Climate election debate: ‘Coward’ Boris Johnson replaced by melting ice sculpture as he avoids TV clash amid outrage over NHS remarks

DUP won’t support Corbyn in event of hung parliament

Launching the DUP manifesto, party leader Arlene Foster has said she will not help Jeremy Corbyn get to No 10.

She said the Labour leader “would be bad for Northern Ireland and in a hung parliament we would not support him to be prime minister”.

Speaking at the launch in Belfast, the DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds reserved his criticism for Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal.

“There can be no borders in the Irish Sea. We will work to try to get a sensible Brexit deal. But it cannot erect new barriers. We need our people to come together, not create more division.”

PM accused of ‘ignorance’ over column on single mothers

There’s plenty of reaction this morning to that unearthed Spectator column by Boris Johnson – in which he described the children of single mothers as “ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate”.

He also suggested it was “feeble” for a man to be unable or unwilling to “take control of his woman”, arguing Britain needed to “restore women’s desire to be married” in the 1995 piece.

While Labour’s Shami Chakrabarti said it revealed his “dark ages” attitudes to women while Labour’s candidate Jon Trickett said it had revealed Johnson’s “ignorance”. The party’s shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said it showed “utter contempt” for working-class men in the Spectator column.

In a separate, unearthed article from 1999, Johnson said young people had “an almost Nigerian interest in money”.

And people have also highlighted a 2004 Telegraph comment piece in which he complained about how much people love the NHS being free as part of a “classic posh-liberal routine”.

Johnson column reveals enthusiasm for insurance-based healthcare

Boris Johnson’s 2004 Telegraph column on NHS appears to show his enthusiasm for healthcare systems “covered by insurance”.

The Tory leader complained that “the affluent liberal middle classes use their clout and their contacts to get the best from the [NHS] system, and then feel all gooey and warm inside because they have participated in the socialising marvel of free healthcare.”

He claimed the wife of an old friend he met at a dinner party had gone to NHS dermatologist to have a “Rice Krispie” – presumably some kind of boil – removed from her back.

Suggesting an insurance system would have been better for dealing with the condition, he wrote: “My friend may think her experience marvellous, but I think it outrageous, and for what it is worth it is also unjust, surely, that the taxpayer is coughing up for Rice Krispie removal, the kind of cosmetic operation that in France or Germany would almost certainly be covered by insurance.”

SNP support surges, new polls indicates

Almost half of Scottish voters will support the SNP in next month’s election as Labour’s share collapses, according to a new poll. It is the largest lead given to the SNP in any Scottish survey since the campaign proper began.

The SNP’s share of the vote would increase from the 36.9 per cent it secured in 2017, when it won 35 of the 59 Scottish seats up for grabs, to 44 per cent.

Support for Labour has slumped in Scotland to just 16 per cent of the vote.

While the party secured 27.1 per cent of the ballots cast in the 2017 election, when it won seven Scottish constituencies, research by Ipsos MORI for STV will raise fears the party will suffer losses in two weeks’ time.

Just over a quarter (26 per cent) of Scots are backing the Tories month, according to the poll, with this down slightly from the 28.6 per cent support his predecessor Theresa May won in 2017.

Swinson attacks Johnson over Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Jo Swinson has accused Boris Johnson of having a sense of “Etonian entitlement” and not caring about jailed British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Speaking at an event in central London, Swinson said: “Boris Johnson only cares about Boris Johnson. He will do whatever it takes, sacrifice whatever or whoever is needed to get what he wants.

“This is a man who decided which side to support in the EU referendum by game-playing what would be most likely to get him the keys to Number 10.

“His life has been about becoming prime minister. Not out of some burning desire to make people’s lives better, but out of some sense of Etonian entitlement, because it's what people like him get to do."

She said: “Boris Johnson doesn't care about you and your family. Just take the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. A British mother wrongfully imprisoned, a small child devastated, separated from her mum.”

