What are the main policy pledges that have been made by the major parties in the 2017 general election campaign?

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In a Guardian interview, external, Labour Deputy Leader Tom Watson has warned that his party faces the prospect of "Margaret Thatcher-style landslide" if the polls numbers against it persists.

Urging voters to back his party to ensure that Labour can hold a Conservative government to account, Mr Watson nonetheless admitted that it would be "very, very difficult to turn the poll numbers around". 

He said that the party had a “mountain to climb” over the four weeks until the general election and was lagging behind in the polls with all income groups, including working-class voters.

“I’ve run a lot of by-elections and elections in my time for the Labour Party and I know what it is like. It is going be very, very difficult....but we are determined to do it.”

Mr Watson said there were some “terrifically exciting” ideas in the manifesto drawn up by the party but warned members if the poll lead for the Conservatives was not narrowed.

“If we get to 8 June and [Theresa May] still commands the lead in the polls that she had at the start of the election, she will command a Margaret Thatcher-style majority,” said Mr Watson, referring to the former prime minister’s 144 and 101 seat victories in 1983 and 1987 respectively.  

“A Conservative government with a 100 majority … It will be very hard for them to be held to account in the House of Commons. It means there won’t be usual checks and balances of democracy ... all those things go out the window. You end up with governance by Theresa May without much accountability – and I don’t think anybody wants that.”

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The Conservatives say they want to give people the power to wipe out all content they posted on the internet before the age of 18.

The party has promised to introduce "new digital and entitlements and protections against internet harms" if they win the general election.

They want to work with social media firms such as Facebook and Twitter to introduce online safeguards.

But they say they would fine companies that fail to take action.

Read the full story

Russian interference in the general election is a "realistic possibility", Boris Johnson has warned. 

The foreign secretary claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin would "rejoice" if Labour's Jeremy Corbyn won the general election.

He claimed Mr Putin was behind cyber-security breaches during the US and French presidential elections. 

Asked by the Daily Telegraph if it could happen in the UK, he said: "I think it is a realistic possibility."

The former Deputy Director of Intelligence and Cyber Operations at the government's GCHQ monitoring agency has said that an important new factor to be considered in the security hack affecting the NHS is the work of organised crime.

Speaking to Newsnight, Brian Lord, who served in the post 2005-13, said: "This is the next step up for international organised crime. [It] started with low level theft, low-level use of ransom-ware.

"They're moving now to a larger scale - far more sustained, far more coordinated effort. Whether that is is getting inside the infrastructure of banks or, as we see here, a very well timed, very well coordinated delivery of a simple tool - but delivered at mass scale into vulnerable areas."

Laura Kuenssberg
BBC political editor

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Tory aides joked today that the prime minister's new election battle bus was to be known in fact, as a "campaign coach".

It is, after all hard to picture the prime minister as someone who was ever particularly fond of taking the bus.

With its fresh fruit, supplies of diet coke and Marks and Spencer's sandwiches, the bus or coach was pristine and it felt all rather genteel, at least on Day One, with Theresa May telling us as she boarded, she'd been on every mode of transport so far in the campaign, "except a horse".

There is nothing gentle though about what she and the Tories are trying to do with the "campaign coach" and every other electoral tool at their disposal.

Read Laura's full report on Theresa May in the North East

The Labour leader's comments came after a high-profile speech earlier in the day to the RIIA international affairs think-tank at Chatham House, in which he insisted he was "not a pacifist" while cautioning against a "bomb first, talk later" approach to foreign policy. 

Addressing the issue of nuclear weapons, whose use he has previously ruled out, he said: " I am often asked if as Prime Minister I would order the use of nuclear weapons. It's an extraordinary question when you think about it - would you order the indiscriminate killing of millions of people?"

Tonight he confirmed that he remained a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament: "I've been a member all my life". Pressed on how that personal outlook squared with Labour's defence policy - including as it did a renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system - he added simply: "It was voted on at Labour conference". The Labour leader went on: "I want to see a nuclear free world and I'll do everything I can to to work through the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and point out to people the horrors of what a nuclear war means....We have a responsibility - all of us - to bring about a peaceful world. That is my priority."

PM says the Tory manifesto will show party is "fixed on the future" and not a return to the past.

Image source, Channel Four News

Here's recap on some of the lines today on defence from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Mr Corbyn has said he would not "automatically" send UK troops to support a fellow NATO member which came under attack. Speaking on Channel 4 News tonight he said that the terms of Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which commits member-states to collective self defence, could in some circumstances be fulfilled without the use of military force. 

Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, signed by the UK and other NATO members, states that in the case of an armed attack on any of them, all members "will assist the party or parties so attacked by taking ... such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area".

But on Channel 4 Mr Corbyn said: "That doesn't necessarily mean sending troops - it means diplomatically, it means economically, it means sanctions, it means a whole range of things. I think we have to look through the whole process. Relations between Turkey and its neighbouring states are not good. 

"Turkey is a NATO member state. Would we automatically want to get involved in a war that had been provoked by somebody's actions? I think you have to nuance it and think it through." 

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In Northern Ireland, the Alliance, the SDLP and Sinn Fein are contesting all 18 seats, says the Press Association.

The DUP are standing in 17 and the UUP 14.

The smaller parties are fielding the following number of candidates:

Christian Peoples Alliance:30

Yorkshire Party: 21

The Monster Raving Loony Party: 12

BNP: 10

The Pirate Party: 10

English Democrats: 7

The Women's Equality Party: 7

National Health Action; 5.

Some 169 candidates officially classed as Independent are also standing. 

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Some 377 UKIP candidates are standing in the general election, according to the Press Association, which is a sharp drop on the 624 hopefuls the party put forward two years ago.

Party leader Paul Nuttall said Ukip has decided not to complete with "real Brexiteers"  which he said would "ensure we get as many Brexit MPs into the House of Commons".  

"I think it is a very noble thing to do, to put country above party," he added.

But Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Tom Brake said: "Ukip are standing aside for the Conservatives because they know Theresa May has adopted their divisive agenda wholesale.

"As Nigel Farage has said, Theresa May is now using the exact words and phrases he has been using for the last 20 years."

A total number of 3,300 candidates are standing in the upcoming general election, down from the 3,971 recorded in 2015.

It is also lower than the record 4,150 candidates in the 2010 general election.

There are 650 seats up for grabs. The Conservative are contesting 637, Labour are standing in 631 seats and the Liberal Democrats are contesting  629.

The Green Party is standing in 468 seats.

BBC Radio 4

Policing Minister Brandon Lewis has defended Conservative policy on the use of nuclear weapons as laid out by Defence Secretary Michael Fallon.

Speaking on Any Questions tonight, Mr Lewis said:"We can't rule out a first strike [of nuclear weapons]. We are prepared to defend our country and to make it clear that we will do that. Yes I support what Michael Fallon has said. We will do what we need to do. To take anything off the table makes us weaker."

BBC Radio 4

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott said tonight that there would be no separate recruitment or training costs set aside for the proposed 10,000 new officers Labour has pledged to introduce if it is elected.

Ms. Abbott confirmed on Any Questions that the existing headline figure of £300m for the new officers over a four year period was earmarked for salaries but that there was no extra cash available above that mark: "The costs of recruitment are not what we are seeking to fund. We will fund those out of existing recruitment budgets."

BBC Radio 4

Should, as Labour suggested in its draft manifesto, the railways be return to state-ownership?

The Greens' co-leader Jonathan Bartley tells the Any Questions audience that "it is just common sense to me" that if assets are in the private sector they have to pay dividends and money gets sucked out.  

Sir Vince Cable said he found it a somewhat "bizarre discussion" because Network Rail, which owns the track, is already state-controlled. 

He believes there is an argument for having some state-owned train companies because they could set the standard for privately-owned franchises. 

BBC Radio 4

Any Questions host Jonathan Dimbleby claims some Labour MPs are not mentioning Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to voters when they are on the campaign trail.

Diane Abbott says: "Well, that's what you read in the newspapers.

But she says, to applause, that the people she's meeting say they are voting Labour because of Jeremy Corbyn. 

BBC Radio 4

Sir Vince Cable claims on Any Questions that country is being run by three people, two of whom are unelected - referring to Theresa May's advisers Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy.

He claims the two advisers have more power than the chancellor and the foreign secretary.  

BBC Radio 4

Commenting on Prime Minister Theresa May, who he worked with in the coalition cabinet for five years, Lib Dem Sir Vince Cable says she has "has some good qualities" and is always diligent and well-briefed.

But refusal to have a TV debate she is "shutting out any interaction with voters as well as her rivals," adds Sir Vince, who is bidding to return to the Commons on 8 June.  

On the TV debate, Labour's Diane Abbott, says: "Bring it on. Because people would see her as someone who cannot function outside a controlled environment."