General election: Johnson abandons promise to give MPs vote on extending Brexit transition - as it happened

The prime minister, Boris Johnson, spoke to the US president, Donald Trump, this evening, Downing Street says. A spokeswoman added:

They discussed security issues, with the prime minister welcoming the US operation which led to the death of al-Baghdadi and underlining the ongoing importance of the fight against Daesh.

The prime minister looked forward to the Nato leaders’ meeting next month. They agreed on the need for burden sharing and for Nato to prepare for future threats.

The prime minister urged the president to lift tariffs on goods, including Scotch Whisky, and, ahead of a US decision on additional tariffs, urged him not to impose tariffs on car exports.

The education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has urged local councils to find alternative venues for polling stations to avoid disrupting school Christmas plays and concerts. In a letter to returning officers, Williamson wrote:

In the run-up to Christmas, schools across the country will be planning festive events such as Christmas plays and carol concerts. These are important highlights in the school calendar and the result of a huge amount of hard work and dedication from staff, parents and children.

As you will be aware, central government has agreed to reimburse the necessary costs where needed to support you in identifying alternative venues to avoid disrupting long-planned and important events relating to this time of year.

I would be grateful for anything you can do to ensure arrangements for polling stations keep the disruption to school activities over the Christmas period to an absolute minimum and that you work closely with local schools to this end. In every community there will be alternatives and I would ask that, wherever possible, these are used instead.

Here’s a little more on the difficulties inherent to December elections – as well as the history of such votes:

The former Tory minister, Justine Greening, will find it difficult to bring herself to vote Conservative at the upcoming election because of the party’s Brexit stance, she has said. Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live earlier today, Greening said:

I certainly don’t want to see us getting on with what I think would be a very damaging deal for Britain. So, it would be very hard for me to vote for the Conservatives, if I’m looking at what they stand for on Brexit.

Explaining her reasoning, she told the station’s presenter, Emma Barnett:

Brexit is part of what will drive how I vote, along with millions of other people. It’s not the whole story. I’m still a centre-right conservative-minded voter and and, indeed, politician.

But I have had a fundamental difference with my party on Brexit. And so, like many people in this country, I’m going to have to weigh it up.

And I think it’s going to be very hard for people in this election because they’re probably going to look at all the parties and think: ‘I’m not sure I want any of them’ because none of them quite necessarily stack up with where their politics are.

Asked whether or not she trusted the prime minister, Boris Johnson, Greening said:

Certainly in relation to Heathrow, I’ve been very absolutely disappointed by the fact that, having campaigned with many of us to stop this expansion, he has now seemingly gone back on that word.

Pressed on whether or not that meant she trusted him, she added:

I find it hard to trust him on other issues when the one that has mattered to me the most as a local campaigner is one that he’s not followed through on.

About a million of the commemorative Brexit 50p coins that are now having to be melted down were minted before Boris Johnson chose to pull his Brexit deal and seek a delay, it has emerged.

But the government has refused to say how much the operation cost, citing commercial sensitivity.

It also emerged that a thousand trial coins were struck to mark the first exit date of 29 March 2019, subsequently missed by Theresa May.

Details of the Brexit coins, carrying the words “Friendship with all nations”, came on the last day of Parliament sitting before it broke for the forthcoming general election.

Responding to a written parliamentary question by the former EU ambassador, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, the Tory frontbencher, the Earl of Courtown said:

Approximately one million coins were minted in October to mark the UK’s exit from the European Union, in addition to 1,000 trial coins that were struck before 29 March. Coins bearing these dates will now be recycled and the value from the materials will be recouped by the Exchequer. The cost of minting these coins is commercially sensitive.

The former chancellor, Philip Hammond, had planned a limited edition of about 10,000 commemorative coins to be sold to collectors for £10 each. But his successor, Sajid Javid, pressed for a much greater circulation, portrayed at the time as a statement of intent that the Treasury was fully behind Brexit.

A lawyer for the Lib Dems has written to ITV demanding it reverse its decision to not include Jo Swinson in its head-to-head election debate, the party has said:

Legal action by the party has been mooted but, as was noted earlier, a Scottish court threw out a similar challenge by Alex Salmond against the BBC in April 2010, which was brought after he was excluded from a leaders’ debate. (see 4.10pm)

The prime minister’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, warned that the law governing campaigning in a general election is “wide open to abuse”, a member of the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee has claimed.

