a fourth conservative has denied any wrongdoing over bets allegedly placed on the date of the uk general election a uk government aide has come underfire — after using derogatory language to describe the flagship rwanda migrant policy and scotland is tied nil—nil against hungary at the euros after 30 minutes of play. in tonight's other match — while switzerland lead hosts germany now on bbc news, it's newscast.

in campaigns sometimes you have the journalistic boon of recordings that were not knowingly made by the person who was speaking, if that makes any grammatical sense. it doesn't, really... one such recording made its way to my ears in the last couple of days, rather unfortunately for the home office, where a member of james cleverly�*s team is overheard saying something rather rude. so we will be talking about that on today's newscast, and all the other news. and henry is with us, too. newscast, from the bbc. hello, it's patty in the studio. and it's laura in the studio. and it's henry in the studio. it is very nice to have you with us. so, there is a scoop. which is, a recording made of a minister saying that the rwanda policy is crap. and, laura, you have got a hold of it. idid. shall we listen to it before we discuss? ...has anyone got their cameras on? the policy is crap. 0k? it is. but it is not about policy, it isi about the effect of the policy. there is second and third order effects, and australia, - for example, their policy had a devastating effect. - there is no doubt at all, - when those first flights take off,

it will send shock wave across the channel. . oh, dear. so, henry, as a political hack, when you hear that, what do you think? i think belting story, i think that it is extremely embarrassing for the conservative party, especially on a morning, just before a morning where they have put the home secretary, james cleverly, out to go and try and get this question of immigration and asylum into the centre of the campaign. i mean, it is worth saying, the comments probably are not quite as disloyal as the use of the word. at the start of the clip, it might make you think. but, as i thinkjames says in his response to you, when you put this to him, he was being candid. candid can be a euphemism, candour is not welcomed by campaign chiefs during an election campaign, as in so, candidly acknowledging that he still thinks the flights will be deterrent but there are issues, is not really what the conservative party

is going for 11 days out from polling day. no, it is not the script. and it is worth saying, we should be completely clear about this, whatjames sunderland has said to me in response to this is that he meant the response to the policy was crap, and that it will ultimately work and essentially, that the idea of moving migrants around the world is not something you would do for its own reason, but the position they have got into is that this is the weight to do it, is the way to do it, they say they do not have a choice and he does believe that the policy will work. the thing is, you can hear in that clip he says, has anyone got their phones are cameras on? he knows he is about to say something honest. about to give an honest view, and he knows also that people will raise their eyebrows when they hear it. so, where is that recording made? he was speaking at a private event, run by the true blue patrons club, it was a dinner event for young conservatives where senior conservatives like him, a member of the home office ministerial team,

he is james cleverly�*s pps, are invited along to go and speak to them privately. it was at the beginning of april this year. so it is recent, mr sunderland is disappointed that he was recorded. an event like that, it is not what you would expect. but obviously as a member of the home office team, obviously when rwanda has been such a controversial and important policy to this government, there is a public interest in hearing what he said in those candid remarks. also, it takes me to the phrase true blue. because there are many blues, and someone who has leaked this got in as a conservative, as a blue, but it is from, perhaps, on the pastel shades. laughing it is a different blue to the sunak blue. this has the whiff to me of rivalries within the conservative party, someone releasing this. this is not an interloper from the labour party who is got into the true blue. well of course, we would never talk about resources as journalists. however, one of the things you highlight there is the rwanda policy is not something that all conservatives have been happy about. the home secretary himself has never quite denied that he also used the word that we can bleep out,

where he said the policy was... so, this is something that has been a problem, and it is interesting, there are quite a few conservatives, i don't know if you would agree with this, henry, but over the months there are quite a few conservatives who have said privately, why is rishi sunak making illegal immigration so prominent, because it is very hard for any government to do that much about it. it is an international issue. whereas, if he actually looked more at legal migration, where governments can, post—brexit, do quite a lot to influence the numbers and some people believe that was a political mistake. to ever go for this slogan in the first place. totally right. and you have conservatives who complained that through talking so much about illegal immigration, rishi sunak has basically raised the salience of immigration more generally. and the public, particularly members of the public who are most anxious about immigration, do not necessarily make that distinction.

