Election latest: Nigel Farage 'playing into hands of Putin', Rishi Sunak says - as Labour condemn 'Tory s***show' (2024)

By Rob Powell, political correspondent

The architect of the government's delayed reforms to social care has told Sky News politicians need to "grow up" and tackle the crisis in the sector.

Amid a bitter election row over public spending, Sir Andrew Dilnot said he believed the two main parties were reluctant to discuss care reform for fear of being accused of plotting future tax hikes.

Sir Andrew - whose 2011 report laid out several key measures adopted by the government - described social care as the "biggest risk that isn't managed" that the country faces.

He said: "Four out of five people are going to needsocial carebefore they die, we should grow up and face it."

"I think politicians are reluctant to talk about it firstly because they're worried about anything that means an increase in public spending and therefore possible taxation," he added.

You can read more below:

By Tom Cheshire, online campaign correspondent

If you want a good idea of what matters to each party - its deepest desires, its darkest fears - look at where it's spending money.

What it shows is a story of Labour spending big and spending everywhere, as it pursues a plausible supermajority, while the Conservatives retreat to fight for some of their heartland constituencies, and spend much less.

It shows the current state of play for all parties across the country. The map shows which is the biggest spender in each constituency - which parts of the country they're fighting to win, or not to lose.

The map was created by Who Targets Me (WTM), which tracks digital political advertising and has partnered with Sky News as part of our online campaign team.

"Our map of advertising activity shows where the parties have targeted their Facebook and Instagram ads in the last week," Sam Jeffers, executive director of WTM, says.

From first past the post to voter ID, here's everything you need to know about the general election in less than five minutes.

The Conservative Party is seen as "tawdry", Ruth Davidson has said, as two of its candidates are being investigated over alleged bets placed on the election date.

The Gambling Commission islooking into two Tory candidates over alleged wagerson the date of the 4 July election.

An industry source has told Sky News that "more names" are being looked into, but police are so far "not involved".

Speaking on theElectoral Dysfunctionpodcast with Sky News political editor Beth Rigby, and former broadcaster and presenter Carol Vorderman, the former leader of the Scottish Tories waded into the fallout of the alleged betting scandal.

"What an absolute sh*t show. Firstly, I mean, how tawdry is it?" she said.

She described it as akin to "insider trading" and criticised Rishi Sunak's response, saying he had repeatedly failed to get out in front and take control of events.

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By Laura Bundock, news correspondent

The election might seem like a two-horse race, but other parties are jockeying for votes too.

We put their manifestos to the Sky News YouGov Voters Panel.

Representing different political backgrounds and more than 40 different constituencies, they pored over the promises and policies.

Our live poll tracker collates the results of opinion surveys carried out by all the main polling organisations - and allows you to see how the political parties are performing in the run-up to the general election.

It currently shows a drop in support in recent days for Labour and the Tories - with a jump for Reform and the Liberal Democrats.

Read more about the tracker here.

The Labour Party has been attacking the Tories over sewage in Britain's waterways for months - and shadow environment secretary Steve Reed is hammering the message today.

Labour is proposing a number of measures to cut sewage dumping, including:

• Ending self-monitoring by water companies;
• Giving the water regulator the power to block bonuses for executives;
• Making water bosses face criminal charges if they "continue to oversee law-breaking";
• Introducing "severe and automatic fines" for illegal sewage dumping.

They have released a new ad to drive that message home, which reads: "It's time to end the Tory sh*tshow."

There's a subtle secondary message in there somewhere...

Sir Ed Davey has been out campaigning this morning, and he was asked by broadcasters about Nigel Farage's assertion that the West and the expansion of the EU "provoked" Russia's invasion of Ukraine (more here).

The Lib Dem leader replied unequivocally: "It is [Vladimir] Putin and Russia who are to blame for this, no one else.

"I strongly support the efforts that Britain has made to support Ukrainians. I wish we had done more, actually, and I think British people would be shocked if we do anything else."

Sir Ed went on to say: "I don't share any values with Nigel Farage."

His message to UK voters is that we "need to support the Ukrainian people".

"This is a time of deep insecurity in our world. I'm worried when I look to later this year, if Donald Trump wins the presidential election, it's possible that the United States will give less support to Ukraine, and Britain and the rest of Europe will have to stand up and work together."

Sir Keir Starmer has outlined his plans to tackle delayed compensation for those affected by the Windrush scandal, should he win the election.

He told broadcasters on Windrush Day today that "the compensation scheme which is there to deal with the real injustice is going too slowly".

"We've got too many examples of people who've died before they've got the compensation that they're entitled to.

"The Windrush unit needs to be re-established in the Home Office, and we will set up a permanent commissioner to be a champion and an advocate for the Windrush generation to make sure that these injustices are put right."

Campaigners are also calling for those affected to be given British citizenship within the first 100 days of the next government - but the Labour leader would not commit to that, should he win the election.

JK Rowling has said she will "struggle to support" Labour if Sir Keir Starmer keeps his current stance on gender recognition, saying that he has effectively "abandoned" women concerned about the effect of transgender rights (more here).

In response, Sir Keir told reporters: "I'm really proud of the long history of the Labour Party in making real progress on women's rights, passing landmark legislation that has changed millions of lives.

"Now that battle is never over, and we need to make further progress, which we will hope to do if we earn the trust and confidence of the voters at the general election.

"As we do so, I'm also determined that one of the changes that we will bring about if we win the election is a reset of politics, to make sure that as we make progress, we do it in a context that brings people together and all dialogue all debate is always done with respect for the views of everybody involved in those progress and in that discussion."