BBC leaders debate - live: Corbyn and Boris Johnson clash on racism, security and Brexit as snap poll finds viewers thought PM edged encounter

Michael Gove gives out Downing Street phone number

The cabinet secretary has given out the Downing Street switchboard number – telling people they could call the diary secretary if they were upset about the PM’s failure to sit down with Andrew Neil.

Asked on Radio 5 Live what the chances of the Andrew Neil interview happening were, he replied: “I think the number would be 0207 930 4433 – that’s the Downing Street number and if you ring the prime minister’s diary secretary he will know or she will know what the prime minister’s going to do. I’m not the prime minister’s diary secretary.”

Top Tory: public ‘fed-up’ with interviews

That senior Conservative source has had more to say about sit-down broadcast interviews.

“The public are fed up with interviews that are all about the interviewer and endless interruptions,” the source was quoted as saying by the Press Association.

“The format is broken and needs to change if it is to start engaging and informing the public again.

“The PM will focus on talking to voters about people's priorities including investing in our NHS and helping with the cost of living.”

Labour’s David Lammy tweeted: “The public is not fed up of interviews. It’s fed up of being lied to.”

Corbyn holds up leaked NI document: ‘What else are they hiding?’

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is giving another press conference – and is holding up another document.

He claims a leaked document, marked “official, sensitive”, had provided the “cold hard evidence” that Boris Johnson had been “misleading” people about his Brexit deal.

Brandishing the document titled Northern Ireland Protocol: Unfettered Access to the UK Internal Market, Corbyn said it was proof there would be customs checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland after Brexit.

“What we have here is a confidential report by Johnson's own government, marked official, sensitive, that exposes the falsehoods that Boris Johnson has been putting forward,” he said.

“This is cold hard evidence that categorically shows the impact a damaging Brexit deal would have on large parts of our country.”

He said the PM “sold out” his friends in the DUP. “What else are they hiding. What else are they going to sell you out on?”

Corbyn goes on to accuse Johnson of “avoiding scrutiny” at this election, and re-states his own position on Brexit.

‘We’ve caught Johnson re-handed,’ says Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn is now answering questions alongside Sir Keir Starmer and shadow policy minister Louise Haigh.

“We have now caught Johnson red-handed misrepresenting his own Brexit deal,” Corbyn told journalists.

The 15-page document shared appears to be a slideshow prepared by the Treasury and is titled “NI Protocol: Unfettered access to the UKIM”.

Johnson had said there would be no checks between Northern Ireland and Great Britain under his exit terms, but Corbyn said the document suggested that was not true.

The Labour leader said page five of the document stated: “There will be customs declarations and security checks between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.”

He added: “It is there in black and white. It says there will be customs declarations, absolutely clearly, for trade going from Northern Ireland to Great Britain.

On various claims made by Johnson, he said: “You sometimes feel you’re in the realm of Alice in Wonderland.”

Keir Starmer, Louise Haigh and Jeremy Corbyn (PA) 

Tory candidate says disabled people should be paid less – because they ‘don’t understand money’

A Tory candidate has told voters that disabled people and those with learning disabilities should be paid less because some “don’t understand money”.

Sally-Ann Hart, the Tory candidate for the marginal seat of Hastings and Rye, was met with jeers and boos when she made the comments at an election hustings this week. 

“Some people with learning difficulties, they don’t understand money,” she said, in an exchange that was captured on video.

One person told her “how patronising, how dare you” while others shouted “shameful”.

Watch the shocking video here:

Voters identify more strongly with Leave/Remain than parties

A survey shows 55 per cent of people very strongly identify with their Leave/Remain Brexit affiliation, up from 44 per cent in 2018. In contrast, just 22 per cent very strongly identify with their political party.

Supporters of two main parties rate each other almost equally negatively on a “feeling thermometer”, where 0 is as cold/negative as possible and 100 is as warm/positive as possible:

Labour supporters give Conservatives just 15 out of 100.

Conservatives give Labour supporters just 18 out of 100.

These ratings are more negative than the scores Republicans and Democrats gave each other in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election. The Ipsos MORI poll was done for the Policy Institute at King’s College London.

Andrew Neil: four million viewers watched my monologue

Andrew Neil has fired back at the “senior Conservative source” for the claim the one-on-one live interview is “tired”.

The BBC broadcaster boasted his monologue against the PM’s no show last night got four million views – and used a Boris Johnson phrase by saying the source was talking a “pyramid of piffle”. His editor Rob Burley also criticised the Tories.

Johnson spares time for donuts

Boris Johnson might not feel he has the time for interviews, but he does have time to prepare some donuts.

He visited a bakery in Golders Green, north London, on Friday morning and tweeted: “This morning I made some ‘Get Brexit Done’ donuts at a wonderful bakery in Golders Green, North London. Thank you Grodzinski Bakery & to everyone who stopped by to say hello.”

The prime minister is going to be out campaigning in Kent today.

Labour cut Tory lead in new Ipsos MORI poll

Another surge for Labour sees Jeremy Corbyn’s party up four points.

The new Ipsos MORI poll puts Labour on 32 per cent, but the Tories still have a 12-point lead on 44 per cent. The two-party squeeze continues, with the Lib Dems down three and Brexit Party down one point.

‘They would have my vote’: Sir John Major backs independents running against Tories

Sir John Major has endorsed three ex-Conservative independent candidates running against the Conservatives.

The former Tory prime minister said he would vote for ex-ministers David Gauke, Dominic Grieve and Anne Milton – who all lost the party whip earlier this year after rebelling on Brexit – if he lived in their constituencies.

In an extraordinary intervention, he will tell a rally demanding a second EU referendum in London: “Let me make one thing absolutely clear: none of them has left the Conservative Party, the Conservative Party has left them.

“Without such talent on its benches, parliament will be the poorer, which is why - if I were resident in any one of their constituencies – they would have my vote.”

Sir John is set to describe Brexit as the “worst foreign policy decision in my lifetime”, and will say leaving the EU will affect “nearly every single aspect of our lives for many decades to come”.

He will say: “It will make our country poorer and weaker. It will hurt most those who have least. Never have the stakes been higher, especially for the young. Brexit may even break up our historic United Kingdom.”

“Don’t wake up on Friday December 13 and regret not making a choice.”

He will be joined at the rally, jointly organised by the Vote For A Final Say and For Our Future’s Sake campaigns, by former Labour PM Tony Blair.