with a splash on ofwat's plan to save the struggling water companies. the mirror leads with the police investigation into angela rayner being ended, with no further action. the telegraph pictures rishi sunak — with a claim that he is consulting former prime minister borisjohnson about the election. the times also leads with rishi sunak — saying he plans cuts to university places — to encourage more apprenticeships. the daily mail has a different take on the same story — saying that mr sunak plans to get rid of mickey mouse university courses. and it's the same story in the daily express — which uses the phrase rip—off instead. time now to digest the day's election campaigning in newscast — with adam fleming and the team. dharshini, hello. hello. welcome back to the newscast studio. thank you for having me back.

from the economics office. that's why i'm calling your office? that is economics pit. is that... 7 well, it's on the second floor, though, isn't it? it is. yeah. anyway. more details of the geography of this building come out later. of this building come out later this episode of newscast. alex, where are you? hello. i am at radio coventry and warwickshire along with cushions branded to match. oh, wow. everyone�*s going for the branded... dharshini, would you like to show off the newscast branded cushions? newscast branded cushion. look at that broadcasting accessory. do you know what? we've got some must have information today from the bbc, the line up of election night. it's going to be clive myrie and our very own laura kay, except listeners of newscast knew that already because laura, who's normally super cautious and chooses her words very carefully, was a little bit incautious on sunday morning when she said this... so i heard jenny, like, the other

day on newscast, and i thought she sounds like a marvellous person. however, i also have quite a strong feeling that anyone�*s calling the general electionjenny leck should be not allowed to do so. you were wondering in a new modern bbc what kind of punishment is allowed? that's exactly what. yes, exactly. because i heard the bosses are thinking of calling the election night programme. jenny lecknation decides election night programme. that's really hilarious. 0k, anyway, jenny leck is going. not with name now. dharshini, you're a proper journalist, so you'd have spotted that straightaway that she was giving something away. this just goes to show, you have to listen to newscasts if you want the exclusives ahead of time. that's all i'm going to say. do you know what you're going to be doing on the night or is that something... ? i've got to say this very carefully, haven't i? i've got a hot date with a senior politician. not a date with a senior hot politician. yeah. all will be revealed soon to me. hopefully. well, hopefully, although you've got five and a half weeks to get there. yes.

alex, which leisure centre will you be in on the night? i'm more intrigued by dharshini's non hot date date that i want. i cannot wait to hear more about. i actually don't know. although it was like a moment of sheerjoy for me today because i was in the press release about the bbc's election night coverage and i thought, well, i've made it. so yeah, i don't know what i'm going to be. i'll be somewhere around the country in like the leisure centre, probably dipping out occasionally to a cold car park, bringing you all the updates from unknown location here. and we will reveal more details about what newscast is going to do on the night when we work it out. anyway, but we can reveal more details of what's in newscast right now because we're going to do it. wow. newscast. newscast from the bbc. hello, it's adam in the studio. and it's dharshini in the studio. and it's alex at bbc, coventry and warwickshire. still can't believe they've got branded cushions there. local radio is like it's much more glamourous than when i was studentjournalist. anyway, right.

dharshini, i'm glad you're here because we've got to do some number crunching because the day has been dominated by a new conservative pledge and it's on tax rates for pensioners. give us the simple version of where we've got to with what this pledge actually is. we are being told this is a tax cut and that if you don't go to signing up to it as labour saying they will not that it's a retirement tax, but in actual fact, when is a tax cut not a tax cut? it's basically when you are cancelling a tax rise that's already in the system because it's about triple—lock on pensions. that means by which we increase the state pension. it's worked really well over the years for getting pensioners out of poverty, but an increasing number therefore have to pay income tax. and what happens because of our different fiscal drag, which we talk about quite a bit on newscast, of course, freezing those allowances at which different rates of income tax kick in that state pension, the basic state pension is going to cross over the tax free threshold as it stands in a few years�* time. so, you know, all pensioners

