Election latest: Rishi Sunak laughs as GP heckles him; New poll on PM leaving D-Day commemorations early (2024)

Nigel Farage is asked about comments in 2014, which were reported at the time to suggest he had admiration for Vladimir Putin.

"No I didn't," Mr Farage says.

"You said he was an operator, as you put it," Politics Hub host AliFortescue puts it to the Reform leader.

"Well that's not admiration, is it? So let's get this right.

"I said he was an unpleasant human being. I wouldn't want to spend time with him. But he was a very clever political operator. So let's get the context right, shall we."

In an Interview for GQ magazine in 2014, Mr Farage was reportedly asked which world leader he most admired.

"As an operator, but not as a human being, I would say Putin," the Telegraph reported him as saying.

"The way he played the whole Syria thing. Brilliant. Not that I approve of him politically. How many journalists in jail now?"

Politics Hub host Ali Fortescue reminds Nigel Farage of comments he made on Sky News earlier in the campaign, when he claimed a "growing number" of young Muslims in the UK "do not subscribe to British values" and "loathe much of what we stand for".

Mr Farage is asked if he would like to pay tribute to the one million Muslims whoserved in the British Army during the Second World War.

He responds by saying 40% of the UK's contribution to both world wars came from the Commonwealth.

"The problem that I'm talking about is a separate problem of 18 to 24-year-old young Muslims who were born in this country, who increasingly are being radicalised," Mr Farage claims.

Fortescue points out these types of comments are used by racists to fuel their arguments.

"I'm not interested in those people and thank goodness in this country they are a tiny minority fringe," responds Mr Farage.

"All I'm doing is stating an obvious truth that makes people in Britain feel very, very uncomfortable.

"Why, and I don't know the answer, why are young British-born Muslims being attracted to jihad and radicalism?"

This feels like a day that we might well look back on as a defining moment in the election campaign.

And a photo that I suspect will come to haunt the prime minister.

David Cameron in a line up of world leaders remembering the fallen, while Rishi Sunak sat down for an election interview.

Campaigns can unravel because of a series of unfortunate events.

An opponent can carefully unpick policy flaws.

Or sometimes an unforced error can come to define an election. A lapse of judgement.

The prime minister has apologised for leaving D-Day early.

But you've got to ask the question: how did the people around Rishi Sunak miss this?

Today, one of his own advisers, Ian Acheson, has quit the Conservative Party - he said it had been outsourced to a "bunch of mendacious, incompetent and disreputable clowns".

The prime minister himself says his diary was drawn up well in advance.

Unlike gaffs of elections past, this one was planned.

Our weeknight showPolitics Hub With Ali Fortescueis live now on Sky News.

The fast-paced programme dissects the inner workings of Westminster, with interviews, insights, and analysis - bringing you, the audience, into the corridors of power.

Watch in the stream at the top of this page, and follow live updates here in the Politics Hub.

WatchPolitics Hubfrom 7pmevery night during the election campaign on Sky channel 501, Virgin channel 602, Freeview channel 233, on theSky News websiteandappor onYouTube.

Ali Fortescue is back tonight at 7pm with the Politics Hub.

Joining her tonight will be:

• Reform UK leader and candidate for parliament, Nigel Farage
  
• Former Brexit secretary, David Davis
• Shadow secretary of state for international development, Lisa Nandy

On the panel giving their view on today's events will be Tom Hamilton, former head of research for the Labour Party, and journalist Mercy Muroki, who was also a member of the government's Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities.

WatchPolitics Hubfrom 7pmevery night during the election campaign on Sky channel 501, Virgin channel 602, Freeview channel 233, on theSky News websiteandappor onYouTube.

A woman saying she is a GP is heckling the prime minister at a campaign event in Wiltshire.

"The NHS is disintegrating. I am one of 2,500 GPs in this country who are currently unemployed due to your policies.

"What are you going to do about that?

"37,000 GPs will not vote Conservative because of the constructive dismissal of general practice that is currently occurring.

"You cannot employ lesser-qualified people instead of GPs. They cannot be replaced. The country is not stupid."

She says consultations are very complex, with most people over the age of 40 having at least six different diseases at once that are seen by GPs.

"They cannot be coped with by half-qualified staff."

Then, another member of the crowd fires back at her: "Most GPs spend more time on holiday than in the surgery love."