but here is another logic gap. nigel farage promised me as a voter that if i went for brexit, i could get immigration under control. nigel farage is now apparently doing cakeism, because he is standing again. and have i got to forget that in an earlier iteration he told me that brexit would mean i could control hoardes, queues, he did that! but aren't you as a voter more likely to direct your anger to the people who have been in government? for the... isn't it eight years today since the brexit referendum? it is. and you are more likely to direct your anger at those conservative party politicians who, i mean, borisjohnson and michael grove would subsequently say, no, it isjust about control. it is not about the numbers themselves, it was about having the democratic authority to... but it is undeniable, the number of illegal migrants under the post—brexit system who have come to the uk, has been high. higher than before. and certainly higher than a lot of those voters wanted. and that is one of the big

challenges, one of the many, sort of, 14 years in government challenges. for rishi sunak, who wasn't around at that time, though he did vote leave, of course. to confront in this general election campaign. that is absolutely right. we should say that the numbers of legal migration have now started to come down, partly because of a product of some of the changes that the government has made to visa routes, but also because that seems to be the general way in which it is going. but the number of boat crossings have been going back up again, and that is very challenging for rishi sunak and the home secretary, appearing on programmes like this morning, having to defend something which was a massively prominent promise, they raised the prominence of this whole issue and they are extensively not being able to keep that promise. it is tricky for labour as well, not because they want to ditch the rwanda policy. but when you say, well, how are you going to actually address this?

they have got very colourful language. but their plan is not that different to the one that conservatives have been pursuing, which has not worked. here is bridget phillipson. it will focus directly at source on dealing with the issue, - so our border security command will have an extra 1000 - cross—border officers - which will deal with the gangs, they will seek to smash the gangs, but alongside that, _ i think it is scandalous - that we are spending millions of pounds every day on unsuitable hotel accommodations. _ |we have got to clear that backlog, j the conservatives have completely broken the asylum system, completely broken it. - they know themselves i that this rwanda gimmick is not going to work, - we have heard from the home secretary, the fruity language he used to describe this, - we have heard from his own aide that he thinks the policy is crap. | i love the phrase, fruity language. it is not used enough in politics. ...fruity, but she did the double there, she had fruity and she then used the word. i know, i had to think yesterday, are we allowed to say it on saturday mornings? there should be a bell... we will find out whether it goes on iplayer or not. it is a useful reminder, listening to that interview there, that labour, if it wins onjuly

the 5th, is not going to reduce waiting lists onjuly the 5th in hospitals, isn't going to stop the boats onjuly the 5th, isn't going to have more money onjuly the 5th, isn't going to fill in the gap here. so, there will be boats arriving onjuly the 5th for keir starmer to be worried about. which is one of the reasons keir starmer always says, look, lam promising hope, but it is realistic hope. and frank hope is, which often makes me think,... isn't that a bloke? he might have been a writer on the two ronnies, or something. laughter but he is that, you know, | keir starmer is and is very unusuall position at the moment of simultaneously trying to be the hopey, changey guy, as you would be if you are... let's call him frank hope. frank hope is trying, exactly, but he is also trying to preemptively manage expectations for the victory that he claims to not at all be complacent about. so, can ijust say here on newscast, on sunday, there will be boat arrivals in july the day after the general election. well, it depends on what the weather will be like on that particular day, but it seems quite plausible. the other thing, by the way,

that really struck me, as i digested laura's scoop, is when we used to talk about in the studio in february, march, rumours of an early general election, rumours that a general election might take place before the autumn, one of the big rationales that those in the conservative party who wanted an early election, a summer election, would say to me and i am sure to laura as well... was, well, if you have an election before a flight has taken off for rwanda, then that becomes one of the huge issues of the campaign. the conservative campaign will be able to say either you vote for us and a flight takes off on july the 5th or you vote for labour and a flight will never take off. they have done that a bit and james cleverly did that a bit today. but i wouldn't say it has been anywhere close to one of the top themes of the campaign, and ijust think that it's really interesting. because i think a lot of conservatives would assume that would have been a much bigger part of their campaign than it has been.

