Rishi Sunak says ‘of course’ he’s not being investigated by gambling regulator

In 2018, Theresa May proposed a reform of the Gender Recognition Act to simplify the process and – in her words – ‘see a process that is more streamlined and de-medicalised because being trans should never be treated as an illness’.

At the time her proposal with met with near-unanimous applause when it was unveiled at the Conservative party conference of all places, yet today Ms May’s views fall significantly to the left of both major parties.

Read more on the issue from columnist Cleo Madeleine below…

Farage’s comments come after a shock poll appears to confirm Reform have a narrow lead over the Tories with just 10 days to go before polling day.

A poll of 10,000 voters by Redfield and Wilton has put Reform on 19% compared to 18% for the Tories, the third time in a row the government have found themselves polling behind Farage.

Only 35 percent of 2019 Conservative voters say they would vote Conservative again, a new lowest ever in Redfield and Wilton’s polling. The previous low was 37 percent, first reached under Ms Truss and again reached in two polls earlier this election.

Nigel Farage has spoken of a ‘very odd 48 hours’ at a rally in Devon as he addressed accusations of being a ‘Putin apologist’.

The Reform UK leader told the crowd: ‘Somehow, I am made out to be a Putin apologist, which of course I’m not. What he’s done in Ukraine is reprehensible.

‘His Majesty’s Daily Mail, who have decided that I am one of the worst people that’s ever been born, not for the first time, just because I got up over 10 years ago and said that I felt the eastward expansion of Nato and the European Union would be used by a dangerous dictator as a reason to go to war.

‘In Ukraine, I said, don’t poke the Russian bear with a stick because if you do you will get a very predictable result.’

Mr Farage said he was the only person saying it and ‘they hated me at the time for daring to do so’ and they hate him more now “because I have been proved right’.

Elsewhere during the rally, Farage said the UK backed calls for PR and said the UK needed a new electoral system.

He said: ‘This is now about whether the way we are run is representative of how we think and how we feel.

‘Whether the electoral system by which we select people represents the votes as they’re cast, this is now much bigger, much more ambitious than Brexit was.

‘But I feel optimistic we can do a huge amount.’

Mr Farage claimed politicians and the media are ‘more detached from you than they were even before the (Brexit) referendum’.

Closing out the session, Starmer says he is ready to be PM but that people have to go and vote for it if they want to see it happen.

The Labour leader says his priorities in government will be to stabalise the economy and cut NHS waiting lists.

When asked if he will be more radical in government, Starmer says his party’s manifesto is fully costed.

Following the Q&A, audience members are asked to give a show of hands to decide who they preferred more. Opinion appears to be fairly evenly split, although more people admitted that they trust Starmer more now they have heard of his plans.

When asked by an audience member whether he agrees that women-only spaces must be protected, Starmer said he accepted that some people may not be comfortable with their chosen gender but refused to back self-ID.

He said: ‘When I was chief prosecutor, I was working with very many people who happened to be victims of sexual violence and Domestic Violence, it’s a big part of the work I was doing.

‘I saw for myself that those women’s spaces are, whether it’s single psych wards, or small spaces, that must be protected.

‘We mustn’t go down the route of self-identification.’

When asked about JK Rowling’s comments that Labour has ‘abandoned’ women, Starmer said he would like to meet with her to hear her views.

‘I respect what she says, and I welcome the debate,’ said Starmer.

‘I’ll always talk to anyone about this, the only rule I’d set is we have to treat each other with respect.’

The conversation has now moved on to the government’s Rwanda plan, with Starmer getting grilled on whether Labour will deport people and where they will send them to.

Starmer said he will scrap the Rwanda plan, which he calls a ‘gimmick’, but reiterates the need to take down the criminal gangs responsible for smuggling people into the UK.

He said: ‘I accept it’s a test of government, which I think they’re failing,’ and that that if the Rwanda plan was a deterrent, the numbers would not be going up.

Starmer insists people can be sent back to the county they came from, even if they burn their passports.

Labour will set up a proposed Border Security Command ‘within days’ of coming into office he said, which will ensure ‘those who do make it through ‘will go back to the countries where people come from,’ he says. 