basically getting that would have to pay some form of income tax. and the conservatives are saying we're going to pledge to give you an extra bit of allowance to counter that so you don't have to pay that. yeah. so basically, the state pension was going up by the triple—lock every year, which means it's at least two and a half percent increase. but because the tax thresholds were frozen, the fiscal drag you were talking about, you were going to get the cross—over point. and then more people who weren't used to paying income tax, paying more income tax. yes, we're talking about millions and millions of people. right? so, i mean, you know, there's a bigger question about this triple lock, which you say it's the greater of 2.5% inflation or average earnings growth. and that means that earnings have actually grown more slowly than pensions on the whole over the last sort of ten, 15 years. what does that mean? it means that actually the bill, particularly we are all getting older. we don't like to talk about it, we're all getting older, is going to escalate quite sharply. so longer term, you know who on earth is going to tackle that? obviously, no politician will talk

about that right now. well, except rishi sunak was happy to talk about his new pledge, which he did while he was at market bosworth bowling club playing bowls. you know, what i believe is that if you work hard all your life, you should have dignity in retirement. that's why we've protected the triple—lock, which is going up by £900 this year for pensioners. but today what we've announced is the triple—lock plus. we're going to increase the personal allowance for pensioners delivering a tax cut worth around £100 to millions of pensioners, demonstrating our commitment to them, making sure that we can deliver a secure future for them. and in contrast, the labour party says that they oppose that policy, which means pensioners will be paying tax under any future labour government and that's the clear choice on offer at this election. the pm doing his pitch there. alex, dharshini now alluded to some of the politics around this and particularly the politics around the language here. here's my trick question to you — if you're about to go on the news, would you call this a tax cut? well, it's exactly as dharshini explained. i mean, the politics is obvious.

you just need to look at where rishi sunak was making that key announcement today in a bowling club. and in fact, i was on my way to said bowling club to catch up with the prime minister when i got diverted to do something else. which is why, just in case anyone was wondering, i am at coventry and warwickshire with the wonderful branded cushions. but look, the politics is really straightforward because this is a pitch to older voters. and for the conservatives, well, for all parties, older voters tend to be people who actually go and vote. so it's an important constituency of voters, not least for the conservative party, which is why politically this is aimed firmly at them. and you've already heard the conservatives trying to point the finger at labour and say, look, labour aren't making the same commitment that we are there for pensioners. they argue the conservatives, you would be worse off under labour. but of course the key couple of things about this are not just the fact that it was the conservatives who introduced these income tax threshold freezes to how much you can not how much you can earn before you start paying income tax. they were the ones that

froze those thresholds. so they really only are here undoing a bit of their own policy for when it comes to pensioners. but there's also something else worth noting which is, actually back in the day there used to always be a bit more of an allowance for pensioners, but it was george osborne when he was a conservative chancellor that got rid of that. so once again what labour is saying is that this is the conservatives just undoing their own policies around pensioners. and it also raises another question, not just about obviously what this means for pensioners, but of course these tax thresholds are remaining in place for working age people when it comes to their income tax allowances. so of course, that posed a question for the conservatives. they pointed to things like the national insurance tax cut they've already implemented. but across the board, what you're seeing, i think, isjust a shaping of this election, a framing of this election, of course, as we've said from the beginning, around the economy, because in every election campaign, the economy plays really big because it's clearly about how well off you feel, how well off you feel like the country is going,

you know, whether or not you feel better or worse off. but i think in this election in particular, what we're going to hear quite a lot of from the parties or at least from people trying to ask the parties are their tax and spend plans. because we hear time and time again not just from political parties, but also from economists and think tanks, that the economy is in a tricky position. and you've got to bear in mind that these are choices that the parties are making about where they're going to prioritise things when it comes to tax and spend. and i think there's still quite a lot of questions for all the parties around the finer details of their plans on those fronts. and dharshini, do we know how much this pledge would cost the exchequer? and how that would bre paid for? well, that's a really intriguing question. as alex is saying, this is a u—turn within a u—turn. within a u—turn and a u—turn onjust the policy we've seen. i've got motion sickness. i know i'm giddy and i look too closely at these things probably. and also, i remember a time when i was i was a political correspondent and rishi sunak was chancellor. and he was saying, we need to put national insurance up by quite a lot