partly it hasn't been because they've been waylaid onto all sorts of other things that we will talk about. but also come i think they have chosen to fight an economy and tax—based campaign rather than an immigration campaign. and that is an interesting political choice. especially if it doesn't go that well for them. it's very interesting. and the rwanda issue also feeds into the theories around why they went for a summer election. and a tory source said to me very explicitly yesterday, in their view, mps were told we'd go in the autumn, a flight would have taken off. and that's why we're going to wait until the autumn, because by then planes will be going, they're going to the spring. and their view was that means that the government knows with dozens, a dozen sorry, around a dozen challenges to the plan in the british courts that actually, it's going to unravel in real time if they carried on trying to do the plan and they thought, oh, my god, we can't have that. and that's the reason why they went for an early election. but look, theories will abound. documentaries will be made, books will be written on all of this. but it is that, kind of what's happened around rwanda is a very, very interesting sort

of moving political piece. and it's also this frustration as well. there are some conservatives who think they should have fought a very clear security election. labour still hasn't matched the defence spending, for example. they don't match the rwanda plan. you could have, a minnister saying to me the other day scary security election, and they chose not to do that as well. so it's interesting. and you could have had a post rate cut election. yes, but this is for the future documentary makers. if only we knew who would make them. so we move on to the simple matter of gambling on the date of a general election, which is something that we never thought we'd be here discussing, because that's now what the gambling commission is looking into under the terms of the 2005 gambling act, section 42, it is against the act to trade or to gamble with inside information, to use privileged knowledge, or to assist somebody else to do so. and we are now with a growing list which is embarrassing the conservative party. we know, courtesy of the sunday times, excellent reporting this morning,

there is a fourth conservative, nick mason, the party's data officer, who says he hasn't done anything wrong, but he took a leave of absence from the party last night. and he is being looked at, we understand, by the gambling commission... and denies any wrongdoing. and he denies any wrongdoing. however, this again, is one of these stories that just allows, as each day goes on, labour to keep hammering the drum for their claims that the conservatives are about cronyism. they're out for themselves, they're not interested in the public, they're more interested in their own profit and this kind of story. henry, it's a kind of, to use that word, it has that elusive cut through. and there's already evidence from focus groups, isn't there, that have been happening around the country. and newscasters, let us know. you know, i know our programme inbox is full of people saying basically,

i cannot believe this. if you had to script the worst possible development for the conservative campaign in the last couple of weeks of this general election, i think it would have been fanciful and bizarre to come up with this. and yet here they are. this is i mean, my mental thesaurus is not big enough to come up with the words to do justice to this. but let me also identify a practical problem for the conservative party here. the final couple of weeks of a campaign aren't really about the air war, they're about the ground war. they're about turning out people to vote. they're about knowing where your voters are. how to get them to the polls and where to focus your energies. and for reasons beyond rishi sunak's control, they now are without their chief data officer and their director of campaigns, who, as i understand it, is effectively their sort of field, field operator, that's what you'd call them in america. that seems quite a big problem for the conservative party in terms

of doing what they need to do in the last couple of weeks. the rishi sunak stuff can carry on untrammelled albeit he's only going to get asked questions about this for the next few days, which is not ideal for him. but the actual practical business of getting votes in a general election is, i'd imagine, quite significantly hindered by the fact that these people, nick mason and tony lee, have taken leaves of absence. i think it's undeniably true. i mean, and what more, if people are trying to make the case that actually the tory campaign, as some of their own candidates believe, is kind of... over? giving up? i'm not saying that, that's the view of some conservatives. somebody said to me, that is just, look, it's done and dusted. if you haven't got two of the people who've got really important roles actually with their bums in seats, getting on with the job. how could any hopes of them turning it around really be pursued? it certainly got much harder. the other practical thing tojust mention is that this is a political scandal, i think _ i think that it is a scandal. yes.

and michael gove said it was like watergate. but for the individuals concerned, i mean, we've all become much more familiar with section 42 of the 2005 gambling act than we ever were before, iassume. and these are offences where the maximum penalty is imprisonment. so this is very serious for some of the most senior people in the conservative party. obviously, they deny wrongdoing. and i'm not saying that should they end up being charged, that would be what the penalty would be. but we're not talking slap on the wrist or fine here, potentially. but in the case of the brexit referendum, there was a lot of suggestion that in the financial markets people were shorting the pound, expecting the outcome. and that is not illegal. that's. .. so we've got this weird thing where information that i might guess at or know in the bookies is going to take me to trouble, whereas making millions off the leave vote is apparently is fine. but isn't that the difference as well as the, you know, punting on your own on bookmakers online website and shorting the markets... the big difference here is the allegation, we don't know this, but the allegation that these people knew the outcome, they were not

