What to expect on the General Election campaign trail on Tuesday
Here is your guide to the main developments in the General Election campaign on Tuesday.
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Your support makes all the difference.Here is your guide to the main developments in the General Election campaign on Tuesday:
– A royal welcome
The Prime Minister is unlikely to be campaigning on Tuesday, as he is attending a ceremonial welcome for the Emperor and Empress of Japan, in addition to a state banquet at Buckingham Palace in the evening.
Rishi Sunak will be joined at the Horse Guards Parade this morning by Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron and Home Secretary James Cleverly.
Lord Cameron will then host a business event with Japanese investors, trade partners, and some of the top UK businesses with operations in Japan.
Mr Sunak will attend the banquet alongside Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch and Minister for the Indo-Pacific Anne-Marie Trevelyan.
– Cleverly vs Cooper
Home Secretary James Cleverly and his Labour opposite number Yvette Cooper will go head-to-head in a debate on immigration on LBC.
Ahead of the debate, Mr Cleverly claimed that Labour would turn the UK into the “asylum capital of the world” and offer an “amnesty” to people who crossed the Channel in small boats.
Meanwhile, Ms Cooper wrote in the Daily Telegraph that Mr Sunak’s policies “are clearly not working”.
– Tackling knife crime
Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to make reducing knife crime a “moral mission” ahead of a visit in central London, where he will meet with families of victims.
The Labour leader said he wants ministers, victims and tech giants to work together to tackle the sale of weapons online and cut crime on the streets.
Sir Keir has pledged to chair an annual summit to track progress in meeting the goal of halving knife crime incidents within a decade.
He said: “For the parents grieving sons and daughters who never came home, action to end this scourge cannot wait.
“Far too often we hear the same stories from grieving families who have been subject to these brutal murders carried out by children.”
– Mini-manifesto launch
Liberal Democrat Layla Moran will visit Oxfordshire to launch the party’s six-page mini-manifesto on care, highlighting pledges already made in the party’s main manifesto.
The Lib Dems leader Sir Ed Davey is not expected to be on the campaign trail.
Sir Ed, who was a carer as a teenager for his mother, and more recently for his disabled son, said: “We are putting forward a bold and ambitious plan to make sure everyone can get the support they need – people who need care, the amazing care workers who provide it, and the unpaid family carers who provide it too.”
– Shot of stability for businesses
Labour’s shadow chancellor will visit a Scotch whisky bottling plant where she will pledge to give Scottish businesses stability and “the tools to succeed”.
Rachel Reeves said the party is committed to working in partnership with businesses to break down barriers to growth.
Ms Reeves will be joined by Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, who said: ““A Labour government will be pro-business and pro-worker, working in partnership with businesses to create wealth and deliver growth.”
Elsewhere in Scotland, the SNP’s candidate for Lothian East Lyn Jardine will visit a wind farm.