You may be seeing a little less of Rishi Sunak on the campaign trail today, as the red carpet has been rolled out in London for a state visit of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako of Japan.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Read our full write-up here.

Image source, PA

A little earlier, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was talking on This Morning about his party's plans to impose VAT on private school fees to fund the training of 6,500 more teachers.

He says he understands parents work hard and save to send their children to private school, but that parents who send their children to state schools also want their children to "do well".

Starmer adds that it's not right some state schools are using supply teachers for core subjects like maths.

The presenters challenge Starmer about the cost of a child moving from a private to state school. He says the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said there would be a "negligible" effect, adding that not all children would change schools.

You can compare all the main parties' policies on education in our interactive manifesto guide here.

Has net migration trebled since the last election?published at 13:02 British Summer Time 25 June 2024

13:02 BST 25 June 2024

By Tamara Kovacevic

On this morning’s LBC immigration debate, featuring Home Secretary James Cleverly and shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, the latter said at one point: "Net migration has trebled since the last election."

That is correct. Net migration figures - the number of people coming into the country and planning to stay for at least a year, minus the number of people leaving for at least a year - have more than trebled since 2019.

In 2019, the figure was 184,000. Last year it was 685,000, according to the ONS, slightly down from the record high of 764,000 in 2022.

The increase was driven by work and student visas.

Cooper was pressed on the level of net migration Labour would like to see should it win power, but she refused to set a target on this.

Image source, .

With polling day edging ever closer, let's go back to basics for a moment and think about what 4 July will look like:

• If you're eligible and registered to vote, you should now have a card telling you which polling station you can go to
• Polling stations are open from 7am to 10pm on 4 July
• Remember to bring a form of photo ID with you as you'll not be able to vote without it - click here to see which photo IDs are accepted
• When you're given your ballot paper, follow the instructions at the top of it

For those with postal votes, don't panic if you haven't posted your vote in time - just take it to your local polling station before it closes.

And if you need it, polling stations should have ways to help voting be more accessible. This can include ramps, low-level voting booths, displaying large-print versions of ballot papers and having tactile voting devices on-hand.

Image source, EPA

Sam Hancock
Live page editor

After days of speculation, the Conservative Party has announced it can "no longer support" two of its candidates - Craig Williams and Laura Saunders - involved in the election date gambling row.

If you haven't been following this story, we sum it up here in 100 words. And as we pointed out in our last post, it's too late legally for the party to change either candidate - meaning, if elected, they'll automatically become independent.

We've been bringing you reaction to and analysis of that news over the past couple of hours, but we're going to head elsewhere now and see what's happening on the various campaign trails.

There are lines to bring you from Labour leader Keir Starmer, Health Secretary Victoria Atkins and the Lib Dems' Layla Moran - to name a few - so plate up those lunchtime meal deals and stick with us for more election coverage.

Too late for Tories to legally change either candidatepublished at 12:08 British Summer Time 25 June 2024

12:08 BST 25 June 2024

Brian Wheeler and Ione Wells
BBC News

We don’t have to look back too far to see another example of a major party withdrawing support for an election candidate when a campaign had already started.

At February’s Rochdale by-election, the Labour Party disowned its candidate Azhar Ali after a recording emerged of him making allegedly antisemitic comments, for which he apologised.

Just like now, with the two Conservative candidates suspended over betting allegations, it was too late for the party to legally change candidate.

Labour members in Rochdale were ordered to stop campaigning for Ali and the party’s campaign office was closed down.

But Ali’s name was still on the ballot paper as the Labour candidate. If elected he would have had to sit in the Commons as an independent.

Similarly, if Laura Saunders or Craig Williams are elected, they will automatically become independent.

In the end, Ali came fourth in Rochdale, with 2,402 votes, or 7.7% of the total - down 43.9% on the vote Labour got in the 2019 general election. Workers Party of Great Britain candidate George Galloway won by a landslide and is standing there again, with Labour putting up journalist Paul Waugh.

• Here is the full list of general election candidates in Rochdale

Damian Grammaticas
Political correspondent

News of the Conservative Party’s decision to withdraw support from two of its candidates came through as Labour leader Keir Starmer was speaking to journalists away from the television cameras at a campaign event in west London.

He was shown the Conservative statement by a reporter and gave his brief response - asking "why didn't that happen a week ago?" - before leaving the venue.

The Gambling Commission is looking into both Craig Williams and Laura Saunders as part of a probe into betting on the date of the general election.

The Conservative Party is also conducting its own inquiry.

Some reaction to bring you now, following the Conservative Party's decision to withdraw support from two candidates who are being investigated as part of the election date gambling scandal.

Labour leader Keir Starmer says: "Why didn’t that happen a week ago?"

While Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper says it should have happened "immediately", but that "instead Rishi Sunak has dithered and delayed".

