Seats visited by party leaders on day 22: Key election data

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey has now visited 26 seats since the start of the campaign, 23 of which are being defended by the Tories.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey tries an assault course during a visit to Arena Pursuits in Wadhurst, Kent while on the General Election campaign trail

With Prime Minister Rishi Sunak out of the country at the G7 summit in Italy and Sir Keir Starmer launching his party’s manifesto in the safe Labour seat of Manchester Central, Sir Ed Davey was the only one of the main leaders on Thursday to hit the campaign trail.

The Liberal Democrat leader visited the constituency of Tunbridge Wells in Kent – a seat that has been held by the Conservatives since its creation in 1974 but which ranks at number 49 on the Lib Dems’ target list.

Sir Ed’s party needs a swing of 13.4 percentage points to take the seat and overturn a notional Tory majority of 14,645.

A profile of the constituency of Tunbridge Wells (PA Graphics)

Greg Clark, who won Tunbridge Wells for the Conservatives at every general election from 2005 to 2019, is not standing this time.

Sir Ed has now visited 26 seats since the start of the campaign, 23 of which are being defended by the Conservatives.

The other three are the safe Labour seat of Hackney South & Shoreditch, where he launched the Lib Dem manifesto earlier this week; Cowdenbeath & Kirkcaldy in Scotland, won by the SNP in 2019 and more plausibly a Labour target at this election; and the safe Lib Dem seat of Bath.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has visited 25 seats, 17 of which are being defended by the Tories.

He has also held events in five Labour seats, including Thursday’s manifesto launch in Manchester Central; two SNP seats in Scotland; and Brighton Pavilion in East Sussex, which is being defended by the Greens.

A chart showing the number of seats visited by the main party leaders during the election campaign so far, with Rishi Sunak on 33, Sir Keir Starmer on 25 and Sir Ed Davey on 26 — Seats visited by the main party leaders during the election campaign (PA Graphics)

Mr Sunak has clocked up the most number of constituencies, 33, of which 30 are Conservative defences.

He has visited only one Labour seat so far: Blyth & Ashington, a new constituency at this election, but one which would have had a notional Labour majority in 2019 of 6,118.

The other two seats in which he has held campaign events are Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross (won by the SNP in 2019) and Belfast East (won by the DUP).