Unlike my Yorkshire colleague, here in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire we’ve had an influx of Labour shadow ministers visiting over the last few weeks - with Keir Starmer himself making an appearance yesterday.

Aside from a Rishi Sunak visit in the first full week of campaigning – we haven’t seen many Tory visits in these parts.

Image source, Getty Images

Voters in their droves put their trust in Boris Johnson back in 2019 - turning every Stoke seat blue - but out on the streets of Stoke-on-Trent some people say nothing has changed.

Levelling up projects have been stalled and the High Street is struggling.

Labour are quietly confident here in Stoke – in one seat, the Conservatives only had a majority of 600 votes back in 2019.

Image source, Getty Images

Reform UK are also standing candidates in every seat here - which will no doubt affect the vote in a place which strongly supported Brexit.

The cost-of-living crisis is all too apparent walking around some of Stoke’s six towns.

Ask anyone on the streets about the issues here in the city centre, Hanley, and at least one will mention a synthetic drug called monkey dust.

One former Conservative MP and candidate in Stoke-on-Trent South campaigned to get it reclassified and the Labour candidate says that if she wins she’ll continue the fight.

• Find out who is standing for election here, and wherever you are, in our postcode look-up tool

Image source, Getty Images

Yorkshire is often seen as a key election battleground - but I have to say I’ve not seen a huge amount of that “battle” on the ground here so far.

Take my patch of Bradford - were it not for the smattering of billboards and banners, you might not even know there’s an election on.

The campaign here - as in other parts of God’s Own County, according to my colleagues - has been muted at best.

We’ve had virtually no visits from the main parties’ big hitters, apart from shadow health secretary Wes Streeting popping into Shipley early on to support Labour colleague Anna Dixon as she tries to unseat the newly knighted Sir Philip Davies after almost 20 years.

And the Tory party chairman Richard Holden made a very under-the-radar stop in Keighley and Ilkley to back Robbie Moore’s efforts to retain the seat he snatched from Labour in 2019.

But no big photo-calls or battle buses in Bradford so far.

• Find out who is standing for election here, and wherever you are, in our postcode look-up tool

In Kent in 2019, out of the 17 seats up for grabs, the Conservatives won all but one of them.

Fast forward to 2024 and it feels very different on the ground.

We’ve seen the Liberal Democrats taking the fight to the Conservatives in places like Tunbridge Wells, a constituency that has never known any other political colour other than blue.

On an assault course on the edge of Tunbridge Wells is where I took on Sir Ed Davey the Lib Dem leader, it wasn’t just the fact he finished the course quicker than me that gave me pause for thought, but the fact so much of the country's media was following him to promote a seat they’ve never won.

Image source, PA Media

There is a sense this isn’t just pointless campaigning, but about selected targeted seats and a real belief from the Lib Dems that its winnable.

The same could be said for Reform, with Nigel Farage making several visits to the county, only this week on the top deck of an open top bus covered in union jacks he went through a greatest hits list of the party's manifesto to a crowd of over 1,200 people on a sweltering Monday morning.

Speaking to voters, both legal and illegal immigration is one of the first things they tell me they’d like to see politicians take on - regardless of where in the county we speak to voters.

Image source, PA Media

When I've spoken to locals in Dover, every one of them has a comment when it comes to stopping the boats - and why they’re exhausted with the political rhetoric.

Every party has a political aspiration to stop the boats, but who locals trust on the issue is a determining factor in many voters' minds.

• Find out who is standing for election here, and wherever you are, in our postcode look-up tool

We’re hearing from our BBC local political reporters about how the election is playing out in their area.

Of all of my 10 constituencies, the new constituency of Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes will be the one to watch.

It’s made up of two former constituencies - one of them being Great Grimsby, which was a safe Labour seat for decades until the Conservatives took it in 2019.

The Conservative candidate who was elected back then is standing again for election this year, as is the former Labour MP who lost her seat.

Image source, Getty Images

Back in May, the Conservatives lost control of North East Lincolnshire Council and only a few weeks later, one young Conservative councillor in the area defected to Reform UK. He's now standing as their parliamentary candidate.

