absolutely turned their backs on these areas. The SNP have failed rural and island communities, in particular with respect to health. The shortage of teachers across Scotland, again, is a more significant problem in rural communities than it is in urban ones in the central belt.” Ross, who posed yesterday in Glasgow with an over-sized red card to “send off” three SNP first ministers, criticised the SNP’s “obsession” with independence, adding “people can see their focus is not on the issues that really matter”.