Image source, Andrea Jenkyns

Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Conservative candidate Dame Andrea Jenkyns has defended using pictures of herself alongside Reform UK leader Nigel Farage on her election leaflet.

The larger photo of the pair was taken at Farage's 60th birthday party in April, and another smaller picture shows her alongside Farage again.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Jenkyns - who is staunchly pro-Brexit and was the first Tory MP to call for a vote of no confidence in Rishi Sunak's leadership - confirmed the authenticity of the leaflet.

The statement says that Jenkyns finds it "regrettable" a deal between the Tories and Reform was not agreed to before the election, but that she is "standing for the Conservative Party" at this election.

You can read more on that story here.

As we've been reporting, a lot of this morning's political tit-for-tat has revolved around comments made earlier by Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, where he warned that it would be bad for Labour to get a "supermajority".

Since those comments were aired on Times Radio this morning, we've heard from political leaders about why that so-called supermajority would be bad - or good - and, more importantly, whether Shapps' fellow Conservatives share his concerns.

• On the programme, Shapps also argued that that people should vote Conservative in order to hold a Labour government to account
• Responding to his opponent's warning, Sir Keir Starmer said no vote had yet been cast, that he couldn't be complacent, and that he needed a “mandate” to change the country
• Later on the Conservative campaign bus, Rishi Sunak was asked if Shapps' remarks showed the Tories had admitted defeat
• The prime minister said "absolutely not", arguing their manifesto showed a "clear direction of travel" for the country should the Conservatives win

As a reminder, a supermajority has a technical definition in some political systems, but there are no such definition in Westminster.

Politicians using the phrase today in relation to the general election seem to just mean a very large majority of MPs. A normal majority in the House of Commons means one party winning more than 50% of seats in the House of Commons that allows them to form a government (the magic number is 326).

Harry Farley
Political correspondent

On the train to join the Conservative campaign today, I’ve been speaking to a few Tory candidates about their reaction to Grant Shapps’ warning about a Labour “supermajority.”

It’s a striking shift in the Conservative’s messaging.

One senior Tory figure, and a candidate in a Labour target seat, says Shapps was “just telling it how it is”.

“There is no love for us,” they told me, adding “there is no love for Starmer either”.

“We are now having to fight to stop it being a massive Labour majority.”

This particular candidate adds that the most effective message they had found on the doorstep was: “You are going to have a Labour prime minister – who do you want to have holding him to account - me or a Labour MP?”

Another Tory candidate in another Labour-facing seat agreed with Shapps’ messaging.

“It’s what I say locally too,” they say when asked about the argument that people should vote Conservative not to get a Tory government but to limit the size of a Labour majority.

Another Conservative candidate in a Liberal Democrat target seat also agreed, saying they had “no issues with his [Grant Shapps’] comment”.

They said they were hopeful about limiting Tory losses.

“I certainly don’t think there will be the monster majority some are predicting,” they said.

Image source, Getty Images

Moving away from the Green Party manifesto temporarily, we've got some fresh reaction to Defence Secretary Grant Shapps' warning against giving Labour a "supermajority" at the general election.

Former Tory MP Charles Walker says he's not worried by the senior Conservative's warning, telling BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme that the electorate will decide who gets the majority.

“It may come as no surprise to you that I'm an enormous fan of the prime minister, Rishi Sunak," he says. "I just think that people will decide what they want to do near the time and we don't need to prompt them in the sense of warning them about one outcome or another outcome."

But are the defence secretary's comments essentially conceding defeat, Shapps is then asked?

Walker says at this stage in the election cycle, we have to be making a case as to why people should vote Conservative and “not introducing other factors into that discussion".

The Greens make culture promises but no detail on fundingpublished at 14:32 British Summer Time 12 June

14:32 BST 12 June

Katie Razzall
Culture editor

The Greens' manifesto also has some eye-catching policies on culture and the media.

Unlike the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats, the Green Party is committing specific funds.

The Greens would invest £5bn in community sports, art and culture over five years. They would also remove VAT from cultural activities.

But there is no detail on where that money would come from.

On the media, the Greens want to tighten the laws so that no individual or company owns more than 20% of a media market.

The party also wants to move forward with the second stage of the Leveson Inquiry.

That investigation – exploring the relationship between journalists and the police – has never happened.

