Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn says he wants to address the “devastating floods” before getting onto his party's education plan.

He says the Conversative government’s response to the floods has been “woeful”.

If it had happened in Surrey instead of Yorkshire, he says, the reaction “would have been a very different story”.

He adds that it’s “an absolute priority” to fund flood defences and emergency responders, adding “it’s just plain common sense”.

The BBC's assistant political editor notes the significance of the moment.

Getting under way a little later than scheduled, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has taken to the stage in Blackpool.

We have been hearing this morning about Labour’s £3bn plan to offer adults in England free access to retraining to help their job chances and to tackle skills shortages.

He'll touch on that, but no doubt other matters too.

David Rhodes
BBC political reporter

There is a good chance of a Tory victory here, this seat is basically a coin toss, that's how close this constituency is.

Five hundred and two votes made the difference last time, and it's vital for both Labour and the Conservatives - for Labour they need to hold on to seats like this, if they want to be the party of government.

And as for the Conservatives, if they can win here, maybe Boris Johnson can start looking towards having a majority in the House of Commons.

It is a vital seat and we will see a lot of campaign activity here in the coming weeks.

David MacMillan
BBC Tees

All morning we've been bringing you the mood on the ground in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, the location for the latest BBC election broadcast.

I asked students at Teesdale School in Barnard Castle what they would like politicians to do to improve the lives of younger people in the area.

Transport was a very popular issue they felt needs sorting.

Kal, 17, is hoping to go to university to study English. He called for improvements to public transport.

"I live in a small village and public transport doesn't happen very often, there's around three buses to Barnard Castle a day," he said.

"I was on the phone to the council recently because I have to travel four miles to get here (Teesdale School) and post-16 you have to pay to the bus."

This, of course, relates to the story that's been developing this morning about a cyber attack on the Labour Party. Read more here.

It's believed to have been particularly aimed at their bespoke campaign software.

After former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton criticised the government for not publishing a report into alleged Russian meddling in UK elections, the SNP is trying to pile on the pressure.

The party's defence spokesman, Stewart McDonald, says that Johnson "can no longer ignore the mounting international concern".

He says: “The longer Boris Johnson suppresses the security report on Russian interference, the more questions are raised about what the Tories are hiding."

Downing Street denies it is suppressing the report. Minister Rishi Sunak said this morning it was taking time to go through the proper "vetting process" before being released - although we understand that all the necessary hurdles have already been cleared when it comes to clearance to publish.

Jessica Parker
BBC political correspondent

Labour have remained "tight-lipped" over who is behind the cyber attack - and why the party have been targeted.

An email went out to Labour campaigners this morning saying that, since yesterday afternoon, many of the party’s campaign systems “have either been working very slowly or have reduced functionality”.

Away from cyber incidents for a minute and back to the fall-out from Nigel Farage's move on Monday.

Brexit Party MEP Alexandra Phillips says she has been "disenfranchised" by her own party and will not vote in the general election.

Ms Phillips had been due to stand in the Tory seat of Southampton Itchen before Mr Farage announced that his candidates would not run in seats won by the Tories at the 2017 general election.

The BBC's digital elections reporter, Joe Tidy, says he's had it confirmed that the cyber incident involving Labour was a DDoS attack.

For those of us not familiar with the term, he says that's generally - but not always - an unsophisticated form of cyber attack which floods a server/s with data in order to take down or slow down a system.

We're expecting to hear shortly from Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson, who's visiting flood-affected areas this morning.

For Labour, leader Jeremy Corbyn and shadow education secretary Angela Rayner will also be speaking at about 11:00 GMT, so we'll bring you snippets of that too.

And we're continuing our coverage from Bishop Auckland - read more about the constituency and why BBC News has chosen to analyse it.

There have been so many mentions on Twitter already this morning as the BBC focuses on the County Durham constituency, it is among the UK's top trends.

