• Four men were arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of aggravated trespass at the prime minister’s constituency home in Yorkshire, police said. The suspects were arrested in the grounds of Rishi Sunak’s home in Kirby Sigston, near Northallerton, at around 12:40pm before being escorted off the property, North Yorkshire Police said. The force said the men included a 52-year-old from London, a 43-year-old from Bolton, a 21-year-old from Manchester, and a 20-year-old from Chichester. They remain in police custody and inquiries are ongoing.

• The Labour party said it is suspending one of its candidates, Kevin Craig, because he is being investigated by the Gambling Commission. Craig is the party’s candidate in Central Suffolk and North Ipswich. It is understood that Craig is being investigated for betting against himself. He said: “I am deeply sorry to the many dedicated and loyal local Labour party volunteers who have been supporting my campaign. I will comply fully with the investigation.”

• The news broke after a day of other developments in the election betting scandal. This morning, after prevaricating for days, the Conservative party said it was suspending two of its candidates who are being investigated over suspect bets placed on the timing of the election. And this afternoon the Metropolitan police said five more of its officers are being investigated by the commission, also over suspect election date bets. The allegation is that bets were placed by people who had access to inside information about Rishi Sunak opting for July. One of the Tory candidates, Craig Williams, has issued a statement saying that, although he made an error of judgment, he did not commit an offence.

• Russell George, a Conservative member of the Senedd, has stepped back from the Welsh shadow cabinet as he faces an investigation by the gambling watchdog over alleged bets on the timing of the General Election. George represents Montgomeryshire in the Welsh parliament – the same area that Craig Williams, the Tory candidate who has had party support withdrawn as he faces similar allegations, represented at Westminster.

• Keir Starmer has vowed to make tackling knife crime a “moral mission” at an emotional meeting with victims’ families and the actor Idris Elba.

• Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, accused Labour of planning “to eradicate women from our national language” as the Conservatives sought to ramp up attacks on Keir Starmer around gender identity issues.

• The equalities minister Kemi Badenoch said she “will not shut up” after David Tennant suggested she should at the British LGBT Awards. Badenoch accused the ex-Doctor Who actor of being a “rich, lefty, white male celebrity so blinded by ideology” in a post on X. Tennant, who won Celebrity Ally at a ceremony on Friday, received cheers and applause when he said of the Conservative Cabinet minister: “I don’t wish ill of her, I just wish her to shut up.” Badenoch said in response: “I will not shut up. I will not be silenced by men who prioritise applause from Stonewall over the safety of women and girls.”

Four men have been arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass at Rishi Sunak’s constituency home in Kirby Sigston, North Yorkshire Police said.

The force said: “We have arrested four people in the grounds of the Prime Minister’s constituency home this afternoon.

“Our officers were with the four men within one minute of them entering the grounds.

“They were detained at around 12.40pm before being escorted off the property and arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass.

“The men aged 52 from London, 43 from Bolton, 21 from Manchester, and 20 from Chichester, remain in police custody for questioning and enquiries are ongoing.”

The suspended Labour candidate Kevin Craig said he “deeply” regrets putting a bet on the Tories winning in the Suffolk constituency he is contesting.

Craig added he will “fully comply” with a Gambling Commission investigation.

He wrote on X: “A few weeks ago when I thought I would never win this seat I put a bet on the Tories to win here with the intention of giving any winnings to local charities. While I did not place this bet with any prior knowledge of the outcome, this was a huge mistake, for which I apologise unreservedly.”

Labour has suspended parliamentary candidate Kevin Craig after being told the Gambling Commission has launched an investigation into him, PA Media reports.

Craig is the candidate in Central Suffolk and North Ipswich. That is a seat Dan Poulter won for the Tories in 2019 with a majority of 23,391. But some of the recent MRP polls have suggested it was on course to go Labour.

And Peter Mandelson told the Times’ How to win an election podcast that he does not think Keir Starmer will bring back “big beast” former ministers to serve in cabinet.

Mandelson held various cabinet posts, including first secretary of state (de facto deputy PM) under Gordon Brown, but he said he definitely would not be getting a job himself from Starmer.

He told the podcast:

I’m reliably informed that I will not be brought back. That has been made absolutely clear.

They don’t want any big beasts coming back to mark anyone’s homework. I would say that Rachel Reeves is a ‘dead cert’ [to be chancellor] should Labour be elected and be given the privilege to serve. David Lammy, absolutely ‘dead cert’ at the Foreign Office and I think other top jobs, no change.