She added: “When he was talking about that case, his words would be used against Nazanin at her trial.”

She also highlighted the endorsement by ex-English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson as evidence he had far-right support.

“Boris Johnson is not fit to be prime minister not just because he doesn’t care, not just because he lies, but also because he is complicit in stoking division and fear in our communities,” said the Lib Dem leader.

“Why else would Britain's biggest racist, Tommy Robinson, be supporting him?”

Jo Swinson at speech in London (EPA) 

Channel 4 confirm they will empty-chair Johnson 

Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage will be empty-chaired in tonight's climate change debate if they refuse to take part, Channel 4 has confirmed.

The Brexit Party leader has already said he will not attend, while Mr Johnson is understood to have asked to send a substitute. This was rejected by Channel 4, which is hosting the event.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson and Green Party co-leader Sian Berry have all confirmed that they will take part.

Tory candidate apologises for telling Sikh he’s ‘talking through his turban’

A former Tory minister has been forced to apologise after telling his Sikh rival he was “talking through his turban” during an election debate.

Labour has called for Philip Dunne to be sacked as a Conservative candidate over “disgusting, racist” remarks to opponent Kuldip Sahota at a hustings in his Ludlow constituency on Wednesday.

Sahota said the comments were reminiscent of the kind of racism he suffered in the 1970s and called for a probe into Dunne.

Corbyn ‘very confident’ about spending commitments

Jeremy Corbyn has been speaking about his party’s environmental policies at an event in Southampton FC’s stadium – pledging Labour will plant two billion trees by 2040 and create 10 new national parks as part of its plans to tackle the climate crisis.

Corbyn also welcomed the IFS’s analysis of Labour’s manifesto but said he is “very confident” it can be delivered without tax hikes for anyone earning less than £80,000.

The IFS said that Labour would not be able to deliver on its promise to raise investment levels by £55 billion a year as the public sector does not have the capacity to “ramp up” that much that quickly.

“Yes, of course, we take on board the IFS comments,” said Corbyn. “This country faces a crisis of injustice and poverty and inequality, and it faces a crisis of lack of investment.

“I think our manifesto is bold, it’s ambitious, it’s prepared, it’s thought-out and there’s a grey book that fully costs it.

“No other party has produced a costed manifesto, no other party has put themselves up for that kind of scrutiny and I'm quite happy to have that kind of scrutiny, as is John McDonnell and others.”

Jeremy Corbyn speaking in Southampton (EPA) 

‘Headroom’ in the grey book? Labour challenged on spending

Andrew Neil has been asking another Labour politician about how the party would compensate the so-called “waspi” women who missed out of pension money because of retirement age change – having rattled Jeremy Corbyn on the same issue earlier this week.

Asked about how they would find the £58bn when it wasn’t in the manifesto, Labour candidate Lucy Powell said: “Some of that will have to come from additional borrowing – there is some headroom in our grey book for additional borrowing.”

The “grey book” is Labour’s document looking at expenditure.

Union boss says Labour still has to persuade ‘working-class communities’ over Brexit position

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey has been talking about Labour’s Brexit position, saying the party needed to explain to “working-class communities who voted Leave” why they are better-off under Jeremy Corbyn.

He said: “What Labour needs to do is try and explain that it’s only Labour that offers a credible way of actually dealing with Brexit and dealing with the type of Britain that we want in the future, what type of country do we want.

He added: “I’ve always felt that was the challenge, that we needed to explain to working-class communities who voted Leave and are maybe considering voting for the Conservatives or worse still the Brexit Party - that whatever their concerns that made them vote to Leave, if there’s a Tory government those concerns will stay the same, nothing will change under a Tory government.”

McCluskey also said the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis was “wrong” to say Corbyn was not fit to be prime minister.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme, McCluskey said: “I think that was wrong and quite extraordinary that a religious leader should come out and say that.”

He added: “Labour has fought, Jeremy Corbyn has fought, I’ve fought all my life against antisemitism.”