Starmer says he would not let SNP hold new independence referendum or lift veto on gender recognition bill – as it happened

According to PA Media, Rishi Sunak grew irritated when asked if Craig Williams, one of the two Tory candidates being investigated over election date betting allegations, would resume his position as Sunak’s parliamentary private secretary if the Tories won the election. Sunak said:

I’m not going to get into appointing members of the government right here, right now.

Sunak also insisted that it was not right to describe Williams as his current PPS. He said:

Parliament isn’t sitting, there aren’t any PPSs. I’m not an MP. No-one’s an MP, we’re all candidates, right? So that just doesn’t exist as a role at the moment.

View image in fullscreen

Nicky Morgan, the former Tory cabinet minister, told Times Radio this morning that Rishi Sunak should have suspended the two candidates being investigated in relation to election date betting allegations.

Morgan, who now sits in the House of Lords, said:

I’m glad Rishi Sunak has said what he has.

But should he suspend the candidates? Yes, of course he should.

I’m afraid once you get into an election campaign, usual rules don’t necessarily apply. I think you have to react swiftly if you’re a party leader.

And I’m also concerned with the Welsh secretary this morning saying people have broken rules. These aren’t rules. These are laws about not using inside information to place bets. And they need to be treated as potential breaches of the law.

The deadline has passed for parties to withdraw election candidates, and so there is nothing CCHQ can do any more to stop any of its candidates appearing on the ballot paper as a Conservative.

But the party could publicly disown these candidates, as Labour did with its Rochdale in the middle of a byelection campaign earlier this year. Or it could suspend their party membership.

Asked today why he did not immediately disown Craig Williams, his parliamentary aide, when it was revealed last week that he was being investigated over a supicious election date bet, Sunak said he wanted to allow the investigation into Williams to run its course.

21 Jun 202408.16 EDT

Gambling Commission confirms probe into election date betting allegations covers potential criminal offences

Vikram Dodd

The Gambling Commission has confirmed that the investigation into allegations relating to election date betting is into potential criminal offences.

The investigation is into the use of confidential information to place the bet, which would amount to cheating, which is a criminal offence.

The relevant legislation is section 42 of the 2005 Gambling Act, with the punishment being a fine or a maximum of two years’ imprisonment.

Under the legislation a person cheats at gambling if they do “anything for the purpose of enabling or assisting another person to cheat at gambling”.

The law also says: “It is immaterial whether a person who cheats improves his chances of winning anything, or wins anything.”

A Gambling Commission spokesperson said:

Currently the commission is investigating the possibility of offences concerning the date of the election. This is an ongoing investigation, and the commission cannot provide any further details at this time.

If someone uses confidential information in order to gain an unfair advantage when betting, this may constitute an offence of cheating under Section 42 of the Gambling Act, which is a criminal offence.

21 Jun 202407.53 EDT

Starmer accuses Sunak of 'total lack of leadership' over Tory election date betting allegations

Libby Brooks

Keir Starmer has accused Rishi Sunak of showing a “total lack of leadership” over the Tory election date betting allegations. Speaking to broadcasters today, he said:

The prime minister is showing a total lack of leadership on this.

Let’s look at what actually happened. In relation to a general election, the instincts of these Tories when a general election is called is not how do we make this work for the country, but how do I make some money? And that tells you a broader picture about politics.

Of course, he should suspend these candidates. If they were my candidates, they would be gone by now, out of the door. You need to take tough action, but he’s not even saying today whether there’s more involved. [See 12.07pm.]

There’s a total lack of leadership. But it makes it clear the choice at this election of carrying on with the chaos, division and failure of last 14 years – on top of that, this politics of self entitlement.

I think we need to change that, and one of the big changes, if there’s a Labour government, is politics returned to service. It should be a public service, and I’m determined, if we get the chance, that that is the change that we’ll bring about.

Rishi Sunak has also warned voters not to “sleepwalk” into a Labour government.

Speaking at the launch of the Welsh Conservative party’s manifesto, he said:

I warn you, don’t fall into Labour’s trap, don’t sleepwalk to July 4.

I know you want to send us a message, but this is not a byelection. It will determine who governs our country for the next five years and potentially much longer.

For if Labour get in they will change the rules so it’s much harder to ever get them out. They want to give 16-year-olds a vote not because on principle they think that they are adults, but because they think they’ll vote for them.

Once they have got power they will change every rule to make sure that they keep it. We can’t let that happen, friends, and it’s only we Conservatives who can stop it.