Asked if he thought Douglas Alexander, a former international development secretary and former shadow foreign secretary, who lost his seat in 2015 but who he is expected to win a new seat, East Lothian, next Thursday, would be recalled to cabinet, Mandelson said: “It won’t happen, no.”

Craig Williams, the Tory candidate in Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr who is no longer officially backed by the party because of the bet he placed on the date of the election, has posted a video on X with a message for his electorate.

He is pleading for his job. He says he committed “an error of judgment, not an offence” and he in effect downplays the significance of the Gambling Commission’s inquiry into what he did, describing it as “routine”.

He also highlights the work he has done for constituents, as MP for Montgomeryshire over the past five years.

Here is an extract.

I just want a quick message to the constituents of Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr. I remain on the ballot paper come July 4 and I hope to secure your support after years of delivery.

I committed an error of judgment, not an offence, and I want to reiterate my apology directly to you.

I am fully co-operating with routine inquiries from the Gambling Commission and I intend to clear my name.

In all these things, due process is important and that is what sets the UK apart from other countries, and the commission must be allowed to do its work.

It’s been a privilege for me to be the member of parliament for the constituency where I was born, raised and now live with my young family.

I have been working hard, helping thousands of constituents with our team with everything from benefits to housing, from potholes to energy bills, as well as securing an unprecedented level of investment in our local businesses, communities and high streets, and finally sticking up for farmers, because without farmers there is no food, and without food there is no future.

For now, however, the most important thing I want to say to you today is I am committed to my campaign to be elected as your member of parliament and your staunch champion.

In fact, Britain is not the only country with a commitment to “due process” in judicial and judicial-type matters. This is normal for democratic countries.

When Williams says he did not commit an offence, he is asserting that he was not guilty of cheating under the Gambling Act 2005. Cheating is a criminal offence with a maximum penalty of two years in jail. But Kate Bedford, a law professor, has said that there are arguments about what constitutes cheating and, in this analysis, she argues “the standard of proof needed to void a bet [which is what the Gambling Commission does if it concludes a bet was based on inside information] is obviously going to be lower than that required for proceeding with a criminal investigation”.

And while cheating cases do sometimes go to court, there does not seem to be a precedent for a prosecution involving a political bet of this nature.

The chair of BMA Scotland, Dr Iain Kennedy, warned this morning that “very existence of a national health service as we know it” is under threat and that the country was “sleep-walking” to a two-tier system of healthcare.

Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, picked up on this as she promised an “immediate injection of cash” for public services, particularly the NHS, on a campaign visit to Scotland. She said:

The consequentials from cracking down on tax avoidance and tax evasion, making sure that non-doms pay their fair share of tax, are going to be ploughed into the NHS and we would expect the Scottish government to spend that money on NHS in Scotland.

Speaking after a tour of the Chivas distillery in the West Dunbartonshire constituency, one of Labour’s top central belt target seats, she reiterated Labour’s commitments not to raise tax but to grow the economy, pointing out that since 2020 there are 6,000 fewer businesses in Scotland and 44,000 fewer people in work.

Asked about the SNP argument that they need more powers from Westminster to promote growth, Reeves responded:

They’ve got quite a lot of fiscal powers and what are they using them for? They’ve racked up taxes on working people but they refuse to back us on extending the windfall tax on the big profits the energy giants are making.

Both Labour and the Conservatives in Scotland have attacked the SNP during the election campaign for what it describes as progressive income tax rises, while pollsters remain ambivalent about whether pledges not to raise taxes actually impress voters.

The Metropolitan police has announced that five more officers are being investigated in relation to suspect bets on the date of the election, in addition to the protection officer who was arrested. In a statement a Met spokesperson said:

We previously confirmed the arrest of a Met officer on Monday, 17 June for misconduct in public office in relation to bets placed on the timing of the general election.

The officer – a police constable from the Royalty and Specialist Protection Command – is on restricted duties.

It is still the case that only one officer is under criminal investigation.

We have, however, been passed information from the Gambling Commission alleging that five further officers have placed bets related to the timing of the election.

The Gambling Commission continues to investigate these matters. The officers have not been arrested but the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards has been informed.

The officers are based on the Royalty and Specialist Command, the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command and the Central West Basic Command Unit. None of them work in a close protection role.

Decisions on whether they will be subject to any restrictions will be taken in due course.

