Election latest: Labour makes new tax promise - as Farage declares Reform the 'real opposition' (2024)

Sky News has been tracking locations visited by party leaders in the first two weeks of the general election campaign to decipher what their choices tell us about the parties' election strategies.

Of the 650 seats, 54 have now been visited during the campaign by Rishi Sunak, Sir Keir Starmer or Ed Davey.

The South East seems to be garnering the most attention with 12 visits overall - highlighting the importance of the region for all of the English parties.

Read more from Sky News elections analyst Dr Hannah Bunting and data journalist Joely Santa Cruz here:

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has declared his party is the "real opposition now".

In an interview with the Sunday Express, Mr Farage said he expected Reform to replace the Conservatives as the opposition to Labour after the election.

"This election is our beginning," he said.

"This election is over. Labour are going to win by a mile.

"The only question for voters now is who the opposition is going to be."

Sky's poll tracker currently has the Conservatives trailing Labour by 21 points. Reform UK are polling in third.

Meanwhile, a new poll has found Mr Farage is the people's pick to take over from Rishi Sunak as leader of the Conservatives if Labour wins the election.

The poll of 2,000 people showed 19% think Mr Farage should take over from Mr Sunak.

The poll offered six other names - Penny Mordaunt (15%), James Cleverly (6%), Kemi Badenoch (5%), Suella Braverman (4%), Priti Patel (2%) and Robert Jenrick (1%).

However, the majority of those surveyed in the poll for The Independent were stumped as to who should take the Tories' top job - 48% said they did not know who should replace Mr Sunak.

While Mr Farage topped the poll, the chances of him taking over Conservative leadership are slim to none.

He left the party in 1992 and has said the country has been "betrayed" by the Tories.

Our flagship Sunday morning show, hosted byTrevor Phillips, will be live on Sky News from 8.30am, and we have a packed line-up for you after this eventful week of the campaign.

Trevor will be chatting to:

• Mel Stride,work and pensions secretary;
• Shabana Mahmood,shadow justice secretary;
• Ed Davey,leader of the Liberal Democrats;
• Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

On Trevor's expert panel will be:

• Jacqui Smith, former home secretary;
• Tim Montgomerie, Conservative commentator;
• Stephanie Flanders, head of Bloomberg Economics.

Watch live on Sky News and in the stream at the top of this page - and follow updates here in the Politics Hub.

WatchSunday Morning with Trevor Phillipsfrom 8.30am every Sunday on Sky channel 501, Virgin channel 602, Freeview channel 233, on theSky News websiteandappor onYouTube.

ByFaye Brown, political reporter

Labour has pledged to deliver 14,000 new prison places to tackle the overcrowding crisis if it gets into government.

The party has announced plans to unblock the planning system in order to expand the prison estate and ease capacity.

Prisoners have been let out of jail earlyin recent months as part of emergency measures to tackle a chronic shortage of spaces.

Overcrowding has also resulted in offenders being held in prison cells and officers being asked to consider making fewer arrests.

Labour said the prison estate is "bursting at the seams" due to inaction and mismanagement by the Conservatives.

The Tories previously promised to deliver 20,000 new prison places by the mid-2020s but only 6,000 have been created so far.

Labour said it will deliver the remaining 14,000 if it gets into government.

Shadow justice secretary Shabana Mahmood - who will be on Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips later - said: "The crisis in our prisons is a powder keg waiting to explode. Worse still, we never had to get to this point.

"The dangerous overcrowding of our prisons was foreseeable and avoidable, but this government has not had the will or courage to act."

Read more here:

By Faye Brown, political reporter

The Tories will put benefit reforms at the heart of their election campaign today as Rishi Sunak seeks to turn things around following a difficult week.

The party is promising to cut the cost of welfare to the tune of £12bn by the end of the next parliament through measures aimed at helping people back into work.

The plan includes a £700m investment in NHS mental health treatment to ensure 500,000 more people can access talking therapies by 2030.

It also includes previously announced measures, such as removing benefits for people not taking jobs after 12 months.

The number of working age people who are economically inactive has soared to record highs following the pandemic.

The trend is thought to be driven mainly by those who have taken early retirement and people with long-term health conditions waiting for treatment on the NHS.

But the Conservative Party has said the 40% increase of people out of work - from two million to 2.8 million since COVID - is unsustainable.

It claims the cost of providing benefits for working age people with health conditions could rise as high as £90bn by the end of the next parliament.

Read more here:

Labour will reportedly promise not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT for five years if the party wins the general election.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reevesalready said this week they will not put up the taxes, ahead of Labour's manifesto launch expected on Thursday.

But a report in The Sunday Times claims Labour will take their pledge further and vow to cast a "triple lock" on the "big three" taxes over the course of the first term in power.

It means Labour would need to make cuts or find other tax rises, if they win the electionon 4 July.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) warned both the Tories and Labour their plans lock them into "sharp" spending cuts, with neither "serious about the underlying principle of getting debt falling".

In its assessment of campaigning, the IFS said forecasts suggest whoever is the chancellor in the autumn will be "fortunate" to meet the fiscal rule of getting debt on a downward path between 2028/29 and 2029/30.

That's an aim Labour and the Conservatives have both committed to.

