were you surprised? because actually, i'm not sure how much money was on today being the day. well, in the big picture, i'm not that surprised because remember, a few weeks ago, we talked a lot about whether or not there was a plan afoot to go for a summer election after all the. well, they weren't will they wouldn't they. and however, from sort of early this morning, somebody i trust said to me, yes, it is actually going to be today. and so when you hear that, you go, what?! so, you can talk about in the abstract, but when you actually hear it, you think, "wow, here we are." is it a surprise? it always feels like a huge moment. the biggest sense of it on the page going into an election campaign when you're 20 points behind seems absolutely crackers. however, the case for a summer election has been won by oliver dowden. as i understand it, the deputy prime minister and sort of right—hand man of the pm and his chief of staff, and sort of right—hand man of the pm, his chief of staff, liam booth smith, is also thought to have been in favour, although there have been other powerful voices against. and if you just make a very quick

list case for a summer election, the economic numbers look better, although people don't necessarily feel better. the rwanda law has been passed but hasn't yet been tested. autumn and winter campaigns are grim. summer, you might... ha—ha, more of that later. get the sun shining. it's a big football tournament. people might be a bit happier, but also crucially, more and more tory mp have been standing down and i think the tory party has become harder and harder and harder to govern. been saying for some time, "my working assumption is the general election will be in the second half of this year". the 4th ofjuly is just in the second half of this year, so he's consistent with what he said, just. he is, although i have to say, as i said at the weekend, there's going to be a lot about this in different parts of the country. it's the school holidays in then in scotland and in northern ireland as well. and i think if you're a scottish conservative, and i think if you're a scottish conservative, you'd be thinking, "thanks very much, boss", because i think that that is a factor, ight? what, ecause people might be away from home,

so we'll have to make sure they've got a postal vote? yeah, yeah, yeah. i mean, the schools in scotland will be free to be polling stations though. yeah, but then people will have to be paid to go and open them up. oh, yeah. good point. faisal, can you can you interpret the economic numbers we got today? inflation did fall sharply. that's not a surprise. . i and it's fallen crucially close i to the bank of england's target of 2%, just above 2.3%. so you can see why he wanted to use it to deploy that number as part - stabilisation in the economy- when you look at also the economy number that we talked about a couple of weeks ago, - showing the end of the recession at the end of last year, - actually stronger growthl than than we'd expected. | however, under the cover of that| number, underlying that number, it wasn't so great, actually, because the measures - of services inflation, _ which is what the bank of england, for example, looks at when they're setting interest rates, _ they remain stubbornly high. they fell a tiny bit to 5.9%. and that means that if you hadl the gdp numbers going the way of the government, if you like, and of recession, _ of the government, - if you like, end of recession,

you had inflation coming down towards target, i if the third leg of this sorti of economic trident to take to the electorate was interest rate cuts ahead of an election, - ithat is now looking less likelyl injune than it was this morning because that inflation is looking sticky. - but i think the bigger point is like, wow — l to peg your fate or the announcement of a general election - to an ons announcement... you know, i'm left thinking if it had shocked us and come - in at 3%, which would have been like, whoa, shock, _ that's really quite high, would they not have done what they'd done today? i was it entirely contingent on the inflation number? | but, you know, you have this... i did an interview with the pm in march and i came - out of that thinking,

"he's very upbeat. about the economy". but no, the timetable had lapsed out. - but i did note and was pointed i to this run of data that emerged and we talked about it on on newscast. i but i have to say, what does it say? you know, it provides the argument that he'll put to the nation. - we heard that in the wet _ of downing street today, did we not? that, you know, the economy is turning around. _ you have that contour. and then kind of the sort— of fundamental axis of this election which were global in nature, or the labour arguments — l do they get some of the blame for the extents of _ those price shocks in the uk? and as laura just said, do people | actually feel even if the numbersj indeed, someone very senior in number ten said to me . it was quite interesting this, - that when you look at the vox pox that occasionally are used onj

the tv news, people say that they don't feel it. but there is a way in— which economists calculate this. it's called the consumer confidence numbers. i and they've turned up and i thought, "oh, i haven't noticed them turning up", - and i went back and had a look. i i found like literally one subindex . of the consumer confidence numbers, which was about your confidence in the next 12 months _ that had just marginally gone positive. - so, that is the sort of data pointi that has given number ten some confidence that they can grab - onto and sell a story to the public. well, may i say... sorry, go ahead. so, i wasjust going to say it's also i think what you just said there, faisal, is absolutely key. it's selling a story because at least now they can argue they've got a narrative to take into an election campaign around the economy, whereas have the numbers gone in a different way, even shaping the narrative, whether or not people bought into that story or thought it was a total fairy tale is quite another subject and up to the people themselves. but i think that's an important part of this because i think if the numbers weren't where they were — and as laura said, i think there have been various calculations thrown into the mixing pot when they came out with when they're actually going to go — but the economy being

