What to expect on the General Election campaign trail on Monday
The Tories are launching their Scottish manifesto while Labour and the Liberal Democrats focus on health.
Here is your guide to the main developments in the General Election campaign on Monday:
– Scotch, on the rocks
Rishi Sunak will launch the Scottish Conservatives’ manifesto as he tries, yet again, to get his election campaign back on track after another difficult weekend.
Senior Tory official Nick Mason, the party’s head of data, is taking a leave of absence after being told he was being investigated by the Gambling Commission – joining the Conservatives’ director of campaigning and two parliamentary candidates in the regulator’s inquiry into bets on the timing of the General Election.
And Bracknell candidate James Sunderland, a parliamentary aide to Home Secretary James Cleverly, was caught on tape describing the Rwanda asylum policy as “crap” – although he said it would have the deterrent effect that Tories claim for it.
At the manifesto event in Edinburgh, the Prime Minister will accuse the SNP of “turning Scotland into the high tax capital of the UK” while Labour would “tax the UK’s oil and gas sector and the 100,000 jobs it supports into oblivion”.
Mr Sunak, who will also address a campaign event in London, is expected to urge Tory activists not to “surrender”, saying they have 10 days to make the case that “an unchecked Labour government would be a disaster from which it would take decades to recover”.
– Their day in the Sun
The Prime Minister and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will face questions from Sun readers in back-to-back interviews in London, which will be aired on the newspaper’s website from 5pm.
Mr Sunak will follow that up with a campaign event in London later on Monday evening.
– Open wide
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting will be on the campaign trail warning that people are resorting to pulling their own teeth out because of how difficult it is to see a dentist.
Labour’s “dentistry rescue plan” includes an extra 700,000 urgent and emergency dental appointments a year and “golden” hellos” of £20,000 for new dentistry graduates who spend at least three years working in under-served areas.
Mr Streeting said: “DIY dentistry should be the stuff of Charles Dickens’ books, not Britain in 2024.
“The Conservatives have taken NHS dentistry to death’s door and, given another five years in charge, they will kill it off.”
The Tories said they had a plan to deliver 2.5 million additional NHS dentistry appointments.
– Medical emergency
The Liberal Democrats are highlighting the crisis in A&E departments in hospitals across England.
Analysis of NHS England figures showed 439,411 people waited for 12 hours or more after a decision to admit had been made in 2023/24, up from just 3,262 in 2018/19.
Royal College of Emergency Medicine president Dr Adrian Boyle said: “These figures, and our own research, clearly evidence the shameful and shocking reality of poorly patients who need to be cared for on hospital wards having to wait many hour hours, even days, often on trolleys in corridors because there is not enough capacity in the system.”
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said there were now “10 days left to save the NHS”.
– Farage calls for Ukraine talks
In an ITV interview being aired on Monday night, Nigel Farage calls for “sensible” peace talks to end the Ukraine war triggered by Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
He again claims the West “provoked Putin, stupidly” through expanding Nato and the EU eastward.
Mr Farage said he backed giving military equipment to Ukraine but the war “is a complete stalemate”, adding: “There have been no sensible substantive negotiations of any kind and even if negotiations to try and find a peace, to try and find a way through fail, I think it’s better to have those negotiations than not.”
He also suggested that, far from being a British version of Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee “learned quite a lot from me” and “he was watching my speeches in the European Parliament for many years”.
– Greens highlight care plans
The Green Party is campaigning on its £20 billion-a-year plan to reform the care system.
Communities spokeswoman Ellie Chowns said: “You can judge a society by how it looks after those in need. With this test the UK is clearly severely failing and must do better. “
The Green pledge would be funded through a massive expansion in taxation, particularly on higher earners.
– Taking care of business
Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch and her Labour shadow Jonathan Reynolds will go head-to-head in a hustings organised by the Institute of Directors and Bloomberg at 12.30pm.