In the EU referendum, 69.9% voted to leave in North East Lincolnshire, and some people here see immigration as a key election issue.

The area has also received significant amounts of levelling-up funding over the years, but many people here still feel further investment is needed.

It'll be fascinating to see which way the political tide turns for this new constituency.

• Find out who is standing for election here, and wherever you are, in our postcode look-up tool

Image source, Getty Images

Tourism and its effect on communities is a big election talking point in the beautiful constituency of Westmorland and Lonsdale.

Millions come here every year to see the stunning Lake District landscapes.

The visitor economy provides thousands of jobs, but there is also a price to pay.

Lib Dem candidate Tim Farron held Westmorland and Lonsdale, prior to incoming boundary changes, and wants a crackdown on excessive second home ownership to stop communities “dying out”.

Image source, Getty Images

The boundary changes have added traditionally Tory areas to the new constituency.

Conservative candidate Matty Jackman said he would push for more affordable housebuilding “on brownfield sites”.

Labour’s Pippa Smith said her party’s policy on better pay and conditions would help hospitality workers afford a home.

Green candidate Phil Clayton also wants to see fewer holiday homes by changing planning rules, and Reform UK’s James Townley is calling for a tourism levy to invest in local infrastructure.

• Find the full list of who is standing for election here, and wherever you are, in our postcode look-up tool

We've also seen boundary changes in Cumbria - it means every seat is to play for in this battleground county.

There are five seats fully within the county’s boundaries - plus a sliver of Morecambe and Lunesdale.

Recent elections have seen big gains for the Conservatives at the expense of Labour here.

Up until 2010, Labour had four MPs in the county, but by 2019 the Tories had turned all four seats blue, leaving the county with five Conservatives and one Lib Dem MP.

This time though, things are different.

For one thing, Labour have built up a gaping poll lead. On top of that, boundary changes have carved up the former safe Conservative seat of Penrith and the Border.

This has created new constituencies in which Tory candidates could win, but are vulnerable to Labour and the Lib Dems, if the pollsters are correct.

• Find out who is standing for election here, and wherever you are, in our postcode look-up tool

Image source, Getty Images

Let's turn to Lancashire's seaside town of Morecambe.

It's now in the same constituency as rural Cumbrian towns like Kirkby Lonsdale, thanks to the recent boundary changes.

It’s altered the dynamic of the campaign here as candidates try to appeal to voters living on the outskirts of the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales.

In rural parts of the constituency, the Greens and the Lib Dems have performed well in local elections, giving the main two parties something else to worry about.

Labour’s proposals to remove the VAT exemption on private schools has caused the party some problems locally in Sedbergh – home to a private boarding school.

But in Morecambe, the proposed Eden Project is on a lot of minds.

Image source, Grimshaw Architects

Half of the project is due to be funded with £50m of levelling-up money – but some voters are worried the election could change things.

• Find out who's standing for election here, and wherever you are, in our postcode look-up tool

Much of the noise around this election campaign has focused on the two men most likely to get the keys to No 10.

But when millions turn out to vote on Thursday, they won’t directly the pick the prime minister - instead, they’ll be crossing the box for their local representative.

You might have a sense of what’s important to you in your area - dentistry, housing and the environment consistently crop up in our Your Voice Your Vote project.

But what other issues are at play around the country?

Our team of BBC local political reporters - based from Kent to Cumbria, and Stoke to South Tyrone - have been hearing from voters about the key issues in their communities.

For the next couple of hours we’ll hand over to them.

First up, we’re heading to Lancashire.

John Swinney, first minister of Scotland and leader of the SNP, is launching the campaign bus today and urging voters to support the SNP.

The bus will criss-cross the country over the next six days taking the SNP’s message to voters. Independence for Scotland is front and centre of the SNP’s campaign.

He says an independent Scotland would have the powers to tackle austerity and the cost of living. He says his party would deal with what he describes as the negative effects of Brexit.

