Starmer says Sunak ‘revealed his character’ when he lied about Labour’s tax plan, also breaching ministerial code
Peter Walker
Keir Starmer has accused Rishi Sunak of deliberately lying when he claimed Labour spending plans would increase taxes by £2,000, saying the prime minister’s tactics in Tuesday night’s TV debate showed he was dishonest when put under pressure.
Amid an increasingly bitter and personal war of words over the standout dispute in the debate between the prime minister and Labour leader, Starmer said be believed Sunak should be investigated for breaching the ministerial code for dishonesty.
“What you saw last night was a prime minister with his back against the wall, trying desperately to defend an awful record in office resorting to lies,” Starmer said in a round of media interviews during a D-Day-related visit to Portsmouth’s historic dockyard. He went on:
He knew very well what he was doing.
He lied about our plans. And that is a true test of character. As we go to the polls it is important for voters to know about the character of the two individuals who want to be prime minister.
The prime minister revealed his character last night – someone who resorts to lies when he’s under pressure.
Asked if he believed Sunak had breached the ministerial code, and if he would back an investigation, Starmer replied: “Yes, he breached the ministerial code because he lied.”
The election, he added, was “a choice between chaos and division, and now lies on top of it”.
Keir Starmer on a WW2 landing craft speaking to veteran Lieutenant Commander Len Chivers, 99, during a visit to Portsmouth, for the D-Day commemorations today. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PAKey events
51m ago
Gething tells MSs he has made mistakes, but has never made a decision as minister for personal or financial gain
1h ago
Faiza Shaheen says she will run as independent in Chingford and Woodford Green after being blocked by Labour
1h ago
Welsh Tory leader Andrew RT Davies says Gething’s ‘judgment, transparency and honesty’ open to question
1h ago
Starmer says Sunak ‘revealed his character’ when he lied about Labour’s tax plan, also breaching ministerial code
1h ago
MSs debate motion of no confidence in Welsh first minister Vaughan Gething
2h ago
Local Tories protest over plan to impose party chair Richard Holden as candidate in Basildon
3h ago
Corbyn denies betraying Labour as he submits nomination papers to stand against party as independent in Islington
4h ago
Costing opposition policies one of ‘grubbiest’ jobs civil servants ever asked to do, says former cabinet secretary
4h ago
IFS says debate was ‘depressing’ because Sunak and Starmer not being open about need for cuts or tax rises after election
4h ago
Scotland’s deputy FM Kate Forbes claims SNP has never been wholly opposed to new oil and gas licences being issued
4h ago
Health secretary Victoria Atkins says NHS staff should be banned from wearing Palestinian flag badges at work
5h ago
Increase public sector pay or risk strikes, TUC warns Labour
5h ago
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage to participate in Friday’s 7-party election debate, BBC says
5h ago
Union leader accuses ministers of undermining civil servants’ impartiality with claims about cost of Labour policies
5h ago
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey fined for speeding on M1
6h ago
Three main reasons why Sunak’s claim Labour would raise taxes by £2,000 per family is misleading
7h ago
Labour says Sunak should apologise for lying 12 times about its tax plans in ITV debate
7h ago
Starmer beat Sunak in ITV debate, Savanta poll suggests, after YouGov snap poll said PM narrowly won
7h ago
Welsh FM Vaughan Gething at risk of no confidence defeat after Labour confirms 2 of its MSs may be too ill to vote
7h ago
Sunak/Starmer debate on ITV watched by 4.8m people, figures show
7h ago
Why Treasury says it cannot endorse claim Labour would raise taxes by £2,000
8h ago
How papers covered Sunak/Starmer debate
8h ago
Treasury says Sunak not entitled to say it thinks Labour would raise taxes by £2,000, as he claimed in debate
8h ago
Labour accuses Sunak of lying like Boris Johnson about tax plans in ITV debate
Here are more pictures of Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak and other leaders at the D-Day commemorations.
Keir Starmer speaking to John Swinney, first minister of Scotland, at the D-Day commemorations. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/EPAStarmer walking past journalists before boarding a WW2 landing craft at Portsmouth historic dockyard. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PAStarmer stands next to WW2 veteran Len Chivers, 99, on the landing craft. Photograph: Dylan Martinez/ReutersRishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty, King Charles, John Swinney, David Cameron and Queen Camilla at the D-Day commemorations. Photograph: Getty ImagesPrince William standing alonside Rishi Sunak at the D-Day commemorations. Photograph: Jack Hill/ReutersSunak speaking to a D-Day veteran. Photograph: Leon Neal/ReutersThe debate in the senedd is now over. The vote will take place at the end of today’s business, which means at the end of a debate about HS2 starting now scheduled to last for up to an hour.