She also challenges Sunak to confirm that the candidates will not sit as Conservatives, if elected.

Sunak will hope this draws a line under betting controversypublished at 11:18 British Summer Time 25 June 2024

11:18 BST 25 June 2024

Sean Curran
Parliamentary correspondent

This row has rumbled on for almost a fortnight.

It’s overshadowed the Conservative election campaign as Rishi Sunak faced repeated questions about his handling of the affair.

It was inevitable that the prime minister’s political opponents would seize on the controversy to accuse him of weak leadership and criticise the Conservatives more widely.

He’s also come under pressure from fellow Tories who called for tougher action and argued that the two candidates should be suspended.

Throughout it all, Sunak stuck to his argument that he didn’t want to compromise the integrity of the Gambling Commission’s independent inquiry.

Yesterday he announced that the Conservative Party was carrying out its own inquiry and promised it would not hesitate to act if wrongdoing was discovered.

But that didn’t draw a line under the row or stop the questions. Sunak will hope today’s decision, for the Conservative Party to withdraw support from Craig Williams and Laura Saunders, allows him to focus on the issues he wants to talk about as the days count down to 4 July (polling day).

Image source, X/BBC

It emerged earlier this month that Craig Williams - one of the prime minister's closest aides - had reportedly placed a £100 bet on a July polling day three days before Rishi Sunak called it.

Williams, standing for the Tories in Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr, refused to say if he had placed a bet on the basis of inside information.

Laura Saunders, the Conservative candidate for Bristol North West, and her partner Tony Lee, the Conservative director of campaigning, are also under investigation by the Gambling Commission - as is Nick Mason, the party's chief data officer.

PM Rishi Sunak said this week he was "incredibly angry" and the Conservative Party has now said it can "no longer support" Williams or Saunders at the election.

• You can find the full list of candidates in those areas here

Soon after a briefing to the BBC's Henry Zeffman (see our last post), a Conservative Party spokesman has now confirmed two candidates' suspension:

"As a result of ongoing internal enquiries, we have concluded that we can no longer support Craig Williams or Laura Saunders as Parliamentary Candidates at the forthcoming General Election.

"We have checked with the Gambling Commission that this decision does not compromise the investigation that they are conducting, which is rightly independent and ongoing."

Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

The Conservative Party is considering withdrawing support from the candidates involved in the election date gambling scandal, the BBC understands.

Two sources told the BBC that the party board had held urgent discussions about how to handle the row.

Both Craig Williams, the candidate in Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr, and Laura Saunders, the candidate in Bristol North West, are being looked into by the Gambling Commission.

Williams, who is Rishi Sunak’s parliamentary private secretary, has admitted placing a "flutter" on a July election.

Sunak has said he is "incredibly angry" about the allegations.

Two members of Conservative staff have also taken leaves of absence from their roles after it emerged they were being looked into by the Gambling Commission.

Image source, .

Following that debate between the home secretary and shadow home secretary (catch up in our last few posts), let's break down the numbers on migration:

• As of 23 June, 12,901 people have crossed the English Channel so far this year, which is higher than the same time period in previous years
• Last year, 29,437 people made this journey to the UK, which was a drop from 45,755 people in total for 2022
• At least 159 migrants died in the English Channel between 2018 and 2023, according to estimates by the International Organization for Migration
• More than 84,000 people claimed asylum in the UK in 2023. There were just under 100,000 in 2022, of which small boat arrivals accounted for 45% of those. An equivalent figure is not available for last year

• Delays in the UK system have created a backlog of claims. At the end of December 2023, there were nearly 100,000 cases relating to more than 128,000 people
• Last year, 6,015 people who were not granted asylum were returned to their home country

Read more on the figures here.

Image source, PA Media

After a feisty exchange on how to handle people arriving in the UK illegally - in which Cleverly repeatedly claims Cooper isn't answering the questions and she accuses him of lying about figures - the debate moves on to the existing backlog.

LBC's Nick Ferrari asks if tens of thousands of people who've arrived illegally since 2022 would be granted an amnesty.

Cooper says "absolutely not" under Labour, that her party doesn't believe in amnesties and want to enforce the rules, and claims the Conservatives are "giving them amnesty" because people are "effectively being told they can stay forever because no decisions are being made" - and "less than 1%" would be sent to Rwanda even if the scheme is up and running.

Cleverly says Labour will grant an amnesty to those people who've arrived illegally, and that Labour has not said what it would do. "Actions speak louder than words," he says, claiming a previous Labour government did "put an amnesty for illegal migrants".

That's it for our coverage of the immigration debate.

A promise that both Labour and the Conservatives have made during the election campaign is, if elected, to cut net migration.

During this immigration debate between Home Secretary James Cleverly and shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper (see our last post), a caller asks how the parties will do that, to which Cooper says net migration has "trebled" under the Tories and Labour now has to fix that.