He adds that Labour will win the general election in the UK and is urging people in Scotland to vote SNP as the party to get Scotland’s voice heard at Westminster.

This morning the Conservatives claimed on social media that “under Labour education standards plummeted”.

To support their claim, they posted data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), which tests 15-year-olds in reading, maths and science.

Only a tiny proportion of pupils complete these tests, which began in 2000.

In their graph, the Conservatives have used international rankings. However, there have been previous warnings that data before 2006 is not comparable because not enough pupils participated.

If we look at the average scores for pupils' actual test performance, not world rankings, we can also say that achievement has remained pretty steady over the last 20 years.

In England’s most recent set of results, it was noted that higher performing pupils were overrepresented while pupils who are eligible for free school meals were underrepresented.

Image source, OECD

Image source, Getty Images

Let's take a look at some other election news and an emergency polling booth has been opened for people in Edinburgh, after postal voters reported not receiving their ballots just one week before polling day.

Anyone who won't be at home next Thursday and hasn't got their vote in the post yet can now vote in person from today until Sunday at City Chambers, the City of Edinburgh Council says.

The Electoral Management Board for Scotland (EMB) said there have been "many difficulties experienced with the delivery of postal votes" across the country.

Read more here.

Image source, PA Media

Only six days to go to the polls and we've heard from most of the party leaders since early morning. Here's the latest election news today:

• PM Rishi Sunak said betting on an election was "not something I would do” and the priority now was for the Gambling Commission to ensure no one had broken the rules. Anyone who had should face "the full consequences of the law", he said
• Sunak's chief of staff, Liam Booth-Smith, has been interviewed by the commission as a witness, not as a suspect, it emerged today
• The SNP launched its campaign bus today. Its leader, John Swinney, was on BBC Breakfast early this morning, saying that “Brexit was a mistake”. He said he believed Scotland had "to become an independent country so that we can re-join the EU”
• After Swinney, Labour leader Keir Starmer was on BBC Breakfast, insisting that all Labour pledges in the manifesto were fully costed with a “plan for economic growth”
• Later on, Starmer was quizzed by BBC Radio 5 Live listeners, where he promised that “income tax, national insurance and VAT wouldn't go up,” saying, “We can't tax our way out of problems”
• Meanwhile, as we've been reporting, racist slurs made by some Reform UK campaigners have also been making headlines today, you can catch up on those developments here

Essex Police say they're "urgently assessing" racist and homophobic comments made by Reform UK campaigners in a Channel 4 broadcast "to establish if there are any criminal offences".

Secret recordings show a canvasser for Reform UK leader Nigel Farage using a racial slur to refer to the prime minister - who is of Indian origin.

A spokesman for the force says: "We are aware of comments made during a Channel 4 News programme and we are urgently assessing them to establish if there are any criminal offences."

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage says the recording of the comments was a "set-up", while Channel 4 has issued a statement sanding by its "rigorous and duly impartial journalism".

As we've been reporting, homophobic and racist comments made by Reform UK campaigners have been recorded by an undercover Channel 4 journalist while they campaigned for Nigel Farage to become Clacton's MP.

The secret recordings feature a conversation between what appears to be Reform UK organisers, including racist, homophobic and Islamophobic slurs apparently being made by Andrew Parker, identified as a canvasser for Farage, who used a racial slur to refer to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who is of Indian descent.

Farage has claimed the racist comments were a "set-up" and the party volunteer was an actor. The Prime Minster has said the comment "hurts and it makes me angry".

Reform UK said those making "unacceptable comments" would no longer be part of Mr Farage's campaign.

There was lots of excitement at Holy Trinity Rosehill primary school about the prime minister’s visit.

“It’s Rishi Sunak!” exclaimed one small girl in a headband, as she ran over to start making pretend ice-cream out of sand with him.

On the playing field outside they were less sure though. “It’s not the real Rishi Sunak”, I overheard one boy confidently telling his friend.

But it was and, as political visits go, this looked like one Sunak was enjoying.

It was his turn to the ask questions for a change, about the contents of the fruit salad the children in reception were making, their favourite books and the mascot in a class of slightly older kids: “Oh, it’s a yellow… erm, what actually is it?”

