Five questions leaders could face in tonight’s Sky News event – and what the data really says
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will be interrogated by Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby and members of the public tonight.
During The Battle For Number 10, they will talk and be questioned at length about their ambitions, so viewers can understand in detail what their plans are.
Mr Sunak is somewhat on the back foot as he has to defend his party’s 14 years in government, while Labour is yet to publish its manifesto, making it harder to get to the bottom of some of its plans.
But here Sky News picks apart some of the claims – and counterclaims – each is likely to make.
Cost of living
Labour likes to claim families have become £5,883 worse off in total over the last five years.
But fact-checking organisation Full Fact pointed out the figure doesn’t take into account a broad enough basket of goods, or changes in wages or benefits over the same time.
Factoring these in, the decrease in real disposable income is more like £166, the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has found.
Meanwhile the Tories claim Labour would leave families £2,000 out of pocket. But the calculations behind it are based on assumptions, as Labour has not yet published its manifesto, and the Tories assume Labour’s plans would be funded by taxes rather than possible borrowing.
Mr Sunak defends his record on the basis of the COVID furlough scheme – which he oversaw as chancellor – and the fact inflation has finally fallen to 2.3%, down from a 42-year record high of 11.1% in October 2022.
But external factors worked in the PM’s favour.
The worst price shocks from the war in Ukraine (namely on fuel and food) eased regardless of government policies.
However, falling inflation does not mean falling prices, and any amount of inflation still means prices are rising on top of already higher costs.
Wage growth has now overtaken inflation – but there’s still a gap between how much prices have increased vs wages in the long run, according to ONS data.
This, combined with stubbornly high interest rates which increase the cost of mortgage rates and other loans, explains why people are still feeling the pinch.
NHS
The waiting list for NHS England peaked at 7.8 million last August – and has since inched down to 7.5 million.
But as other parties love to point out, it is still 300,000 appointments higher than the 7.2 million in January 2023, when Mr Sunak originally pledged to cut it.
Labour says it would get waiting times back down to a maximum of four months – as per the NHS target – by the end of their first term.
They’d do this by adding “40,000 extra appointments and operations every week”, including more on evenings and weekends, and buying more equipment.
Sky News analysis has shown that these measures alone may do little to bridge the gap, however.
It takes five additional NHS appointments to remove one treatment pathway from the waiting list, according to thinktank The Heath Foundation.
With this conversion rate, Labour’s 40,000 additional appointments equates to 8,000 removed from the waiting list, shown in the bar in orange in the chart above – still falling far short of tackling demand.
Migration
Both leaders are keen to position themselves as tough on migration, saying that the record levels of net migration since Brexit in 2016 – reaching 685,000 last year – are too high.
Mr Sunak claims his plans, which include the controversial Rwanda deportation policy and an unspecified cap on net migration numbers, are the answer.
But, as Sky News analysis has already shown, caps have failed in the past.
Former prime ministers David Cameron and Theresa May both vowed to cap net migration in the “tens of thousands”. Both failed.
Meanwhile, the Rwanda policy addresses only a tiny fraction of overall numbers, despite its hefty price tag.
It is already set to cost £370m before any removals take place, according to government spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO), and could reach an estimated £661m.
It is designed to deter small boats crossings, but these make up only a fraction of asylum claims, and asylum seekers accounted for only 81,000 migrants last year, compared with 432,000 workers and 379,000 students.
Labour have confirmed they will scrap the scheme “straight away”, while the Conservatives have a poor track record of implementing the scheme, so it remains to be seen what the final bill will be.
Nearly two thirds (64%) of 229,000 workers visas granted in 2023 were for healthcare roles like nurses and care workers.
The Tories say their Albania deal shows that deterrence works, with numbers down 90%.
Labour has pledged to “reform resettlement routes to stop people being exploited by gangs”.
Climate and net zero
A key dividing line is whether to pump more oil and gas from the North Sea.
Mr Sunak wants to “max out” what’s left. Labour says it would stop issuing licences for new projects.
But even though it opposes them, if elected Labour would not actually revoke those handed out by the Tories – which environmentalists have criticised.
The Conservative manifesto says more extraction would “provide energy to homes and businesses across the country”.
But it’s somewhat of a storm in a teacup, because there isn’t much oil or gas left in the North Sea anyway.
The red and blue lines in the chart above show how much – or little – extra the UK might get from new licences – so the decision is more symbolic.
The Tories say they will back renewables, but haven’t really lifted an effective ban on onshore wind farms as promised. Labour wants to double onshore wind power to 35GW by 2030.