making an extremely educated guess as someone working in politics might be able to do on all sorts of things. the claim is that they were among the very few people in on the secret. a few days before, i mean, the only one where we know is, we know that craig williams placed his bet, i think the sunday before rishi sunak called the election on the wednesday. and the claim is that they were among a very few, a very small group of people who were not making the most educated guesses it's possible to make. they were making dead cert. well, and that's that's what it was said to me in the bookies in essex. sorry, i didn't mean to speak over you. i went into a bookies in essex. true blue, in essex. very rare to get access with a microphone. and that's, what henry has said is exactly what one of the punters betting on royal ascot said to me. there's a difference to a tip from the stable lad who tells you, old kuenssberg, is going to do very well in the 315. there's a difference when you absolutely know. is a different thing, as you've explained very

well, without referring to me as an old nag, i'm grateful for that. it was an accident. no, i said, without referring to me as an old nag. don't do it in retrospect, the scam. but it is really serious. and that's why this morning the home secretary, james cleverly, was very reluctant really to say anything at all. if people have acted - inappropriately, i'm not going to defend that. i will be happy to condemn that. but the point is that just as others in other parties have made it clear that the appropriate thing to do i is wait for investigations to be | concluded before we decide whether or not sanctions i are appropriate or. what they should be. that is the case here. and as i say, i've been told, i've been told explicitly - by the gambling commission not to discuss this. _ interesting, though, because rishi sunak was quite happy to say, i'm terribly angry. this is appalling if it's happened. and then today he was much more sober. so maybe there is a sense and i'm speculating,

maybe there is a sense that actually the scale of this might be spreading, as you have suggested, that this might be a first wave of something more serious, but who knows? but it's a busy old time because we're in the middle of the general election. lots of different things that have been knocking around in the news today. one of the things we asked bridget phillipson, who wants to be education secretary in a couple of weeks' time, about this morning, was whether or not labour would continue with the proposed banning of teaching gender ideology in schools if they win the election. this is what she had to say. many aspects of the draft had good and straightforward - principles in it. other elements of it, i think, - drifted far too much into partisan and unnecessary language that i think makes it harder- for schools to navigate this. so if i were education secretary, i'd want to look at all— of the responses that we've received to the consultation. _ i know that, for example, - school leaders have flagged areas that they feel is still outstanding within the guidance. _ we would want to look at that, do it responsibly, work- with parents, with young people, and with the profession -

to get this right. and she was talking about schools in england there, and she didn't quite want to spell it out, but it sounded to me as if they would properly, if they win, ditch that specific part of the guidance, which would ban the teaching of gender, ideology, ideology in classrooms. but she didn't quite say that this morning. yeah, and i'm not linking the two issues, but there's a there's a raft of issues, about 100 of them, where labour are being asked, ooh, what would you do differently? what would you do differently in schools? differently in homes? ed miliband's out in the sunday telegraph today saying he had moved, he wouldn't... pumps, heat pumps, gas boilers and back to where we started. what would you do about small boats? what would you do about legal migration? it's a campaign which began that way. what would labour do differently? i remember very well i was sitting here and we were digesting all of this and you've said it could be the security gap on defence spending. it could be where we're going to go with future treaties, but instead it's being dominated by events. and these issues are not getting the headlines, henry, that they would do in a normal election campaign.

i think that's absolutely right. although there was a potentially quite damaging headline for labour on their approach to gender identity more generally, not specifically in schools on saturday in the times. j.k rowling and laura asked bridget phillipson about that. and it also came up at thursday's question time leader's special, where i was there in the spin room, and keir starmer got a question about comments he had made about rosie duffield, a labour mp who's a very outspoken women's rights campaigner. and so i do think as they make that transition into government, these questions and the divisions frankly within labour about how to handle them are only going to become more pressing because they won't be able to say, well, this is our view on the government's guidance. it becomes this is what we're doing. and if they win, which might be in 11 days' time, they will no longer be able to say, well, we don't have access to all of the information, which has been quite a regular response from labour spokespeople in the last couple of years. so here's a gotcha in reverse then.