Neither the Conservatives nor Labour support proceeding, although the Liberal Democrats also put it in their manifesto.

Campaigners who demand what they call a "free and accountable press" say it is vital.

The Greens have also proposed a Digital Bill of Rights that takes a cautionary approach to AI that would be in alignment with Europe and other international bodies.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says that the Green Party's figures show that even after "taking their figures at face value", overall borrowing could end up around "£80bn a year higher and we could expect debt to be rising throughout the next Parliament".

After the launch of the Green Party election manifesto, IFS deputy director Helen Miller says that the increase in National Insurance contributions and restriction of pension tax reliefs would affect a large number of higher earners.

"Whether they could really raise over £90 billion from a carbon tax is doubtful, not least because the more successful the tax is at changing behaviour, the less it would raise," she adds.

Miller believes that a recurrent wealth tax would be tough to implement.

"Restricting upfront income tax relief on pension contributions would also be difficult to achieve," she says, "and would hit a lot of workers on not terribly high salaries - many nurses and teachers for example."

You can take a closer look at the Greens' election promises here.

Some Green Party policies have no price tags attachedpublished at 14:04 British Summer Time 12 June

14:04 BST 12 June

Alicia McCarthy
Parliamentary correspondent

The Green Party for England and Wales says its planned personal tax changes would raise between £50bn and £70bn a year by the end of the next Parliament.

Among its ideas to spend that money is a proposal to invest £20bn in social care, including providing free personal care, similar to the system in Scotland.

But there is a clutch of policies without price tags attached. These include:

• Moving to a four-day working week
• Phasing out nuclear energy
• Ending sewage dumping in rivers
• Renationalising water companies
• And banning domestic flights for journeys that would take less than three hours by train

To learn more about the Green Party's general election manifesto, you can head over here.

Do 15% of people in the UK take a 'vast majority' of flights?published at 13:51 British Summer Time 12 June

13:51 BST 12 June

Earlier on BBC Breakfast, the Green Party’s co-leader Adrian Ramsay spoke about introducing a tax on frequent flyers.

On the programme, he claimed that the “vast majority of flights are taken by just 15% of the population”.

The figure comes from a 10-year old Department for Transport (DfT) survey, external in which 15% of people said they took three or more flights between March 2013 and March 2014.

In 2016, DfT confirmed to the fact-checking organisation Full Fact, external that 15% of adults in Great Britain made almost three-quarters (71%) of the total domestic and international flights recorded in the 12 months to March 2014.

More recent analysis, external of a UK-wide survey of 6,000 households showed that, on average between 2006-07 and 2017-18, only 20% of households were responsible for 76% of all flights.

Alicia McCarthy
Parliamentary correspondent

Let's go back to the Greens and it wouldn’t be the Green Party manifesto without a range of policies on the environment.

There are sections in the document about greener food and farming, bringing nature back to life and protecting animals.

And there’s a section on green energy and transport. Here's what it's proposing:

• Push the government to transition to a zero-carbon society as soon as possible, and more than a decade ahead of 2050
• Cancel recent fossil fuel licences such as for Rosebank and stop all new fossil fuel extraction projects in the UK
• Remove all oil and gas subsidies
• Phase out nuclear energy, which the party says is unsafe and much more expensive than renewables
• A frequent-flyer levy

• A ban on domestic flights for journeys that would take less than three hours by train
• A halt to the expansion of new airport capacity

As the BBC's Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt wrote earlier, the Greens' carbon tax would come at a cost to virtually everyone.

Harry Farley
Political correspondent

Travelling with the Conservative campaign bus can be quite surreal. Most of the time it’s just journalists, some Tory aides and a surprisingly smart coffee machine.

But occasionally the prime minister joins the bus. Then his team sit slightly separately around a table at the back, partly walled off from the rest of us.

A few minutes ago Rishi Sunak came out from his section of the bus to speak to us travelling with him. We asked to film it but we weren’t allowed, and his team have said he will not speak on camera today.

Instead he will do a campaign visit in Lincolnshire before preparing for the Sky News TV debate this evening.

The first question he was asked was about Grant Shapps’ warning against giving Labour a “supermajority”.

Had he conceded defeat?

“No absolutely not,” Sunak said. “What you saw yesterday is we’ve put a manifesto forward which has got a very clear set of tax cuts for the country, tax cuts at every stage of your life."