absolutely crucial. if the numbers weren't where they were, then what would be the narrative of the conservatives going to this election campaign? and you heard it from jeremy hunt, chancellor, who's on the radio this morning. you heard it from rishi sunak in the sodden steps of downing street, in the rain, making his thing. it's going to be the key narrative, right, that they're going to take into the campaign. and i think that difference between how people feel and what the government says is absolutely crucial. but at least the government's got something to say from its perspective. and talking about data points, it was so interesting. yesterday, i got an email from my energy company saying, "your direct debit is going to go down" on friday because the energy price cap is coming down. of course, the energy price cap is set by ofgem, the energy regulators. it's not a fact of nature. it's a calculation made by a regulator which is an arm of the state, but it sort of feels a bit like of a tax cut almost. so you realise that there's a feel good factor from that... sorry, i'm just going to say one more point on this. i think the fundamentally what they have been doing in the last few months is a very basic,

is it better or worse to wait? and they had been in a place of thinking, if you wait, something might get better, it might turn up, people will feel more flush. yes, the data is looking better, but we know that people aren't feeling it yet, and also, things might actually still they might even be worse in other ways. so, look at the borrowing numbers that came out today. public borrowing hit a three year high today. the cost of the infected blood compensation is absolutely enormous. there was not going to be a little big, giant chunk of change to spray around in an autumn pre—election budget giveaway. so, if you're not going to get that potentially that huge bit of boost that you would want in the autumn, then why wait? and that has changed the calculation, too. the other thing that i've just to and it might not happen but i heard something quite wild is that there might even be in the last couple of frantic days of parliament, a finance bill that would give another tax cut before parliament is dissolved. now, i've got no idea if that is true or not, but it has done the rounds today. that would be a pretty sketchy thing because they'd be daring labour

to vote against the tax cuts just as they go into an election campaign. and also they'd be doing a tax cut without calculations from the office of budget responsibility to say whether the numbers added up and remember what happened last time that happened. we will hear from keir starmer, the labour leader, in a second, cos he did a he did a statement as well, although he chose to do it inside. so it was maybe a bit less atmospheric, it looked a bit less dramatic, but he was definitely drier. laura, what's your take onjust like... i mean, the political operatives call it the optics, we call it how it looks. what did you think aboutjust how it looked? imight... you're on a podcast, remember! 0k. so, why do politicians who live in number ten want to use that backdrop? because it makes them look like they've got authority. it makes them look dignified. it makes them look like they have power, right, the full trappings of power. and there's normally a real dignity in using that lectern and using that political pulpit, if you like. today, he looked more and more

and more and more soaked. i mean, there was practically water pouring down his face. couldn't hear for a lot of the statement because of the music that was being blasted out on whitehall — which wasn't any old tune, it was the new labour anthem of things can only get better, and can i be not the first to say, but the first to say on newscast, "things can only get wetter" as being the gag du jour. i mean, i think it looked dreadful and a lot of people would have watched it and thought, "oh, my god, i can't almost believe this is real". and imagine what it would have been like once he went through the door. however, might some people have felt a bit sorry for him? possibly. but i'm pretty surprised that they let him do it in that rain, because in these kinds of statements, often of statements, often people are waiting, they look at the forecast. they had the option to do it inside. and at one point, it seemed as if they were going to and they sent him out there. and, you know, he looked like he was, metaphorically drowning,

being drowned out by the music and drowning in the rain. and also, remember, when liz truss was anointed as prime minister, she actually drove around the block for about half an hour and all the news reporters had to just like commentate on pictures of from the helicopter going, "oh, she's driving past this building. "oh, that's where that's where i go and cash my cheques. "oh, that's that's where i got the bottle back." alex, what's interesting for us, though, is politicaljournalists is like when you go to a prime ministerial media event, it is very tightly controlled. there are lots of people with clipboards and there's ropes and then there's people like tug your arm if you've been speaking to the prime minister and asking him questions for like ten seconds too long. well, you're contrasting that with the downing street moment today, which was just a slightly strange melee! you know, ijust think in terms of the choreography of the day, it was it was entirely fascinating to me because i'm happy to admit that i genuinely was surprised by it coming today, as it did, because although there had been, as laura rightly said, speculation about the prospect of a summer election, i think it's still felt on the day to day like it was a bit of a surprise. and this morning, i was in downing street for an entirely

