Image source, UK Parliament

Rob Flello, the Liberal Democrat candidate for Stoke-on-Trent South, has been deselected by the party a day after his candidacy was announced.

The former Labour MP, who represented Stoke South for 12 years before losing his seat in 2017, voted against same-sex marriage in 2013.

A Liberal Democrat spokeswoman said: “We do our best to screen candidates in our approval process. In this case it only really became clear over the past few days how greatly his values diverge from ours.”

That England-wide local radio phone-in has just wrapped up, with the final moments taken up by callers telling Adrian Goldberg which party they'll vote for and why.

Kate, from Cornwall, says she is distressed by the number of people - including working people - using food banks in her local area. She says she will vote for the Labour Party because she wants to see universal credit scrapped and introduce a £10 minimum wage.

"Of course it's a bigger issue that Brexit...We should not have people starving in this country, being hungry," she says.

Grant, from Braintree in Essex, says he will vote for the Conservative Party to "get Brexit through", but thinks that north-east and north-west England has been "neglected" by all politicians.

Dorothy, from York, who worked as a nurse in County Durham for more than 40 years, says she can't make her mind up about who to vote for, and that people like her are disengaged because they feel "powerless".

"Our opinion of our system of governing is so low now and I think it's because of all this infighting between the parties about Brexit," she says.

If you didn't get your chance to have your say tonight there will be five more BBC Local election phone-ins between now and the election.

And you can hear what Boris Johnson had to say about efforts to combat the flooding when he spoke to the BBC just after that Cobra meeting

So we said we were waiting for updates following the emergency Cobra meeting, chaired by Boris Johnson, to discuss the response to the floods across much of northern England.

This is what has been announced:

• An additional 100 UK Armed Forces personnel will be deployed to South Yorkshire to help with the recovery effort

• Local councils where households and businesses have been affected will get extra government funding, in the form of a Community Recovery Grant worth £500 per eligible household
• There will also be a Business Recovery Grant, which will provide up to £2,500 per eligible small and medium-sized business

Callers from across England are currently telling a special BBC Local Radio phone-in - simulcast across dozens of stations - what they think should be discussed in the election campaign.

Rufus, a carpenter in Cornwall, tells phone-in host Adrian Goldberg he feels Brexit is being used as a "smokescreen" that distracts "real issues" in his area such as high house prices, low wages and a lack of jobs.

"[Over] the last 10 years of the Tories in power it doesn't seem that anything has changed at all on that front," he says.

Owen, 20, a part-time bartender from Bedworth, Warwickshire, thinks this election is necessary because Parliament "couldn't pass any legislation" on "everyday issues" like housing.

"Brexit's the defining issue for me. I'm definitely going to go with the party that actually delivers on the will of the people from back in 2016. But also a big issue for me is unemployment," he says.

Call 08000 859595 between 19:00 and 20:00 GMT to share your views - and, if you're in England, tune in to your local BBC station to listen to the rest of the show.

BBC Radio 5 Live

The Stainforth Community Resource Centre in Doncaster has become a hub for helping those affected by the devastating floods in the area over the last four days.

Tonight, a seven-and-a-half tonne lorry arrived full of cardboard boxes of dried goods, donated by Moorland Prison.

“We decided let’s try and help them out with the basic commodities”, says the prison's industries manager, Paul Tatham.

Paul says the boxes contain “tea, coffee, hot chocolate, cereal - some basic things”.

“We have officers and support staff who live in and around these villages. You’re coming up to Christmas, it’s a really bad time for something as serious as this to happen so everyone’s trying to muck in.”

Listen to 5 Live on BBC Sounds.

Liz Copper
Reporter, BBC Midlands Today

Image source, PA Media

The MP for Burton, Andrew Griffiths has confirmed he is withdrawing from the Conservative candidate selection process in the constituency.

He has told the BBC he will be supporting his wife, Kate, who has announced she will be seeking selection instead.

A selection meeting is taking place now at Burton Town Hall.

Mr Griffiths resigned as a minister last July after a newspaper published sexual messages that he had sent to two barmaids.

The parliamentary standards watchdog cleared him of wrongdoing, saying it found no evidence he sent them while he would have been engaged in parliamentary activities.

Dominic Casciani
Home Affairs Correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Jo Swinson has called for Boris Johnson to declare a "national emergency" so that the UK can apply to the EU for help in paying for some of the costs of the floods. The Lib Dem leader is referring to the EU's Solidarity Fund, external.

This communal pot of cash pays out to cover a small proportion of the losses suffered in a member state when a natural disaster strikes. It doesn't require a national declaration of an emergency - but it won't pay out unless a country actually applies.

In early 2016, as he faced enormous pressure over Europe, former PM David Cameron very publicly refused to apply for help with the costs of that winter's floods. He said that it wouldn't be worth it.

Others in government disagreed - and as soon as the UK discovered there was a deadline, the application went in almost as fast as you can say Hunter Wellies and a Barbour jacket.

Brussels approved a cheque to Her Majesty's Treasury for about £51 million - and it was sent the week after Parliament triggered Article 50 and the Brexit countdown. In total the UK has received almost £200m from the fund - making it the third largest beneficiary after Italy and France.

Reality Check

Image source, AFP/ Getty Images

Extensive, fatal flooding has put the rescue services in the spotlight of the election campaign.

A press release from the Labour Party on Monday , externalnight made a series of claims about the cuts to funding for the Environment Agency and front-line fire-and-rescue services (who are helping with the relief effort after the floods).

Speaking in Blackpool on Tuesday morning, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the response to the flooding "would have been a different story" if it had happened "in Surrey instead of Yorkshire".

"Under the Tories, front-line flood response and Environment Agency staff have been slashed by a fifth, and our fire-and-rescue service by nearly a quarter," he said.

