The Andrew Marr Show

Apologies for skipping back and forth between the political programmes, but there is a bit of overlap between the two.

On Andrew Marr, Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the SNP, has said that her "key priority" is to stop Boris Johnson winning a majority in the general election.

"I won't have the SNP vote for a Conservative Queen's speech or a Conservative budget. We will offer our support to a minority Labour government with certain conditions attached to that", she says.

Responding to comments made by John McDonnell that Labour will implement its own manifesto with "no deal" and "no negotiations", Ms Sturgeon says she does not believe that Jeremy Corbyn and Mr McDonnell will "turn their back" on an SNP alliance in the event they fail to win an overall majority.

"If they do they've got some big explaining to do," she adds.

"I lead a minority government in Scotland and I think that Labour perhaps aren't fully understanding what they would need to do in order to get their policies implemented."

Sky News

Image source, Sky News

Back over on Sky, Sophy Ridge's final guest is Nigel Farage, who reveals he's already registered a new political group to replace his Brexit Party.

The Brexit Party leader says if the UK leaves the EU his party will "have to reform into the Reform Party".

He says this new party, which he has already registered, would "campaign to change politics for good, get rid of the House of Lords, change the voting system".

Mr Farage - who came out of retirement after he quit as UKIP leader in order to launch the Brexit Party in April this year - says the Reform Party would address the fact that "people have lost faith in politics".

Mr Farage has previously talked about his interest in Canada's populist, right-of-centre Reform Party.

But back to this election and the Brexit Party, for a moment.

Mr Farage tells Ridge he has a "seriously good chance" of winning a "handful" of seats on Thursday, and believes his party will win up to 14% of the vote.

He adds that he wants to get a "bridge-head of Brexit Party MPs in Parliament... to hold Boris Johnson to account".

The Andrew Marr Show

Mr Lewis is asked about a leaked document on the NHS, which is suspected to have come from Russian sources - and is pressed about a government report that looks at Russian interference in UK politics.

Mr Lewis replies that he has read the report but he will not comment on it until it is published.

"And it will be published," he says.

"It is still within the normal time-frame, we can’t publish now because of purdah."

(Purdah refers to the pre-election period where restrictions are imposed on the civil service to ensure that announcements and activities by public bodies do not influence the election.)

Here's more on the row on the Russia report.

The Andrew Marr Show

Moving on to the Andrew Marr show now, and Home Office minister Brandon Lewis is his first guest.

He challenged on whether there will be checks on goods from Northern Ireland to Great Britain post-Brexit.

"There are some checks now," he replies.

"There will be no border down the Irish Sea."

He says they have been "very clear as a whole we will leave the EU".

"There are already some checks but we are not going to have a border down the Irish Sea," he repeats.

Sky News

With just days to go until we get a result, all the leaders are being asked about their future in politics.

Jo Swinson has said she will not resign if the Liberal Democrats end up with fewer MPs than they had in the last Parliament.

Ms Swinson would not be drawn on who she would be willing to put in No 10 if there is a hung Parliament, but told Sophy Ridge that she would not resign as leader if her party loses MPs in the general election.

"There is a movement out there of people that share our liberal values... and that is what we need to build, and that is what I'm focused on doing.

"And that is not a job that gets done in four months, and I'm absolutely here to stay," she says.

Sky News

Image source, Sky News

Next up on Sophy Ridge, Jo Swinson.

She says she is "technically" still a candidate to be the Prime Minister, but branded the decision for Nigel Farage to stand down Brexit Party candidates in Tory-held seats a "stitch-up".

"Clearly things have changed since the beginning of the campaign", she says.

"When we started out we had four political parties that had all been floating around 20% in the polls and with the first past the post voting system that created a massive opportunity."

She adds: "What we have seen in the intervening weeks is a cosy stitch-up between Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson. Those two parties (are) now indistinguishable."

Sky News

More from Jon Ashworth...

"You want an immigration system which reflects your needs in the economy," the shadow health secretary says.

"If a hospital thinks that a nurse or a surgeon is qualified to come here, to care for our sick, to carry out operations... then those people should be allowed to come here."

He's pressed on whether or not that means a Labour government would be happy to see immigration levels go up.

"If the economy needs it, then of course people should come here," he replies.

Check our policy guide to compare all of the main parties' pledges on immigration.

Sky News

The next guest on Sophy Ridge's show is shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth.

He takes the oppotunity to lay into the Conservative Party's track record of running the NHS, warning people "not to get ill... or poor" in the event the Tories win another five years in power.

Labour wants to increase spending on NHS England by an average of 3.8% a year, which is more generous than the Conservative Party.

Check out our Reality Check piece on the big spending pledges made in this election campaign here.

Sophy Ridge questions why Labour is trailing the Conservatives in the polls if it's NHS plans are so rock-solid.

When Ridge asks if Jeremy Corbyn will stand down as Labour leader if the party loses the election this week, Mr Ashworth says: "We're not going to lose the election on Thursday, we're going to win."

Sky News

Image source, TOLGA AKMEN/Getty Images

...Drum-roll, please.