different reason when it was actually still raining, and actually, i found out i've got a hole in my left boot and i've still got a wet sock as we speak. but there, it was like there were people actually in downing street that were taken by surprise, by the level of speculation that has suddenly fired up, i think. and then it was kind of allowed to fester through the day in this slightly strange way where, you know, people in westminster got themselves into a frenzy and lots of people on social media speculating about x, y and z. and then it kind of all built up to this sense of inevitability that this was going to happen at some point today. and then the the date dropped before the prime minister officially announced it all the rest of it. but even that choreography felt kind of like it wasn't entirely controlled in the way that we are used to some of these things being really controlled. and then you add to that exactly as laura describes the kind of sodden prime minister. i mean, you can't control the weather. let's be honest.

well, you can get an umbrella. i guess you could send up one of those missiles, can't you? a cloud dispersal missile. that's what they had had done. do they have them in downing street? i don't think they do. they might invest in something that they would love to be a way of winning elections forever, more sunny forever. laura, i know you've got to go, butjust quickly, are you picking up chatter and backlash from conservative mps? and the reason i ask that question is i've just seen even just on x, formerly known as twitter, two conservative mps who are standing diana davidson and tracey crouch, saying basically explicitly, "oh, we're sad because this has come too soon because we still wanted to get things done for our constituents for a bit longer." and if that is people saying that publicly, i imagine people are saying much worse privately. yeah, i think some people are really, really unhappy on that basic point is that going into a campaign when you're 20 points behind, unless you've got a majority of, like, i million votes, you're really, really worried that you might lose yourjob. that's on the face of it. the other thing is, i think that

rishi sunak�*s team has never managed to get a decent operation of handling their employees. and they took over, as you and i talked about on saturday, they took over a party that was already bruised, battered, full of grudges, full of vendettas, full of unhappy people. and i think the on—again, off—again, on—again, off—again election speculation has made that worse because whatever you think of mps, this is also their livelihoods, theirjobs, their careers. they care about their constituents, they care about their own careers. this is also their livelihoods, theirjobs, their careers, they care about their constituents, they care about their own careers. and i think there is a sense that for many months, actually, downing street is sort of allowed the speculation to sort of be up, then down, then up, then down. and it's just not been you know, it's just not been a good sequence of events. and i think i think the other thing is that the optics of tonight actually is the kind of thing that they think that people will have sort of thought that just looks dreadful. that even makes us look like they might pity him, and in politics, pity is such a terrible, terrible sentiment to allow to fester. and it's interesting tonight, just the last point i'll make,

you've got a member of the tory party prominent, probably going to be a leadership candidate after the election if the tories lose. penny mordaunt has put out her little manifesto for her area, saying it's been decided as ever by local people and local priorities. so, we've already got, just a couple of hours in, you've got prominent ministers and prominent figures basically saying, "don't look at the brand, look at me, don't look at the party, "don't look at the prime minister, look at me. "i do my own saying", and i think that's very, very telling. but, you know, campaigns can change things. we were all there in 2017 and the world could look very different in 100 days' time. 43 days' time. that's what i meant to say. it's 100 days long election campaign is what we call it, but each other by then, we're all friends here. i'm going to let you go. lovely to catch up with you.

see you soon. bye, everybody. have fun. right, let's listen to sir keir starmer, labour leader who was inside on the 11th ofjuly, you have the choice. and together, we can stop the chaos. we can turn the page. we can start to rebuild britain and change our country. - the video and social media was actually even in the sunshine outside. so another contrast, although that social media video apparently did have a typo on one of their big election pledges, so maybe turned around quite quickly, maybe around quite quickly. prerecorded, that. there wasn't much sunshine today. yeah. yes, it must have been at least, at least at least yesterday. well, it's interesting this if you look back at the sort of slightly bizarre press conferences and press interventions that we've had on both major parties, they have been playing a sort of shadow campaign, haven't they, that hunt's press conference. but also, you know, the the rachel reeves sort

