Earlier this week, President Donald Trump said he was very "easy to work with" and could work with anybody.

When asked if Labour looked forward to cultivating a relationship with Mr Trump if elected, shadow chancellor McDonnell jokes: "It is encouraging to know that we can maintain a good working relationship with the people of America in the future - after possibly another election."

President Trump is, of course, running for re-election in 2020.

On a more serious note, he says Jeremy Corbyn will work with any world leader, including Donald Trump, and will ensure the UK's interests are protected, alongside those of other nations.

Tonight it's Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson's turn, but tomorrow Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage will face an interview with the BBC's Andrew Neil.

Mr Farage has been speaking about the prospect at a party rally in Nottinghamshire, and adds that it will be "really disappointing" if Boris Johnson continues to avoid an appearance on the show.

BBC North of England correspondent Dan Johnson reports that the Brexit Party leader is expecting a tough time...

The Lib Dem leader defends the party's climate change policy to protesters who say the plans "are not ambitious enough".

She has just tweeted a thank you to the activists from Extinction Rebellion for "cleaning up our electric coach" after the demo.

Image source, Reuters

Back to John McDonnell's event now, where the shadow chancellor is taking questions.

First up, as we expected, he's asked if he thinks President Trump was lying when he said the NHS wouldn't be "on the table" in US-UK trade talks.

Mr McDonnell says "all the evidence" Labour has, "objectively demonstrates it is".

He adds: "Donald Trump has a passing relationship with reality and truth sometimes."

The evidence he's referring to is a tranche of leaked documents Labour released last week which detail trade talks between UK and US officials.

Here our Reality Check team looks at what exactly they show.

Just an add to the previous post, when we mentioned the Three Demands made by the climate action group, they are:

• The government must declare a climate "emergency"
• The UK must legally commit to reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2025
• A citizens' assembly must be formed to "oversee the changes"

We've had the chance to listen back to the conversation between Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson and Extinction Rebellion activists earlier.

Ms Swinson said she appreciated their campaigning work - that's the line the protester found "patronising", as in his words, it's a rebellion, not a campaign.

Politicians have "promised things in elections and then failed afterwards" on climate, the man dressed as a bee said.

"I’ve been to an Extinction Rebellion protest myself before earlier this year because I think this is a really important cause," Ms Swinson told him. "It’s absolutely true we are facing a climate emergency."

But the protester argued that if she did not adopt Extinction Rebellion's Three Demands she only "visited", she didn't "take part".

Ms Swinson said her party was committed to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045, five years earlier than the government. But she said it also mattered how quickly you cut emissions now.

The protesters said she was not ambitious enough. "There’s nothing to make us bee-lieve that you’re going to deliver this," one said.

Ms Swinson said Lib Dems oversaw a trebling of renewable energy use while in the coalition government, before apologising and moving on to her election visit to a youth centre.

Everyone finished the exchange by thanking each other politely.

Mr McDonnell blames 10 years of Conservative government for leaving large numbers of people with increased living costs.

He says: "While wages are still lower than before the financial crash, inaction and economic mismanagement by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats over the last decade has meant the cost of living for most households has actually soared."

He says Labour's "exciting" manifesto will "tackle the burden of rising living costs".

Measures include scrapping universal credit and raising the living wage to £10 an hour. Labour will also "close loopholes and tax wealth", he goes on, to allow it to pay for free childcare, free school meals for all primary school children, and free personal care.

"Things can and will change," he adds, saying a Labour win on 12 December would be "a Christmas present" for those struggling.

Read Laura Kuenssberg's analysis of Labour's manifesto and here are the 12 key policies it sets out.

One feature of recent campaigns has been the interventions of the UK Statistics Authority, a government body that has the job of making sure official statistics aren't misinterpreted.

This time, as Labour's John McDonnell delivers his speech, the body is taking issue with a claim from his boss, Jeremy Corbyn - who said at his manifesto launch on 22 November that violent crime has "doubled" under the Conservatives' "austerity programme".

Sir David Norgrove, the authority's chairman, says statistics around crime are "complicated", but the best measure for overall violent crime is the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which shows little change in recent years.

But he acknowledges that police recorded crime is a better way of measuring trends for rarer, more harmful crimes.

Labour based its claim on police recorded instances of all "violence against the person" offences, which rose from 630,000 in 2013-14 to nearly 1.7 million in 2018-19.

But those figures includes less serious crimes and the UK Statistics Authority says the crime survey is more reliable for those purposes.

Political correspondents, including the Sun's Kate Ferguson and ITV's Libby Wiener, are listening to John McDonnell.

He began his speech by talking about those who'll be hungry or homeless at Christmas.

Image source, Pool

Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell is giving a speech on the cost of living and his party's plans to lower it for working people.

"We want to abolish poverty once and for all," he tells the audience.

Speaking at an event in Birmingham, he says Labour does not believe "it is enough to offer people a hand-out or a hand-up out of poverty".

"We don’t believe in tolerating poverty."

BBC Radio 5 Live

The former Defence Minister, Tobias Ellwood, says the Nato leaders meeting in Hertfordshire is a chance to "clear the air" - after France's President Macron controversially called the alliance "brain dead".

Mr Ellwood also rejected comments made yesterday by a former Conservative Party chairman, Lord Patten, that the Tories had become "a narrow, sectarian, English nationalist party", under Mr Johnson and his adviser, Dominic Cummings.

He told the Emma Barnett show on BBC Radio 5 live, those words "don't reflect the party that I want to be part of", adding, "It's only by including moderates in our party that make up that broad church, that make us attractive, that will allow us to get across the line with a majority."

