The number of Tory MPs standing down continues to rise, as Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer hit the general election campaign trail once more.
Saturday 25 May 2024 06:00, UK
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By Tim Baker, political reporter
Housing Secretary Michael Gove and former business secretary Andrea Leadsom have said they will not stand at the general election.
Mr Gove announced after nearly 20 years as the Conservative Party MP for Surrey Heath, and serving in multiple cabinets over the course of the last 14 years, “a new generation should lead”.
In a letter to his constituency chairman, the veteran cabinet minister said being an MP and minister has been a “profound privilege”.
Just hours later on Friday evening, Ms Leadsom, who unsuccessfully stood to lead the Conservative Party against Theresa May in the wake of the Brexit referendum, said she would also be standing down.
In her resignation letter, Ms Leadsom said it has been “the greatest honour to serve the people of South Northamptonshire as their MP for the last 14 years”.
Ms Leadsom, who is currently a junior health minister, was business secretary under Mrs May.
Read more here:
On the final day the House of Commons sat before the election, the view from the back of the chamber said it all.
As Theresa May – in her familiar flame red suit – left the chamber after a speech by Ben Wallace, the Tory benches were packed, Labour’s almost deserted.
MPs were taking part in a “Valedictory Debate”, an unprecedented and hastily convened piece of parliamentary business for departing MPs to say their farewells.
And while the debate was going on, an historic milestone was reached: the number of Conservatives standing down exceeded the number in 1997 after 18 years of Tory rule.
With an announcement by the 74-year-old Bexleyheath and Crayford MP Sir David Evennett, the total number of MPs retiring or quitting had reached 76 – one more than the 75 in 1997.
And by the time parliament prorogued at 8.25pm, the number had reached 78, after two shock announcements, first from Michael Gove and then former cabinet minister Andrea Leadsom.
In a moment of pure parliamentary theatre, the news of Mr Gove’s departure was broken to stunned MPs in the Commons by Matt Hancock, who’d earlier made an emotional farewell speech.
Then while the prorogation ceremony was taking place came the bombshell announcement from Dame Andrea, now a junior health minister, that she’s quitting too. And with a barb at Rishi Sunak too!
Read Jon’s full analysis here:
Rishi Sunak has called a general election for this summer.
The prime minister has been saying for months he would call a vote for the “second half of the year”, and he has now confirmed it will be on 4 July.
Parliament will be prorogued later today – which means that will mark the formal end of this session of parliament.
On Thursday, 30 May, parliament will formally be dissolved.
This means that members of parliament cease to be members of parliament, and become candidates in the election – or not, if they are standing down.
The campaign will then take place ahead of polling day on Thursday, 4 July, when polls will close at 10pm.
Following the vote, the new elected MPs will travel to London to meet in parliament for the first time on Tuesday, 9 July.
The Speaker of the House of Commons will be elected and MPs will be sworn in.
The formal state opening of parliament and a King’s Speech will take place on Wednesday, 17 July.
Our political reporter Alix Culbertson explains more below…
In January 2023, Rishi Sunak made five promises.
Since then, he and his ministers have rarely missed an opportunity to list them. In case you haven’t heard, he promised to:
See below how he is doing on these goals:
By Alexandra Rogers, political reporter
Labour’s shadow education secretary has been criticised for refusing to rule out an increase in university tuition fees if the party wins the general election.
The National Union of Students (NUS), which represents university and college students across the UK, said a potential rise in tuition fees would “hamper their future” and that loan debt was already “unsustainable”.
Bridget Phillipson said during a BBC Question Time debate on Thursday evening that UK universities were facing “enormous challenges” and the question of how they would be funded did not have any “straightforward” answers.
She said the decade-long freeze on tuition fees, which has set them at about £9,000 per year, meant universities across the country were “increasingly struggling to cover the cost of tuition”.
But pressed by fellow panellists whether she would rule it out, the shadow education secretary did not answer.