Sunak said he accepted people had their “frustrations” with the government. But he went on:

I have heard you, but once you have handed Keir Starmer and Labour a blank cheque, you cannot get it back.

View image in fullscreen

Rishi Sunak has refused to say whether any more Conservative activists or candidates might be drawn into the Gambling Commission’s investigation into alleged suspicious betting on the date of the election.

Speaking in Wales, where he was asked if any more party members were implicated in the affair, Sunak said:

There is not much more I can add to what I have said previously. There are multiple investigations that are currently happening.

It is right that those investigations are allowed to proceed. They are independent, they are necessarily confidential, as you will appreciate …

What I can tell you is, as I said, if anyone is found to have broken the rules, they should not only face the full consequences of the law, but I will ensure that they are booted out of the Conservative party too.

Two Tory election candidates are being investigated, Craig Williams and Laura Saunders, as well as Saunders’ husband, Tony Lee, who is now on leave of absence from his job as campaigns director at CCHQ.

A police officer from Sunak’s close protection team has also been arrested over alleged bets about the timing of the election.

View image in fullscreen

The SNP is being investigated by Holyrood authorities over potential misuse of MSPs’ expenses to fund campaigning for the general election, Libby Brooks reports.

The Conservative party has revived its claim that Labour would raise council tax after Angela Rayner, the party’s deputy leader, said it did not have any plans for an increase “at the moment”.

In an inteview with BBC Radio Merseyside this morning, asked if Labour would consider a council tax revaluation for England (where the tax is still levied on the basis of property values in 1991, when the system was set up), Rayner replied:

At the moment, if I’m really honest to your listeners, we’ve got a lot on our plate. I want to build 1.5m homes, which I think is a huge task … We’re going to look at how we can use the affordable homes grant … These are our priorities. Our priority is not to do anything with the council tax banding at the moment.

In reponse, the Conservative party issued a statement from Laura Trott, the chief secretary to the Treasury, saying:

Angela Rayner has confirmed big council tax rises are on the cards – just not ‘at the moment’. Rebanding of council tax is one of seventeen tax rises Labour have not ruled out.

The Conservatives have repeatedly challenged Labour to rule out council tax increases, and Labour has refused. In fact, the amount people pay in council tax normally rises every year anyway. When the Tories call for council tax not to go up, they mean there should be no revaluation (which would lead to some people paying more), no additional council tax bands created and no cut to council tax discounts. These are promises the Conservatives are making for the next parliament, if they win the election.

Labour’s position has been confusing. On Monday Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, said: “We are not going to do council tax rebanding.” But on Tuesday, in his LBC phone-in, Keir Starmer did not repeat this line. Asked about council tax going up, he just said nothing in Labour’s plans required tax rises beyond those already announced.

Rayner’s comment about not wanting to look at council tax “at the moment” is similar to what Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, told the Financial Times in a recent interview. She said that, even if the case for a council tax revaluation was “sensible”, it was not something she wanted to use her “political energy” on because she had other priorities.

Council tax is a highly regressive tax and many mainstream economists and thinktanks (like the Institute for Fiscal Studies, here) argue that the case for a revaluation is compelling. But both main parties have stuck with the current valuations because reform would be contentious.

Vaughan Gething, the Welsh Labour leader and first minister, has said having Labour in power in Cardiff and London would let the party “unleash Wales’ full potential”.

The Welsh party has published its manifesto this morning and in the foreward Gething says:

This is the moment we’ve been waiting for – the chance for the Labour Party to unleash Wales’ full potential.

A Welsh Labour government, working with a Labour government in Westminster, led by Keir Starmer. We have to seize this opportunity. In the words of the poet Seamus Heaney, it is time to let hope and history rhyme.

View image in fullscreen

Peter Kyle, the shadow science secretary, was doing the interview round for Labour this morning. On LBC, he was asked four times by Nick Ferrari if he agreed with Keir Starmer when he said on the BBC Question Time leaders’ special last night that Jeremy Corbyn would have made a better PM than Boris Johnson. Kyle repeatedly refused to answer. The first time the question was posed, he said:

Those were difficult days in our politics, and we each had to find our own way through it.

But the key thing is in 2019, we had that general election, and the voters told us definitively. If you’re in politics, you’ve got to listen to voters. And they told us definitively that our party had to change. Keir Starmer led our party through that change. And he now has a party that’s fit for service because of the change.

As Ferrari tried again three more times, Kyle just repeated version of this answer.