Gething said, if Andrew RT Davies, the Welsh Tory leader, was really concerned about donations, he would have queried why his party was taking money from someone who made racist comments about a black MP, or from someone who served as a minister in a dictatorship.
And he said if Davies was really interested in how government was conducted, he would have raised questions about Partygate.
Addressing Plaid Cymru, he said they should recognise the “hypocrisy” of the Tories. And he said they should not line up with a party opposed to the interests of Wales.
He ended by saying he would “continue to put Wales first” as he lead and served his country.
Gething says he has asked his party to carry out a review into how donations are handled.
And he has asked the senedd’s standards committee to look at how the rules operate.
But he says it is wrong to change the rules retrospectively.
He says he is grateful for the support he has had.
Many people of colour know what it is like to be vilified, he says.
I also want to recognise that, like me, so many people of colour have been traduced and vilified merely for raising concerns about how some of these debates have been handled. Our lived experience should matter and be respected. We still have a very long way to go.
He says Labour has always offered pairs to other parties when MSs are too ill to vote.
And he says the refusal of the Tories to offer pairs today, when two Labour MSs are ill, reflects badly on them.
Gething tells MSs he has made mistakes, but has never made a decision as minister for personal or financial gainIn the senedd Vaughan Gething is speaking now.
He says he regrets the fact the Tories have brought this motion forward.
That is not because he is infallible, he says. He is human, and he has made mistakes and will continue to do so, he says.
Instead, he says, he regrets the motion because it criticises his integrity. He goes on:
I have dedicated my adult life to public service and to Wales. I have never, ever made a decision, in more than a decade as a minister, for personal or financial gain.
Gething tells MSs he never made a decision as minister for personal or financial gain – video
Steven Morris
In the debate in the senedd Hefin David, a loyal Vaughan Gething ally, suggested race was a factor behind the drive to oust the first minister. David said:
I have the right to ask if his ethnicity has an influence on the motives of some of those outside this chamber who seek to break him on the wheel. We cannot ignore that question and we cannot dismiss the lived experience of those BME people who feel it to be the place.
He said it was possible a no confidence vote in Gething could lead to a Senedd election needing to be called.
Labour Senedd member Hefin David suggests race is factor in drive to oust first minister – videoFaiza Shaheen says she will run as independent in Chingford and Woodford Green after being blocked by LabourFaiza Shaheen, who was blocked by Labour for standing as its candidate against Iain Duncan Smith in Chingford and Woodford Green, has announced that she is running as an independent. She says she wants to show that there is a “progressive alternative” to both main parties.
Welsh Tory leader Andrew RT Davies says Gething’s ‘judgment, transparency and honesty’ open to question
Steven Morris
Opening the no confidence debate in the Senedd into Vaughan Gething (see 4.03pm), Andrew RT Davies, the leader of the Tories in Wales, said it was about “judgement, transparency and honesty.”
At the heart of the debate is a donation Gething took from a company whose owner has been convicted of environmental offences.
Davies said:
Most reasonable people would question what was being secured by that £200,000 donation to the leadership campaign.
It’s about judgment, transparency and honesty, it’s not general electioneering, it’s not a vote of confidence in the government or Labour party, it’s about what the first minister has undertaken and the calls he has made.
The leader of Plaid Cymru, Rhun ap Iorwerth, said it was a very grave and solemn day. He said in 25 years of devolution the senedd had faced few financial scandals.
But he said Gething had shown a lack of judgement and contrition and a “bunker mentality”. He said: “We must be different from Westminster, not only in words, but deeds too.”
Vikki Howells, the chair of the Labour group in the Senedd, said the motion today was a “cynical gimmick” by the Tories to take attention off the general election and subvert democracy.
Labour member Joyce Watson expressed anger that the debate had taken place on the anniversary of the D-Day landings, preventing Gething representing Wales in Portsmouth. She told Gething’s opponents: “You could have picked any other day. You chose this day. I will never forgive you. You want to hang your head in shame.”
Gething appeared to be in tears as Howells spoke in his support. He was comforted by the chief whip, Jane Hutt.
