Wednesday 5 June  - T minus 29

With polling day just under a month away, and campaigns really ramping up, we bring you Election Section, your new daily bite-size run-down of the day's key events to keep you in the know with what’s happening on and off the trail, at B4B and beyond.

Take a breath

Campaigning took a brief back seat today as both Sunak and Starmer joined members of the royal family and Armed Forces veterans in Portsmouth to mark the beginning of commemorations for the 80th anniversary of D-Day. 

Tax attack

Labour’s Darren Jones shared a letter he received from the top Treasury civil servant James Bowler the day before the ITV leader’s debate, in which Bowler explicitly said that the £2,000 tax figure which was later quoted by Sunak on a whopping 12 occasions,  “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”, and that this had been made clear to Government ministers. Despite this, the Government has continued to spread the faulty figure today, leading some to wonder if Sunak’s “£2,000 more tax” under Labour line is the new “350 million for the NHS” bus slogan, and prompting Labour to push back hard. 

Tories in a tiff

Rumours are swirling that half a dozen Tory candidates are considering defecting to Reform before Friday’s deadline for nominations. 

Timely reminder

All current polling of voting intention was conducted before Nigel Farage announced he would be returning to frontline politics, and should therefore be treated with a degree of caution. With candidates still to be finalised, and manifestos submitted, it is likely that polls will continue to shift on a constituency level basis. To account for this, Best for Britain will be polling continuously, to make sure tactical voting recommendations - released on 17 June at GetVoting.org - are informed by the most up-to-date data. 

Time's up

Vaughan Gething, the Labour first minister for Wales, has this afternoon lost a vote of no confidence, despite Labour holding exactly half of the 60 seats in the Senedd. However, Vikki Howells, Chairwoman of the Labour group of Members of the Senedd, has said Mr Gething would not stand down as it was a "gimmick" and it was up to the "voting public to decide who is in the Senedd".

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