to pay for the nhs after covid and then adult social care. so this is a totally different direction from what he was going in for a long time. i think sanity lies in us not looking at this stuff too much longer and just finding another job, frankly. but going back to your question about how do we fund this or how will the conservatives fund this £21; billion is what they say it would cost. now, where does that come from? have you got your bingo card out? well, i know where it's going to come from because guess what? it's clamping down on tax avoidance. very good. all of £6 billion, eventually all the parties seem to be raising on a daily basis, even though it doesn't exist yet. it doesn't exist. and it's you know, it's a nice idea. and, you know, i really have been in this business too long. so you keep hearing government after government of all colours saying this is a bit like u—turning all the time on these things. this is where we're going to get the extra money from. now, if you look at what's happened over the last decade, 15 years, there has been some progress made in clamping down on tax avoidance, which is what the government has highlighted today alongside this pledge. but then you look at what that means now the so called tax gap, what's left is down to sort

of record lows. so what does that tell you? it means that actually how much further can you squeeze it? because there'll always be some people who get away with it. and how much further can you squeeze it without pouring more resources into actually clamping down on the tax avoiders? and anyone who rings an air on hmrc helpline can tell you that maybe you're not going to get a quick answer on anything. so that's a really big question above anything else. and alex, what i love is that both labour and the tories are spending this money that they say they're going to raise from clamping down on tax avoidance. but as soon as one of the parties says they're doing that, the other party calls it an unfunded commitment, even though they then go and spend the same money on something else in their imaginations. yeah. and it's exactly as dharshini quite rightly says, is that really i mean, the parties are coming up with their estimates about how much they think they can raise from clamping down on this. but there's a genuine question mark over it. and it comes back to that other wider point about this is the announcement from the conservatives today. in response, we've heard from labor then reiterate the fact they're not going to increase working taxes. so income tax and national insurance. but when you've got parties saying, look, i mean,

the conservatives on one hand saying, well, they claim this is a tax cut. of course, as we've explained, what they're actually doing is just not increasing this tax potentially for pensioners or allowing more pensioners to be dragged into this tax. you know, and you've got labor saying we're not going to increase taxes on working age people. there does come a question about, well, look, you know, you've got to think in the round here, well, where are you going to get money from to spend on public services or where are you going to reduce money on spending on public services if you're going to do what both the parties are saying and stick to self imposed rules around things like borrowing. so i think that's the kind of what sits behind this. and of course, during election campaigns, you get what we've heard today and you'll get more of this as the campaign goes on, which is parties trying to grab the headlines and seize the agenda and talk to the voters they really want to win over. of course, that's the nature of an election campaign. but behind all of that, there's this kind of bigger question. you know, labour so keen to say their sums, add up the conservatives claiming that they've costed these policies behind all of that i think there is a big question about what all of this

is going to mean for public services in the longer term and what choices the parties are prepared to make around that. i think that brings into question a really big point behind the parties are prepared to make around that. i think that brings into question a really big point behind what alex was saying. there is, regardless of what we heard today from labor, regardless of all this tussling over a so—called retirement tax in the background working age people, many are going to see their tax bills rise in the coming years because of that baked in freezing of thresholds that fiscal drag. nobody�*s backing away from that. neither conservatives nor labor are backing away from that. and why? it's a big money spinner, over £40 billion, which is, alex says at a time when you're scrabbling around trying to work out how you fund public services, no one wants to relinquish that one. and in terms of what labour were doing proactively today, it was all about their shadow chancellor, rachel reeves. so the day started with a letter in the times newspaper from some business figures, although i think it's a mixture of current business figures, but quite a lot of ex business figures. and also some business figures that you'd never heard of because they're not super famous, saying that labor's economic policy was great and would bring much needed stability back, which means that businesses would start investing.

