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As Rishi Sunak was winding up his manifesto launch at metaphor-heavy Silverstone race track, the scale of the prime minister’s task in the remainder of the election campaign was becoming clear.

According to the exclusive Sky News-YouGov poll, Sunak needs to go through the gears at once or he’s in danger of dropping to the bottom step of the podium.

He was speaking hours before it emerged voting intention for the Conservatives had dropped to the joint lowest in this parliament – 18% – now putting Sunak’s party just one point ahead of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK on 17%, tantalisingly close to a crossover.

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A full third of 2019 Tory voters – the cohort that endorsed Boris Johnson last time – now say they will switch to Reform UK, while the proportion who think Sunak will be a good prime minister is down two points – to 22% – in the last fortnight. That last figure is possibly a casualty of the PM’s decision to leave D-Day commemorations early – and could conceivably have been worse.

The notable drop in Labour’s vote – three points to 38% – will do little to cheer a Tory party in the doldrums, consumed with their own existential angst. This is because the switch seems to match the Lib Dems jumping up four point to 15%. Much of the YouGov fieldwork was done when the Lib Dem manifesto was receiving peak coverage.

The question is whether the Tory manifesto launch could possibly have provided anything new with which to turn things around, from a position as dire as any Conservative can remember in living memory.

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What is in the Conservative Party manifesto?

Sunak has thrown everything at this manifesto: it’s 72 pages long, with nearly £20bn worth of tax and spending announcements.

There are pledges designed to appease and appeal to just about every demographic, from 2p off national insurance for working families, to accelerated national insurance abolition for the self-employed, to tax cuts for pensions, to help for first-time buyers and tax breaks for wealthier parents. This is to be paid for, Sunak said, in large part by yet more promises to pare back welfare, squeeze the public sector and more anti-avoidance measures.

It is a “kitchen sink” manifesto for the Tories. But it is not the first “kitchen sink” manifesto in recent memory.

Sir Keir Starmer boldly compared Sunak’s offering with that of Jeremy Corbyn – stuffed with policies that seem, and poll as, popular but are not sustainably affordable as an overall package.

The Labour leader was, of course, displaying the chutzpah of a man 20 points ahead in the polls by casually disowning a manifesto he himself stood on five years ago.

Nevertheless, his political purpose by making this point is two-fold: firstly, he is attempting to needle away further at the Conservatives’ claim of economic credibility, while also reminding people that manifestos stacked with popular policies do not automatically win elections.

Read more:
Who’ll win the election? Check our poll tracker
Objects thrown at Farage
What are the Tories and Lib Dems’ key pledges?

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PM launches party manifesto

But despite having individually popular ideas, the prime minister was unable to deliver perhaps the biggest thing Tory MPs might have wanted – a promise to reduce the overall tax burden in the next parliament.

It is the tax burden that hangs around the neck of a party proud of its low tax heritage, at an event at which Sunak had the audacity to invoke Nigel Lawson, the 1980s tax-cutting chancellor.

Sunak cannot bring it down. Yet he is unwilling to be completely automatically transparent over this point.

Rishi Sunak poses with supporters before the launch of the Conservative Party General Election manifesto.
Pic: PA
Image:
Rishi Sunak with wife Akshata Murty and supporters at the launch. Pic: PA

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Examine carefully this painful exchange in the questions from the media afterwards, when Sunak’s sleight of hand was noticeable.

He was asked by the Daily Mail: “Can you today guarantee that if you get in, overall taxes will be lower by the time you finish?”

To this, Sunak replied: “Because of the measures that are announced in the manifesto and you can see that document afterwards, the tax burden will be about one percentage point lower in every single year compared to the forecast that you saw at the spring budget a few months ago that Jeremy (Hunt, the chancellor) outlined.”

This answer is deliberately elliptical, because the truth is hard: more people are dragged into higher tax bands because of frozen thresholds, designed to pay back some of the debt incurred in COVID.

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As my colleague Ed Conway, Sky’s economics editor, says, even after the tax cuts in this manifesto, everyone will still be paying higher taxes in 2028-29 than we are today.

So the answer to the Daily Mail is yes – the tax burden will be higher, albeit not as high as previously planned.

Sunak’s answer, while true, made it sound like the picture is better than it is when it comes to tax – and it’s a complication for a Tory leader trying to make tax the key dividing line with his Labour opposition in this election.