The prime minister laughs, along with a crowd holding vote Conservative campaign signs.

Mr Sunak says he is supporting GPs with investment in "digital telephony" and making it "easier for people to see other primary care practitioners" like pharmacists.

"That's where I respectfully disagree with you."

Sky News understands that Unite the Union, the country's biggest union and the Labour party's biggest donor, did not endorse Labour's manifesto due to concerns about fire and rehire and the banning of new oil and gas licences.

A party spokesperson said earlier that the manifesto had been finalised.

Senior figures and union officials met today to work out the final details, said to include promises on workers rights and recognising Palestinian statehood.

Sky News understands the pledges will include recognition of a Palestinian state before the end of a peace process.

Penny Mordaunt, Royal Navy reservist and briefly Britain's first female defence secretary, goes into battle for Rishi Sunak this evening in the row over his D-Day snub.

The Commons leader, a national treasure after her sword-wielding heroics at the King's coronation, is the Tories' standard bearer in the first election TV debate between seven political parties.

Ms Mordaunt, an MP in the naval city of Portsmouth for 14 years, has suddenly been thrust into the controversy over the prime minister leaving the D-Day commemorations in France early to record an election TV interview.

She is expected to come under sustained bombardment over Mr Sunak's D-Day snub from opponents including Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner, SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn and Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper.

But the most brutal D-Day onslaught on Ms Mordaunt is expected to come from Nigel Farage, newly installed as leader of Reform UK this week, who attended the commemorations and has denounced the PM as unpatriotic.

Speaking ahead of the debate, being staged by the BBC, Mr Farage declared: "He is completely disconnected from the centre of this country and he has proved to me that he basically is not a patriotic leader of the Conservative Party. I was there because I care."

Mr Farage also claimed Mr Sunak's blunder in bailing out of the international segment of the D-Day events was his "Gillian Duffy moment", a reference to Gordon Brown's damaging description of a voter in Rochdale in 2010 as a "bigoted woman".

Although there are seven politicians taking part in the debate, all eyes will be on Ms Mordaunt, who is making her first major public intervention in the general election campaign.

Last week it was reported that her allies claimed Downing Street was keeping her "in a box" during the campaign because the prime minister's inner circle see her as a threat, a claim denied by Tory officials.

Just hours before the debate the Daily Telegraph claimed Ms Mordaunt must choose to fight for herself or her party, in a debate which could resemble a firing squad for the Commons leader.

She is an accomplished performer, as her regular Thursday Commons questions sessions confirm, and besides digging Mr Sunak out of a D-Say hole, according to her allies she will want to use the debate as an audition for a post-election leadership challenge.

Another feature of the debate could be fiery clashes between Ms Mordaunt and Labour's combative deputy leader Ms Rayner, who is also an impressive Commons performer, particularly when standing in for Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister's Questions.

The prime minister has faced criticism for leaving the 80th anniversary D-Day commemorationsearly to record a TV interview that's due to go out next week.

Rishi Sunak has since apologised - saying that "on reflection" leaving early "was a mistake",but also that itshouldn'tbepoliticised.

Niall Paterson looks athow damaging thismisstepis for Mr Sunak with Clare Pearsall, former Conservative special adviser at the Home Office,and Joe Twyman, the co-founder of the polling company Deltapoll.

Plus, our chief political correspondent Jon Craig tells us just how big of a political blunder it was.

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The Liberal Democrats are continuing to make political hay of Rishi Sunak's D-Day "mistake".

The party has called on the prime minister to donate the £5m the party has received from Frank Hester to a veteran's charity, tying together two points of attack on the Conservatives.

In March, it was reported that in 2019 Mr Hester said of Diane Abbott - the first black woman elected to Parliament - that she made him want to "hate all black women" and "should be shot".

Electoral Commission data released yesterday showed the Conservative Party accepted another £5m in January - before those reports were published.

"Rishi Sunak must personally ensure this money is donated instead to a veterans' charity as an apology for his absence yesterday," said veteran and Liberal Democrat defence spokesperson Richard Foord.

"The prime minister has badly let down veterans and our country. He disrespected his office and the United Kingdom."

Separately,Labour Party chairwoman Anneliese Dodds advised Tory candidates to "tell CCHQ you don't want tainted money" from Mr Hester and "provide the moral backbone for your party".