then rachel reeves herself did a speech and i am wondering if she's a bit of an aviation geek because she did her speech at the rolls—royce factory where they make plane engines, and then she did a q&a with keir starmer at the airbus where they make actual planes. so i'm wondering if she's not an av geek, then i wonder if maybe one of her team is. or maybe it's just that we make a lot of plane stuff in this country. we do not that many. we, do not that many. or maybe it's what we want to do. maybe we're all going to have a future as plane—maker that's all aspirational. but then though, alex, the kind of the labour story in the election is now being dominated by other things that aren't their policies. it's labour personnel, for example. angela rayner the deputy leader. yeah. so this was obviously a cloud that really threatens to hang over labour's election campaign because there were questions around angela rayner relating to a house that she had had as a council house that she had as a council house and then under right to buy she bought it and then she went on to sell this. this was all a number of years ago and you talked about it

on newscasts before, but there was this question about whether or not she's paid all the tax she should have owed on that property, but also whether or not she's registered that property correctly, where she was living at the time. and what we've had today is news from greater manchester police that they are taking no action against angela rayner because of course they were looking into this. but also the local authority says it's not taking any action against angela rayner. and also labour have told the bbc that hmrc are taking no action against angela rayner. so you can imagine you've got probably a pretty big sigh of relief echoing around the labour camp that that isn't going to hang over now the election campaign, because those three agencies have reportedly said no further action against the deputy leader. so that's going to, you would imagine, stop any further questions at least at this point for angela rayner. and the police said in their statement following allegations about she said she welcomed the result was angela rayner mp greater manchester police has completed a thorough, carefully considered and proportionate investigation. we have concluded that no further police action will be taken. so that's how the police did it in in their words. newscast from the bbc.

chris, why so breathless? i mean, you're always like an energetic chap. i would say clue in the last week. no, but the real reason is the real reason... you know, the massive reason why... the real reason the specific reason is our esteemed coronavirus newscast colleague, fergus walsh, he wrote a blog way back when this building new broadcasting house opened about the merits of using the stairs. i think basically because he got fed up waiting for the lift, but also that it's good because it's like incidental steps and a bit of cardiovascular exercise. i know i took that to heart. anyway, ijust run up the stairs a bit quick. aren't you a foul runner? i would have thought like, wow, this is not enough of a challenge. my running days are some distance behind me. but yes, never run towards a microphone, they say is the first rule of broadcasting and ijust broke it. well, anyway, i've given you a nice little gentle glide. exactly. so where were you today?

so i have been in dover today because nigel farage has appeared on the campaign trail. there was a bit of a thing, you know, about a week ago which made some news when nigel farage said he wasn't going to stand in an individual seat. and i have to say, i did think at that point that was a bit of a red herring. clearly it was a news story, but it's a bit of a red herring because i think his capacity to have an influence on this campaign was far more about what else he either chose or didn't choose to do. and actually. because you're running in a constituency, you've got to be knocking on doors, handing out leaflets, going to hustings and town halls and things. particularly if you're from one of the smaller parties and you've sort ofjust turned up really. and his argument he was saying to me today for not standing was kind of that very reason that the election had come as something of a surprise. he couldn't do the sort of build up work. but i think where his involvement has the capacity to be significant is that he did this event in dover, but it wasn't kind of like to do that and then disappear, he says, and let's see if he does it. but he says he's going to be pretty

prominent or as prominent as he can be throughout, popping up all over the place and so leaning in to being probably the most certainly the most the most, certainly the most recognisable voice for reform uk. and it's worth making the point, you know, love or loathe nigel farage and people tend to be one or the other rather than indifferent. he is one of the most influential politicians of his generation, never been an mp. i think it's seven times he's run for westminster, never managed it. he isn't doing it himself this time, but he's been hugely influential. i think that's just unquestionable. and here he is, commanding attention again and disrupting again, which is what he's made his life's political work to me. political work to be. i have to confess, i didn't get a chance to actually watch his speech. i've just been reading your coverage of it. was it 98% small boats? it was. and obviously the location was picked with that in mind. he also talks about what he claims as a rise