While speaking, a heckler tells Starmer ‘you’re not gonna stop the boats’.

‘The only way to stop the boats is to smash the criminal gangs,’ the Labour leader responds. 

‘I simply do not accept that it’s impossible to take down these gangs,’ he says. 

Starmer is still being grilled on his prior support for Corbyn, which has dominated the conversation so far.

When asked whether it was right to remain in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet given his fundamental disagreements with him, Starmer said: ‘No Labour leader has ever done anything as serious’ as expelling Jeremy Corbyn from the Labour Party.

‘I’m not going to tell to the electorate, “what do you think you’re doing?”

‘I’m going to say to my party, we need to shake this up and change it.

‘I thought it was right to fight the big battles from inside the cabinet.

‘I wanted to remain (in the EU) but now we have left, there’s no going back.’

That’s all from Rishi! After a short pause, Keir Starmer is now taking the stage.

When asked off the bat what Jeremy Corbyn would have done better than Boris Johnson as prime minister, Starmer immediatley starts off by…praising Boris Johnson.

Praising Johnson for his support for Ukraine, Starmer said: ‘I thought that was important, Boris Johnson thought it was important.

‘The only winner, if there was a split in our politics, would be Putin.

‘It’s in the national interest that we speak with one voice on something as crucial as Ukraine.’

He said he has met Volodymyr Zelensky and confirmed there would be ‘no change in our support for Ukraine if there is a change of government.’

Heaping more scorn upon his predecessor, Starmer said Corbyn had since been expelled from Labour and confirms the party has transformed under his leadership.

But when asked about who Starmer was lying to about his support for the 2019 election- Corbyn or the public- Starmer struggles to form a coherant answer.

When put to him ‘How do we know that you’re not lying now?’, Starmer said: ‘We got it wrong in 2019. And I’m going to change this. I’ve had to be really tough to do that – to deliver.

‘What I’m asking for now is the opportunity to pick up country up, which is as broken as my party was in 2019 and change it for the better.’

The PM is asked repeatedly about the failures of his predecessord Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, and said he was ‘right’ in his judgement of them.

He says he spent his leadership campaign in 2022 ‘warning’ people about Liz Truss, and is now warning voters about Keir Starmer, who he repeatedly claims will raise people’s taxes.

When asked if he regrets calling the election given everything ‘including the weather’ appears to have gone wrong for him, Sunak hits back at accusations the ‘fight has gone out of him’ following the D-day gaffe and says: ‘I am very passionate about this for the very simple reason that my grandparents came to this country with very little.

‘And here I am two generations later sitting here with the enormous privilege of being our country’s Prime Minister.

‘I will never be able to repay that debt… what this country has done for me and my family is extraordinary.

‘And that’s why I do this job. Because I love this country.And if you give me the honour of continuing to be your Prime Minister, I will work my socks off to deliver for you and make your lives better.’

Next up, Sunak is grilled about his government’s plan to send illegal immigrants to Rwanda, with Mr Cole querying why he called the election despite repeatedly promising to send the first batch of migrants this summer.

Sunak is told the prospect of immigrants setting off to Rwanda would be ‘severely hindered’ by legal action, and asked to confirm whether this is true.

The PM responded by saying: ‘What have I done every time when someone has tried to block it… I’ve kept going.

‘I put new laws on the table. We’ve passed those laws to deal with Albania, but this is about the future.

‘I’ve got a plan. If you think this is if you think this is an issue… I’ve not heard from anyone an alternative plan.’

When pushed on his pledge to reduce net migration- despite levels rising to record highs under his tenure- Sunak said: ‘Obviously, the numbers are too high. I’ve got that down and you tell me another year where visas issued have reduced by 30%.

‘We raised the salary that you need to be able to come there to work to £38,500.

‘The choice for you is everything that I’ve just said or the Labour Party that oppose all of those things.’

Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer are taking part in a Q&A with The Sun’s Harry Cole this evening- with Sunak up first.