Vaughan Gething, the Welsh Labour leader and first minister, has claimed that a footballer acting like Craig Williams, the Tory candidate accused of placing a suspect bet on the election date, would be “banned from the game”.

Speaking during first minister’s questions, in response to a question from the Conservative MS (member of the Senedd) Natasha Asghar about his own integrity, Gething said:

If you really want to talk about scandals – and today is a day to do that, is it not, Natasha Asghar – look at former Conservative Senedd staffer Craig Williams, now finally junked as a Conservative candidate.

And let’s be clear if a professional footballer had placed a bet in the way that Craig Williams did, he’d be banned from the game.

That’s what would happen.

As well as working in the Senedd, Williams has represented two Welsh constituencies as an MP, Cardiff North and Montgomeryshire.

Keir Starmer said today Labour would pass “Ronan’s law”, legislation to ban the sale and possession of dangerous knives. It will be named after the 16-year-old Ronan Kanda, who was killed with a ninja sword in Wolverhampton in 2022.

According to Labour, the bill will involve “a comprehensive ban on possession of a wider range of lethal weapons which have been used to kill teenagers on Britain’s streets” and an “end-to-end review of online knife sales, from purchase through to delivery, with much tougher enforcement of ID checks”.

Speaking to reporters today as he met families affected by knife crime in London, Starmer said:

The government has announced 16 times that they’re going to ban the online sale of zombie knives. We as the opposition said we support this, bring the legislation, it will go through, they haven’t done it. Knife crime now is up 81% since 2015.

It’s a problem that we all have responsibilities for, so legislation on knives is a government issue and the government has failed on this issue. We will not fail on this issue.

There are other measures, one of the families here their son was murdered by a knife that was sent through the post by a shop, ordered online in ordinary packaging and picked up by a 15-year-old who didn’t need to show any identification.

It’s not rocket science. I will stop that straight away and I think it’s so outrageous that that can even happen.

Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, has accused Labour of planning “to eradicate women from our national language” as the Conservatives sought to ramp up attacks on Keir Starmer around gender identity issues.

Labour plans to ban conversion practices would risk stopping parents, teachers and therapists from “comforting and counselling” children and adults “in gender distress”, the minister claimed at a press conference in London.

In its manifesto, Labour states:

So-called conversion therapy is abuse – there is no other word for it – so Labour will finally deliver a full trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices, while protecting the freedom for people to explore their sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Times, which has been covering prominently criticism of Labour’s stance on trans policy, has this morning splashed on a story about the Labour manifesto pledge to ban conversion practices. It said that Hilary Cass, doctor behind a landmark review of the NHS’s gender identity services for children and young people, had said that a ban on trans-inclusive conversion therapy was likely to prompt concern among medical professionals that they might find themselves in a “test case”.

Atkins picked up on this, telling reporters:

Today it has seeped out that Labour not only wants to introduce self ID by stealth, but also wants to stop parents, teachers and therapists from comforting and counselling children and adults who are in gender distress.

We all agree that so-called conversion therapy in the context of sexuality is dreadful and must be stopped. However, we need a thoughtful conversation about whether additional legislation is necessary and possible without criminalizing those who are doing their best to support people with gender distress. This is ripe territory for the law of unintended consequences.

Referring to language, she said:

What is worrying about the Labour party’s approach to this is that they appear to be changing their script according to who is listening and we have seen in recent days, even the Labour leader himself struggling to define what a woman is. Rather than listening to women in his own party, chooses to quote his predecessor Tony Blair, a man, when it comes to understanding what a woman is …

We are half the population. I, as a woman, when I walked into that maternity unit and I saw that women had been eradicated from the language that midwives and clinicians wanted to use, I felt very upset actually.

And she claimed there was a stark choice at the election.

The choice at this election is clear. A Conservative party that believes everyone should be treated with dignity and respect that will stand up for women’s rights and protect our children, or a Labour party that is relaxed about eradicating women from our national language and sees little need to protect women and girls’ rights, that is refusing to change the law to protect single-sex spaces and will introduce self-ID by the back door.

In response to Atkins, Keir Starmer told reporters on the campaign:

I couldn’t be clearer about this. We are not introducing self identification. We are going to be and are protective of women’s spaces.

On banning conversion practices, the Labour leader said:

Conversion therapy is something which needs to be outlawed. And the government used to believe that it should be outlawed. And there’s many Tory politicians who think it should be outlawed. Conversion therapy is materially different to putting in the support which is needed for people, particularly young people.

