UK Election 2024

Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves says Rishi Sunak is singing from Liz Truss’ “songbook” in making “unfunded commitments”, after his promise to raise the tax-free pension allowance.

Officials in Papua New Guinea have appealed for international help – warning that more than 2,000 people may have been buried alive under a landslide that occurred three days ago.

And Naomi Smith, CEO of Best FOR Britain, a civil society campaign group which began as an anti brexit organisation.

Labour has criticised the pledge as “desperate” and “only needed because the Tories hollowed out the armed forces”.

We’re joined by Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies – an independent economics thinktank.

We were joined by Henry Hill, Deputy Editor of the Conservative Home news and analysis site.

The Conservatives and Labour have clashed over the economy – with Jeremy Hunt saying he wants to continue cutting National Insurance, and Rachel Reeves promising Labour would never play “fast and loose” with people’s money.

Energy bills for the average household are set to fall by £122 a year from July under the new price cap set by regulator Ofgem. 

In the Commons, some of the departing MPs have been giving their valedictory speeches – around one in five MPs have signalled they will be standing down, some familiar faces among them.

The party leaders have been taking their election messages around the nations. 

Sir Keir Starmer says ‘SNP as divided and chaotic as Tories’

The search for votes has begun, and so have the promises. But the public spending plans which would have to pay for them are extremely tight.

If the polls are right the Conservatives are facing a wall of red gains in the so-called Red Wall – the former Labour heartlands they won in 2015. 

It’s known as the ‘wash-up’ – a race against time to ensure important bills don’t end up on the scrap heap, when MPs decide what gets dropped and what becomes law before Parliament is dissolved.