When asked about the ongoing betting scandal, Sunak reiterated that he was ‘very angry’ about the news and the government was conducting ‘internal inquiries’ into the matter.

When asked by Mr Cole about voters feelings that nothing in the country had improved under 14 years of Tory rule, Sunak admits that he ‘senses people’s frustrations’ but urges people to look to the future.

‘I got this job as a result of a mistake’, said Sunak, in reference to his predecessor Liz Truss’s disastrous tenure.

He added: ‘It’s been a very difficult few years. We’ve had COVID, the war in Ukraine.

‘And I actually got this job as a result of something that was a mistake, I was very clear about it on the first day.

‘This election is about the future, as frustrated as people might be.

‘This is not a by-election record. This is not a referendum on the past.

‘This is about future and the choice for everyone is clear.’

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has deleted a photo he posted on Twitter showing his wife voting for him on a postal ballot.

In the caption for the post, he joked: ‘Marriage safe … got the wife’s vote.’

Unfortunately for Jeremy, it appears to have broken guidelines from the Electoral Commission over sharing information about how someone has voted.

A spokesperson for the body said: ‘Every voter has the right to vote in private. The secrecy of the ballot is fundamental to our voting process and is protected in law.

‘The law allows a postal voter to take a picture of their own postal ballot paper and publicise it (including via social media).

‘It is an offence to pressurise or induce a postal voter, or indeed any voter, to make their information available.

‘It can also be an offence to obtain and share information about how someone else has voted. These laws are enforced by the police.’

Oops!

The chancellor is facing a difficult race to remain in parliament after the election, with polls predicting a tight margin between him and his Lib Dem rival.

It would take a lot of lurking over shoulders to ensure he’s got it in the bag.

The former head of the Army has been pretty blunt in his assessment of Nigel Farage’s remarks on Ukraine.

Asked if the Reform leader has a point, Lord Dannatt said: ‘As far as I’m concerned, Nigel Farage doesn’t have a point worth listening to about anything.’

The peer, who led the British Army between 2006 and 2009 before becoming an advisor to David Cameron, was speaking on BBC Radio 4’s World at One.

He added: ‘If the issue is the wider point as to whether the situation in the war has got to a point where negotiations should take place that is entirely a matter for president Zelensky and really for him alone to decide whether, in his judgment, to negotiate would be a better thing to do in order to save more Ukrainian lives than continue fighting.’

Nigel Farage has said he would ‘never, ever defend’ Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Speaking at an event in Kent, the Reform UK leader said he had predicted the war in Ukraine, adding: ‘This has been turned into “Farage makes outrageous statement”, “Farage defends Putin”, well I’ve done none of those things.

‘I would never, ever defend Putin and I think his behaviour in Ukraine and elsewhere has been reprehensible.

‘But if we’re going to think towards a peace at some time in the not too distant future, perhaps it might be helpful to understand what went wrong in the first place.’

Farage has come under fire since saying in an interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson that the West ‘provoked’ Russia into its invasion of Ukraine.

Asked in 2014 which world leader he most admired, the then-Ukip leader replied: ‘As an operator, but not as a human being, I would say Putin.

‘The way he played the whole Syria thing. Brilliant. Not that I approve of him politically.’

Here’s a bit more on Rishi Sunak at the Scottish Tory manifesto launch earlier today.

The PM dodged questions on when he became aware of the accusations that candidates and other senior Conservative figures may have placed bets on the date of the election.

He confirmed the party is running a parallel inquiry with the regulator, saying: ‘The Gambling Commission is independent of Government – it’s independent of me.

‘I don’t have the details of their investigation, right? They don’t report to me, I don’t have the details, but what I can tell you is, in parallel we’ve been conducting our own internal inquiries and of course will act on any relevant findings or information from that and pass it on to the Gambling Commission.’

Asked if he had placed political bets while serving as an MP, he replied: ‘No.’

Sunak said he is ‘not aware of any other candidate’ the regulator may be looking at, and said ‘of course’ this meant he and his family had not placed a bet as he is a candidate himself.

Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said the policies announced by the Green Party and Reform UK ‘poison’ the country’s politics.