This evening, The Labour MP Ian Lucas used a valedictory debate to “draw to the House’s attention today the serious position that exists on the cusp of a general election”.

Lucas, who is standing down at the election, quoted correspondence he said he had secured through the committee between Cummings and the Electoral Commission. He told MPs:

I have secured through the committee these documents and I’m placing them in the public record because it is something that should be known by the public in this country before we vote in a general election.

We have a general election happening and we have laws in place which are completely inadequate to deal with that general election.

And I just want to quote to this House the words of Dominic Cummings in correspondence that he sent to the Electoral Commission.

It says: ‘Overall, it is clear that the entire regulatory structure around national elections, including data, is really bad. There are so many contradictions, gaps, logical lacuna, that it’s wide open to abuse. There has been no proper audit by anybody of how the rules could be exploited by an internal or foreign force to swing close elections’.

‘These problems were not fixed for the 2017 election and I doubt they will be imminently. The system cannot cope with the fast-changing technology’.

So, the main adviser to the prime minister is telling us that the current legal structure for elections is unsound. We are going into a general election which is going to be fought online and we’re already seeing the way in which that is affecting the campaign we are facing.

Boris Johnson has spoken to the Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi this evening, Downing Street says. A spokeswoman added:

The leaders welcomed the recent lifting of restrictions on flights from the UK to Sharm el-Sheikh as the first step towards services resuming and emphasised the importance of close cooperation between the UK and Egypt on security.

The two leaders agreed to continue to work together to strengthen the relationship between the UK and Egypt, particularly in areas of trade and education. The prime minister welcomed the opening of three new British university campuses in Egypt.

Conservative plans to use the civil service to rubbish Labour’s spending plans have been scuppered after the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, argued with senior civil servants that it would breach impartiality rules.

Forcing a climbdown before the general election, Britain’s highest ranking civil servant, Mark Sedwill, made a decision that the publication of Treasury analysis with only weeks to go before the 12 December poll would be improper.

The government had planned to open its election campaign with an attack this week on Labour’s economic credibility. However, opposition sources said the government had been slapped down by senior civil servants, forcing an embarrassing U-turn.

In an email exchange seen by the Guardian, the cabinet office told the party: “To confirm our conversation, these costings will not be published.”

A Labour source said: “This is an embarrassing slapdown to Tory ministers who were blatantly trying to use the civil service for political purposes.”

Labour have heavily criticised the Commons leader, Jacob Rees-Mogg, as well as his Tory colleague Andrew Bridgen, over their comments on the Grenfell Tower disaster.

Earlier today, Rees-Mogg said it would have been “common sense” for people living in Grenfell Tower to have ignored the fire brigade and to have left the building once the fire started. He later apologised (see 2.08pm).

This evening, Bridgen has told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme:

Jacob is a good friend of mine and he’s an extremely intelligent and compassionate human being and his comments regarding Grenfell were uncharacteristically clumsy.

But I think we have to put them in the context of Jacob, I mean, Jacob is a leader; he is an authority figure. And what he has failed to realise is that, in a life-threatening and stressful situation, most people – most of the public – will probably defer to the advice of an authority figure – be that someone from the fire authority or the police – and not come to their own conclusions.

And, as we know with regard to Grenfell, that advice was flawed.

Bridgen said he believed Rees-Mogg meant he would not have stayed put were he caught up in the disaster – even if told to do so by firefighters.

The interviewer, Evan Davis, put it to him that that was, in fact, central to people’s objections, adding that Rees-Mogg was, in effect, saying he would not have died because he would have been cleverer than those who took the fire brigade’s advice.

After a lengthy pause and a sigh, Bridgen replied:

But we want very clever people running the country, don’t we Evan? That’s a by-product of what Jacob is an that’s why he’s in a position of authority. What he’s actually saying is that he would have made a better decision than the authority figures who gave that advice.

But I can assure you there’s absolutely no malice and no... I mean, he’s one of the most compassionate and thoughtful politicians we’ve got.