As Beth Rigby pointed out, a recent poll shows that only one in six voters believe Sunak won’t raise their taxes, or raise major taxes, compared with one in four for Labour – and she asked him whether this means he has “blown it”.

“I’m not afraid to do things that are difficult,” he pleaded in response. It’s not clear many on his own side believe this argument will wash with the public at this late stage in the political cycle.

Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer will face questions from Beth Rigby and members of the public during Sky News’ special leaders’ event on Wednesday.

The programme airs live from Grimsby from 7pm on Sky News – Freeview channel 233, Sky 501, Virgin 603, BT 313 – and streaming on the Sky News website, app and across social channels. It is also available to watch on Sky Showcase.

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Demographics will ‘leapfrog’ Bitcoin adoption in Pakistan — Bilal Bin Saqib

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<div>Demographics will 'leapfrog' Bitcoin adoption in Pakistan — Bilal Bin Saqib</div>

<div>Demographics will 'leapfrog' Bitcoin adoption in Pakistan — Bilal Bin Saqib</div>

A young and tech-savvy population, combating inflationary pressures, is driving Bitcoin adoption and a new financial system in Pakistan.

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Tyler Winklevoss claims JPMorgan blocked Gemini over public criticism

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25% of young children and pregnant women malnourished in Gaza, charity says, as PM vows to fly critical medical cases to UK

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25% of young children and pregnant women malnourished in Gaza, charity says, as PM vows to fly critical medical cases to UK

A charity has warned 25% of young children and pregnant women in Gaza are now malnourished, with Sir Keir Starmer vowing to evacuate children who need “critical medical assistance” to the UK.

MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said Israel’s “deliberate use of starvation as a weapon” has reached unprecedented levels – with patients and healthcare workers both fighting to survive.

It claimed that, at one of its clinics in Gaza City, rates of severe malnutrition in children under five have trebled over the past two weeks – and described the lack of food and water on the ground as “unconscionable”.

Pic: Reuters
Image:
Pic: Reuters

The charity also criticised the high number of fatalities seen at aid distribution sites, with one British surgeon accusing IDF soldiers of shooting civilians “almost like a game of target practice”.

MSF’s deputy medical coordinator in Gaza, Dr Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, said: “Those who go to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s food distributions know that they have the same chance of receiving a sack of flour as they do of leaving with a bullet in their head.”

The UN also estimates that Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 people seeking food – the majority near the militarised distribution sites of the US-backed aid distribution scheme run by the GHF.

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‘Many more deaths unless Israelis allow food in’

In a statement on Friday, the IDF had said it “categorically rejects the claims of intentional harm to civilians”, and reports of incidents at aid distribution sites were “under examination”.

The GHF has also previously disputed that these deaths were connected with its organisation’s operations, with director Johnnie Moore telling Sky News: “We just want to feed Gazans. That’s the only thing that we want to do.”

Israel says it has let enough food into Gaza and has accused the UN of failing to distribute it, in what the foreign ministry has labelled as “a deliberate ploy” to defame the country.

‘Humanitarian catastrophe must end’

In a video message posted on X late last night, Sir Keir Starmer condemned the scenes in Gaza as “appalling” and “unrelenting” – and said “the images of starvation and desperation are utterly horrifying”.

The prime minister added: “The denial of aid to children and babies is completely unjustifiable, just as the continued captivity of hostages is completely unjustifiable.

“Hundreds of civilians have been killed while seeking aid – children, killed, whilst collecting water. It is a humanitarian catastrophe, and it must end.”

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Israeli military show aid waiting inside Gaza

Sir Keir confirmed that the British government is now “accelerating efforts” to evacuate children from Gaza who need critical medical assistance, so they can be brought to the UK for specialist treatment.

Israel has now said that foreign countries will be able to airdrop aid into Gaza. While the PM says the UK will now “do everything we can” to get supplies in via this route, he said this decision has come “far too late”.

Read more:
WHO: Gaza faces ‘manmade’ starvation
UN: People in Gaza ‘walking corpses’

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Last year, the RAF dropped aid into Gaza, but humanitarian organisations warned it wasn’t enough and was potentially dangerous. In March 2024, five people were killed when an aid parachute failed and supplies fell on them.

For now, Sir Keir has rejected calls to follow French President Emmanuel Macron and recognise a Palestinian state despite more than 220 MPs signing a cross-party letter to demand he takes this step.

The prime minister is instead demanding a ceasefire and “lasting peace” – and says he will only consider an independent state as part of a negotiated peace deal.

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