in or at least evidence of sectarian politics in england. looking at those local election results, looking at some people who he says might have been motivated to vote along religious lines connected to the conflict in the middle east. he's been accused of islamophobia in saying that, he says no. he says it's a small but growing issue and that plenty of muslim people, he says, would be concerned about it, too. but he's making a broader argument, which he says he's made before on other issues, that he's willing to talk about, stuff that he says the likes of rishi sunak and keir starmer are not willing to talk about. and he makes a broader point, looping back to his earlier career, suggesting that what we're seeing in the channel with small boats is a betrayal of plenty of people who voted for brexit and indeed others, because he's saying, look, there is the capacity, if there is the will, to deal with migration, legal and illegal. and in his view, it hasn't been. and we know reform have got other policies. when richard tice, their party

leader, was on newscast a few months ago talking about something else, we actually did an interview with him as if he was a party leader with normal party policies rather than somebody who just talks about small boats all the time. they've got policies on the nhs and income tax and things like that. did nigel farage mention any of that other stuff? he didn't. i mean, he brushed by it, but it was primarily about immigration. it's interesting actually, when he was reflecting in the news conference sort of out loud about about his place and the place of the parties with which he's been associated within political debate and the labels he would attach to them. so he talked about various incarnations of ukip and the brexit party predecessors to reform uk as being pressure groups, almost single issue campaigns that then found the democratic process to be the most useful to propagate their argument. and i think what's interesting about reform uk in your conversation with richard tice on newscast was that actually, what's interesting about reform uk is that they've

pitched their tent significantly more broadly and as you say, been more conventional, arguably as a political party outfit as opposed to a single issue or fairly narrow issue campaigning organisation that then seeks elected office. if i'm making rough sense. well, you've just been a very good colleague there because you're now very cleverly contextualized when i said normal political party, because i wasn't suggesting there's like something quote—unquote wrong with them. ijust meant that in the past, they've sort of, banged... is that the past participle of bang bang at one bang, bang, bang, one big drum? very loudly. yeah. now, this is not a whole load of energy. it was reflecting out loud about, you know, where is the line between now there are legal lines here because of being registered with the electoral commission, all that kind of stuff. but where is the line in our political conversation between a pressure group, a think tank and a political party? and can you sometimes sort of wave and skate between those various things?

and yeah, you know, it's sort of an interesting thought in the round of all of this. we'll have a seminar on that when we've all got more time. mid—august, maybe. there's a theory doing the rounds that a lot of the stuff that rishi sunak�*s been touting in the last couple of days, so national service and the stuff about the triple—lock plus, about the income tax threshold for pensioners is designed to appeal to people who are tempted to vote for reform. do you think that theory�*s got legs? yeah, i think there's something in that because you look at why is what nigel farage saying today sort of newsworthy, interesting, important? it's because reform have been doing pretty well for a newish political party in the opinion polls, and they have a particular capacity to spook the conservatives. why? because i think it's reasonable to assume that a disproportionate number of potential reform voters are recent conservative voters. so i think there is something in what the conservatives are doing in terms of tacking in the direction of where reform uk may be, if you like, fishing for votes. i think there's another thing which i think the conservatives

in the last week have had a strategy of trying to grab attention, announce new policy. so their policy on national service, their policy on pensions are new policies. now, they will cause an argument and some people will disagree with them and others will try and pick holes in them and all the rest of it. it's the nature of a campaign, but they are new and that to a degree is distinct from what we've seen from certainly from labour, who have been seeking to be certainly vigilant in not being drawn into reacting to the conservatives and not setting out anything that has come out of absolutely nowhere, for better or worse. and i think that speaks to where the two parties find themselves at the start of this campaign, where the incumbents are curiously the challengers, because the opinion polls suggest that that they are not the favourites, ie the conservatives and labour as the challengers because they are not in government, and hope when they look at those

opinion polls and focus groups and all the rest of it that they can even should win and therefore don't want to do anything that could jeopardise that without also including, by the way, ever giving the impression outwardly that they are overly confident because they are very conscious of that not coming across as well. one of the other things nigel farage did was offer to have a debate with rishi sunak about immigration an offer the prime minister turned down, but he has accepted another one, which is to have a head to head with keir starmer on itv at some point next week. but we don't know anything about the ground rules or what day it will be or how it's going to work. so we will be watching. yeah. so, so again, the politics the politics in a general election campaign of the debate about debates, a party that feels that it has got ground to make up, perhaps nothing to lose once as many debates as possible. a party that thinks the opposite will be more careful around the debates it's perhaps willing to say yes to.