what, a cha—got? j.k rowling... yes, that's right, a cha—got. i can see you're taking revenge for the 315. but the, if, if labour can be asked the right series of questions in the 11 days that remain, they could be embarrassed on the front page of the mail again. well, we always try to ask the right series of questions. have you sitting there saying, well, if... but just to say that j.k rowling's intervention is beyond the tv studios. indeed. i'm not seeking, i'm not doing anything, i'm not saying anything about the journalist question. i'm saying if the issue emerges, which is not part of the script, that could be that, still, we must we must be able to say that the if we've learned anything from this election campaign, it's expect the unexpected. the power of events outside the control of the politicians has been proven in this campaign. absolutely. and as we talked about yesterday, labour itself believes there are still about seven million votes in play. still, lots of things could happen. 11 days is a long time. and newscasters, i know i'm boring

on this and i say it every week, but be careful about thinking that anything is settled. don't believe all the polls that you read. this is still an election where there's a potential for all sorts of things to take place that we cannot yet predict and are still very important issues for all of the parties to address, not least the snp, who's found itself this morning in a kind of embarrassing story that sounds like it might be a bit of a joke and not a very big deal. where there's been a whatsapp message is turned up in the sunday mail, fine scottish newspaper, where staff appear to bejoking about what they call the stamp fairy. now, this is not a kind of flatly that the right word? yeah. yes. this is about whether or not public money, taxpayers cash, has been used for campaigning purposes. and that is not ok. that is not something that is allowed. and we had this morning the first minister of scotland, john swinney, on the programme for the first time. and so we asked him whether or not he was sure that no taxpayer's cash

was being used for the election. |well, i've obviously discussed this| with my staff and i've been assured that no parliamentary stamps that have been provided by— parliament have been used . to support election purposes. and obviously the parliament has said that they're looking into this| matter and obviously we'll provide parliament with any _ assistance that they require - as they undertake those inquiries. one whatsapp message reported this morning sent to an snp group chat, your assistant wrote: the stamp fairy is very useful when it comes to campaigns. who's the stamp fairy? well, we campaign on a regular basis in my capacity _ as a member of parliament. so we're engaging with the public on a countless range _ of different issues. hmm. well, i mean, this is particularly damaging potentially for the snp, isn't it, because of the reason that john swinney is leader of the snp, which is the sort of rolling perma—crisis in the snp for the last couple of years, which is about separate allegations to do with how

they separate party finances from other finances. and so this could not be more laser guided to an existing snp vulnerability. and you could sort of hear in john sweeney's careful response there with a long pause at the start of his answer to the stamp fairy that he's trying to tread through it very delicately, but that it's potentially quite damaging. it's kind of a punch of the same bruise, isn't it? exactly. i'm told by our producer. there's a delay on the line, though, we have to take into account oh, sorry. into account... oh, sorry. we have to take into account. but beyond that, it reminds me of the fact that i wanted to yesterday say there are two governments and two incumbents, the snp in edinburgh, the conservatives in westminster both have the record to have to talk to the record... and labour in wales. and the conservatives keep trying

to get voters in wales in particular obviously to vote, but more generally to focus on labour's record on the nhs in wales. and they haven't managed it, but they keep trying, you know, i mean actually the sort of polling suggests that labour are going to make real gains in wales, but that's a real source of frustration for the conservatives in england. sorry to interrupt. no, no. i think you've made it clearer that there is the traditional way to go isjudge me on my record. and if you're the opposition, you sayjudge them on their record like that. so inevitably, we're coming to the end of this. we've been trying to draw some threads together, and i think we say an election teaches us to expect the unexpected in tardis time. i think that is an extremely good summary.

live from london. this is bbc news. gunmen have attacked two churches and a synagogue in the southern russian republic of dagestan — six policemen are reported dead. local officials say the religious sites were also set on fire. chaos at one of the uk's busiest airports, after a power cut disrupts the journeys of up to 90,000 passengers. a fourth conservative has denied any

wrongdoing over bets allegedly placed on the date of the uk general election. and scotland are tied 0—0 with hungary at the euros at half time — while switzerland lead hosts germany 1—0. hello, i'm martine croxall. gunmen have attacked two orthodox churches, a synagogue and a police checkpoint in the southern russian republic of dagestan. dagestan has been a target of islamist attacks in the past. the local interior ministry said six police officers were killed and another 12 were wounded in the cities of derbent and makhachkala, both on the caspian sea. state media is reporting that a russian orthodox priest has also been killed. the authorities say four attackers have been shot dead. earlier, i spoke to my colleague at the bbc russian service, famil ismailov who gave me this update.