Tobias Ellwood was sacked as defence minister by Boris Johnson when he became prime minister in July.

Image source, Conservative Party

A quick catch-up now - the campaign continues,but the Nato leaders' meeting near Watford is definitely taking up a lot of oxygen:

• Arriving at the meeting this morning, Boris Johnson warned that the allies "cannot be complacent" about the future of the organisation. The BBC's Jonathan Marcus looks here at why Nato isn't in party mood despite marking its 70th anniversary
• Mr Johnson will be back on the campaign trail later - we can probably expect more questions for him on his ties with Donald Trump and the future of the NHS when it comes to a US-UK trade deal
• On that subject, Labour's Barry Gardiner this morning cast doubt on Donald Trump's denials about the NHS being included in trade talks
• Mr Gardiner also insisted Labour was committed to Nato - despite Jeremy Corbyn's criticism of it in the past
• Around 11am we're expecting to hear a speech from shadow chancellor John McDonnell, accusing the Conservatives of creating a "cost-of-living crisis"
• The Lib Dems are pledging to create a legal obligation for universities to support students' mental health. The party's Chuka Umunna admitted earlier it was being "squeezed" in the polls, but was still in a position to take seats off the Tories
• The Lib Dems have also been targeted by protesters from Extinction Rebellion this morning on an election visit - an activist dressed as a bee glued himself to the party's electric bus
• And finally, speaking of buses, the Conservatives have announced a £4.2bn pledge for public transport outside London

Labour chairman Ian Lavery is the latest Leave-leaning big-hitter visiting the party's Brexit-voting heartland seats - the so-called "Red Wall" - under its revised election strategy.

Mr Lavery is doing a three-day bus tour of the North and Midlands, visiting key seats like Bolton, Crewe and Nantwich, and Weaver Vale, which are currently polling too close to call.

The move is part of a change to Labour's election strategy in a bid to narrow a Conservative lead in the opinion polls.

The party is giving a higher profile to shadow cabinet members who back a Leave deal rather than Remain.

Mr Lavery would rather leave the EU with a deal than remain.

You can read more about Labour's change in election strategy here - our political correspondents Peter and Iain have been pointing it out too.

There's some footage online of Jo Swinson's encounter with the bees - protesters from Extinction Rebellion. The audio isn't great, but you can hear the Lib Dem leader thanking the protesters who glued themselves to the party's electric battle bus.

But one bee says she is being "a little bit patronising".

"We’re in active rebellion against the government which has failed to take action on climate breakdown for 30 years," he says.

"Absolutely," says Ms Swinson.

Business Insider's political reporter Adam Payne has the footage.

Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson has arrived in Streatham, south London, for her campaign stop. She got there separately, not on the bus to which a man dressed as a bee has glued himself.

Ms Swinson is now talking to the activists, who are from climate change group Extinction Rebellion.

Later, she'll no doubt hope to return to the original focus of the morning - highlighting the party's policies on young people on a visit to a youth centre.

A bit more on those efforts to get Boris Johnson to sit down for an interview with the BBC's Andrew Neil. There's been criticism of the corporation for conducting some with other leaders before securing the PM too.

Fran Unsworth writes in her Guardian piece: "The logistics of pinning down party leaders is highly complex; if we had to wait for confirmation of the date and time of every interview by every party before anyone appeared anywhere, hardly anything would get on air."

Rob Burley, editor of BBC live political programmes, adds more on Twitter, external, saying "at no stage did we tell any other party that a date for Boris Johnson was confirmed, whatever you may have read".

Some reports quoted Labour figures saying they had been told Mr Johnson had confirmed he would be interviewed.

"We have acted in good faith throughout but ultimately, we cannot force a politician to do an interview if they don't want to do it. Still time," says Mr Burley.

The video above shows efforts made by our colleague Ben Wright to get Mr Johnson to commit.

This election campaign has seen the Conservatives criticised over misusing BBC material in online adverts and concerns that Boris Johnson has avoided scrutiny by declining to be interviewed by Andrew Neil.

It's also seen criticism of the BBC for mistakes that were seen by some viewers as favouring the Tories.

Now BBC director of news and current affairs Fran Unsworth has responded at length in a comment piece for the Guardian., external

She says that this has been a campaign "unlike any before it" with rapid feedback on social media and where "information has been weaponised".

Sometimes the feedback comes from people who are just "consuming others’ impressions" of BBC coverage, rather than watching themselves, she says.

But she rejects suggestions that the editorial agenda has favoured the Conservative Party, saying the BBC's employment of "thousands of independently minded journalists" do not make for "the ideal conditions for a conspiracy".

"Our impartiality is precious to us and we will protect it," Ms Unsworth says.

And she adds that the BBC is "ready at any time, and any place" for Andrew Neil to interview Boris Johnson.

Image source, AFP

Boris Johnson and Donald Trump are finally captured on camera together - hours after the prime minister held a private "low-key" meeting with the US president.

Mr Johnson is pictured welcoming Mr Trump, alongside Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, at the Nato leaders' meeting happening near Watford.

Mr Johnson has faced questions over whether he was avoiding a one-to-one meeting with Mr Trump, over concerns it could blow his election campaign off course.

But Downing Street said the two men had a low-key, off camera meeting at No 10 last night.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

A bit more just in to us from Nick Eardley, the BBC's man with the Lib Dems, who've been ambushed by Extinction Rebellion activists dressed as bees.

Campaigners say they are targeting all parties for not being ambitious enough on climate change.

Lib Dem activists - who are waiting for leader Jo Swinson - are having a polite conversation with the protesters.

Who are Extinction Rebellion and what do they want?