Election 2024 latest: Rishi Sunak vows to fight on as Lib Dems launch manifesto with £9bn NHS boost

Sir Keir Starmer has refused to rule out raising capital gains tax amid questions of governmentspending funding.

Asked about this duringIg his campaign trail today, he said: “I know what the experts and commentators are saying, and what underpins what they’re saying is that you can’t carry on like this without a plan for growth.

“It is always tempting for a government to go to tax and spend, but I’m not going to pull those levers. We don’t intend to pull those levers. We want to go to the lever marked growth.”

Nigel Farage is asked about patriotism within his own party and Lee Anderson’s decision to  boycott the English team during the 2021 European Championship.

The former Tory MP boycotted England’s games in the European Championship over players’ decision to take the knee including Jude Bellingham.

He says: “We understood that black lives matter is not what it seemed. It is a very dangerous Marxist ideology. I wasn’t pleased to see the English team take the knee.”

Mr Farage also said that any team should refrain from showing political messages during games and claimed: “I don’t doubt Lee Anderson patriotism for one moment.”

The Reform UK has been quizzed by the press over the party’s economic policies labelled as “trustonomics on steroids”.

In responds, Mr Farage says he has just given a sneak peek into its economic plan and a more details will be announced next week.

But he says: “We won’t call it manifesto because in most peoples’ minds manifesto that equals lie.”

Nigel Farage has ruled out the possibility of him joining the Tory party after Ms Braverman claimed he should be welcomed.

He said: “I like Suella Braverman but that comment means nothing.”

He added that “right-wing” people like her are a very small minority within the party, which is shifting towards the “centre” in within the political spectrum

Sayeeda Warsi has slammed the Tory campaign and said the D-Day row has singled him out Rishi Sunak from his Cabinet members.

Writing on the I newspaper, she said: “The D-Day commemorations presented an opportunity for the Prime Minister to appear prime ministerial. To be seen to be leading the country rather than just a party.

“Morale is low, many local Conservative associations feel put out at the last-minute imposition of candidates this week as the deadline for nominations closed. A last-minute dash to find safe-ish seats for CCHQ staff, No 10 staffers and special advisers has left a vacuum of trusted and experienced campaigners at the centre.

“Many young activists who have done the hard yards for years and have waited patiently on candidates lists to be selected are not even being shortlisted.

“Some have, through gritted teeth, defended the indefensible, including the Rwanda scheme, and feel they have been used and tossed aside. I have spoken to three young activists in the last 48 hours and urged them not to resign. Female candidates have felt particularly overlooked.”

The Reform UK leader has told the audience his party is gaining momentum.

Nigel Farage said: “My word of the day is momentum. We have got momentum. I have absolutely no doubt about it. Whether it is walking through streets in Essex yesterday or even walking through the streets of central London today.

“Millions of people yesterday, whether at their family breakfasts or wherever else they went on their Sundays, were having a conversation about Reform.”

Nigel Farage has said the UK is “skint” over national debt and the future government must take steps to bring the cost down.

The Reform leader says: “We need to face up to one or two realities. We are skint. And it is getting worse. And at some point in time we may even have trouble issuing gilts, issuing government bonds unless the market sees that we have got some solutions.

“And that is why the only way out is growth and I think what Richard has just set out, in particular putting up the tax threshold to £20,000 would be a very, very big step in the right direction.”

Mr Tice also wants to change the way the Bank od England arranges basic interest rates.

The Reform Uk chairman singles out the interest paid on the £800bn of debt held by the BoE.

The interest payments on this debt have hiked since the base rates rose after the Bank started its process to reduce inflation to 2%.

Reform UK says the money would be used for a “great British tax cut”.

Reform UK’s chairman Richard Tice has said the party would increase the threshold of income tax to £20,000.

He claims the change would benefit the average person by about £1,500 a year.

Nigel Farage is set to appear alongside Richard Tice to make a “groundbreaking” economic policy announcement.

Mr Tice is speaking from Westminster about taxes and says the focus should be on “reducing taxes because the truth is that British households, all of us, we are literally suffocating under the levels of high taxation that have increased under this Tory government over the last 14 years”.