It was the good, the bad and the ugly for Rishi Sunak during the latest TV election showdown

Published

1 year ago

June 21, 2024

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From Rishi Sunak, we saw the good, the bad and the ugly during the latest TV election showdown with other party leaders – and a tough and unforgiving audience.

The good came when he broke his silence on the Tory betting scandal early on in his half-hour session of questions, declaring he was “incredibly angry” and vowing that any law breakers would be “booted out” of his party.

The bad followed when he struggled to defend his own policy on national service for 18-year-olds and was tetchy with an audience member who asked about Brexit.

And the ugly came at the end when the audience angrily shouted “shame!” when he launched into Reform UK-style rhetoric about the European Convention on Human Rights and attacked what he called a “foreign court”.

That sort of talk may play well with right-wing MPs and activists, but it bombed here and will have alienated those voters thinking of switching to Labour or the Liberal Democrats.

So Mr Sunak started well, got bogged down in detail in the middle and then ended badly, though he eventually did manage to land some blows on Labour on tax – as he has continued to do so throughout the election campaign.

The two takeaways from the PM’s part of this election programme will be his threat to expel betting wrongdoers and his misjudging the audience on the ECHR.

But not surprisingly, that wasn’t good enough for opposition MPs.

Immediately after the programme, Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth told Sky News Mr Sunak still has not taken any action against Tory candidates Craig Williams and Laura Saunders, who are being investigated by the Gambling Commission.

He should have suspended them immediately, as Sir Keir Starmer has demanded, Mr Ashworth said.

But despite the shouts of “shame!” from the audience on the ECHR near the end, Mr Sunak will feel that with the Tories losing votes to Nigel Farage he had to throw the Tory right and would-be Reform UK voters some red meat.

Those Tory MPs who love to hate the ECHR will no doubt have approved of Mr Sunak’s attack as far as it went – and no doubt accuse the BBC of selecting a “lefty” audience.

Before Mr Sunak, Sir Keir stumbled once again, as he did in his interview with Beth Rigby in last week’s Sky News Battle for No 10 programme in Grimsby, when asked about his support for Jeremy Corbyn.

Host Fiona Bruce repeatedly challenged Sir Keir on why he said Mr Corbyn would make a great prime minister in 2019, but the Labour leader kept dodging the question and looked shifty.

Eventually, Sir Keir said, rather lamely, that Mr Corbyn would have made a better prime minister than Boris Johnson.

Tories will no doubt taunt him on that claim for the rest of the campaign.

Sir Keir’s other tricky moments came when he was quizzed about his dispute with Labour MP Rosie Duffield on trans issues.

“I agree with Tony Blair,” he said. But he shunned the Canterbury MP and couldn’t bring himself to mention her name.

That was disrespectful. The Labour leader seems to have a problem with Ms Duffield. It makes him sound intolerant, which his critics would say is fair criticism.

The surprise here was a solid performance from the SNP leader John Swinney. He is less confrontational than the party’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn.

He has a funereal style of delivery that has previously seen him compared to an undertaker.

He could also be compared to a Church of Scotland priest reading from the prayer book, to be fair.

But he’s an old pro and a details man, as he demonstrated when answering tricky questions about the SNP performance on the NHS in Scotland and was courteous with members of the audience, even when the questions were tough.

It all began with Sir Ed Davey, who was immediately greeted with the question: “Aren’t you going to bankrupt the country?”

“No,” he replied.

Well, it would have been a shock if he’d said yes.

The second questioner was applauded after he accused Sir Ed of breaking promises in coalition government, citing the Lib Dems’ U-turn on tuition fees.

He was also ridiculed by a member of the audience over his “horseplay” in the campaign, the stunts such as splashing around on Lake Windermere and riding on a rollercoaster at Thorpe Park in Surrey.

And inevitably, he was asked if he was proud of his record as Post Office minister during the Horizon scandal.

The questions were tough, but he dealt with them calmly. His style was that of a fireside chat.

With four party leaders competing this was a game of four quarters.

And this tough and unforgiving audience gave the leaders no quarter.

UK

Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Published

12 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Liverpool players past and present have joined the family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva for their funeral in Portugal.

A service was held in the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in their hometown of Gondomar near Porto in northern Portugal on Saturday morning.

Mourners lined the streets and some in the crowd clapped as the brothers’ coffins were carried into the church.

The funeral – in pictures

Jota, 28, leaves behind his wife of only 11 days, Rute Cardoso, and three young children.

His younger brother, 25, was an attacking midfielder for Penafiel in the second tier of Portuguese football.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot, captain Virgil Van Dijk and teammates including Andy Robertson, Conor Bradley, Ryan Gravenberch, Cody Gakpo, Curtis Jones, Darwin Nunez and Joe Gomez were seen at the service.

Former teammates Jordan Henderson, James Milner and Fabinho were also there.

Van Dijk carried a red wreath with Jota’s number 20, while Robertson had a wreath featuring number 30, Silva’s number at Penafiel.

Some of Jota’s teammates in the Portuguese national side also attended, including Bruno Fernandes, of Manchester United, Ruben Dias and Bernardo Silva, of Manchester City, Joao Felix and Renato Veiga, of Chelsea, Nelson Semedo, from Wolves, Joao Moutinho and Rui Patricio.

Ruben Neves was one of the pallbearers after flying in from Florida where he played for Al Hilal in the Club World Cup quarter-final on Friday night.

‘More than a friend’

In a post published on Instagram before the service, he told Jota he had been “more than a friend, we’re family, and we won’t stop being that way just because you’ve decided to sign a contract a little further away from us!”

Jota’s fellow Liverpool midfielder, Alexis Mac Allister, said on Instagram: “I can’t believe it. I’ll always remember your smiles, your anger, your intelligence, your camaraderie, and everything that made you a person. It hurts so much; we’ll miss you. Rest in peace, dear Diogo.”

Porto FC president Andre Villas-Boas and Portugal national team manager Roberto Martinez were also in attendance.

‘With us forever’

Speaking after the ceremony, Martinez said the period since their deaths had been “really, really sad days, as you can imagine, but today we showed we are a large, close family.

“Their spirit will be with us forever.”

The service was private, but the words spoken by the Bishop of Porto, Manuel Linda, were broadcast to those standing outside the church.

He told Jota’s children, who were not at the service, that he was praying for them specifically, as well as their mother and grandparents.

“There are no words, but there are feelings,” he said, adding: “We also suffer a lot and we are with you emotionally.”

The brothers died after a Lamborghini they were travelling in burst into flames following a suspected tyre blowout in the early hours of Thursday morning.

No other vehicles are said to have been involved in the incident.

Liverpool have delayed the return of their players for pre-season following Jota’s death and players past and present paid tribute to him and his brother on social media.

Flowers have been left outside Anfield, where flags have been lowered to half-mast and all club shops, museums and tours have been closed until Monday.

UK

Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Published

15 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”

UK

Diogo Jota and Andre Silva’s funeral in pictures

Published

16 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota and Andre Silva's funeral in pictures

The family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva have been joined by Liverpool stars past and present and other Portuguese players at the pair’s funeral near Porto.

The Liverpool forward, 28, and his brother died in a car crash in Spain on Thursday.

Pictures below show the funeral at the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in the town of Gondomar near Porto. Click here for our liveblog coverage of the day’s events.