Starmer says Sunak ‘revealed his character’ when he lied about Labour’s tax plan, also breaching ministerial code
Peter Walker
Keir Starmer has accused Rishi Sunak of deliberately lying when he claimed Labour spending plans would increase taxes by £2,000, saying the prime minister’s tactics in Tuesday night’s TV debate showed he was dishonest when put under pressure.
Amid an increasingly bitter and personal war of words over the standout dispute in the debate between the prime minister and Labour leader, Starmer said be believed Sunak should be investigated for breaching the ministerial code for dishonesty.
“What you saw last night was a prime minister with his back against the wall, trying desperately to defend an awful record in office resorting to lies,” Starmer said in a round of media interviews during a D-Day-related visit to Portsmouth’s historic dockyard. He went on:
He knew very well what he was doing.
He lied about our plans. And that is a true test of character. As we go to the polls it is important for voters to know about the character of the two individuals who want to be prime minister.
The prime minister revealed his character last night – someone who resorts to lies when he’s under pressure.
Asked if he believed Sunak had breached the ministerial code, and if he would back an investigation, Starmer replied: “Yes, he breached the ministerial code because he lied.”
The election, he added, was “a choice between chaos and division, and now lies on top of it”.
Keir Starmer on a WW2 landing craft speaking to veteran Lieutenant Commander Len Chivers, 99, during a visit to Portsmouth, for the D-Day commemorations today. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PAMSs debate motion of no confidence in Welsh first minister Vaughan GethingIn Cardiff members of the senedd (MSs) are now debating the motion of no confidence in Vaughan Gething, the relatively new Labour first minister.
Here is the text of the motion, tabled by the Conservatives.
To propose that the senedd:
1. Recognises the genuine public concern over the first minister accepting a £200,000 donation for his Labour leadership campaign from a company owned by an individual who has two environmental criminal convictions, and regrets the poor judgement shown by the first minister in accepting this donation, and his failure to repay it.
2. Regrets the publication of Welsh government ministerial messages where the first minister states his intention to delete messages that could have later been helpful to the Covid inquiry in its deliberations around decision making at the time of the Covid pandemic, despite the first minister telling the UK Covid inquiry that he didn’t delete any messages.
3. Notes the dismissal by the first minister of the minister for social partnership from his government, regrets that the first minister is unwilling to publish his supporting evidence for the dismissal, and notes the former minister for social partnership’s strong denial of the accusations levelled against her.
4. For the above reasons, has no confidence in the first minister.
There is a live feed here.
According to Ruth Mosalski, who is running a good live blog of the proceedings at WalesOnline, at one point Gething (who has not spoken yet) was in tears.
More than 80,000 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel since the government struck the Rwanda deal over two years ago, PA Media reports. PA says:
The latest crossings also mean more than 125,000 migrants have made the journey in the last six-and-a-half years as the recent crisis unfolded.
The tally since Rishi Sunak became prime minister is edging closer to 50,000 and the number arriving since the election was called is nearing 1,000.
The Rwanda agreement signed by then home secretary Priti Patel on April 14 2022 – which she described as a “world-first” – paved the way for migrants to be handed a one-way ticket to the east African nation if they were deemed to have arrived in the UK illegally.
But the plan has been beset with difficulties ever since and stalled amid a string of legal challenges.
Some 80,109 migrants have been recorded arriving in the UK after crossing the Channel between April 15 2022 and June 4 2024, according to a PA analysis of government figures.
Costas Milas, a professor of management at Liverpool University, has sent me this explanation for why Rishi Sunak and the Tories will have been so keen to get the £2,000 Labour tax rise allegation into the media, even though it is widely being dismissed as implausible. He says:
Tory strategists are following ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras who famously said “Number rules the universe”. The estimated number is highly controversial but effective. This is because:
1) It is a fairly high and easy number for voters to remember;
2) Voters will most likely think that even half of this figure (in case Tories have over-estimated the tax rises) is still worryingly high;
3) It will probably be very difficult to either confirm or reject the £2,000 tax claim because different economic assumptions lead to different numerical conclusions.
The bottom line is that the £2,000 figure dominates the campaign and puts the Labour party, rightly or wrongly, on the defensive. Quite a similar tactic to the discredited “We send to the EU £350m per week” slogan used by Vote Leave during the EU referendum.