Bridgen agreed that Rees-Mogg “lives in a different world” to those who lived in Grenfell Tower and, therefore, finds it difficult to empathise; adding that he is not alone among politicians and people who work in the media in that respect.

Andrew Gwynne, Labour’s national campaign co-ordinator, called Bridgen’s comments “contemptible” and said the Tory leader should remove him as a candidate.

What Rees-Mogg and Bridgen said go to the poisonous heart of the Tories’ attitude towards people in our communities.

The choice at this election is clear – the Tories who blame the victims of tragedy, or Labour who are on your side.

The Labour MP, David Lammy, also criticised Bridgen and called on Rees-Mogg to resign from the government:

As the main parties ramp up their election campaigns, letterboxes across the country will begin to clog with leaflets vying to attract voters’ attention.

We want to hear the most outlandish claims your local candidates from the main political parties or independents have made to try to win your vote.

If you’ve spotted claims you think should be challenged, unverified bar charts, or facts you think need checking, send them over to us. You can do so here:

The Tory MP and Brexiter Andrew Bridgen defended what Jacob Rees-Mogg had to say about the victims of the Grenfell Tower not having enough sense (see 2.08pm), in an interview on the BBC Radio 4 PM programme a few minutes ago. These are from Sky’s Lewis Goodall.

That’s all from me for today.

My colleague Kevin Rawlinson is now taking over.

From my colleague Rowena Mason

The Brexit party leader, Nigel Farage, says he will be broadcasting on Facebook every day, staring this evening at 6pm.

With parliament dissolving tonight ahead of the election, ministers have released a flurry of minor-ish announcements that they have been holding back because, on a quieter day, they would attract too much bad publicity. The Mirror’s Dan Bloom has a good summary of them here.

From Stefan Rousseau, the Press Association’s chief political photographer

During Foreign Office questions in the Commons earlier Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, denied that Downing Street was in the grip of a “Kremlin mole”. He was responding to a question from his Labour shadow, Emily Thornberry, who asked about Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s de facto chief of staff, who worked in Russia after leaving university. Thornberry asked:

Does Mr Cummings have unredacted access to top secret intelligence and unrestricted access to top secret meetings relating to Nato, Russia, Ukraine and Syria, yes or no?

Raab replied:

As she knows, the government and ministers do not comment on security clearance.

But I think that the insinuation in her letter that No 10 is somehow in the grip of a Kremlin mole is frankly ridiculous even by the standards of the ‘loony left’.

Jeremy Corbyn sounded confident talking about his Brexit policy this morning. (See 1.16pm.) But, according to this YouGov polling, by three to one voters are more likely to say Labour’s Brexit policy is not clear than that it is clear. All the other main GB parties (the Tories, the Lib Dems and the Brexit party) have Brexit policies that are widely seen as clear.

There have been two GB polls out in the last 24 hours or so.

• An ICM poll gives the Conservatives a seven-point lead.

• A YouGov poll gives the Conservatives a 13-point lead.

The Times’s Matt Chorley has posted on Twitter an interesting chart showing how trends in the YouGov pre-election polling compare with the trends at the same point before the 2017 general election.

And Joe Murphy in the Evening Standard says YouGov polling in London shows that Labour’s lead over the Tories in the capital is half what it was at the 2017 general election. In his story, Murphy quotes Prof Philip Cowley, an elections expert, saying this about the new figures.

Compared to the position in 2017, these figures mean a fall of 16 points in the Labour share of the vote and just a four point drop in the Conservative share. In practice, assuming no change by polling day, this would almost certainly mean seats being lost by Labour and gained by the Conservatives.

Nicola Sturgeon has said the SNP will consider legal action against broadcasters that exclude her party from leaders’ election debates, after it complained to Ofcom over Sky News refusal to include the SNP.

Kirsten Oswald, the SNP’s business convenor at Westminster, wrote to Sky and Ofcom on Wednesday to complain that its plans to invite only Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn and Jo Swinson were “undemocratic and completely inexcusable”.

The SNP said it “could test the matter in the courts if it is not swiftly resolved”. It believes excluding other Westminster parties breaches the Ofcom code on screening a wide range of significant views, taking account of past or current electoral support. The SNP is currently Westminster’s third-largest party and claims the polls show it will remain so after the election.

