UK general election live: Rishi Sunak to appear on LBC phone-in as SNP prepares to launch manifesto

The LBC phone-in with Rishi Sunak is starting. Nick Ferrari is presenting.

Ferrari starts by asking about the inflation figures.

Sunak says this is “very good news”. The govenment stuck to its plans, he says. He has restored economic stability. And as a result he has been able to start cutting taxes, he says.

Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Helen Sullivan.

James Murray, a shadow Treasury minister, has just been interviewed on LBC. He was asked about the Daily Mail splash, setting out tax proposals in a submission from the Tribune Labour MPs. He said these ideas were not party policy, and Keir Starmer had nothing to do with them.

Politico UK is leading its website on the place Sunak might escape to, should he lose: a $7.2m beach house in Santa Monica.

The area is even home to an English-style pub, and several expats, one of whom was not excited at the prospect – and another of whom suggested Sunak might have to buy his own pints:

James Stokes, an English expat living nearby, said he didn’t realize Sunak owned a home in the area until a week prior, when he saw an Instagram reel about Sunak’s past. Initially hopeful that Sunak would bring much-needed diversity to the office of prime minister, ‘he’s just disappointed me,’ Stokes said.

‘If he ended up moving back here, I think he’d be a bit of a target,’ he said. ‘There’s a big expat community, and I don’t think he’d be welcomed particularly warmly here.’ (‘I don’t think many people here would buy him a pint,’ said his friend, Tom Walker, gesturing around the pub.)

On that note, this is it from me, Helen Sullivan, this morning. Andy Sparrow will be back with you in a moment to bring you Sunak’s LBC interview – and the rest of the day’s politics news.

The fall is mainly due to food prices easing, my colleague Julia Kollewe reports on the business live blog:

Here’s more detail on what happened to food prices. Breakfast cereals, potato crisps and bars of chocolate have become cheaper.

The main downward effects on the inflation rate came from bread and cereals, vegetables, and sugar, jam, syrups, chocolate and confectionery. In each case, prices fell between April and May this year, compared with a monthly rise a year ago.

The resulting annual rates were the lowest since October 2021 for the first two categories and since June 2022 for sugar, jam, syrups, chocolate and confectionery, the statistics office said.

Annual rates eased in nine of the 11 food and soft drink categories, with the exception of oils and fats, and milk, cheese and eggs.

Meanwhile the fall in inflation cannot disguise “the worst period for living standards in modern times”, Trades Union Congress general secretary Paul Nowak said.

PA reports that Nowak said:

Over the last three years UK families have suffered the highest prices rises in the G7 - with inflation going up more over that period than it usually does over an entire decade.

Ministers can try to rewrite history all they like. But the Conservatives have presided over the worst period for living standards in modern times.

Food and energy bills have surged. Rents and mortgages have skyrocketed. And real wages are still worth less than in 2008.

Working people have paid the price for this Government’s failure with household debt also increasing at record levels.

We can’t go on like this. We need a government that will make work pay.”

The fall in inflation is great news for the Conservatives, and Sunak should be feeling especially pleased as he prepares to field questions on the LBC phone-in starting in half an hour.

Sunak called the general election on the day that the last inflation figures – a drop to 2.3% – were announced in May. Sunak took the final decision to call a summer election on the drop in inflation and falling net migration, Guardian deputy political editor, Jessica Elgot, wrote at the time.

Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride has told Times Radio that the fall to the official Bank of England target of 2% is “very significant news” which will allow the Tories to “bear down on taxes”.

Stride told Times Radio:

We’re doing the right things for the economy and as you’ve just heard there, in terms of inflation now, very significant news this morning.

That is now down at 2%. That is bang on the Bank of England’s target of 2%. You’ll recall back in the autumn, it was up above 11%. And the Prime Minister quite rightly made it his key priority to get that figure down.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has responded to the new inflation figures, saying stage is now set for the Bank of England to cautiously cut interest rates, PA reports.

CBI principal economist Martin Sartorius said:

Another fall in inflation in May will come as welcome news to households as we move towards a more benign inflationary environment.

However, many will still be feeling the pinch due to the level of prices being far higher than in previous years, particularly for food and energy bills.

Today’s data sets the stage for the Monetary Policy Committee to cut interest rates in August, in line with our latest forecast’s expectations.

However, rate-setters will still need to weigh the fall in headline inflation against signs that domestic price pressures, such as elevated pay growth, are proving slower to come down.

This means that they are likely to move cautiously beyond August to avoid putting further upward pressure on inflation, especially as the growth outlook improves at home and geopolitical tensions remain heightened.”

As an instant vignette highlighting just how much trouble the Conservatives might face in their English heartlands, Calum Miller’s 10 minutes or so of chats in the neat cul-de-sacs of Langford would be hard to beat.

Knocking on doors in the community on the fringes of Bicester, just north of Oxford, the Liberal Democrat candidate spoke to locals with all manner of political backstories and motivations, some who had previously voted Tory, Labour or neither, as well as those who had either backed Brexit or wished to remain.

All, however, had arrived at a common conclusion: this time they would vote for him, to try to defeat the Conservatives.

The idea of the “blue wall”, traditionally Conservative seats whose affluent, remain-minded populations were left aghast at the antics of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, is not new. But on 4 July, a lot of Tory candidates could find out it is a bigger and politically broader phenomenon than anyone guessed.

Miller’s intended seat, Bicester and Woodstock, newly created under the boundary review, would have had a notional Conservative majority of about 15,000 in the 2019 election. However, according to constituency-extrapolated polling, Miller should win it.

If he does, the Oxfordshire councillor and public policy academic, who only entered politics three years ago, would not be lacking in local company.