of trying to pre—empt these two big economic figures that came out with a press conference where she sort of basically said, even if this shows a better economy, it doesn't really count. and the same thing yesterday with an article in the sun. and so you can see that they've been like almost trying... well, they definitely have been trying to preempt any notion that there's been a change in the economic weather. i mean, the election was called today, but the campaign's already been underway for some time in my mind. you know what i mean? not officially, but kind of unofficially, exactly as you say. and one of the things that's really flagged it to me, not least the fact we've had these set piece speeches, not just from the chancellor and shadow chancellor, but from the prime minister and from keir starmer as well, haven't really announced anything. well, they've just been... broadly political talking about theirambitions, theiraims, basically, you know, why they think they're the best for the country. but there's also this other sort of aside, which is that my inbox is increasingly full of briefings from various parties about why whatever the other party is saying isn't right. i mean, the kind of counter attack before the attack

isjust like ramped—up point. pre—buttal? yeah. prebuttal. is that it? excellent. that's exactly what is prebuttal, notjust rebuttal. that was the real thing that made me think this week. oh, this election is coming sooner than lots of people think. or the received wisdom is, is because the conservative campaign headquarters was sending out emails to journalists every morning with minute rebuttals and footnotes on what quite junior labour people had been saying on breakfast programmes that morning. and you're like, ok, this is not business as usual. this is what you do in an election campaign. faisal, just on keir starmer�*s pitch — i mean, rishi sunak�*s criticism of labour have a plan, it's back to square one. when you look at labour's pledges on the economy, how much of a plan does labour have for the economy, for example? it's clear in january that they rode back on the biggest single defining difference, which was their green prosperity plan to borrow and spend tens of billions of pounds more. and actually, that really tells you a lot about how they're going to fight this general election.

to fight this general election, i think, because the thinking there, they still believe in extra green investment. they see that as a dividing line with the conservatives. they don't think any more that you necessarily need to borrow that money or can borrow that money in order to fund it, and you can get it from the private sector instead with massive planning reform. so they've sort of shifted their view. but the biggest strategic point here is they think that what happened a couple of years back with liz truss and the mini budgets has so seared into the subconscious of the british public, including in crucial areas that were highly sensitive to their mortgage payments. that kind of subconscious association now, fair or unfair, with mortgage rates having gone up substantially with a trigger point

in liz truss's mini budgets, if they were to reduce their election campaign down to one one factor, i think it would be repeating liz truss as many budget chaos as much as they can — or that phrase tory mortgage premium. and so what happened was they wrote back on the extra borrowing because that was the clear rebuttal that rishi sunak orjeremy hunt could say, "well, hang on a minute, you're going to borrow tens "of billions of pounds more money for this green investment stuff. "you're going to raise borrowing rates for the government "and therefore for mortgage holders." so they feel that they've cut that off as a counter argument. and i can predict that they are going to try and hammer that again and again and again, and it must have been manna from heaven for them when liz truss popped back up now just a few weeks before the calling of a general election to remind the public of her existence and what happened two years ago. so, let's see. but i'm willing to bet at least £1 that we're going to see images of liz truss in the labour

election broadcast. i'm not going to take it, it'sjust one pole — i'm not going to take it, it'sjust one poll. but it is fascinating because while we were talking earlier about how, the numbers are sort of at least giving the conservatives a narrative they can attempt to shape around the economy. what is fascinating is that labour are so prepared to take the fight to the conservatives on the economy because traditionally, adam, as you know, that's never been considered labour's comfortable territory and yet they are now seemingly willing to, from their perspective, get on the front foot over the economy, which is why it's going to be such an interesting... you know, i hate this phrase, i'm going to try not to use this over the course of the next 40—however many days, but, you know, battle line. well, then this is this is really interesting, isn't it? because to the extent that they've moved on to that quote unquote centre ground territory to win conservative voters, you then have, well, the green party on the other side saying, well, hang on, these guys aren't serious about the green issues. they won't put the money in.

they wrote back on it already. you have some other issues on the left where you're going to see an interest. you know, they're going to have to make somejudgments now in the manifesto process as to precisely where they land on this balancing act. who are they trying to target? are they trying to target? and this is the really fascinating one for me. so much of politics has been about those 2019 tory—labour switchers, post—brexit, borisjohnson sort of supporters, or at least comfortable with borisjohnson�*s arguments and having and trying to win those back. can labour win all those voters or most of those voters back, keep its coalition in metropolitan britain? another thing i throw open — there's different arguments about this in terms of the timing — the student vote. they're not going to be in their universities in their universities onjuly the 4th. is that part of the strategic thinking? cos i remember injune 2017, that did have a material impact, certainly in a dozen or a few dozen constituencies.