The first minister, campaigning in the Labour-held marginal of Midlothian, said:

We will consider all of our options. [It] remains to be seen whether this Sky debate goes ahead because to the best of my knowledge Johnson and Corbyn haven’t agreed to it yet.

But there’s an issue of real principle here of how how can you include the fourth biggest party in the UK in a debate like this and not the third biggest party. We’ll take forward these discussions, but I’m ruling nothing out at this stage.

The Lib Dems have mooted legal action against ITV for screening a Johnson against Corbyn debate that excludes Swinson, but in April 2010 a Scottish court threw out a similar challenge brought by Alex Salmond against the BBC after he was excluded from a leaders’ debate.

Critics argue that since Sturgeon is not standing for Westminster and cannot become prime minister, and as the SNP is only contesting seats in Scotland, it does not have the same standing as UK-wide parties in a Westminster contest.

The BBC’s Daniel Sandford says the Tories have doctored a video featuring Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, to show him in an unfavourable light.

I’ve asked the Tories for a comment, and will post the reply when I get it.

Conservative candidates in the general election will be told not to sign up to specific pledges on protecting the NHS from privatisation and trade deals or tackling climate change, according to a leaked internal document from party headquarters, my colleague Nick Hopkins reports.

Anne Milton, the Guildford MP who was one of the 21 Tories who had the whip removed after rebelling over Brexit, has said that she will stand as an independent. She was not one of the 10 rebels who subsequently had the whip restored.

Yesterday John Woodcock, the Labour-turned-independent MP, announced that he was standing down from parliament. Today Priti Patel, the home secretary, has appointed him as UK special envoy for countering violent extremism.

Woodcock, like his fellow former Labour MP John Mann, who was appointed independent adviser on antisemitism by Theresa May, has been highly critical of Jeremy Corbyn, particularly over antisemitism.

The most memorable story of the day will probably turn out to be Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, apologising for saying it would have been “common sense” for people living in Grenfell Tower to have ignored the fire brigade and to have left the building once the fire started. My colleague Kate Proctor has written it up here.

Here is some comment from politicians.

From Jeremy Corbyn

From Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary

From Humza Yousaf, the Scottish justice secretary

From Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary

And here is some comment from journalists.

From the BBC’s Nick Robinson

From the broadcaster Tom Sutcliffe

Jo Swinson has formally launched the Liberal Democrats’ election campaign with a remain-dominated message, insisting she can become prime minister but declining to specify what the party might do if it holds the balance of power, my colleague Peter Walker reports.

Here’s a question from below the line.

Stakeman

05 November 2019 12:27pm

Andrew,

What is the latest total for current MP`s not standing in the next GE please?

Gavin Freeguard from the Institute for Government has a tally.

Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, tells MPs the government’s refusal to publish this report is unjustified and politically motivated. It is “nothing less than an attempt to suppress the truth”, she says.

Pincher repeats the point about the turnaround time for the publication of this report being not unusual.

Boris Johnson’s cabinet discussed abuse of election candidates at a meeting this morning, agreeing that the government will write to social media companies calling on them to protect politicians from online threats. They will be asked to set up “one-stop shops” where candidates can report abusive online behaviour.

The prime minister’s spokesman said:

Cabinet discussed the safeguards which will be in place during the campaign to protect all candidates from intimidation and abuse. Cabinet agreed that people who intimidate public figures should face the consequences of their actions.

The freedom to hold respectful, vibrant and robust debate cannot be an excuse to cause harm, spread hatred or impose views upon others ...

Ministers are also writing to social media companies calling or action to prevent candidates being subjected to abuse online, and to encourage the companies to work together during the campaign.

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish National party leader, has said she will “drive a hard bargain” in any post-election talks with Jeremy Corbyn about supporting a minority Labour government.

Sturgeon refused to rule out negotiating a formal “confidence and supply” arrangement with Labour but she told Kay Burley on Sky News her strong preference would be to support Labour on a vote by vote basis.

Sturgeon said:

Let’s see what the arithmetic is. There will be no formal coalition... [I] would favour more, and be more likely to be, in a situation where we have an issue by issue arrangement, where we support on some things but don’t support on others.