Last night Rishi Sunak claimed asylum seekers in Calais were “queueing up” waiting for Labour to win the general election before crossing the channel, because they knew Keir Starmer would abandon the Rwanda policy. In a report this morning the Daily Telegraph says it has spoken to some migrants in northern France confirming that is their position.

In their story Charles Hymas and Connor Stringer say:

Most migrants in the Grand-Synth camp near Dunkirk who were contacted by The Telegraph knew about the Rwanda scheme and said they were worried about the threat of being deported.

While some said they would still attempt the crossing if they got the chance, others said they would prefer to wait until after the election, which takes place on July 4 ….

In northern France, a 43-year-old Peshmerga fighter from Iraq who was imprisoned by ISIS told The Telegraph that he was waiting until after the election to travel to Britain. He said he had spent three months and 17 days in captivity after being arrested and captured by the terror group.

“It’s better to wait for two weeks, I would like to wait for two weeks,” he added. “We need to wait until the new government has arrived. It’s [Rwanda] a really bad decision, it’s more politics and business. Have some mercy on the refugees.”

This morning Keir Starmer said claims that migrants were “queueing up” in France were “utter nonsense from the Tories”.

He went on:

They’re not queueing up in Calais, they’re getting in boats and coming over.

We’ve had record numbers this year. So, I mean, the prime minister really needs to answer for that. Under his watch, we have had record numbers, record numbers coming by boat, we’ve got record numbers of migrants coming to work in this country.

So that’s the situation – we intend to stop that by taking down the gangs that are running this bar trade in the first place. And if the government had done that, we wouldn’t be having this discussion at all.

Small boat arrivals for the first six months of the year are at an all-time record, up 17% on last year.

Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader, has also accused Rishi Sunak of waiting too long to drop the two candidates accused of suspect betting.

This should have happened immediately when these scandalous revelations emerged, but instead Rishi Sunak has dithered and delayed.

Sunak must confirm immediately that these candidates will not have the Conservative whip if elected.

Keir Starmer has asked why the Tories did not suspend Craig Williams and Laura Saunders earlier. In response to the CCHQ announcement, he said: “Why didn’t that happen a week ago?”

The Guardian first reported that Williams was being investigated by the Gambling Commisson almost two weeks ago, on Wednesday 12 June.

The following day Rishi Sunak said the news was “very disappointing”, but that he could not act while the investigation was ongoing.

He used a similar line after it was revealed last week that Saunders was also being investigated, and even last night, despite some Tories publicly calling for the two candidates to be suspended, Sunak was saying that he was constrained by what he could do by the need not to compromise the Gambling Commission’s inquiry.

But last night a letter from the commission was released in which it made it clear that it was not blocking CCHQ action. (See 9.26am.)

Craig Williams is the Conservative candidate in Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr. A former MP for Cardiff North, he was elected MP for Montgomeryshire in 2019 with a majority of 12,138. Some MRP polls have implied that Williams could win, but others say that Labour will take the seat, and the betting scandal must make that more likely.

Williams was the first person accused of using inside information to bet on an election happening in July. He was Rishi Sunak’s parliamentary private secretary in the last parliament. As Sunak’s PPS, he was not a key decision maker, but he would have had regular access to the PM and his inner circle.

Williams has not confirmed that he knew about Sunak’s decision when he placed a bet on a July election three days before it was announced, but he has told the BBC he made a “massive error of judgment”.

Laura Saunders is the Conservative candidate in Bristol North West. This is a Labour seat held by Darren Jones, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, and Saunders was never expected to win. She is married to Tony Lee, who is on leave of absence from his job as the Tories’ campaign director because he has also been accused of being involved in suspect bets. In her only comment on the allegations, Saunders has issued a statement through lawyers threatening to sue the BBC for its report saying she was under investigation.

Williams and Saunders will remain on the ballot paper in their respective constituencies, as Conservative candidates, but the decision announced by CCHQ today means that they will not get any campaign support.

In the unlikely event of their winning, they would not be allowed to take the Tory whip and would sit as independents.

Here is the statement from the Conservative party about the two candidates accused of suspect election bets. A spokesperson for the party said:

As a result of ongoing internal inquiries, we have concluded that we can no longer support Craig Williams or Laura Saunders as parliamentary candidates at the forthcoming general election.

We have checked with the Gambling Commision that this decision does not compromise the investigation that they are conducting which is righly independent and ongoing.

The Conservative party is no longer backing Craig Williams and Laura Saunders, the two candidates who have been accused of making suspect bets on the timing of the election, the BBC is reporting.