Here is what we can expect politicians to tell voters around the UK today, via PA:

‘Cheaper energy, no shocks’: Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, and Rachel Reeves, Labour’s shadow chancellor, will visit a supermarket as the party pledges to put family finances first by cutting household energy bills by £300 and protecting Britain from future energy shocks. Reeves will reiterate Labour’s pledge to make Britain a clean energy superpower by 2030, which the party says will slash energy bills, boost the UK’s energy independence, and create 650,000 jobs.

‘A moral mission’: Sunak is expected to continue fighting the campaign on taxes as he announced it is his “moral mission” to further slash national insurance. Sunak shocked even those in his own party when he chose to call the General Election after favourable inflation figures in April. As the party continues to languish some 20 points behind Labour in the polls, he will be hoping positive figures for May will help to sell the Conservatives’ message that “the plan is working”.

‘Don’t let the Tories bet the house again’: Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper will urge voters in Godalming and Ash not to let the Conservatives “bet the house again” on mortgage prices as she unveils a Lib Dem poster van. Cooper will address activists with the new attack poster in Surrey, where the Liberal Democrats say they “are neck and neck” with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

‘A different approach’: SNP leader John Swinney will be in Edinburgh to launch the party’s manifesto, which he claims “will set out a different approach in line with Scotland’s centre-left values”. Swinney will be joined by SNP Westminster candidates and activists to unveil the party’s plans, which will call for the next UK government to generate an additional £1bn a year for Scotland’s health service.

UK inflation fell to 2% in May, returning to the official target rate for the first time in nearly three years.

In a boost to the Bank of England’s efforts to bring down the consumer prices index (CPI), the Office for National Statistics said price pressures eased between April and May.

Lower prices growth will also boost Rishi Sunak after the prime minister made bringing inflation under control one of his main aims. The release of the inflation figures represents the one of the last significant economic indicators before the general election on 4 July.

The fall in inflation was in line with predictions from City economists, who expected a fall to 2%.

The Bank is expected to keep interest rates at 5.25% when it publishes its latest decision on Thursday. Rates are expected to remain on hold for much of the year in response to concerns about a halt in a long downward trend in prices growth.

In May last year, inflation rose by 8.7%, down from more than 11% in October 2022, the highest rate in more than 40 years.

Here is more on our front page story this morning: NHS money will be used to buy thousands of beds in care homes under Labour plans to reduce overcrowding in England’s hospitals, long waits in A&E and patients becoming trapped in ambulances.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said the move would tackle the huge human and financial “waste” of beds being occupied by patients fit to leave but stuck there because a lack of care outside the hospital. There are 13,000 beds in England – enough to fill 26 hospitals – being occupied by such patients.

If Labour wins the general election on 4 July it will funnel some of the NHS’s £165bn budget into the plan as one of a series of immediate changes intended to relieve the crisis in the health service.

Streeting made clear in a speech that a Labour government would expect hospitals across England to follow the example of Leeds teaching hospitals NHS trust, which spends £9m a year buying up care home beds in order to cut delayed discharges and free up beds.

That initiative – which it launched as a way of avoiding a “winter crisis” in 2022-23 – has freed up 165 beds, helped reduce the number of patients who are admitted avoidably and saved the trust between £17m and £23m, it has estimated.

As we wait for the latest inflation figures to be published – they’re expected in 10 minutes’ time – let’s take a look at what the papers are saying.

The Guardian’s lead story is that Labour plans to use NHS money to buy thousands of beds in care homes as a way to reduce overcrowding in England’s hospitals, long waits in A&E and patients becoming trapped in ambulances.

Health Policy editor Denis Campbell reports, “Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said the move would tackle the huge human and financial “waste” of beds being occupied by patients fit to leave but stuck there because a lack of care outside the hospital. There are 13,000 beds in England – enough to fill 26 hospitals – being occupied by such patients.”

The Times, Daily Express and Daily Mail are leading on Labour’s tax policies, with the Times reporting that Starmer “has defined “working people” as those who cannot afford to write a cheque when they get into trouble, prompting claims by the Tories that he is preparing to target savers.”

The Financial Times reports on the Tories hoping to become leader after a predicted Labour win.

Potential contenders touted by MPs include former home secretary Suella Braverman, business secretary Kemi Badenoch and home secretary James Cleverly, the FT reports.

The paper quotes an unnamed party insider saying, “The shadow boxing has begun,” and that Tory hopefuls are already, “doing visits to other seats, helping MPs where possible, making sure they’re visible and prominent with the grassroots”.

The Daily Telegraph reports that Britain’s cancer care is two decades behind Europe’s:

The Morning Star calls Starmer’s performance in the LBC interview, “sleepy”, “dozy” and “lacklustre” when it comes to Jeremy Corbyn, energy nationalisation and Gaza:

Keir Starmer has called for a review into late kick-offs at football matches, warning they are increasing costs for supporters who want to travel to games, the Guardian’s Kiran Stacey reports.

The Labour leader told the Guardian’s Football Weekly podcast he wanted a new football regulator to look into whether the Premier League should be allowed to hold games late in the evening, such as at 8pm on Saturdays.

Late kick-offs have become controversial with supporters because while they allow broadcasters to show more live games, they make it more expensive for travelling fans, many of whom have to book overnight accommodation.

Starmer, who has a season ticket at Arsenal, told Football Weekly in an interview:

[Going to football matches] is too expensive, particularly the upper end, and I’d link that to some of the late kick-offs.

If you’ve got, for example, an 8 o’clock kick-off on a Saturday, then the away fans in all likelihood have got to pay to get to the ground, they have got to pay quite a lot of money then to get into the ground.

And then if the game finishes at 10 o’clock at night, and it’s the other end of the country, in all likelihood they’re also then having to pay for overnight accommodation. It becomes a very expensive package.”