Instead he repeated his warning not to give Labour a “blank cheque”, and repeated his controversial claim that the party’s policies would result in a £2,000 tax hike.

Daniel Sandford
Home Affairs Correspondent

Let's break away from the Greens' and their newly-released manifesto, and bring you a few other lines.

The Home Office has offered to pay for additional private security for Nigel Farage, after he was twice attacked while out campaigning during the general election.

Last week, Farage had milkshake thrown over him as he left a pub in Clacton-on-Sea, and yesterday objects were thrown at him as he travelled through Barnsley in an open-top bus.

The Home Office's offer comes under a new scheme for candidates in elections, which allows them to ask for funding for security at hustings and while they are out campaigning.

Candidates have been told the Home Office will consider requests for security "on a case by case basis".

There has been growing concern for the safety of MPs and prospective MPs after the murders of Jo Cox MP in 2016 and Sir David Amess MP in 2021.

The police operation that deals with MP security – Operation Bridger– has been expanded for the duration of the campaign to cover all the candidates in the general election.

Read more here.

Greens make an expensive promise on educationpublished at 13:04 British Summer Time 12 June

13:04 BST 12 June

Hazel Shearing
Education correspondent

The most eye-catching policy from the Greens on education in England is a renewed pledge to scrap university tuition fees.

The Greens say they would “fully fund” every student and bring back maintenance grants. That’s an expensive promise. It also comes at a time when universities are worried about their finances. Fees for UK students haven’t kept up with costs, and the number of higher-paying international students is predicted to fall.

The party says it would scrap “high-stakes testing” in schools and abolish their regulator, Ofsted. And there’s a pledge to boost funding for schools by £8bn, including £2bn for teachers’ pay.

Spending per pupil currently sits, in real terms, at around the same level it did in 2010. With schools’ costs projected to rise by 4% in 2024 and teachers’ pay for September at the top of the next education secretary’s to-do list, heads will be keen to dig into the detail.

What is the Greens' plan for social care?published at 12:56 British Summer Time 12 June

12:56 BST 12 June

Alison Holt
Social affairs editor

The Green Party's plan of “investing to mend” includes an additional £20bn to tackle the crisis in adult social care.

It is a big chunk of money, so inevitably there will be questions about whether the sums add up, and whether the country could afford that level of spending.

The Greens argue putting more into early support for older and disabled people at home or in care homes would take pressure off the NHS.

Like the Lib Dems, they would make personal care free - so that is support with daily tasks like washing, dressing and medication.

It would be similar to the system already operating in Scotland.

The care system is struggling with increasing demand and staff shortages, so it's notable that these two smaller parties have made investing in social care an important part of their manifesto offers.

In contrast, the two main parties have had remarkably little to say on the subject so far.

How do the Greens' health spending plans differ from the other parties?published at 12:45 British Summer Time 12 June

12:45 BST 12 June

Nick Triggle
Health Correspondent

The cash injection being promised by the Green Party into the NHS is huge.

In the first year, they say they will increase the budget in England by £8bn – it is currently £165bn. And by 2030 there will be £28bn more. There will be more for public health delivered by councils too.

To put that into context, the Liberal Democrats are only promising £8bn a year more for health by the end of the Parliament, while the Conservatives have limited their promises to above inflation increases.

Like those two, the Green Party manifesto promises quicker access to NHS dentistry and GPs and reductions in the hospital waiting list.

But the money will also be needed for one of its more unique proposals – a commitment to restore pay for junior doctors. That requires a 35% pay increase – something none of the other parties seem prepared to do.

What are the Greens' housing plans?published at 12:35 British Summer Time 12 June

12:35 BST 12 June

Alicia McCarthy
Parliamentary correspondent

Turning to the Green Party's plans for housing, they say everyone needs a warm, secure and affordable home.

All the major parties are promising to build more, but the Greens have an ambitious target on social housing.

They are pledging:

• To provide 150,000 new genuinely affordable social homes every year and an end to Right to Buy
• Rent controls so local authorities can control rents if the rental market is unaffordable for many local people
• A new stable rental tenancy and an end to no-fault evictions so tenants are secure in their homes and don’t have their lives turned upside down on the whim of their landlords
• £4bn over the next five years to insulate other buildings to a high standard
• £9bn over the next five years for low-carbon heating systems (e.g. heat pumps) for homes and other buildings

A closer look at the Greens' plans for healthpublished at 12:25 British Summer Time 12 June

12:25 BST 12 June

Alicia McCarthy
Parliamentary correspondent

There are a lot of spending proposals in the Green Party manifesto for England and Wales.