Labour’s plans to plug the wells in the North Sea are already putting off some oil majors from turning on the taps at existing projects – and could kill off thousands of jobs, the industry lobby group Offshore Energies UK says.
In reality the parties are more aligned than some of their members would have us believe.
Both back some form of windfall tax until 2029, want to decarbonise most or all electricity by 2030, plan to drive up EVs and want to ramp up solar and offshore wind.
D-Day gaffe
It seems no one in Sunak’s team thought an early departure from D-Day commemorations in Normandy would matter.
But oh how it did, drawing criticism from his own party, as well as Labour, and the general public alike.
The polls have not been kind either.
A snap YouGov survey showed two thirds (65%) of those surveyed found the behaviour to be completely or somewhat unacceptable. This rose to three quarters (75%) among the 65+ age group.
This was a gift to Labour, and something Starmer will likely want to capitalise on during tonight’s debate.
The Battle For Number 10 Leaders Special Event, Wednesday 12 June 7pm-10pm on Sky News – free wherever you get your 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.
A foreign sex offender freed in error from Wandsworth prison has been arrested – as Sky News filmed the moment he was detained.
Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, a 24-year-old Algerian national, was mistakenly released from HMP Wandsworth in south London on 29 October.
Sky News approached Kaddour-Cherif moments before his arrest in Finsbury Park, north London, at 11.30am, but he claimed to be someone else.
He was then approached by officers next to a police van and arrested.
One of the officers said Kaddour-Cherif had been identified as the missing prisoner because he had a “distinctive wonky nose”.
Sky News witnessed Brahim Kaddour-Cherif’s arrest
Officers held his arrest picture next to Kaddour-Cherif’s head to confirm his identity
In the footage, the Algerian was shown shouting to people standing nearby in the street.
An officer then held up a photo of Kaddour-Cherif on a phone, comparing the image to the man arrested.
When officers asked him whether he knew why he was being arrested, Kaddour-Cherif replied: “I don’t know.”
Kaddour-Cherif, who was wearing a grey hoodie, black beanie and black backpack, said the mix-up at the prison was the fault of the authorities who released him.
“It’s not my f***ing fault”, Kaddour-Cherif shouted.
Kaddour-Cherif shouted at bystanders as officers arrested him
Kaddour-Cherif claimed to be someone else when he was arrested
The Prison Service informed the Metropolitan Police about the error six days later – and a huge manhunt for him was launched.
It is not yet clear why it was nearly a week between the release at HMP Wandsworth and the police being informed that an offender was at large.
“At 11.23am on Friday, 7 November, a call was received from a member of the public reporting a sighting of a man they believed to be Brahim Kaddour-Cherif in the vicinity of Capital City College on Blackstock Road in Islington,” a Met Police spokesperson said.
“Officers responded immediately and at 11.30am detained a man matching Cherif’s description. His identity was confirmed and he was arrested for being unlawfully at large.
“He was also arrested on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker in relation to a previous unrelated incident. He has been taken into police custody. The Prison Service has been informed.”
Kaddour-Cherif shouted it was ‘not my f***ing fault’ that he was mistakenly released
Kaddour-Cherif is a registered sex offender who was convicted of indecent exposure in November last year, following an incident in March.
At the time, he was given a community order and placed on the sex offenders register for five years.
He was then subsequently jailed for possessing a knife in June.
He was wrongly freed from Wandsworth prison. Pic: Met Police
Kaddour-Cherif came to the UK legally and is not an asylum seeker, but it is understood he overstayed his visit visa and deportation proceedings had been started.
He was accidentally freed five days after the wrongful release of convicted sex offender Hadush Kebatu. Both Kaddour-Cherif and Kebatu were arrested in Finsbury Park.
A third man, fraudster William Smith, 35, was mistakenly released from HMP Wandsworth on 3 November, but turned himself in on Thursday.
After Kaddour-Cherif’s arrest, Justice Secretary David Lammy admitted there was a “mountain to climb” to tackle the crisis in the prison system.
“We inherited a prison system in crisis and I’m appalled at the rate of releases in error this is causing,” he said.
“I’m determined to grip this problem, but there is a mountain to climb which cannot be done overnight.
“That is why I have ordered new tough release checks, commissioned an independent investigation into systemic failures, and begun overhauling archaic paper-based systems still used in some prisons.”
A young woman who claimed to be Madeleine McCann has been convicted of harassing the missing toddler’s family.
However, Julia Wandelt, 24, was cleared of stalking the couple.
A Polish national born three years after Madeleine, Wandelt said she suspected she had been abducted and brought up by a couple who were not her real parents.
She was having mental health issues at the time and had been abused by an elderly relative.
The relative looked like an artist’s drawing of a man who was once a suspect in the Madeleine case, which she stumbled across during internet research on missing children.