but the prospect of a head to head debate and i think there'll be more than one is a moment, isn't it? that will be a moment, perhaps may be seen as the first big moment of the campaign. well, unless something big happens between now and then, so and there'll be associated hullabaloo in the build up and then in the sort of glide path down from that debate, particularly the head to head, because, of course, wherever you are in the uk and whatever your political view might be, you may perfectly reasonably think, gosh, there's one heck of a lot of focus on the conservatives and labour, but in reality with our political system, there are two candidates to be prime minister and so they do sit in the conversation and the debate on a on a plane, if you like, a little higher than than than the other parties. than the other parties. and that debate will kind of crystallise that. there'll be debates to come, no doubt, on the bbc and elsewhere, that feature a far broader range

of voices that reflects the breadth of the conversation around the uk. i've just had a message saying chris has to go right now. all right. bye, then. well, that was news to me. i'm not kicking you out. i follow instruction. time's up. i need to go. newscast from the bbc. hello. we've seen a lot of wet weather around lately. the ground is already pretty saturated in many spots, but on tuesday there were some sunny spells around. and of course, in the best of the sunshine at this time of year, it always feels pleasantly warm. but the general theme doesn't change over the next couple of days. more heavy thundery downpours in the forecast, some brighter spells in between. it won't be raining all the time,

but it has been very wet over the last 2a hours or so with this band of rain pushing eastwards, clearing away into the north sea. some showers still behind it as we head into wednesday morning. but it is a mild start to the day. and then on wednesday, it's another day of scattered heavy downpours, also some brighter spells, of course. this time the focus for the thundery showers will tend to be across central and eastern areas of scotland. now, some of these showers could be particularly slow moving with light winds. so they could last for some time and lead some very high rainfall totals, maybe even some flash flooding. so do take care within this area. also, some thunderstorms breaking out across northeast england, down through lincolnshire, parts of east anglia, too. a good scattering of showers elsewhere, possibly drier out towards the south and west by the end of the day. and it will feel a bit warmer highs of 19, maybe 20 degrees in the south east of england, perhaps a few changes as we go into thursday. the low is now pulled away. high pressure starts to build in from the west. that spells better news in time for the weekend. but still another day of showers on thursday. this time, the heaviest, most thundery of the showers will tend to be across the south of england and south wales. a good scattering of more isolated showers, though,

still further north. and it will be feeling a bit cooler, too, on thursday with more of a northerly wind blowing. so a slight drop in temperature for many of us as we go into friday. the high pressure has been building in, remember? so lots of dry weather with some sunshine developing, but windy and really quite cloudy for many eastern coastal areas, particularly for east anglia down through parts of kent as we head through friday. so there will be some cloud around and it won't be feeling particularly warm, but temperatures could build a little further through the weekend, particularly out towards the north and the west as that high pressure starts to edge in. so lots of dry weather, but just a brisk wind for those north sea facing coasts and also more in the way of cloud here. but we could get to 21 to 22 degrees celsius in parts of the north and the west, maybe. bye— bye.

welcome to newsday. i'm steve live. closing arguments in the fraud trial of the former us president donald trump are continuing in an extended day. israel presses ahead with its assault on rafah — despite international condemnation of a deadly strike that killed dozens of palestinians over the weekend. we're on the frontline in ukraine, with a special report from the northeast of the country — where russia's attack grows in strength. the attack grows in strength. ukrainians are having to make the ukrainians are having to make some very hard choices about what they can defend and they're fighting an enemy that has adapted itself to exploit their weaknesses. and babies who are fed peanut butter are drastically less likely to develop an allergy to the nut — according to a new study.