The party has taken the decision on the basis of what it has uncovered during its inquiries into the allegations, the BBC says.

More on this soon …

Kwasi Kwarteng was the chancellor who delivered Liz Truss’s mini-budget, which triggered turmoil in the markets and ultimately brought down her premiership. Labour says it led to mortgage rates soaring and it is the single event that enabled Labour to convert what was roughly a 10-point lead over the Conservatives in September 2022 into a 20-point lead by the end of that year. It has remained that high every since.

As the Telegraph reports, in an interview with GB News, Kwarteng said he felt “partially responsible” for the Tories’ plight. But only partially. He made it clear he was blaming Rishi Sunak too. He told the broadcaster:

I feel partially responsible but I don’t feel responsible for leaving D-day early, I don’t feel responsible for the Reform party which was on 4% in October 2022 being on nearly 20% now.

I don’t feel responsible for the election betting scandal, nor do I feel responsible for the fact that this election has happened way before anyone was expecting it.

Labour has received a significant boost in Scotland this morning with an endorsement from the Daily Record.

The Record, which estimates that it reaches 1.5 million readers every weekday along with its portfolio of local titles, has not backed one party at a general election in 14 years, but now splashes “kicking the vile and corrupt Tories out of office”.

It’s not a great surprise – Scottish Labour has developed an increasingly strong relationship with the tabloid under leader Anas Sarwar.

With a front page that appears to be a pastiche of the Tony Blair “demon eyes” attack ad from 1997, it says that “change is coming and Scotland can be a part of it”. Pointedly, it leads with the statement that “this election is not about independence”, chiming with polls which show independence supporters and former SNP voters are now attracted to Labour’s promise of change and the message from Sarwar that how people voted in the 2014 referendum is irrelevant to this election.

But the question remains: how much do newspaper endorsements like this one matter to voters? Jim Waterson, the Guardian’s political media editor, suggests that voters are still intrigued by who well known titles, like the Record in Scotland, or Mail across the UK, are backing even though this is potentially, as he wrote earlier this week, the first post-mainstream media election.

At the weekend Pat McFadden, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, wrote a letter to the Gambling Commission asking it to name people under investigating in relation to the election date betting allegations. He said it was in the public interest for the names to be released.

Andrew Rhodes, chief executive of the commission, has replied to McFadden saying that “to protect the integrity of the investigation, and to ensure a fair and just outcome” it will not be naming the suspects.

He says the commission has asked the people it has been in contact with to treat the matter confidentially – which is cited by Rishi Sunak as the reason why he cannot say more about what happened, and about whether the candidates and officials accused of making suspect bets had advance knowledge about his decision to announce the election.

But Rhodes also says this confidentiality requirement “does not preclude other activity relating to the fact of an investigation taking place” – which implies that, if the Conservative party were to suspend the membership of people under suspicion, the commission would not object.

Two of the suspects are party candidates and, because nominations have closed, the party cannot do anything to stop them being listed on the ballot paper as official Conservative party candidates.

But some in the party have said that Rishi Sunak should disown them as candidates – as Labour did with its byelection candidate in Rochdale who, after nominations closed, was revealed to have suggested at a meeting that Israel allowed the 7 October Hamas massacre to happen. Yesterday Sunak argued that it would be wrong to do this while the investigation into what happened was still going on.

Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Helen Sullivan.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, a shadow Cabinet Office minister, has been giving interviews for Labour this morning and on Times Radio he said that if the party got into government, it might discover the public finances to be in an “even worse” situation than anticipated.

Asked about the Institute for Fiscal Studies report yesterday saying both main parties were not being honest about the choices they would face after the election, he replied:

Obviously the government is in a very different position from us, because, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies set out, there are no specific departmental spending plans beyond March of 2025 that’s because the government hasn’t conducted a spending review.

We obviously can’t do that from opposition, and we’ve also been open, always that we may open the books and discover the situation is even worse than it is at the moment. We’ve never hidden from that.

Opposition parties sometimes suggest that, when they get into office and have a chance to “look at the books”, they will discover hidden horrors that will require tax measures not previously planned. In a recent Guardian story, Anna Isaac and Kiran Stacey reported on Labour sources who think that might happen this year. They said:

Labour is planning a major package of measures this autumn, according to party sources, and [Rachel] Reeves is looking for a “doctor’s mandate”: the state of the public finances is so bad, she will argue, that they will need major surgery to correct.