She went to Los Angeles and told a US TV chat show audience: “I believe I am Madeleine McCann.”
Madeleine was nearly four when she vanished from the family’s rented holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May 2007.
She had been left sleeping with her younger twin siblings, Sean and Amelia, while her parents dined nearby with friends, making intermittent checks on the children.
Madeleine is the world’s most famous missing child, the subject of three international police investigations that have failed to find any trace of her.
Wandelt claimed to have a blemish in the iris of her right eye, like Madeleine’s, and to resemble aged-progressed images of her.
Madeleine McCann went missing during a family holiday to Portugal in 2007. Pic: PA
Over three years, she attracted half a million followers on her Instagram account, iammadeleinemccan, and posted her claims on TikTok.
Police told her she was not Madeleine and ordered her not to approach her family, but she ignored the warning.
The McCanns and their children gave evidence in the trial at Leicester Crown Court, describing the upset Wandelt had caused them.
Her co-defendant, Karen Spragg, 61, from Cardiff, was found not guilty of stalking and harassment.
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Public safety is “at risk” because more inmates are being sent to prisons with minimal security, a serving governor has warned – as details emerge of another manhunt for a foreign national offender.
Mark Drury – speaking in his role as representative for open prison governors at the Prison Governors’ Association – told Sky News open prisons that have had no absconders for “many years” are now “suddenly” experiencing a rise in cases.
It comes after a man who was serving a 21-year sentence for kidnap and grievous bodily harm absconded from an open prison in Sussex last month.
Sky News has learned that Ola Abimbola is a foreign national offender who still hasn’t returned to HMP Ford – and Sussex Police says it is working with partners to find him.
WARNING: Some readers may find the content in this article distressing
Ola Abimbola absconded from an open prison. Pic: Sussex Police
For Natalie Queiroz, who was stabbed 24 times by her ex-partner while she was eight months’ pregnant with their child, the warnings could not feel starker.
Natalie sustained injuries to all her major organs and her arms, while the knife only missed her unborn baby by 2mm.
“Nobody expected either of us to survive,” she told Sky News.
Babur Raja was sentenced to 18 years for attempted murder, but Natalie has recently been told that he’s set to be moved to an open prison four years earlier than planned.
“Any day now, my ex who created this untold horror is about to go to an open prison,” Natalie said.
Open prisons – otherwise known as Category D jails – have minimal security and are traditionally used to house prisoners right at the end of their sentence, to prepare them for integrating back into society.
With overcrowding in higher security jails, policy changes mean more prisoners are eligible for a transfer to open conditions earlier on in their sentence.
Natalie Queiroz was stabbed 24 times by her ex-partner
“It doesn’t feel right, it’s terrifying, and it also doesn’t feel like justice,” Natalie said, wiping away tears at points.
Previously, rules stated a transfer to open prison could only take place within three years of their eligibility for parole – but no earlier than five years before their automatic release date.
The five-year component was dropped in March last year under the previous government, but the parole eligibility element was extended to five years in April 2025.
Raja, who is due for release in 2034, has parole eligibility 12 years into his sentence, which is 2028.
Under the rule change, this eligibility for open prison is set for this year – but under the new rules it could have been 2023, which is within five years of his parole date.
Another change, introduced in the spring, means certain offenders can be assumed suitable for open prisons three years early – extended from two years.
Natalie says her ex-partner Babur Raja caused ‘untold horror’
Natalie has been campaigning to prevent violent offenders and domestic abuse perpetrators from being eligible to transfer to an open prison early.
She’s had meetings with ministers and raised both her case and others.
“They actually said – he is dangerous,” she told Sky News.
“I said to [the minister]: ‘How can you make a risk assessment for someone like that?’
“And they went: ‘If we’re honest, we can’t’.”
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The government told Sky News that Raja’s crimes were “horrific” and that their “thoughts remain with the victim”.
They also insist that the “small number of offenders eligible for moves to open prison face a strict, thorough risk assessment” – while anyone breaking the rules “can be immediately returned”.
Mark Drury, a representative of the Prison Governors’ Association
But Mr Drury describes risk assessments as an “algorithm tick box” because of “the pressure on offender management units”.
These warnings come at an already embarrassing time for the Prison Service after migrant sex offender Hadush Kebatu was mistakenly freed last month.
This week, it emerged two others have been freed in error since then, amid new release checks.
In response to this report, the Ministry of Justice says it “inherited a justice system in crisis, with prisons days away from collapse” – forcing “firm action to get the situation back under control”.
The government has promised to add 14,000 new prison places by 2031 and introduce sentencing reforms.
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