Read more here:

Good morning!

The tooth-and-nail fight for all 650 parliamentary seats, and the keys to Number 10, is well under way after parliament was officially dissolved on Thursday.

Political parties are spreading out across the country to get their message out ahead of polling day on 4 July.

Here's what you need to know as campaigning continues today:

• The Conservatives are promising to cut the cost of welfare by some £12bn a year by the end of the next parliament through reforms to the benefits system;
• They are seeking to draw a line under a difficult week after the prime minister came under fire for leaving D-Day commemorations early;
• Labour will reportedly promise not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT for five years if the party wins the general election;
• They are also pledging to crack down on the antisocial use of off-road bikes and deliver 14,000 more prison places;
• Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has said his party is now the "real opposition" to Labour, claiming it will replace the Conservatives after the election.

Join us on Sky News from 8.30am for Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips - we will be hearing from:

• Mel Stride, work and pensions secretary;
• Shabana Mahmood, shadow justice secretary;
• Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Stick with us for all the latest political news throughout the day.

The Lib Dems have announced plans to create 1,000 new hospital beds to end the "corridor crisis" in hospitals.

The party is ramping up its focus on health and social care ahead of its manifesto launch next week, which will include a dedicated chapter on care.

The issue is personal to leader Sir Ed Davey, who is a carer for his son John, who has a neurological condition and learning difficulties.

On the campaign trail in Wokingham, Berkshire on Saturday, he told broadcasters: "The Liberal Democrats are putting health and care right at the centre of our election campaign, and on ambulance delays and waiting times, it's been a crisis.

"We've seen in some parts of the country people's loved ones dying before the ambulances arrive.

"We've seen queues at hospitals as ambulances are waiting to hand over their patients and something has to be done."

Sir Ed said he would "turn around this mess the Conservatives have made" by investing £400m per year to add an extra 1,000 staffed beds in hospitals.

The party says this would help end excessive handover delays and the scandal of patients waiting in corridors to be treated.

It has also pledged an upfront capital investment of £280 million to expand urgent treatment centres and A&E wards.

The Lib Dems did not say where the money was coming from, but insisted the the pledge is "fully funded" and more detail will be unveiled in their manifesto - which will include a chapter on care.

Rachel Reeves has accused the Tories of acting like Jeremy Corbyn with a "fantasy manifesto".

The shadow chancellor, who campaigned twice to be an MP under Mr Corbyn's watch, has written an op-ed in The Sun in which she said she "totally rejects" the former Labour leader's approach.

Accusing the Tories of making unfunded promises to cut taxes, Ms Reeves said: "The approach the Conservatives are taking now is the same as the approach Jeremy Corbyn took - and I totally reject it.

"I’m not going to offer you a fantasy manifesto that writes cheques we could never cash. I will never do this."

CCHQ were quick to point out that Ms Reeves, an MP since 2010, will have campaigned twice for Mr Corbyn's manifesto - at the 2017 and 2019 general elections.

"Imagine her shock when she finds out she campaigned for this manifesto, and to make Jeremy Corbyn Prime Minister… twice", they said in a post on X.

The Labour shadow cabinet have been at pains to stress how much the party has changed since its historic defeat at the 2019 election.

Ms Reeves in particular has been painting herself as fiscally conservative, in sharp contrast to Mr Corbyn who made a number of big spending pledges such as free school meals and the abolition of tuition fees.

The latest attack could risk angering the Labour left, who are keen to see greater spending commitments.

But Ms Reeves made clear there would be no surprise spending announcements in the party's manifesto when it launches next week, repeating her mantra: "We are a changed Labour Party. I will never play fast and loose with your money."

Question. If a prime minister is heckled at a rally and there's no backdrop scandal to imbue it with meaning, should it still end up on the news?

I ask because so often in election campaigns, individual and often innocuous events get sucked into the black hole of a political narrative and spat out as something very different and much more dangerous.

Exhibit A - the torrid two days Rishi Sunak has had after his early departure from the D-Day commemorations.

Such was the scale of this saga that even a solitary road sign in rural Gloucestershire was transformed into a symbol of the hapless Tory campaign stumbling from one PR disaster to another - simply because it read "Veterans Way" and happened to be next to a school the prime minister was visiting.

A GP with gripes about the widening of access to medical care topped off the party's hell day after she interrupted Mr Sunak at a rally in Wiltshire.

This was inevitably seen as another blow for the embattled campaign, despite the prime minister giving a fairly convincing defence of his policy.

You wonder how such a situation would have been received had it happened to Sir Keir Starmer - the drama potentially diluted by his huge lead in the polls and polished campaign machine.

None of this is to deny the importance of the D-Day story.

As one pollster put it, the debacle seemed almost "laser guided" to inflict the maximum amount of damage on a leader leaking votes to the right and facing frequent accusations of being out of touch.

That was certainly evident in Bishop Auckland on Saturday.

The Tories took this seat for the first time ever in 2019, but metres from a Conservative campaign stop one former candidate for the party told Sky News he could "never vote for that man" after events of the past two days.

"He's leading them off the cliff like rats following the Pied Piper," he said.

So how can Rishi Sunak change the weather?

Read Rob's full analysis below...