Election latest: Sunak heckled by GP on doctor vacancies; New poll on PM leaving D-Day commemorations early (2024)

Stephen Flynn and Nigel Farage are clashing over the NHS, after a BBC debate audience member asked how to ensure the NHS is fully functioning.

Mr Flynn accuses Mr Farage of looking to privatise it as the Reform leader says the "model isn't working".

Mr Farage called for the NHS to be "managed like as if it was a private company".

The Liberal democrats Daisy Cooper says what makes a difference "most of all" is the amount of money put into the health service, rather than the model.

The Green's Carla Denyer agrees the NHS has been "chronically underfunded for decades" and this "cannot be allowed to continue".

Inviting multinational companies further into the NHS is not the answer to protect it, she says, adding investment in needed in social care to take pressure off the NHS.

To fund it, the super-rich need to pay "quite a modest amount" to fund the services that "benefit all of us", she says.

Moving away from Politics Hub for the moment, and leading figures from seven UK political parties are going head-to-head at the BBC's election debate.

Conservative leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt has already said Rishi Sunak's decision to leave D-Day 80th anniversary events early was "completely wrong".

"The prime minister has rightly apologised for that, apologised to veterans but also to all of us, because he was representing all of us.

"I'm from Portsmouth, I have also been defence secretary and my wish is, at the end of this week, is that all of our veterans feel completely treasured."

She is joined at the debate by:

• Angela Rayner, Labour's shadow deputy prime minister
• Daisy Cooper, Liberal Democratdeputy leader
• Nigel Farage, Reform UK's leader
• Stephen Flynn, the SNP's Westminster leader
• Carla Denyer, co-leader of the Green Party in England and Wales
• Rhun ap Iorwerth, leader of Welsh party Plaid Cymru

A chaotic end to a chaotic day for the Tory campaign.

Public engagements can be risky at the best of time, never mind when you're trailing badly in the polls with four weeks until voting day.

You'd have hoped a somewhat closed-off event for Tory members in the safe Wiltshire countryside might have passed off without any bother.

Not so - on what turned into Rishi Sunak's worst day of the campaign so far.

As it turned out, the subject being raised by the heckler was quite specific and certainly not a cut and dry dressing down of the broad Tory record on the NHS.

The prime minister's response - while a little robotic - was characteristically detailed and fluent.

Yes, at one point he laughed - but only when another man interrupted to say GPs spent "more time on holiday than in the surgery".

Some in the crowd cheered at Rishi Sunak's response, while others were clearly angry at the attention being sucked up by one lone woman.

The heckler later told reporters she was still a Tory member and hadn't ruled out voting Conservative.

At the end of a torrid day for the prime minister, this was clearly a very unwelcome intervention.

But a frequent refrain from many is that campaigns are too controlled and choreographed and politicians should spend more time interacting with real people.

Well, for better or for worse, that happened today.

Shadow secretary of state for international development, Lisa Nandy, is next on the Politics Hub.

She says meetings between senior Labour figures finalising the details of its manifesto were "really positive and constructive".

Politics Hub hostAli Fortescue asks how they can be positive if Unite the Union, the country's biggest union and the Labour party's biggest donor, did not endorse the manifesto.

"It was a constructive meeting. I think everybody would agree, including Unite, that there's lots in the manifesto that we can honestly all say hand on heart will transform the prospects for working people in this country," replies Ms Nandy.

She says different views were put forward in the room, but their was a "resounding yes" for the agreed manifesto.

Asked if there is a tension with Unite, Ms Nandy says: "I wouldn't describe it as a tension, I would describe it as a constructive discussion."

Palestinian statehood

She goes on to confirm that Labour will pledge to recognise Palestinian statehood as part of a peace process.

"Palestinian statehood is not a gift to be given, it is a right to be realised and must be realised as part of a process towards a two-state solution and not an outcome of it.

"You can't have meaningful negotiations between two different parties if you don't recognise that one of them exists."

Conservative grandee David Davis says Conservative morals are "fine" following the prime minister's "mistake" leaving D-Day commemorations early.

"This is a mistake and he has apologised properly and that's the end of it," the former Brexit secretary tells the Politics Hub.

Host AliFortescue reads messages from backbench Conservative MPs to Sir David, including one calling the behaviour "just wrong" and another saying the PM is "surrounded by idiots".

Sir David responds: "I think everybody would have preferred that he stayed but the simple truth is I'm not picking up the strength of feeling you're talking about.

"I'm picking up people being sad about it... but remember the prime minister went to all of the British events first."

Asked if he thinks the reaction is overblown, Mr Davis says: "Don't put words in my mouth."

Fortescue then reads a quote from a 98-year-old D-Day veteran, which says: "Sunak let the country down today."

"Do you agree with that?"

Mr Davis says: "No I don't. I can understand people being raw and sore... but I'm afraid it was an error that he shouldn't have made and that's that. But he apologised very, very quickly."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Campaigns can unravel because of a series of unfortunate events.

An opponent can carefully unpick policy flaws.

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

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

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

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

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

Unlike gaffs of elections past, this one was planned.

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

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

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

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

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

Joining her tonight will be:

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

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

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