But we will drive a hard bargain and we will stand up for Scotland’s interests and we will stand up for the kind of progressive values that people across the UK think are important.

We will want to see a very strong position on Brexit. This is an opportunity for Scotland and for what it’s worth the rest of the UK to escape the mess of Brexit.

That conforms with Corbyn’s repeated insistence Labour will not form coalitions with any other party, but Sturgeon’s reference to the SNP driving a “hard bargain” were picked up by the Scottish Tories.

Tory allegations that Corbyn and Sturgeon have already struck a deal where Labour will grant the SNP powers to stage a second independence vote next year mushroomed after Sturgeon confirmed last week the pair had had private talks late last month.

Sturgeon said last month Corbyn shouldn’t “bother picking up the phone” if he was not prepared to authorise a second Scotland referendum, and has confirmed she plans to ask for the section 30 powers to hold it within days of the election next month.

Labour sources say that conversation was entirely about post-election strategies to thwart a no-deal Brexit and deny there was any discussion of pacts or independence. Labour officials say the party’s first priority would be renegotiating a new Brexit deal and putting that to a confirmatory referendum.

Corbyn and John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, have confirmed they are open to granting a second independence vote, but only after several years of Labour rule at Westminster, and assuming pro-independence parties win a majority and a fresh mandate in the 2021 Holyrood elections.

Q: Nigel Farage says he will target Labour MPs in leave-voting seats. He says you are out of touch with these people. How will you assure people you are in touch?

Corbyn says Farage is a one-trick pony from a very rich organisation.

He says Farage is not offering anything that would solve the problems facing these communities.

Labour would set up a national investment bank to invest in these regions.

His message is that a Labour government will improve these communities, he says.

Q: Would you accept revoking article 50 as the price of a coalition in a hung parliament with the Lib Dems?

Corbyn says he is campaigning to win the election with a majority Labour government. He is not campaigning to form a coalition with anyone.

Q: If you held a referendum, and remain won very narrowly on a smaller turnout than in 2016, would you consider that the final word on the matter for the next 40 years.

Corbyn says he wants the whole debate to be over. He wants to lead a Labour government that would carry out Labour policies, and that would be a voice for justice on the world stage.

And that’s it. The Q&A is over.

I will post a summary shortly.

Q: You quoted a figure for a trade deal costing the NHS £500m a week that is based on a crude assumption about all drug prices being the same as in the US. Isn’t this misleading?

Corbyn says he believes this to be an accurate and credible figure. He would not be using it otherwise. And he says he is happy for people to analyse it, and to tell him if he is understating the case.

Corbyn says Johnson wants a trade deal with the US. They want a trade deal, knowing full well the US will demand alignment and full market access. And you will see the price of it, he says.

He says a vote for Boris Johnson involves a vote for a trade deal, and all that goes with it.

Q: You have made it clear you will not say how you would campaign in a second Brexit referendum. But would you be happy for your ministers to campaign on either side during that campaign.

Corbyn says the Labour policy has been arrived at through debate. That is one thing the party is good at debate; they love it. They have experts in all areas.

He says he has tried to bring the party together.

It agreed a Brexit policy at its conference in Brighton.

He says Labour activists are campaigning on this policy.

After a three-month negotiation, Labour would hold a special conference. At that point it would come to a view, he says.

He says he would want a referendum to have informed debate, and very strict spending limits.

Labour would then carry out the referendum decision. And there would be no further debate, he says.

Corbyn is now covering what might happen if the Tories negotiate a UK-US trade deal. Some extracts on this subject were released overnight. (See 9.08am.) Here is the rest of the passage.

Just look at how these corporations operate in the US. They are ruthless. They will suck as much money as they can out of our NHS while cancer patients wait longer for treatment.

We now know that US and UK officials have been discussing drug pricing in secret, and the US government is demanding what its officials call “full market access for US products”.

Senior NHS managers have said that would mean “higher prices for medicines” which will “pass on costs to both patients and the NHS”.

So there we have it. Johnson can deny it all he likes, but people won’t believe him. And the Tories know that – which is why, behind the scenes, the Conservatives have tried to suppress the news attacking the BBC for reporting what we and health professionals are saying.