canterbury was the famous one, wasn't it? so we're not going to have that impact. but is it good or bad for the conservatives that those students will be back at home or on holiday or when�*s glastonbury? i don't know. you know, that is an interesting thing. faisal, a date that i know you will know is all the england matches in. oh, yeah! what do you think the football factor could be in this? well, i think, firstly, there's an attention factor. tens of millions of people in england and in scotland, of course, will be watching a lot of football every day from pretty much the 14th ofjune. and if things go to plan, i think england will have won their round of 16 match on the sunday before the general election. and someone told me they might be heading for a tie—up with germany in the quarters. and someone told me they might be heading for a tie—up with germany in the quarters. i'lljust have to i have

to double check that. but the quarterfinal would then be on the saturday after the general election. whoever wins the general election... actually, it is commonly perceived that england, although we say this all the time, have a decent chance. and so, there's every chance that your rose fever will coincide with...maybe not general election. got to say, that's a brave comparison! i don't know. but whoever wins, whoever wins, do they welcome back harry kane or i should sayjohn mcginn of scotland with the trophy as to number ten as prime minister? laughter right, let's hearfrom some of the other teams in the british general election. here is the liberal democrat leader, ed davey. he was speaking in surrey and he's going to be making lots of visits to places in southern england which they like to call the blue wall because they're trying

to snatch them from the tories. we're here in surrey. everyone knows the battle here i is between the liberal democrats |and the conservatives and so manyj other counties and across the home counties in the south west of- england and many other places, too. if people want to get rid of the conservative mp, j | they need to vote liberal democrat, | and they can get that local champion that will stand up for them. and let's hear from the relatively new leader of the scottish national party, john swinney — although, of course, he's been the leader and that's what i'll be saying to the public. and we'll hear from plenty of other politicians from other parties over the next couple of weeks. i say a couple of weeks, it's more than that. alex, laura had that tantalising titbit about maybe there'll be an emergency finance bill to, like, sneak in one last tax cut before parliament cut before parliament is packed up on friday. i mean, let's see. but we do know there is definitely some stuff that has to happen in parliament in the next few days. yeah, they call it the wash—up...

another rain gag! hey, i didn't plan that one! what day is it today? wednesday. yeah. so, thursday is probably going to be quite a busy parliamentary session because they're going to try and get everything through because that's going to be the kind of wash up day and there's loads of bills kind of outstanding on the list. you know, things like the renters reform bill when you're talking about changing renters rights. and the big question over whether or not that's going to get through and michael gove has made various commitments about that in the past. i mean, this stuff which happens to other... i'll be honest, quite a lot of the big stuff i think was tailing off anyway in the expectation that we're approaching election territory. but there's still some fairly active bits of legislation that they're going to have to plough through. question mark, will they get it through on thursday or not before parliament does what it's called prorogue on friday, which is effectively break up? this week? next week. 0k. right. next week is just a few days to do this. there is something about

you mentioned it before. friday is the energy cap announcement. we're expecting it to fall to something between £15—£1,600 for a typical household, which is another cut. the one you mentioned, you'd had your direct debit notice of our our good friend — our actual good friend on this podcast — steve at politico — he did long lens snap the energy secretary seemingly with a memo suggesting that there was going to be some sort of energy package around the cuts in the energy price cap in addition to that, so watch out for that. that wouldn't be inconsistent with an offer to the public ahead of a general election around their energy bills. the big six energy companies and they wouldn't like everything that was there. so that's something to watch out for on friday. just to correct myself, this friday is when parliament is going to prorogu. they're not going to get anything through. so that's a very long day. thank you for keeping me company,

especially as chris mason has stood me up. to be fair, he's had a busy day. yeah, true. and also imagine he stood under a hand dryer as he's been in downing street for about two hours. yeah, my left sock is still wet. we need a towel. and one new shoe for alex. we need a towel. right, thanks to you two. thank you. thanks.

welcome to newsday. reporting live from singapore, i'm steve lai. the headlines. ending weeks of speculation, uk prime minister rishi sunak sets the date for a general election. the nation will vote on the 11th ofjuly. now is the moment for britain to choose its future, to decide whether we want to build on the progress we have made or risk going back to square one with no plan and no certainty. on the 4th ofjuly, you have the choice, and together we can stop the chaos, we can turn the page, we can start to rebuild britain and

change our country. we will keep you updated throughout the day here on bbc news as the five—week election campaign begins. also coming up on newsday. spain, ireland and norway say they will recognise an independent palestinian state. israel reacts angrily, recalling its ambassadors. and a rare standing ovation in the house of commons as craig mackinlay, the mp who lost his hands and feet to sepsis, returns to work. the uk prime minister rishi sunak has called a general election for thursday the 11th ofjuly. the announcement was made

after official figures showed inflation was falling again.