But in reality, particularly since the creation of the Office for Budget Responsibility, which publishes an independent and extremely detailed analysis of the public finances twice a year, most of the key information about the state of the public finances is already in the public domain.

In his Times Radio interview, when asked about the IFS claim that the next government would either have to put up taxes or cut public services, Thomas-Symonds claimed Labour’s focus on growth would make a difference. He said:

We will put that plan on the table, of stability, of investment and of reform. The Office of Budget Responsibility will then look at it so it will be robust, and the snapshot in the autumn will be different. It will then be about growth.

If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line (BTL) or message me on X (Twitter). I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word. If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use X; I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos (no error is too small to correct). And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.

Home Office minister Michael Tomlinson has said he agrees with the frustration expressed by former Olympic rower and Tory candidate James Cracknell, PA reports.

Referring to the gambling scandal engulfing the Tory campaign, Cracknell said in a social media video: “And if one of my teammates got caught for cheating, they’d be dead to me” and also described the party as a “shower of shit”.

Asked about the “frustration” expressed by the electorate and Cracknell, Tomlinson told Sky News: “That’s right, and I share his frustration. I agree with the frustration that’s being expressed, more than frustration, the anger as well.”

Earlier when asked about the investigations into Tory members and aides, Tomlinson said:

The lawyer in me knows that there is a process, there’s the independent Gambling Commission. That’s the first thing, and as the Prime Minister said yesterday, there is also an internal process.

But this is important, and it’s important that this happens swiftly. And as you say, anyone who is found to have broken the law or even to have fallen short of the high standards that the Prime Minister and all of us expect, that they should be dealt with severely as well.”

It is just before 8am. Let’s take a look at today’s top stories.

The Guardian leads with two reports finding that low wages and price increases under Tory rule have pushed 900,000 children into poverty.

The Times headline is Conversion therapy to be banned by Labour

The Daily Telegraph reports that Scotland yard was ‘leaked names’ in the Tory betting scandal:

The FT: Tory and Labour pledges to improve public services ‘essentially unfunded’:

The I: Tories and Labour refuse to rule out 10 tax rises – as IFS urges leaders to come clean

Scottish Daily Mail: Labour will resurrect SNP’s toxic gender law warns PM

The Daily Record says that it is backing Labour:

Britons are the most likely of seven European nations to say their country is in a sorry state, but the French are the most likely to think things will get worse over the next 12 months, according to a poll weeks before high-stakes elections in both countries.

With the exception of Denmark, however, none of the European countries surveyed by YouGov in late May and early June revealed themselves to be particularly happy with the the way things were going, or overly optimistic for the future.

Asked whether they thought their country was in a bad way at the moment, 80% of respondents in the UK replied “very bad” or “fairly bad” – compared with 71% in France, 70% in Germany, 68% in Italy, 67% in Spain, 49% in Sweden and 25% in Denmark:

A record number of people seeking asylum in small boats have crossed the Channel in the first six months of this year.

Home Office figures show that 257 people made the journey in four boats on Sunday, taking the provisional total for the year so far to 12,901. The previous record for arrivals in the six months from January to June was 12,747 in 2022. In the first half of 2023, arrivals stood at 11,433.

The 2024 total to date is 17% higher than the number of arrivals recorded this time last year (11,058) and up 8% on the same period in 2022 (11,975).

Last year a total of 29,437 people arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel in small boats, down 36% on a record 45,774 in 2022.

The record figure emerged as Rishi Sunak claimed that Labour would make the UK the “soft-touch illegal migration capital of the world”.

The prime minister stepped up attacks on Keir Starmer’s proposals to curb migration, which the Conservatives claimed would let thousands more into the UK each year.

The Metropolitan Police has responded to a report in the Daily Telegraph claiming that it revealed the names of people being investigated by the Gambling Commission.

In a statement the Met Police denied the allegations, saying: “The allegations that the Met has leaked information are simply untrue.”

“We continue to liaise with the Gambling Commission and are assessing information they have provided.”

The Conservatives have launched their own inquiry into whether politicians or officials gambled on the timing of the election, Rishi Sunak has said, as the prime minister denied that he had placed any bets himself.

Sunak told reporters he was not aware of any further candidates being looked into and was not himself being investigated, saying he had never bet on a political event:

All along the course of the Thames, turning north, meandering south, passing through locks, historic landmarks, Richmond and Kew, swelling beneath the House of Commons with the turning tide, and on to Docklands and beyond – concern for the health of the Thames has led many other ordinary people, who live, work or play on the water, to take up the fight for the health of the river.

