Streeting warns ‘NHS is not envy of the world’ as Starmer to lower voting age to 16

Flight logs have shown that Rishi Sunak flew in a helicopter owned by a millionaire Conservative donor to travel from his home constituency in North Yorkshire to London on Saturday.

The prime minister made two low-key campaign stops during the day, after Labour accused him of “hiding away in his mansion” when reports emerged he was planning on taking a day off.

Sunak first had tea with a small group of veterans in a pub in his North Yorkshire constituency for a 20-minute stop, before returning to London to meet voters in Wimbledon.

He travelled in a helicopter owned by the entrepreneur Richard Harpin, which he has used in the past.

Sir Keir’s party branded the announcement “another desperate unfunded commitment” and pointed out that Lord David Cameron introduced a similar scheme – the National Citizen Service – when he was prime minister.

Lord Cameron’s announcement had no armed forces component to it, instead encouraging youngsters to take part in activities such as outdoor education-style courses as part of his “Big Society” initiative.

A Labour spokesperson said: “This is not a plan – it’s a review which could cost billions and is only needed because the Tories hollowed out the armed forces to their smallest size since Napoleon.

“Britain has had enough of the Conservatives, who are bankrupt of ideas, and have no plans to end 14 years of chaos. It’s time to turn the page and rebuild Britain with Labour.”

Eighteen year olds would be forced to carry out a form of national service if the Tories are voted back in at the July 4 General Election, Rishi Sunak has announced.

The Prime Minister said Britain has “generations of young people who have not had the opportunities they deserve” as he claimed the radical measure would help unite society in an “increasingly uncertain world”.

In future, 18-year-olds would be given a choice between a full-time placement in the armed forces for 12 months or spending one weekend a month for a year volunteering in their community, the Tories said.

In an apparent pitch to older voters, the party said this could include helping local fire, police and NHS services as well as charities tackling loneliness and supporting elderly, isolated people.

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Labour has radical plans to overhaul the EU relationship, but doesn’t want to talk about them for fear of alienating Leave voters, notably in the red wall. (The Liberal Democrats, burned by being the anti-Brexit party in 2019, now merely talk vaguely about rejoining the single market one day).

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The exodus of prominent Tory MPs like Michael Gove and Dame Andrea Leadsom is “not unnatural”, a minister has insisted, amid speculation that Conservatives are quitting Parliament in fear of imminent electoral defeat.

Bim Afolami, whose seat of Hitchin and Harpenden has seen a waning Tory majority in recent years, said the party was “pretty confident here” and denied it had crossed his own mind to stand down ahead of the July 4 polling day.

It comes after Housing Secretary and long-serving Cabinet minister Mr Gove cited the “toll” of public office as he said it was time to let “a new generation lead” following a political career spanning nearly 20 years.

A post-war record of 78 Conservative MPs have stepped down for the summer election as the party languishes behind Labour in the polls, surpassing the previous high of 72 who quit prior to Labour’s 1997 landslide.

Speaking to Times Radio on Saturday’s morning broadcast round, Mr Afolami said: “Look, it’s not unnatural if you’ve got people who served for 20, sometimes 30 or 35 years in Parliament in their 50s or 60s coming to retirement or indeed retiring completely, that they choose to bring their political careers to a close. I think that’s fine.”

The Liberal Democrats are “way more in tune” with young voters than “any other party”, Sir Ed Davey has said, as Labour pledged to lower the voting age to 16.

The Lib Dem leader pointed to his party’s position on housing, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and their pro-European stance as policies that may appeal to younger people as he hit the campaign trail in Chichester, West Sussex, on Saturday.

Sir Ed welcomed Labour’s promise to reduce the voting age to 16 but said “bolder” reform is needed to fix the country’s “broken” political system.

When asked how the Lib Dems could regain the trust of young voters following the U-turn on their pledge to scrap university fees during the 2010 coalition government, Sir Ed said his party had “fought the Conservatives every single day” during the power-sharing agreement but “weren’t able to get everything we wanted”.

Wes Streeting has vowed he will be “a shop steward for patients” as health secretary, with a warning to striking doctors that he will not meet their huge pay demands.

With an election on 4 July, Mr Streeting has attempted to outline what sort of health secretary he would be if Labour, as expected, is victorious but takes power in the face of record waiting lists caused by the Covid pandemic and exacerbated by ongoing pay disputes.

And he comes with a message on why things need to change: “The NHS is not the envy of the world.”

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Sir Keir Starmer has defended Labour’s decision to rebrand its package of workers’ rights pledges following a backlash from one of the UK’s biggest trade unions.

The party leader denied he was weakening policies on areas like zero-hours contracts, parental leave and sick pay after Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said the plans had “more holes than Swiss cheese”.

It comes after the latest flare-up in a row over Labour’s New Deal for Working People, following reports it would go through a formal consultation process with businesses – potentially delaying or toning down the pledges.

On Friday, Labour rebranded the New Deal as “Labour’s plan to make work pay”.

During a visit to Staffordshire on Saturday, Sir Keir told the BBC: “We have come to an agreement with the trade unions on the new deal for working people.

“There’s been no watering down. This is the most significant set of protections for a generation.

“It’s also something which I think employers and good businesses would say, ‘looking at the detail of it, this is what we’re doing in good businesses’.”

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has met supermarket workers in London to talk about the cost-of-living crisis, attacking the Conservatives’ approach to the economy as she pitches Labour as the party of “stability and tough spending”.

Speaking to reporters on the visit, she also suggested she wanted to cut taxes for “working people,” saying they should be “lower,” but insisted that “unlike the Tories” she would not make pledges she cannot keep.

Repeatedly pressed on whether she could rule out national insurance or income tax rising if Labour wins the election, the shadow minister said: “I have no plans to increase taxes.

“We’ve set out the plans that we do have to fund the immediate injection of cash into our NHS and into our schools, but we have no plans beyond that to increase taxes.”

Labour has said it would use tax on wealthy non-doms and impose VAT and business rates on private schools in order to fund improvements to public services.

Party loyalists disapproved of my suggestion that there was bound to be at least one episode of panic at Labour HQ before election day, because the opinion polls were likely to narrow, either as a result of random variation or of events. They can be pleased that it hasn’t happened yet. If there is a Labour wobble, it will now happen during the campaign itself.

And if it does happen, it is likely to resemble the episode during the Conservative election campaign in 1987, when David Young grabbed Norman Tebbit by the lapels and told him, “We’re about to lose this effing election!” Margaret Thatcher won with a majority of 102.

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