6:21 am, June 27, 2024
Sunak and Starmer clash over deepening betting row in heated final TV debate
Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer return to the campaign trail on Thursday after they clashed over the Westminster betting row in their final televised head-to-head debate ahead of the General Election.
The Labour leader accused the prime minister of being ‘bullied’ into taking action in the scandal, while Sunak repeatedly warned voters not to ‘surrender’ to Labour’s tax and migration plans in the heated exchange.
With the polls showing the Tories heading for an electoral drubbing with just a week to go until July 4, Sunak used the BBC debate to hammer home his claim that Sir Keir ‘is not being honest with everyone about his plans to raise their taxes’.
Junior doctors to stage 11th strike as election looms
More strike action could take place in the summer if the next government does not move forward negotiations with junior doctors in a ‘timely manner’, medics have warned as they started a five-day walkout across England.
The British Medical Association (BMA) said it stands ready to talk and the union has already had some discussions with the Labour Party.
Junior doctors said Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting has promised talks on July 5 if the party wins the General Election.
SNP MPs will hold Labour government to account, vows Flynn
Labour is on course for a super-majority, Stephen Flynn has said as he urged voters to back the SNP to ‘hold them to account’.
As the election campaign enters its final week, the SNP’s Westminster leader said the Conservative campaign – which has been embroiled in a betting scandal in recent days – is ‘collapsing into farce’ and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is ‘heading for a coronation’.
Labour has been keen to talk down the chances of securing a massive majority in the Commons on July 4, fearing a high number of undecided voters.
Lib Dems demand emergency budget to ‘fix’ health services
The winner of the General Election should pass an emergency budget to ‘fix’ healthcare, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has said.
It comes after poll frontrunner the Labour Party ruled out a snap fiscal event in the first few weeks of the next parliament.
The Lib Dems want to see a budget which would be ‘much more targeted in scope than a normal budget’.
Driver who crashed 4×4 into school killing two young girls to face no charges
The driver of a car that crashed into a school killing two eight-year-old girls will face no criminal charges after it was found she had suffered an epileptic seizure behind the wheel.
Nuria Sajjad and fellow eight-year-old pupil Selena Lau died after the crash at The Study Prep school in Wimbledon, south-west London, on July 6 last year.
Several others were injured when the 4×4 crashed through a fence and hit a building.
Wednesday Car Dealer headlines you might have missed
- CDK Global tells car dealers hacked software unlikely to be restored before end of month
- Rising used car prices ‘stumbling block’ to insolvency, says financial support service
- Top car industry execs to run imaging and software firm after buy-out by Citygate
- Volkswagen to invest billions in troubled electric vehicle start-up Rivian
- Luxury car salesman issues defiant response after losing Sytner employment tribunal
- McLaren CEO says UK can be electric supercar centre-of-excellence with right investment
- Vertu Motors confirms departure of Ken Lever as non-executive director after nine years
General Election betting row has distracted from key issues, says Cleverly
James Cleverly admitted the deepening Westminster betting row ‘distracts the conversation away from the really important issues’, as he declined to say whether rules around gambling on politics should be changed.
The home secretary said he was ‘furious that people who should have been motivated exclusively by public service’ wagered on the election, but insisted on awaiting the outcome of Gambling Commission probe before making any decisions on rule changes.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the rules were not the problem, politicians using inside knowledge were.
‘Most valuable Harry Potter item ever sold at auction’ is book cover at £1.5m
A watercolour drawing for Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone has fetched a record amount at auction.
The artwork for the cover of the first book in the series, by JK Rowling, fetched 1.9 million US dollars (£1.5m) at a sale by Sotheby’s auction house in New York on Wednesday.
The new sale of the illustration, by Thomas Taylor, which featured on the debut edition of the novel in 1997 was involved in a four-way between bidders for nearly 10 minutes before selling for the record amount.
Weather
The northwest will see blustery showers while a band of cloud will move eastwards over England bringing rain, reports BBC Weather. The best of the weather will be in the south-east with sunny spells. Slightly cooler than of late with highs of 24 degrees.
Cloudy with patches of rain for the north tonight, while the south will be clear. Much cooler.