But pushed by LBC's Nick Ferrari to give a figure, she refuses: "We won't set a target [for reducing net migration] because we think every time the Conservatives have done that they've failed."

Cleverly then says that, as home secretary, he's introduced visa restrictions, upped salary thresholds and restricted foreign students bringing their families to the UK. He adds that Labour criticised the increase on the salary threshold to sponsor a foreign spouse coming to the UK.

Asked if she'd reverse that policy, Cooper says Labour would continue with policies already brought in - but that the The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) would need to review it.

Image source, PA Media

We're currently listening to an immigration debate on LBC radio, hosted by Nick Ferrari and featuring Home Secretary James Cleverly and his opposite number for Labour, Yvette Cooper.

We're going to bring you highlights here - including the opening question where each was asked why they should be trusted to run the Home Office.

Cleverly says the Tories have recruited 20,000 new police officers and are committed to recruiting 8,000 more across England and Wales. He says elections "are about choices" and says his party is committed to bringing down immigration and "stopping the boats", which he says is in "stark contrast" to Labour.

Cooper says that after 14 years of the Tories it feels like "everything is broken" - that net migration has trebled, there's a skills shortage and "90% of crimes are going unsolved". She says Labour has a plan to "boost our border security" with a new "border security command" to "smash the criminal gangs" and to get neighbourhood police "back on the beat" - and to and crack down on antisocial behaviour and halve knife crime.

Image source, PA Media

Image source, Reuters

Away from the Tory betting row, Illegal Migration Minister Michael Tomlinson has been doing the government's morning media round today.

Speaking to Times Radio, he says people waiting in France for the end of the Rwanda scheme is evidence it's working.

Migrants are delaying their journeys across the English Channel because they do not want to be deported, Tomlinson says, referencing a report in The Daily Telegraph which claims people are waiting for a Labour government to be elected. The Labour Party has previously said it would scrap the Rwanda scheme.

"People have been asking me for weeks, for months, where is the evidence of the deterrent effect? Well, there it is, writ large," he says, adding that the "full deterrent effect will kick in" when planes take off.

As a reminder: The Rwanda scheme involves sending some asylum seekers to the East African country to have their asylum claims processed there instead of in the UK. The government has said this would deter people crossing the English Channel in small boats - one of Rishi Sunak's five promises.

The Conservative Party's handling of these betting allegations (see our earlier post if you need a reminder) has been criticised externally - but increasingly from within too.

Earlier this week, Tory candidate and former Olympian James Cracknell posted a video to social media, summarising - in his own words - "how I feel about the current situation". In the clip, he says that if this were the Olympics and the Tories his opponents, he and his teammates would refer to them as a "shower" before using an expletive.

Asked about Cracknell's criticism on BBC Newsnight, Conservative peer and ex-minister Jo Johnson said the former rower was "voicing the immense frustration of all candidates and activists, that this story is still rumbling on two weeks now since it first broke, and shows every sign of continuing".

Boris Johnson's brother added that no one in the party can understand why those suspected have not been suspended and urged PM Rishi Sunak to take firm action: "It's catastrophic in terms of public confidence … I can see it gradually haemorrhaging Conservative support."

Image source, PA Media

The latest episode of the BBC's Electioncast is here - featuring host Adam Fleming, the BBC's political editor Chris Mason and correspondent Alex Forsyth.

They discuss the Conservative Party’s internal betting inquiry and whether the main parties have "ducked" addressing stark choices over public finances.

• Listen to the episode on BBC Sounds right here

A story that continues to bubble away this morning is one about allegations of some Conservatives placing bets on the date of the election.

The Metropolitan Police has denied leaking the names of people now being investigated by the Gambling Commission - following a report in the Daily Telegraph, external in which an unnamed "source close to the Cabinet Office" tells the paper Scotland Yard leaked names to journalists.

Police sources have told the BBC the force regards this as an attempted distraction and it is not behind the disclosure of names.

If you've missed this story, here's a quick recap:

• Claims first emerged earlier this month against Craig Williams - one of the prime minister's closest aides - who reportedly placed a £100 bet on a July polling day three days before Rishi Sunak announced it'd fall on 4 July
• Williams, who is standing for the Conservatives in Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr, admitted he had made a "huge error of judgement" but refused to say if he had placed a bet on the basis of inside information
• Laura Saunders, the Conservative candidate for Bristol North West, and her partner Tony Lee, the Conservative director of campaigning, are also under investigation - as is Nick Mason, the party's chief data officer
• The BBC understands other people linked to the Conservative Party and the government are also being looked into by the Gambling Commission. Why? Because if someone uses confidential information to gain an unfair advantage when betting, it could be a criminal offence under section 42 of the Gambling Act