Norman Smith
Assistant political editor

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has launched a scathing attack on Theresa May over her ties to Donald Trump.

It follows Mrs May's decision not to sign a letter of protest by European leaders over the president's refusal to ratify the Paris climate accord.

Mr Corbyn said it demonstrated Mrs May's "silence and subservience" towards the US president. He described her decision as "a dereliction of duty."

Downing Street, however, have defended the decision and insisted Mrs May expressed her "disappointment" in a phone call with the president.

A source said: "She was very, very clear about her views and support for the climate deal."

The source said the letter was drawn up before Mrs May had been able to speak to the President.

It was suggested Mrs May wanted to hear from the resident before deciding on her response. It was also pointed out that a number of other G7 countries - Japan and Canada - had refused to sign the letter.

Jeremy Corbyn has launched Labour's industrial strategy, which he describes as "serious, comprehensive and radical".

The Labour leader says he has "travelled the length and breadth of this country" during the election campaign and "seen an economy that is grossly imbalanced".

"London overheats and the cost of living there rises, while communities in to much of the rest of the country have seen their local economies hollowed out, industries decline and stable jobs gone."

He adds that too many people are "trapped in precarious low-paid work while a few at the top get much richer".

The UK must "harness the talents... in every nation and region" and cannot "try to sustain its economy on the back of the growth of the financial sector in one corner of England".

Is politics child's play? Plymouth voters share what #GetsMyVote.

LBC

Conservative, Labour and UKIP support for "ripping up our free trade deal" with the EU is why the Liberal Democrats will not go into coalition with any party after the election, Tim Farron has said.

The Lib Dems would give people the final say on any Brexit deal, he said, and if they did not like it, Britain could remain in the EU.

But in answer to a caller's question on LBC, Mr Farron stressed there would be "no pacts, no coalitions, no deals with anybody".

LBC

Tim Farron has refused to repeat his assertion that he does not believe gay sex is a sin after a caller to LBC accused him of "perverting the religion of Christianity".

During a phone-in on Nick Ferrari's show, a man called Brian said "most people adopt a Christian attitude to homosexuality" but accused the Lib Dem leader of having a view that "doesn't seem at all liberal".

Mr Farron said he had opposed section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act which banned the promotion of homosexuality.

Since he joined the Liberals 31 years ago he had been "an active campaigner for LGBT+ rights", he said, adding: "There wouldn't be equal marriage in this country if it hadn't been for Liberal Democrats in government."

He conceded that he had voted against the Equality Act in 2007 - and would vote differently now.

But Brian said there was a huge question mark over whether Mr Farron believed homosexuality is a sin.

The question was put to him several times, to which he replied:

Jeremy Corbyn says Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement is "reckless and dangerous".

The Labour leader says: "There can be no question of watering those commitments down. The Paris deal cannot be up for renegotiation."

He added that the other European members of the G7 - France, Germany and Italy - have written to the US president in protest.

"Why does Theresa May not have her name on this joint statement?"

The Liberal Democrats have staged a protest against the Conservatives' plans to fund social care in England, which opponents have dubbed a "dementia tax".

Plans to make people receiving care at home liable for the full costs if they are worth at least £100,000 have proved controversial since they were announced in the Conservative manifesto.

Theresa May later said proposed changes to social care funding in England would include an "absolute limit" on the money people will have to pay.

Speaking at the protest, Lib Dem candidate and former minister Sir Ed Davey said he sat around the cabinet table with Theresa May in coalition government and she had a habit of "not answering questions".

There are other ways of funding social care than "setting up May and Co estate agents to come after your home", Sir Ed tells supporters.

"Although the manifesto said there wouldn't be a cap, she said there might be a cap, she'd talk about it, but then she told everybody nothing had changed.

"What chaos at the heart of the Conservative manifesto. We don't know what cap there would be."

Stuart Maisner
BBC Live reporter

Faye Ashworth from Hastings is disappointed she won't be able to have a say on 8 June.

The 20-year-old has been speaking to BBC South East as part of the #MyFirstVote series.

LBC

Tim Farron has defended the Lib Dem policy to legalise cannabis, saying it will damage criminal gangs and stop people from moving on to harder substances.

The Lib Dem leader outlined his position as a caller to Nick Ferrari's LBC show told him her brother had died from cannabis use.

Mr Farron conceded that his party's position is "controversial" and "risky", but he stressed: "Yes it's a controversial position to take, but it's based on evidence and based on my passionate desire as a dad who has seen others suffer as a consequence of drug addiction and abuse.

"I want to make things better - so it's a brave thing to do and it's a wise thing to do."

LBC

Tim Farron has defended his tactic to "push back" in what has been described as a confrontational interview with BBC journalist Andrew Neil.