This is what they don’t want you to hear: a vote for Johnson’s Conservatives is a vote to betray our NHS in a sell out to Trump. Johnson’s Trump deal Brexit puts a price tag on our NHS.

So we’ll say it again and again until the message gets through to the White House: our NHS is not for sale.

Activists at the event start shouting: “Not for sale”. Corbyn tells them to make sure this message is heard on the doorsteps.

Corbyn also praises the two Labour shadow cabinet ministers who spoke before he took the stage, Laura Pidcock and Sir Keir Starmer. He particularly praises the way Starmer and his team were able to provide the party with a comprehensive analysis of Boris Johnson’s withdrawal agreement overnight, so that Corbyn and his colleagues had it the morning after the agreement was published.

Swinson is still speaking at the Lib Dem event, but I’m going to switch now to Jeremy Corbyn, who has just started his Brexit speech.

Q: Are there any Tory or Labour MPs you would not accept into the Lib Dems?

Yes, says Swinson. But she won’t name names.

Q: Would you rule out putting any Labour into No 10 willing to allow a second Scottish independence referendum?

Swinson says the Lib Dems are opposed to second independence referendum.

She says Labour are in the clutches of Corbyn and his supporters. Even if the leader were to change, the direction of policy would not.

Q: What is your message to leave voters? How would you bring the country together if a Lib Dem government revoked article 50?

Swinson says she understands the challenge this would be. As a Scot, she knows what it is like being in a divided country.

Many people have been unhappy with the way things have been going. A Lib Dem government would address those problems. That is how to bring the country together.

Q: As prime minister would you refuse to deal with Donald Trump?

Swinson says she would not refuse to deal with him. There are plenty of world leaders the Lib Dems have their differences with, but who they would engage with.

But she says the decision to offer Trump a state visit was the wrong thing to do because of Trump’s values.

Q: Why will you stand down candidates against some remain parties, but not against Labour candidates who are personally committed to remain?

Swinson says the Labour party is not at all serious about stopping Brexit.

She says Rosie Duffield, the Labour candidate in Canterbury, is great. She would be welcome to join the Liberal Democrats.

Q: Would you prop up another form of government in a hung parliament?

Swinson says she is offering to the public a Lib Dem government.

She says she is speaking in the constituency of the Cities of London and Westminster. The Lib Dems have never been in contention here. But this time, with Chuka Umunna as a candidate, they are in the running.

Q: When before has a position ever won a general election from the point the Lib Dems are starting now? Isn’t it the case that you wanted an election because it would help you win seats, even though the result might deliver Brexit?

Swinson says politics is different now. She thinks opinion has shifted. That is why she is setting out ambitious plans for a Lib Dem government.

Swinson says one in five people in the UK are living in poverty, and 4.6 million of them are children.

She says she wants to live in a country where people can achieve whatever they want to, where people get the help they need, and where can be whoever they want to be.

Swinson says all four nations of the UK are stronger when they stand together.

She will never stop fighting for the UK “because we are stronger together when we are united, and it’s precious, and we must not let people wreck it”.

Jo Swinson is speaking now. She says the Lib Dems will “stop Brexit and build a brighter future”.

Some people ask why the Lib Dems are being so ambitious now. It is because they can be, and they have to be.

Politics is no longer about left versus right. It is about values, she says.

The only uncertainty is what will emerge, she says. Will things go back to usual? Or is this a moment for seismic change? Can a new politics emerge?

She says voters have that choice.

Change is possible, and you get to choose.

She cites MPs like Luciana Berger and Chuka Umunna, who defected to the Lib Dems, as examples of people who chose change.

Berger says Lib Dems have often heard people ask who would be worse - Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn. They are two leaders stuck in the past, failing time and time again, she says.

But there is a better choice, she says.

She says she is excited at being able to campaign for the Lib Dem programme.

She says every one in the community would be valued and cared for, and business would be treated as part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Berger says Jo Swinson is someone who represents a new way of doing politics. She stands up for remainers, and she is the Lib Dem candidate for prime minister.

The Jeremy Corbyn speech and the Lib Dem launch were both due to start at 10am. But I’m now told the Lib Dem event is due to start at 10.30am, and the Labour event about 20 minutes later.