First Opinium poll of the campaign:

Labour: 41%
Con: 27%
LD: 10%
Reform: 10%
Greens: 7%

theguardian.com/politics/artic…

turns out that the National Citizen Service (David Cameron’s pet project) had its funding slashed by two-thirds in a 2022 review of government youth funding - when Rishi Sunak was chancellor

Interesting thread on the Tories' national service policy

Conservatives plan to bring back mandatory national service
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

🔵 Conservatives have asked members of party official candidates' list to apply for these retirement seats, deadline 10am Monday:

Bexhill & Battle
Bexleyheath & Crayford
Epping Forest
Northampton North
South Northamptonshire
Surrey Heath
Thanet East
Tunbridge Wells
Wokingham

Labour now has just 13 candidates left to select, while the Conservatives seem to have made little progress on the 190 or so they needed yesterday

Amusing, if true, but at the same time ... probably a breach of data protection

Rishi Sunak jokes he's 'avoided pneumonia' after wet election launch news.sky.com/story/rishi-su…

WATCH: 🗳️🔴 Keir Starmer confirms to me Labour will extend voting rights to 16-17 year olds if elected

'If you can work, if you can pay tax, if you can serve in your armed forces, then you ought to be able to vote.'

Nigel Farage nowhere to be seen as Reform leader Richard Tice launches his bid to be Boston and Skegness MP

Tice uses a Trumpian line: 'This great nation of ours, we've got to make it great again.'

🔴 TIPTON & WEDNESBURY: I'm told this seat is 'nailed on' for the Gerard Coyne, for former regional secretary for Unite in the West Midlands who twice opposed Len McCluskey for the general secretaryship of the union & was subsequently sacked by the union. John Speller brokered

🔴 ROCHDALE: and the Labour nomination here, I'm told, will almost certainly go to political journalist Paul Waugh, who lost out to the subsequently sacked Azhar Ali in the selection for the by-election.

🔴 SWANSEA WEST: Labour today added this seat to the list for which they are inviting applications by Monday, 27 May. This suggests they have axed their sitting MP Geraint Davies. He was suspended from the party last year over allegations of sexual harassment.

I think these are good points. Having so few candidates selected is wild but it suggests there was no trust in the party & Sunak was banking on an element of surprise

one for insane moments in British politics - Rishi invites entire lobby outside for a square go