The Lib Dem leader says while he respects Mr Neil "very much, he has this habit of talking 10 times more than he’s interviewing".

"He asks you a question - you’re three words into answering it - and he asks you the second and the third. That’s his tactic and I decided I wasn’t going to let him get away from it."

Pressed by Nick Ferrari if in hindsight he had adopted the right tactic by arguing with Mr Neil, he replied he believed he had, although he conceded this was not how he normally behaved.

Stressing that he believes he should always "carefully answer people’s questions", he added: "If you've got an aggressive interviewer who wants to talk more than he wants to listens, you shouldn’t just take it, should you?"

Mr Farron says "an awful lot of people" have been very positive about the interview.

"In the end Andrew Neil has a particular style - I respect the guy, I think he’s a very, very competent, very able person," he says, but adds "he goes from forensic to just deciding he wants to do more talking".

"If you keep being interrupted, frankly, if you’ve got anything about you, you should push back and I pushed back."

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

SNP leader and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said she "would want the SNP to be part of a progressive alternative" at Westminster if the election results in a hung Parliament.

She gave the example of Labour as a party that had "put forward policies that the SNP have already implemented", but ruled out taking part in a coalition.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

The Scottish Conservative leader has said SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon hasn't respected the result of the independence referendum.

Denying she "gave up the fight" over her support of Remain in the EU referendum, Ruth Davidson said that in the case of the independence referendum the Scottish First Minister "has tried to replay it again and again until she gets the result she wants".

Image source, Getty Images

It's one of the biggest headaches of being a parent - sorting out and paying for childcare, with an average part-time nursery place now costing up to £6,000 a year. It is an issue that all of the political parties are grappling with too.

The BBC's Vanessa Barford has been looking at some alternative suggestions - including nurseries run by parents and intergenerational day-care centres (we are an ageing population after all).

Read more here

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Image source, PA

Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale has made clear she opposes a second independence referendum - but UK leader Jeremy Corbyn has indicated previously that he might accept one.

Ms Dugdale insists that she is not at odds with Mr Corbyn, who has been clear that a second vote is "unnecessary and unwanted".

Mr Corbyn is "a champion of anti-austerity politics" but independence would mean "£15bn of extra cuts", she claims.

Presenter Nick Robinson points out that Ms Dugdale backed Owen Smith's challenge to Mr Corbyn's leadership last year.

She says she "took part in a democratic contest" for the Labour leadership which Mr Corbyn won, so she has presented "a united front since".

And what of a "progressive alliance" with the SNP at Westminster?

Jeremy Corbyn has "absolutely 100% refuted" a deal or pact with the pro-independence SNP, Ms Dugdale says, adding: "There's nothing progressive about trying to break up the United Kingdom."

LBC

Tim Farron says he is optimistic the Liberal Democrats will gain seats from the Conservatives, although he "doesn't really know" how many.

Speaking on LBC, he says target areas include south London and in Vauxhall - the seat of former Labour minister Kate Hoey.

He says the Brexit deal "will be stitched up and imposed on the British people" - but the British people should have a chance to vote on the final product.

Kevin Larkin
BBC Local Live, Yorkshire

Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas has accused the Labour Party of stealing her policies during a general election campaign visit to Sheffield.

Speaking in the city last night, she said measures such as rail nationalisation and scrapping tuition fees were originally Green Party policies.

The party's targeting the Sheffield Central constituency, where its candidate is former leader Natalie Bennett.

This is what she told BBC Radio Sheffield's Charlotte Rose:

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Image source, Getty Images

Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale completes the quartet of party leaders appearing on the Today programme.

"There's definitely evidence in the polls... of an edging up in the Labour vote across Scotland," she says.

"The only way to stop the SNP and oppose a second independence referendum is to vote Labour."

Ms Dugdale says she "would love" the election in Scotland to be about issues such as living standards but she alleges that, in Brexit, "Nicola Sturgeon has found the excuse she's always going to look for" for a second referendum on independence.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

BBC Scotland editor Sarah Smith tells Today that, while in the rest of the UK this is "the Brexit election", in Scotland there is the issue of independence.

"The Tories hope... they can solidify a unionist and anti-independence vote," she says, while the SNP is talking about "choices" over the future rather than making independence the central issue.

That underplaying of the independence issue among SNP supporters is underlined by the front page of pro-independence paper the National, external, which accuses Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson of being the one "obsessed" with independence.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Nicola Sturgeon reflects that she has been SNP leader for two and half years and "this is my fourth election".

So why call for yet another vote in the form of a second independence referendum?

"If I was thinking of my own interests I'd maybe opt for that rest," she tells Today, but argues that it is right that Scottish voters should have a choice on the country's future at the end of the Brexit negotiation process.

"The alternative to that is we will just have to accept the outcome of that process no matter how damaging."