Grab a coffee and settle down for a mid-morning recap of today's events:

• News breaking in the last hour from the Labour Party, which says it has experienced a "sophisticated and large-scale cyber-attack" on its digital platforms. The party says the attempts failed due to "robust security" - but we still don't know much about what exactly happened. Cyber attacks are certainly becoming more common and large organisations are under increasing pressure to protect themselves from the threat.
• Former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tells the BBC that the government's decision not to publish a report on Russian intereference in UK elections is "inexplicable and shameful"
• But the government denies it is suppressing the report, with chief secretary to the Treasury Rishi Sunak saying that vetting it will take "several weeks"
• Mr Sunak also continues the government's attack on Labour's spending plans, saying they will cost taxpayers an extra £2,400 a year - as our story explains, that figure struggles to hold up in the face of scrutiny
• Labour announces plans for free skills training for adults, as shadow education secretary Angela Rayner pledges the party's manifesto will be fully costed - and calls on other parties to follow suit
• As the prime minister chairs an emergency meeting on the floods in northern England, Liberal Democrats promise a £5bn fund to improve flood defences across the UK
• And Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage calls on the Conservatives to stand down in Labour-held seats to give his party a clear run. It follows his decision not to run candidates in seats the Tories won in 2017

Jumping around all over the place here - we'll bring you an upsum soon - but that's the nature of these sorts of days! Back to Bishop Auckland where reporter Lucy Moody has been asking shoppers what one thing they think MPs could do to improve life in the town.

Antony Gabriel, 65, used to be an ice-cream man in the area. He thinks the hospital should be a high priority on the politicians' list.

Also speaking to the BBC in the County Durham constituency, 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 the north east needs a range of jobs in order to help it prosper.

"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."

A short while ago we brought you the news that Labour said there had been a "sophisticated and large-scale cyber-attack" on its digital platforms

Labour candidate Luke Pollard says his party must be doing something right to "be the target of a sustained attack like this".

It bears repeating that we know next to nothing about this attack yet, so we can't tell you what the party means by "sophicated", "large-scale" or "sustained".

Andy Verity
BBC Economics correspondent

Wage growth has slowed in the UK, according to the latest figures.

There was some hope that today we might have seen better numbers which could have taken us back up to the peak level from way before the financial crisis, when real wages were higher. We haven’t quite got there.

The increase of 3.6%, when you strip out inflation, works out as about 1.7%. It’s better than we’re used to - often in the last decade our pay has fallen in real terms. But there’s some sign of weakness there.

Employers can give inflation-beating pay rises if each worker is able to produce more for them, through advances in technology and training, productivity. Unfortunately we have the productivity numbers today and they're completely flat.

That's quite serious. If it doesn't improve, employers will find it difficult to sustain inflatio-beating pay rises.

What we’ve had in the last 10 years is this pattern of increasing employment, more jobs, but people's pay not increasing like it used to for the three or four decades after World War Two .

Image source, Getty Images

Back on other matters for a moment, the Brexit Party has cancelled a rally that was meant to be taking place in central London this morning following its decision not to contest seats won by the Tories at the last election.

Nigel Farage's party were due to hold the event at Church House in Westminster and emailed supporters as recently as Saturday about it.

But a spokesman said the meeting was cancelled because the party had said all it needed to in Hartlepool yesterday, adding: "It would just be reprising the same stuff."

Here's the full Labour statement on the breaking news that it has experienced a cyber attack on its digital platform.

“We have experienced a sophisticated and large scale cyber attack on Labour digital platforms. We took swift action and these attempts failed due to our robust security systems. The integrity of all our platforms was maintained and we are confident that no data breach occurred.

“Our security procedures have slowed down some of our campaign activities, but these were restored this morning and we are back up to full speed. We have reported the matter to the National Cyber Security Centre.

”Labour is out campaigning hard both on and offline for a Labour government that will bring the real change our country needs.”

As we said, details are limited to this right now - but as soon as we can make it clearer for you, we will.

A bit more on that breaking news. A Labour spokeswoman says the cyber attack "failed" because of the party's "robust security systems" and they were confident that no data breach occurred.

The spokeswoman said they had reported the matter to the National Cyber Security Centre.

The Labour Party has said it has experienced a "sophisticated and large scale cyber attack" on its digital platforms.

That line has just broken on our news wires - we don't know any more just yet, but as soon as we do, we'll bring it to you.

Sean Coughlan
BBC News, education correspondent

Labour’s shadow education secretary Angela Rayner - below with Jeremy Corbyn - said on the Today programme earlier, unambiguously, that her party would "abolish tuition fees, no ifs, no buts.”

She also dismissed the worries of vice-chancellors about whether universities would get the same level of funding to replace the lost fee income, saying university heads were paid a “wild amount” of “three, four or 10 times” the pay of the prime minister.

But if the PM is on about £150,000, that would mean some very happy vice chancellors, as they would be getting up to £1.5m. In fact, the average is nearer £300,000.

Ms Rayner also said Labour’s open access plans for adult training were “long overdue” and would make education “part of everyday life, rather than something that’s done to you at a particular point”.

But how do you cost a service that is not means-tested and with no cap on consumption?

Image source, Getty Images