You might remember in June 2017, then-PM Theresa May admitted that the naughtiest thing she'd ever done was to "run through fields of wheat" as a child.

The 2019 version of the question is just as... shocking.

When asked the same question by Sophy Ridge, Boris Johnson says: "I think I may sometimes, how can I put this, I may sometimes when I was riding a bicycle every day which I used to do, I may sometimes have not always obeyed the law about cycling on the pavement. I may sometimes, ok – but I want you to know how firmly and strongly I disapprove of people who cycle on the pavement and I think it’s wrong and I feel bad about it but I might sometimes have scooted up onto the pavement rather than dismounting before."

He later clarifies that this is the "naughtiest thing that I was prepared to admit", adding that he "strongly disapproves of anybody breaching the laws of the road".

Sky News

Image source, Sky News

Boris Johnson refuses to say whether he would resign if he fails to win a majority in the election.

He avoids the question when asked three times by Sophy Ridge if he would stand down if he fails to secure a majority.

"The choice on Thursday is unbelievably stark, it's between going forward with a one nation Conservative government that can get Brexit done... Or spending the whole of next year in complete paralysis with two referendums, one on Scotland, one on the EU when Jeremy Corbyn cannot even tell us what his position is on Brexit and who is going to campaign for the deal that he proposes to do."

Pressed again, Mr Johnson says: "What I'm going to do is concentrate on the five days before us because that is what I think the people of this country would expect. We have got a very short time to get our message across, it's a message of hope and optimism about this country."

Sky News

Image source, GETTY IMAGES

Sophy Ridge asks this of the prime minister as they move on to two of his most contentious promises - the "50,000 more nurses" and "40 new hospitals".

The PM concedes that there will actually only be 31,000 new nurses, while the others are those who - he says - "who would leave the system unless we put the investment in now".

"When you’re talking about delivering more nurses most people would not accept that people who are already working in the NHS are new nurses," the interviewer points out.

Read our Reality Check piece on the pledge.

In regard to the seed funding for hospitals that we mentioned a couple of posts ago, Mr Johnson says: "You don’t put seed funding into schemes that have no merit. We’re talking about tens of millions of pounds to start architects’ drawings, to start business cases, to start planning permission to get these things going, that’s what you need to do and that’s what we are doing.This is a very dynamic and very ambitious government."

Sky News

One of the main promises the Conservative Party is pushing today is their points-based immigration policy.

"I'm not hostile to immigration," Mr Johnson tells Sophy Ridge.

He says people will come in "by virtue of what they can contribute". Those highly-skilled workers who will be welcome include, he says, "first violinists, nuclear physicists, prima ballerinas".

"We want to bear down on migration, particularly of unskilled workers who have no job to come to," he adds.

Writing in the Sunday Express, external, Home Secretary Priti Patel has given more detail about this policy today.

She says it would start in January 2021 and aims to "attract the best talent that our country and economy needs, while reducing overall numbers".

There would be fast-tack entry to the UK for entrepreneurs and some people working for the NHS, and sector-specific schemes for low or unskilled workers to meet labour market shortages.

You can read about how significant the issue of immigration is from our home affairs correspondent, here.

Sky News

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is appearing on Sky's Sophy Ridge show now.

First up, he tells her he's already started work on the Conservative's manifesto pledge of funding for "40 new hospitals".

But she points out that the funds provided are just "seed money" to help start building projects.

Read our Reality Check piece on the promise to find out more.

As is usual on a Sunday morning, the latest news lines are likely to come from a variety of political programmes.

8.30am - Sophy Ridge on Sunday (Sky) - her guests are Conservative leader Boris Johnson, shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth, Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson, and Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage.

9am - The Andrew Marr Show (BBC) - his guests are SNP Leader Nicola Sturgeon, shadow chancellor John McDonnell, and Conservative security minister Brandon Lewis.

We'll be watching the programmes so that you don't have to (!) - we'll post all of the best stuff here.

As the election approaches, the Observer reports that "senior Labour, Liberal Democrat and SNP figures", external have "launched an 11th-hour appeal to anti-Tory voters" to consider voting tactically and deny the Conservatives a majority.

But for the Sun on Sunday, "just 10,000 voters in battleground seats have the destiny of Brexit in their hands", external.

And ahead of the votes being counted on election night, the Sunday Times offers some light relief: Big Beast Bingo, external, featuring 12 high-profile figures who could lose in swing seats.

Among them are Boris Johnson, Jo Swinson and the former Tory ministers David Gauke and Dominic Grieve. Players are urged to "tick them off as they fall".

Elsewhere, Australia's former prime minister Tony Abbott writes in the Sunday Telegraph that a Labour government would be a "disaster" for Britain, external.

And in the Sunday Express, the Leave.EU founder, Arron Banks challenges Nigel Farage to back Boris Johnson and avoid Brexit being "pulled into the shadows by Parliament and quietly strangled", external.

Read our full story here.

Welcome to today’s live coverage of the general election campaign.

Candidates have only four days left to persuade voters to support them before polling stations open on Thursday.

Stick with us for all of the latest updates throughout the day.