Do the numbers add up?

The BBC's Clive Myrie has been meeting voters in Bishop Auckland. The County Durham constituency is considered to be a be a barometer of political sentiment for the rest of north of England.

Kevin Haly says he is "fed up" with the 17.4 million people who voted for Brexit being "ignored".

Shannon Grady thinks "a lot of people will end up voting Conservative rather than Labour". Normally a Labour voter herself, she is undecided in this election.

And John Richardson says he doesn't like either Nigel Farage or Jeremy Corbyn but would "probably" end up voting Labour.

Radio 4 PM

Professor Jim Hall, from Oxford University's environmental change institute, is asked by PM host Evan Davis what question he'd like to ask politicians about their flooding plans.

"I would ask them what is your target on a range of different timescales looking into the future," he says.

"So 10 years, 20 years, 30 years from now, what do you want the level of risk from flooding to be?

"Because even though a lot has been done by the government, no-one has really stuck their neck on the line and said right this is our goal, this is what we consider to be a tolerable level of flood risk."

Mr Hall says flooding is the top risk from climate change to the UK, according to the government's own risk assessment.

He says "the question is whether enough is being done" and that "it's not just about spending money".

But we also recognise this isn't just about spending money. It's about making political choices about where development takes place, it's about enforcing regulations about the ways in which buildings are built, it's about land use planning, it's about the way in which agriculture is going to change."

Boris Johnson also said ministers had discussed the need for insurance schemes to be "as flexible as possible" in recognising the "particular circumstances people face".

He added: "I'm not going to minimise the impact on anybody who has suffered damage to their homes from flooding."

"The ground is now waterlogged in large parts of the country, not just in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and South Yorkshire, which may be getting a bit of a temporary reprieve, but we can’t be sure.

"In the next few weeks and months the rainfall could cause flooding in many parts of the country, and we simply have to be prepared and we are certainly putting the resources in to it."

Image source, PA Media

A man whose voice will be familiar to anyone who has watched the news channel in recent years is to stand as an MP for the Lib Dems in the Welsh constituency of Cynon Valley.

Steve Bray has become famous for appearing in the background of interviews with politicians and shouting "stop Brexit".

Asked about his candidacy, Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson said: "He is a Liberal Democrat member and he is a passionate campaigner.

"He has been well-known within the Remain cause more widely and I am sure he will bring that energy to the campaign here in Wales."

Asked what had been discussed at the Cobra meeting, Boris Johnson said there was a request for the military to help in getting sandbags to some of the areas.

He also said it was "key" that people adhered to the advice from the emergency services.

He said: "The worry for me is that there are some people who are continuing not to listen to the advice of the emergency services.

"I would just say to people - the emergency services do have sound advice. When they advise you to evacuate, you should do so."

"I think we may be lucky this week," he said, but added: "There may be another downpour and we have to prepare."

Speaking after chairing a meeting of the government's emergency committee, Boris Johnson said the floods were "an absolute tragedy" for those affected.

He said things had been "slightly better" today, but the emergency services were preparing for the possibility of more floods.

He praised the emergency services and said the Environment Agency hadn't done "too bad a job" in protecting homes.

He also warned there was "no cause for complacency" and said: "We have to face the fact that in the long term we will need to invest in flood defences for the whole country."

He added that could only be done "by having a robust economy".

Image source, Getty Images

A former Conservative MP who lost his seat after he was convicted of a false expenses claim has been selected by the party to stand for the Anglesey seat of Ynys Mon.

Chris Davies lost his Brecon and Radnorshire seat after 10,005 people signed a recall petition.

He stood again but lost a subsequent by-election to the Liberal Democrats.

A Welsh Conservative source said that he had not yet been officially nominated "but he is the candidate".

Read more here.

You can find this on BBC Sounds, or if you prefer we will be giving you the best bits here on the live page.

The BBC has spent the day focusing on the County Durham constituency Bishop Auckland - an area that will be one of the key battlegrounds in the election.

Labour has held the seat since 1918 - apart from a few years in the 1930s - but the current MP, Helen Goodman has a majority of just 502 votes, and could be vulnerable to losing her seat.

This constituency, which voted for Brexit, is one the Conservatives are desperate to win.

Read more about why Bishop Auckland will be an important barometer in this election from BBC North East and Cumbria political correspondent David Rhodes.

BBC Radio 5 Live

Chris Lloyd, the chief features writer and political commentator for The Northern Echo, blames the north-south divide for the way so many people voted in the Brexit referendum.

“It's this feeling that the North as an entity is just forgotten about," he says.

“This 'Manifesto for the North' [a front page headline run by northern papers on Thursday] is really trying to remind people that the North is still here.

“We have specific demands, if you like, for increased infrastructure spending, better transport spending, actually joining the North East up.

“But it’s also about the fact that one of the reasons we are so Brexity up here is that we feel so disconnected, so far away from London and even further away from Brussels."

Lucy Moody
Journalist

Katie Pryor, 22, from Newton Aycliffe, told me she thinks more shops and pubs would bring people into the town centre.

She also thinks more police patrols would help encourage people to visit Bishop Auckland.

She said: “I think there should be more police patrolling on the weekend because there can be trouble. I think that’s one of the things that puts people off coming on a night out here."

Pamela Petty, of the Bishop Auckland and Shildon Business Network, tells us there is an urgent need for "clarity and certainty" on Brexit and investment in order to give firms reassurance.

She also says north-east England needs a range of jobs in order to help it prosper, such as those on offer at Bishop Auckland television manufacturer Cello Electronics.

"When we actually leave the EU, what kind of incentives will the government give to manufacturing?

"Yes, we'd all like more high-skilled jobs in the North East, but they can't all be high-skilled so we need things like assembly jobs too."