Read more here:
By Professor Michael Thrasher, Sky News election analyst
The electoral geography of the UK is changing.
Following the recommendations of independent Boundary Commissions for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the next UK general election – which Sky News understands will be on 4 July – will be fought on new constituency boundaries, replacing those in operation since 2010.
This is the sixth periodic review to be implemented since the war. The next review is not scheduled until October 2031.
Exploring how this movement of voters affects the political makeup of the House of Commons is a task that Colin Rallings and myself have been doing over the past thirty years following previous boundary adjustments.
There are winners and losers in different parts of the UK – read the full analysis here:
With the general election campaign officially under way, what better time to keep a close eye on the latest polling?
The Sky News live poll tracker – collated and updated by our Data and Forensics team – aggregates various surveys to indicate how voters feel about the different political parties.
See the latest update below – and you can read more about the methodology behind the tracker here.
We’ve got three key dates for your diary from the Electoral Commission should you need to register to vote in the general election.
18 June: This is the deadline to register, which you can do online at gov.uk/register-to-vote.
19 June: This is the deadline to apply for a postal vote, should you not be around when polling stations open on 4 July.
26 June: This is the deadline to apply for a proxy vote, which allows someone to vote on your behalf, and also to apply for a Voter ID certificate should you not have another valid form of identification.
This is the first general election where ID is needed to vote – find out more about registration here:
The latest edition of Electoral Dysfunction is in your podcast feeds now, and one of the main topics was the optics of Rishi Sunak’s announcement of the general election date.
In case you missed it, he went out on to Downing Street in the pouring rain, and throughout his speech, the song Things Can Only Get Better by D:Ream was blaring out – which was the official anthem of Sir Tony Blair’s landslide victory for Labour in 1997 (more here).
Our political editor Beth Rigby explained that Mr Sunak did the announcement on the street because he “wanted to be traditional”.
But former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson branded the launch “disastrous”, saying: “The idea of tradition and all the rest of it, well, that’s great and all.
“But you’re the prime minister – you make the traditions here.
“How f****** incompetent do you have to be to launch a campaign that badly?
“And how much do you not protect your boss by allowing him to do it or encouraging him to do it?”
She added: “Wait for a break in the clouds, okay? Look, how hard is that?”
Jess Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley said he wanted to avoid advertising that he is a centi-millionaire by having “a lackey holding an umbrella”.
She added that he “wouldn’t have lost a single vote” if someone had been holding an umbrella, or he’d delivered the speech inside.
“He will lose votes because of the way he launched it,” she said.
👉Listen above then tap here to follow Electoral Dysfunction wherever you get your podcasts👈
Email Beth, Jess, and Ruth at electoraldysfunction@sky.uk, post on X to @BethRigby, or send a WhatsApp voice note on 07934 200 444.
Sir Keir Starmer’s tour of key battlegrounds kicked off in Scotland on Friday. His message was singular: change. And his target was singular, too: take out the SNP.
In four elections on the bounce, Labour has been nearly wiped out in Scotland by the SNP. In 2019, the party returned one MP to Westminster from Scotland. It now has two. The task in this election campaign is to turn that into dozens.
“This is an election about change, and Scotland’s voice is vital. It needs to be a leading voice,” he said in a slick campaign event with hundreds of people holding up “change” placards and cheering Sir Keir and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar on.
“Send a message, send a message: that is the height of the SNP’s ambition, to send a message of protest to Westminster. I don’t want Scotland to send a message. I want Scotland to send a government. A Labour government.”
Ask Labour strategists, and they say Scotland is vital to get Labour over the line to a majority because of how far behind Labour were in England back in 2019. They are operating a twin attack on two failing governments – the SNP one in Holyrood and the Conservative government in Westminster – to implore voters to switch back from the SNP to kick the Tories out.
Starmer told me in Glasgow that winning in Scotland was important numerically but also to him personally, because he wants to be a prime minister, should Labour win, that governs for the whole of the UK.
Read Beth’s full analysis here…
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