One of its biggest policies centres on funding for England’s NHS.

The party says it’s committed to a fully-public, properly-funded health and social care system.

• The Greens estimate that England’s NHS will need an extra £8bn of expenditure in the first full year of the next Parliament
• It’s guaranteeing access to an NHS dentist
• An immediate boost to NHS pay and a year-on-year reduction in waiting lists
• Increased funding for mental health services, putting them on a par with physical health
• Free personal care, along the lines of that available in Scotland, and an extra £3bn for local authorities to provide high-quality children’s social care

Alicia McCarthy
Parliamentary correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

I’m taking a look at some of the key promises in the Green Party manifesto for England and Wales.

These are just the headlines, starting with some of their most eye-catching pledges on the tax system:

• By the end of the next Parliament the party says personal tax changes will raise between £50bn and £70bn per year

• Wealth tax will be levied on individual taxpayers with assets above £10 million at 1% and assets above £1bn at 2% annually. The Greens say fewer than 1% of households will pay this tax

• National Insurance contributions: The basic 8% rate would be charged on income above the Upper Earnings Limit

• The party says the number of taxpayers affected would be less than 5m and somebody earning £55,000 a year will pay £5.46 a week more in tax or £283.74 a year

• Somebody earning £65,000 a year will pay just under £17 a week more in tax or £883 a year

What are the Greens promising on health?published at 12:11 British Summer Time 12 June

12:11 BST 12 June

Hugh Pym
Health editor

The Green Party plans include significant investment in the NHS and social care – £28bn a year extra for NHS England alone by 2030.

This year that budget is around £165bn and would be expected to increase each year anyway because of inflation and increased patient demand.

On top of that £28bn from the Greens for NHS England would come £20bn a year extra for social care by 2030 and a £20bn investment in upgrading hospitals over the lifetime of a Parliament.

The party says wealth taxes and a carbon tax could raise up to £150bn a year by the end of the Parliament.

But these tax rises will have to cover a range of commitments as well a health and care and there will be uncertainty over the revenue projections.

Another pledge is that any elected Green MPs will back a law change to legalise assisted dying for people suffering from terminal disease who wish to avoid prolonged unnecessary suffering.

Such a vote may come early in the next Parliament.

What does the Green Party manifesto say about flying?published at 12:03 British Summer Time 12 June

12:03 BST 12 June

Justin Rowlatt
Climate editor

Image source, Getty Images

In the manifesto, I’ve skipped to the Green Party’s policy on aviation as a test of how different it is from other parties.

"We need to reduce how much we fly, and we need to do it fairly," it declares.

What that means in practice is a frequent flyer levy “to reduce the impact of the 15% of people who take 70% of the flights” and a stop to all airport expansion plans.

The party will also ban domestic flights for journeys that would take less than three hours by train and would also make airlines pay VAT on jet fuel - at the moment they don’t pay any VAT on kerosene.

The Green also plans an economy-wide carbon tax – a charge on any activities that produce carbon dioxide – that they say would also apply to airlines.

Some of these policies may sound a little familiar. The Lib Dem manifesto also contained a commitment to impose a levy on frequent fliers, to ban the shortest-haul flights and restrict airport expansion.

Carbon tax could come at a cost to virtually everyonepublished at 11:59 British Summer Time 12 June

11:59 BST 12 June

Justin Rowlatt
Climate editor

No surprises here. The Greens say in the unlikely event they came to power they would pump £40bn a year in the shift to the green economy over the course of the next Parliament.

In part that would be raised by charging a “carbon tax” – a charge on any activities that involve the emission of carbon dioxide.

They say this would help “drive fossil fuels out of our economy” and raise investment for the green transition.

Many economists believe this could indeed help speed the transition to a lower carbon economy, but it could come at a cost to virtually everyone.

That is because almost everything we do involves fossil fuels one way or another so would incur a charge with a carbon tax.

There are other radical policies here, too.

The party says it would nationalise the companies that run our railways, our water companies and would also bring the big five retail energy companies into public ownership.