In 1992 a Tory “tax bombshell claim” about the Labour party helped John Major win a surprise election victory. On that occasion the Tories were alleging that Labour would put up taxes by £1,250 a year for every family.
Local Tories protest over plan to impose party chair Richard Holden as candidate in BasildonThe leader of Basildon council’s Conservative group has said he will not campaign for national Tory chairman Richard Holden, who is set to become the area’s parliamentary candidate, PA Media reports. PA says:
Andrew Baggott, who leads the Conservative group on the council, confirmed Holden, until recently the MP for North West Durham, was the sole candidate on a list for the Basildon constituency presented to the local Conservative association by the party’s head office.
Baggott said: “They have given no choice of candidate to the association, no choice of candidate to the membership. They have shown complete disrespect and arrogance to all the party volunteers, all the party members, hardworking Conservatives in this borough. They are shameful.”
He added: “They are lacking in integrity, honour, and these are the things that the public looks for in the people they want to run this country.”
The Conservative councillor said association members were “exploring” options to fight the decision, adding: “Of course we are running out of time, because the nominations have to be in by 4pm on Friday. We have to organise people. It is deliberately being left to the last minute to prevent any action being able to be taken.”
Asked by PA if he would campaign for Holden, he said: “Absolutely not. Sorry, I will be campaigning for Stephen Metcalfe in the neighbouring authority. I will be campaigning for Mark Francois. I will not be campaigning for somebody that is being imposed upon us.”
Holden’s old seat was abolished in the boundary review.
And talking of getting Tory proposals analysed (see 2.43pm), Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator (which generally supports the Conservatives, but not slavishly) has published a blog pointing out that, if you look at how the tax burden is set to rise over the next four years, and then convert that into a tax increase per household figure using the same four-year cumulative counting method used by the Tories when costing Labour’s plans (see 11.51am, point 3), then you wil find the Tories are raising taxes by £3,000 per household.
Emily Thornberry, the shadow attorney general, told the World at One that she would like to see Labour follow Gus O’Donnell’s advice (see 1.48pm) and stop civil servants being asked to cost opposition policies. She said:
This has so undermined the office of prime minister …
If we’re going to waste public money on this, why don’t they spend a bit of public money getting their own promises analysed by the Treasury?
The Labour party is not holding back on its social media advertising today.
Rishi Sunak lied to you.
About NHS waiting lists.
About small boats.
About the cost of living.
Just like he did about partygate. pic.twitter.com/CuqAqqBpG4
— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) June 5, 2024 A reader asks:
Who’s refereeing Friday’s debate? [See 12.34pm.]
It’s the Today presenter, Mishal Husain.
Corbyn denies betraying Labour as he submits nomination papers to stand against party as independent in Islington
Ben Quinn
Jeremy Corbyn has submitted his nomination papers to stand as as an independent in Islington North, in a battle that will put him against the party he once led.
Addressing Keir Starmer’s repeated insistence to voters that the Labour party had changed since he took over from Corbyn, he said:
I don’t think there is any need for him to diss the past or diss his involvement in it. When we came up to the 2019 election, the manifesto and policies and strategies were agreed unanimously by both the shadow cabinet and the NEC.
Change which the UK needed required a challenge to the “economic orthodoxy which he now appears to be embracing”, said Corbyn. He suggested that Keir Starmer – who served in his shadow cabinet – appeared to think that forgetting this past involvement “somehow makes you strong”.
The former MP rejected a suggestion that he was betraying Labour, telling reporters:
Quite the opposite. I was elected as a Labour candidate in 1983. I joined the party when I was 16. I have been in the party my whole life, so the way Islington north has been treated and the way I have been treated is not a good example.
Crowds of supporters had earlier burst into chants of “Oh Jeremy Corbyn” – a familiar one from the peak of his popularity as the Labour leader. Corbyn’s opponents include a Labour candidate in the form of Praful Nargund, a local councillor.
Corbyn said he had not been tempted to join with George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain – which is seeking to mount a challenge to Labour on the left and on the issue of Gaza – saying there were differences of social policy. “He probably thinks I’m too woke,” he added.
Asked if it was time for voters looking for a left alternative to the government to look beyond Labour, he said:
It’s a bit of both. It’s always been a bit of both. I’ve always been in the Labour party, I’ve now been removed from the Labour party. But I’ve got thousands of friends in the Labour party and many are strongly supporting my campaign.