The last 15 years of decline in rivers suggests they have much to do. In 2009, a year before the Conservatives first took power in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, a quarter of English rivers were judged as being of good ecological standard, a marker which examines the flow, habitat and biological quality; by 2022 not one river was in a healthy state.

As politicians take to the doorsteps of towns and villages along the Thames’s journey the question of sewage pollution has become one of the top five issues of concern. Clean water is mentioned in every party manifesto. Along the river’s route in Liberal Democrat target marginals such as Esher in Surrey and the Oxfordshire constituencies of Henley and Witney, where David Cameron was once MP, concerns over sewage pollution could be a swing factor to unseat the Tories.

To trace the decline of the Thames is to tell a story shared by almost every river across the country, more than 30 years after a Conservative government privatised the water industry – creating a sector which, the evidence suggests, has prioritised shareholder dividends over investment in clean water, the environment and public health. For voters, including many in Tory heartlands, the polluting of Britain’s rivers is among the most egregious legacies of 14 years of Conservative rule.

On his own appearance at the Sun event, Sunak sought to argue that Labour would be as damaging to the economy as Truss, as he was challenged about the impact of the short-serving prime minister.

The Guardian’s Peter Walker and Eleni Courea report:

Asked if he felt “some responsibility for inflicting Liz Truss on the voters”, Sunak stressed that he had fought Truss for the Conservative leadership and warned against her plans.

“I was right then, when I warned about Liz Truss. That’s why all of you can trust me now,” he said. “I have also warned about the damage that Keir Starmer would do to our economy. I was saying something that no one wanted to hear, but I was saying it because I believed it. And I’m telling you again now, it all seems a bit familiar.

“If Keir Starmer is your prime minister, the economy is going to suffer and all of you are going to suffer. I don’t want to see that happen.”

Here’s a look at what happened on last night’s interviews hosted by the Sun.

First, Starmer, who defended serving in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, saying he wanted to help preserve the Labour party and that he “always knew there was going to be a day after”.

The Guardian’s Peter Walker and Eleni Courea report:

Speaking in separate interviews hosted by the Sun newspaper that included questions from a watching audience, Rishi Sunak and Starmer underwent at times difficult interrogations, including over migration and the NHS.

Starmer meanwhile gave his fullest answer yet as to why he had endorsed Corbyn in the 2019 election when he did not believe in him, and why he did not quit to serve on the backbenches as some colleagues had.

“Everybody then took a decision about what they did, how we dealt with this,” he said.

“I felt that on issues such as Brexit, which I thought were going to define us for decades to come, leaders are temporary, but political parties are permanent, but it was important to have a voice in the shadow cabinet.

“It meant that I could challenge on antisemitism, and it meant that the Labour party never veered from its position on things that are fundamental, like Nato,” he said.

The entire Corbyn period was, Starmer said, “very difficult for me and for my party”, but he had to look towards the future.

“I knew there would be a day after, where we needed to pick it up, to say to the electorate: ‘In 2019, we got this wrong’, and rebuild – we were all working to that end,” he said. “Everybody knew there was always going to be a day after, when we would have the opportunity for a new party, and to make sure our party was there to face the future.”

Looking pumped despite the odds, jogging casually in a crowded room, sinister shadowy lighting, a casual walk with a gaggle of schoolchildren, obligatory football something, and a rather snazzy jacket – it’s just another manic Monday:

Scotland’s First Minister has called on Keir Starmer to “think again” and commit to spending £28bn a year on green policies, PA reports:

John Swinney said he was making a “genuine and direct appeal” to Starmer.

A major U-turn in February saw Labour abandon its plans to spend £28bn a year on environmental projects – with Starmer saying at the time his party had had to “readjust” its plans.

Swinney’s comments came ahead of the SNP launching a climate and just transition manifesto, which sets out plans for an annual investment of £28bn. He added: “I would much rather be straight with the British public than make a promise I can’t keep.”

Swinney insisted that spending less than that would be insufficient, given the threat posed by climate change.

The SNP leader said:

Today, I am making a genuine and direct appeal to Sir Keir Starmer to think again and commit again to £28bn of investment to achieve green growth and reach net zero.

We believe that anything that falls below that level of ambition and investment will fail to meet the scale of this challenge and fail to grasp the opportunity of the emerging green economy.”

