Scottish Green MPs are needed to help safeguard social and environmental protections, the party has said as it launched its election manifesto, external.

The Greens will only have three candidates standing on 8 June, including co-convener Patrick Harvie.

As he launched the manifesto, Mr Harvie said the Conservatives were planning to rip up many of the protections that had been achieved within the EU.

The Scottish Greens fielded 32 candidates in the last general election two years ago, but failed to win any seats in the House of Commons. They currently have six seats in the Scottish Parliament.

The party has insisted that its decision to only stand in three seats this time around was not influenced by senior SNP figures calling for the Greens to avoid "splitting" the pro-independence vote in key constituencies.

But opponents accused them of seeking to aid the SNP.

Read more.

Image source, PA

A march to protest against Conservative plans to reconsider the ban on hunting with hounds has been taking place in central London. The Conservative election manifesto has pledged to offer MPs a free vote in Parliament on the issue.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

The general election campaign is back in full swing after the break which followed the Manchester bombing.

Just before the attack, Theresa May had her worst day of the campaign, fending off accusations that she had U-turned on her plans for social care.

In the last of his Election Takeaways, Nick Robinson met a group of working parents who consider themselves to be, in the prime minister's words, "just about managing". They spoke over fish and chips in Eltham in south London.

Conservative candidate Sir Nicholas Soames has tweeted a genial encounter with one of his rivals for the seat of Mid Sussex in the general election.

A full list of declared candidates for the constituency is available here.

Image source, Getty Images

Labour’s deputy leader says the Conservatives are “hell bent on viciously attacking Jeremy Corbyn”.

Tom Watson, quoted in the Guardian, external, was speaking after a series of attacks on his party leader over the weekend by senior Conservatives, highlighting Mr Corbyn's meetings with senior members of the Irish republican movement.

Ahead of a special programme this evening on Sky News and Channel 4 - where Theresa May and Mr Corbyn will be interviewed and appear in front of a studio audience separately - Mr Watson also criticised the Prime Minister for failing to take part in a head-to-head debate. Her refusal showed a "contempt for voters", he said.

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Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has repeated the line that there will be "no deals" with the SNP, after SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said her party would "look to be part of a progressive alliance" if there was a hung Parliament.

"There will be no deals. There will be no alliance. We’re fighting this election to win," Mr Corbyn said.

Victoria Derbyshire

The typical food bank user is "not languishing in poverty", according to a former Conservative minister.

During a live BBC election debate, Dominic Raab said data from charity the Trussell Trust showed the typical user was "someone who has a cash flow problem episodically".

But the SNP's John Nicolson, also on the panel, told Mr Raab: "The Trussell Trust would be outraged by you saying that."

* See our entry below (at 1.43pm) for more details on what the Trussell Trust says about food bank users.

Confused about how to vote? Overwhelmed by political jargon? A number of online political quizzes claim they can help.

The idea is simple - you answer some questions about your policy preferences, then an algorithm spits out a party recommendation.

But subtle wording shifts can change how people respond to questions, according to the polling company YouGov, external.

Nuanced shifts in phrasing could also make a big difference in political quizzes.

Read more.

Conservative candidate Dominic Raab has said that the "typical" user of a food bank is not "languishing in poverty" but is more likely to be suffering short-term cash flow problems.

He pointed to data from food bank provider the Trussell Trust to back up his claim.

The charity says, external that there were "over 1,182,000 three day emergency food supplies given to people in crisis" in the financial year 2016-17. The figure refers to the number of food packages handed out rather than the number of individuals using food banks.

Trussell Trust data says that benefit delays and changes remain the biggest cause of referral to a food bank, accounting for 43% of all referrals (26% benefit delay; 17% benefit change). Low income has also risen as a referral cause from 23% to 26%.

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron has described comments by Conservative Dominic Raab about food banks as "stupid and deeply offensive".

During a live election debate on the Victoria Derbyshire show earlier, Mr Raab said he had studied data from food bank charity the Trussell Trust.

"What they tend to find is the typical user of a food bank is not someone who is languishing in poverty, it's someone who has a cashflow problem episodically," he said.

Mr Farron said: "The real reasons people have to go to food banks are low incomes, benefit delays, debt and homelessness.

"These are stupid and deeply offensive comments by Dominic Raab and he should apologise."

SNP MP John Nicolson, one of Mr Raab's fellow panellists, told the Conservative candidate: "The Trussell Trust would be outraged by you saying that."

On Twitter, Labour candidate David Lammy, external alleged that Mr Raab's comments were "horrendously ignorant and out of touch".

A quick guide to what to expect on TV this week with General Election 2017 - who to watch, where and when.

Tonight, UKIP leader Paul Nuttall joins Andrew Neil for the latest in Andrew's series of election interviews on BBC1. That's at 7.30 pm.

Later, in a programme broadcast jointly on Sky News and Channel 4, Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May are up in front of both a studio audience - with Sky's Faisal Islam - and then being interviewed one-on-one by Jeremy Paxman.

Wednesday on BBC sees a debate with leading figures from seven different parties. That's fronted by Mishal Hussein at 7.30 pm on BBC1.

On Thursday it's the turn of the Lib Dem leader Tim Farron to be interviewed by Andrew Neil. (BBC1 7.00 pm).

And finally on Friday there's a special edition of Question Time, where David Dimbleby will be joined by Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn (BBC1. 8.30 pm).

Image source, Thinkstock

The Conservatives have pledged a new crackdown on the "hidden scandal" of domestic abuse if they win power.

They plan legislation to introduce tougher sentences for cases involving children, and a new watchdog to ensure proper support for victims nationwide.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd admitted there were areas where too many cases still went unreported.

Critics say that many refuges for victims of domestic abuse have closed since the Tories took power.

The charity Women's Aid claims 17% of specialist women's refuges had closed since 2010.

Read more

Image source, Getty Images

When Plaid Cymru started looking for a new leader in 2011, Leanne Wood faced rival candidates grounded in the party's Welsh-speaking heartlands.

But it became apparent that Plaid members wanted change. They found it offered by a left winger from a non-Welsh speaking background in the former industrial valleys of south Wales.

She won a decisive victory and took the Labour stronghold of Rhondda, her home patch, at last year's assembly election.

But success with the wider electorate in the rest of Wales has not come so readily.

Read the full profile

Patrick Harvie says Green MPs are needed to safeguard social and environmental protections after Brexit.

Victoria Derbyshire

The leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords has defended policies outlined in his party's election manifesto to reduce state surveillance powers and scrapping the government's early warning Prevent strategy, aimed at tackling extremism at a grassroots level. Lord Newby proposed using enhanced community policing as a proper way forward instead.

Speaking on the Victoria Derbyshire programme this morning, Lord Newby said: "The Prevent strategy [is] a top-down programme... you don't just scrap it, you replace it with something else."

And that was where his party's approach came in. There was, he said, a need for more community engagement with community policing.

BBC Radio Scotland

The deputy leader of the Scottish Conservatives says there is a strong prospect of winning "a number of seats across Scotland".

"Opinion pollsters are talking about somewhere between six and a dozen and it would be great if we could achieve that," Jackson Carlaw told BBC Radio Scotland.

The Conservatives overtook Scottish Labour as the main opposition party to the SNP in the Scottish Parliament in elections in 2016, though the 2015 general election only saw one Scottish Conservative MP elected to Westminster.

"I think there has been a considerable change since 2015 and 2016 in public opinion and therefore I think there is an appetite now to see a more robust opposition in Scotland," Mr Carlaw added.