Talking to a manifesto briefing event in Westminster today, the think tank director said their ideas are ‘wholly unattainable’ from an economic perspective but make other parties look ‘feeble’ in comparison.

Describing Reform’s manifesto specifically, Johnson said: ‘We saw the consequences of massive tax cuts with no detail on how they’d be paid for in September 2022 [referencing Liz Truss’s “mini-budget”].

‘And what Reform offers is on a much bigger scale than what we saw then.’

Believe it or not, manifestos are still being launched with 10 days to go until Polling Day.

Having launched their rural manifesto at the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh a few days ago, the Scottish Conservatives have put out the full thing at another event also in Edinburgh – and they brought the PM with them.

The Tories have had their own problems north of the border, with leader Douglas Ross announcing he would be stepping down from his role following the election after he replaced a popular colleague in the race for a safe seat in the north-east.

But this morning, Rishi Sunak told the audience: ‘It’s only Douglas (Ross) and his team that have been prepared to properly stand up to the SNP, standing against both Nicola Sturgeon’s gender recognition reforms and the dangerous hate crime act.

‘It shows you that only the Scottish Conservatives have the courage to stand up to the nationalists.’

Over to the Liberal Democrat campaign trail, where leader Sir Ed Davey has been helping to clean ambulances as he warns there are now ’10 days left to save the NHS’.

Those 10 days, specifically, are the 10 days remaining until the General Election on July 4.

Sir Ed, wearing high vis, sprayed photographers with the hose and was pictured petting a post-traumatic stress disorder dog.

The dog was wearing a vest saying ‘do not pet’. Evidence below.

Sir Ed said: ‘There are now ten days left to save the NHS. This election is a chance to end the shocking scenes of people having to wait 12 hours or more in A&E, often in pain and in overcrowded waiting rooms.

‘Years of chaos and neglect under this Conservative Government have left the NHS on its knees. Patients are being catastrophically let down.

‘The Liberal Democrats have put forward the boldest plan of any party to fix the NHS and care. We would make sure everyone can see a GP when they need one, invest in hospitals and ambulance services, and fix the crisis in social care to take pressure off the health service.

‘The future of the NHS is on the ballot on July 4. Every vote for the Liberal Democrats will be a vote for a local champion who will stand up for their local health services.’

The director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has accused the two main parties of ignoring ‘big challenges’ in their manifestos.

Paul Johnson said both Labour and the Conservatives ‘failed to acknowledge some of the most important issues and choices facing us for a very long time’ by not setting out if their policies will mean ‘higher taxes or worse public services’.

Addressing a manifesto analysis briefing held by the think tank in Westminster, he said: ‘Despite the high tax levels, spending on many public services will – on current plans – likely need to be cut over the next five years unless taxes are raised further or government debt raises ever upwards.’

Johnson also described why he thought this was the case, saying: ‘The answer is in large part a £50 billion increase in debt interest spending relative to forecasts and a pretty big growth in the welfare budget over the last few years.

‘We’ve also got rising health spending, a defence budget which for the first time in decades is going to grow not shrink, and the reality of demographic change and the need to transition to net zero.

‘Add in low growth and the after-effects of the pandemic and the energy price crisis and you’ve got a pretty toxic mix for the public finances.’

However, he added: ‘The two manifestos of the main parties essentially ignore these big challenges, these big facts that huge decisions over the size and shape of the state will need to be taken, that those decisions will, in all likelihood, mean higher taxes or worse public services.’

High-profile Conservative Tobias Ellwood, an MP since 2005, has called for Rishi Sunak to suspend the two candidates who have been named in the election date betting scandal.

Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme if support should be withdrawn for Craig Williams and Laura Saunders – who are both being investigated by the gambling regulator – he said: ‘Given the scale of this as we see now, and the potential for this story to continue to eclipse, to overshadow the election, I would now agree.

‘I’m not sure anyone including the prime minister could have predicted the number of people involved when this story first broke. The public want to see clear robust action now.’

He described the investigations as a ‘deeply unhelpful, self-inflicted distraction’ and said there was ‘no doubt’ it would cost the Tories seats.