The Conservatives are rerouting resources to defend at least three seats held by cabinet ministers with majorities of more than 20,000 as the party retreats to safer ground.

Tory activists and candidates in nearby areas have been diverted to campaign for James Cleverly, the home secretary, Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister, and Steve Barclay, the environment secretary.

Cleverly held his Braintree constituency by 24,673 votes in 2019, but some senior Tories believe the Essex seat, which elected Labour MPs in 1997 and 2001, could be vulnerable.

Barclay held his North East Cambridgeshire seat by 29,993 votes in 2019 and Dowden held Hertsmere in Hertfordshire by 21,313. Neither constituency has ever returned a Labour MP before.

All three seats are in the southern Tory heartlands, which Labour is heavily targeting at this election. They have been altered by the boundary review, but still have Conservative majorities of more than 20,000, according to 2019 modelled results for new boundaries.

The Guardian’s Hazel Sheffield and Larry Elliott report: The crisis of poverty that has taken root in the UK over the past 14 years has been laid bare in two reports that reveal the devastating effects low wages and price increases on the lives of 900,000 children.

With both main parties proposing tough welfare spending plans, reports have highlighted the link between rising child poverty and slow wage growth under five Conservative governments since 2010 – the slowest growth since the second world war.

Research by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) found that over the past 14 years, an additional 1,350 children a week in households with at least one working parent had been dragged into poverty.

Paul Nowak, the general secretary of the TUC, said: “No child in Britain should be growing up below the breadline. But under the Conservatives we have seen a huge rise in working households being pushed into poverty. We urgently need an economic reset and a government that will make work pay.”

Wage stagnation was part of a “toxic combination” of insecure work and cuts to social security that had had a devastating impact on household budgets, the TUC found, increasing the number of children in poverty with at least one parent in work by 900,000 between 2010 and 2023.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank said on Monday that 30% of children now live in households below the official poverty line, up from 27% in 2010. Over the course of the next parliament, an additional 670,000 children will be affected by the two-child limit, which restricts eligibility to benefits, it said.

Senior Conservatives and campaigners are calling for a ban on political bets by MPs, as the Gambling Commission was urged to look into another £500 wager connected with the growing election gambling scandal, Rob Davies, Jessica Elgot and Matthew Weaver report.

The former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said parties should examine the rules when parliament returns amid growing outrage over Tory candidates and aides allegedly staking money on politics. The former defence minister Tobias Ellwood also said there should be new restrictions.

The Conservatives have launched their own inquiry into whether politicians or officials gambled on the timing of the election. Rishi Sunak was forced to deny having placed any bets himself and told reporters he was not aware of any further candidates under scrutiny.

“We’ve been conducting our own internal inquiries and of course will act on any relevant findings or information from that and pass it on to the Gambling Commission,” he said.

The Gambling Commission has been urged to investigate a flurry of unusual activity around the time Sunak called the election, an industry source told the Guardian.

Welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the UK General Election with me, Helen Sullivan.

Two reports have revealed the devastating effects of low wages and price increases under Conservative rule on the lives of 900,000 children, the Guardian’s Hazel Sheffield and Larry Elliott report.

Reports have highlighted the link between rising child poverty and slow wage growth under five Conservative governments since 2010 – the slowest growth since the second world war. Both main parties are proposing tough welfare spending plans.

Research by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) found that over the past 14 years, an additional 1,350 children a week in households with at least one working parent had been dragged into poverty.

Paul Nowak, the general secretary of the TUC, said: “No child in Britain should be growing up below the breadline. But under the Conservatives we have seen a huge rise in working households being pushed into poverty.”

More on this shortly. Meanwhile here is what is coming up this morning:

9am: Home secretary James Cleverly and shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper go head-to-head on immigration in an LBC debate hosted by Nick Ferrari.

9.30am: Keir Starmer to visit families of victims of knife crime in London.

9.30am: Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves and Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie will visit a major business in West Dunbartonshire. They will be accompanied by local candidate Douglas McAllister. The Scottish Conservatives are campaigning in Ayrshire.

9.45am: Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex-Cole Hamilton will be in Fife, where he will discuss his party’s plans to get everyone faster access to GPs and create world-class mental health services.

11.30 Scotland’s Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes will be on the campaign trail in East Lothian. She will join the SNP candidate for Lothian East, Lyn Jardine.

11.35am: Rishi Sunak, Foreign Secretary David Cameron and home secretary James Cleverly welcome the Emperor and Empress of Japan, who are on a state visit.