Boris Johnson news – live: Tory ministers face embarrassment over spending plan figures, as ‘scruff’ PM and Corbyn under fire for Remembrance Day wreath laying
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Your support makes all the difference.Business minister Kwasi Kwarteng refused to say how much Boris Johnson’s election pledges would cost – despite attacking Labour’s “reckless” spending plans.
The Conservative MP dodged the question during a TV interview after repeating his party’s claim that Jeremy Corbyn’s plans amounted to £1.2 trillion over five years.
In what was quickly described as a “car crash interview”, Mr Kwarteng told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “I’m not going to bandy around figures.” Ms Ridge replied: “But that’s what you’ve been doing for Labour.”
Meanwhile both the prime minister and the Labour leader faced criticism over their handling of the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph, as the election campaign geared up for a second week.
Follow the latest developments in our liveblog below:
Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party, has predicted the "the biggest Green vote ever" in the general election.
"I think at this election we're seeing climate change right up there at the top of the agenda," he told BBC Radio 5.
"We think we're going to see the biggest Green vote ever."
Mr Bartley said Labour's pledges are "just a quarter of the size of what we are proposing in terms of our Green New Deal".
"We know that we're going to have to make this investment and we're going to have to make it quickly," he added.
"And the more quickly we make it, the more we're going to save in the long run."
To mark Remembrance Sunday the three major parties have all announced policies to help veterans.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps said up to 700,000 former members of the armed forces will be able to buy a railcard to get a third off train travel, if the Conservatives win the election. The existing railcard, which costs £21 a year, only applies to serving members of the armed forces.
The Lib Dems are proposing to scrap settlement fees for veterans who were born outside the UK.
And Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn issued a message to the armed services promising "better pay, better accommodation, and better support for their families".
There are around 2.4 million veterans living in the UK, according to a 2017 population estimate.
Here's the latest election polling from Yougov, showing the Conservatives 13 percentage points ahead.
The tracker shows both Labour and Conservatives appear to have gained from a drop in support for the Brexit Party since Theresa May announced she was quitting as prime minister.
Theresa May effectively ruled out a no-deal Brexit after being warned about the potential for terrorism in Northern Ireland during a meeting with police chiefs and community groups in February, according to former cabinet minister David Lidington.
He told the Sunday Times: "What really struck her was how the prospect of no-deal was driving them towards actively supporting a united Ireland, rather than being content to let sleeping dogs lie.
"Anything on the border itself - even cameras - was certain to produce an increase in tension. I sat in meetings in Londonderry and in Newry and County Fermanagh, and I was told that in no uncertain terms."
Senior Tories have refused to reveal the full cost of their spending plans as the chancellor was plunged into a "fake news" row over a dossier claiming Labour would rack up a £1.2 trillion bill in government, writes political correspondent Lizzy Buchan.
Sajid Javid said Labour would bring the country into "an economic crisis within months" as he doubled down on a Tory analysis which claimed Labour would go on a multi-billion pound public spending spree over the next parliament.
Which party leader do you most trust over Brexit? According to this poll, Boris Johnson leads the way on 36 per cent, followed by 'none of them' on 28 per cent.
This electoral projection, based on recent polling (and therefore to be treated with caution), suggests the Conservatives will win a majority of 64.
Among those predicted to lose their seats are Labour's Dennis Skinner and Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith (who won his seat by only 45 votes in 2017).
Downing Street is facing renewed calls to publish a parliamentary report on Russian interference in UK democracy before the election.
The report by the Intelligence and Security Committee was sent to the prime minister on 17 October but the government argued it would take around six weeks to be cleared.
Today transport secretary Grant Shapps said he believed the government was "not allowed to publish things which are seen as controversial in any way" during the pre-election "purdah" period.
"I suspect it's just the machinery of government," he told BBC Radio 5.
A petition calling for the release of the report has so far gathered 170,000 signatures.
When Labour left Downing Street in 2010, there were more than 3,500 Sure Start centres in the country. In the last nine years, however, more than 1,000 centres have been closed or hollowed out, writes shadow education secretary Angela Rayner...
(Alamy)
The Independent visited West Yorkshire where Labour MP Mary Creagh wants constituents’ support – but not their questions about her house, writes Colin Drury.
Hours earlier the mother-of-two took to Twitter to condemn Jacob Rees-Mogg’s assertion that Grenfell Tower fire victims could have escaped had they shown “common sense”.
“Lofty pronouncements from a man who drives a Rolls and lives in a £6m house,” she wrote.
The tweet may have played well online but in Wakefield city centre it was a different matter.
(Getty)
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