(An alien called Beegu, apparently, if you’re interested.)

Primary school visits are often unpredictable and can produce memorable moments (think of the photo of the small girl with her head on the desk next to David Cameron).

Rishi Sunak seems to have navigated this one successfully.

The Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, has claimed the racist comments made by a canvasser in an undercover film by Channel 4 were a "set-up".

Farage says the party volunteer - Andrew Parker - is an actor.

Challenged by a BBC reporter that just because Parker has acted in the past, doesn't mean he was acting in those remarks, Farage says: "He was acting from the moment he came into the office. I 100% believe this whole thing is a total set-up."

Asked why some people who seem to be racist appear to be attracted to Reform UK, Farage says: "I'm not buying this, this guy who made racist comments is an actor, we've been set up, OK."

He says he single-handedly "destroyed the BNP" so some people who "don't have a home to go to, who come to us - we find out who they are and simply get rid of them."

A spokesperson for Channel 4 News has issued a response, saying: "We strongly stand by our rigorous and duly impartial journalism which speaks for itself.

“We met Mr Parker for the first time at Reform UK party headquarters, where he was a Reform party canvasser.

"We did not pay the Reform UK canvasser or anyone else in this report. Mr Parker was not known to Channel 4 News and was filmed covertly via the undercover operation.”

Sat in a school, clutching of mug of tea and a chocolate bar while he talked to journalists in Teesside, the upset and the anger Rishi Sunak felt over the racial slur used by a Reform activist against him came across very clearly.

He was asked why he had chosen to repeat the exact words himself on camera, which, a journalist suggested, might shock viewers.

Sunak said: “I do it deliberately and I hate having to do it. I chose my words deliberately and I hate having to repeat them, absolutely hate it, but I also think it’s important to call this out for what it is and be clear about what it is."

Some more from Rishi Sunak, who was asked by a reporter about the election betting saga.

As a reminder, some Conservative Party members are being looked into by the Gambling Commission over alleged bets on the timing of the general election. The Tories withdrew their support on Tuesday for two election candidates: Laura Saunders and Craig Williams.

Sunak repeatedly tells the reporter that if people have broken the rules, they "should face the full consequences of the law", adding that he'll kick them out out of the Tory party.

The reporter asks him again what Sunak's "personal" position is on whether politicians should bet on an election when running in one.

He says it's "not something I would do. Right now, the priority should be the Gambling Commission ensuring that no one has broken the rules".

• You can see a full list of candidates for Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr here, and for Bristol North West here.

Warning: This post contains offensive language

Conservative leader Rishi Sunak has condemned a racist term used about him by a Reform UK campaigner, saying: "It hurts and it makes me angry."

Secret recordings published by Channel 4 show a canvasser working to get Reform UK leader Nigel Farage elected as MP for Clacton using the racial slur to refer to the prime minister - who is of Indian origin.

Speaking to reporters, Sunak says "my two daughters have to see and hear Reform people who campaigned for Nigel Farage calling me an effing Paki".

"It hurts. And it makes me angry," he says.

"I don't repeat those words lightly. I do so deliberately because this is too important not to call out clearly for what it is."

Farage "has some questions to answer", he added.

Sunak says: "When you see Reform candidates and campaigners, seemingly using racist and misogynistic language and opinions seemingly without challenge, I think it tells you something about the culture within the Reform Party."

Reform UK said those making "unacceptable comments" will no longer be part of Farage's campaign.

If you're still uncertain about who to give your vote to next week, now might be a good time to have a glance over each party's manifesto to see exactly what proposals they are putting forward.

You can use the BBC's handy guide to search for where parties stand on issues most important to voters.

You can find full manifestos on each party's websites (Reform has opted not to call it a manifesto but "Our Contract with You"), and BBC InDepth has detailed summaries of the pledges here.

Don't forget - some issues, such as health, are devolved. That means the UK parliament would have limited powers on those issues when it comes to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales - our guide can help you organise pledges according to that too.