General election live: Tories hint at bids to replace Rishi Sunak in leadership contest as PM quizzed on betting scandal

Keir Starmer has said a controversial new advert from the Tories depicting people with their hands up and urging voters not to “surrender” to Labour is “desperate”, Kate Devlin reports.

Asked about the advert, the Labour leader told reporters: “This is really desperate stuff and I’m surprised by it.

“I think it underlines the difference between the two campaigns. They are running a very negative campaign, nothing about the future of the country.

“I’m very happy to be the candidate going into the final week who is putting forward a more positive case for the change the country needs.”

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The shadow foreign secretary has said the Conservatives are the wrong “class” to run Britain and accused them of having a “public-school smallness”.

Mr Lammy said Boris Johnson, David Cameron and James Cleverly had a “casual frippery” when he attended Trooping the Color.

The Labour candidate said: “There was a sort of demob happiness about them, a sort of casual frippery, a certain kind of public-school smallness,” he told the New Statesman.

“They are not the class of people that Britain needs to run it now, and that’s what my own life story tells me.

“The Labour Party is full of people – Angela Rayner, for instance; I was with her yesterday, campaigning in Mansfield – she gets this.”

Sir Ed Davey took an alpaca named Pele for a walk during a visit to Clivewood Farm in North Shropshire, to support the Liberal Democrat candidate Helen Morgan.

After a half-hour stroll to a nearby field with others walking six other alpacas, the Liberal Democrat leader described the election date betting allegations and the wider gambling scandal as “awful”.

Sir Ed said: “The idea that people walked into 10 Downing Street, were told the date of an election, and it appears… they went and bet on something that they knew the outcome of – I think everyone can see that’s wrong.

“And I think these MPs who appear to have bet against themselves – that’s highly questionable too. We need an urgent review, as soon as this is all over in a week’s time, by the Gambling Commission of betting with respect to politics to see whether we need much clearer rules.”

Speaking from inside a pen containing seven alpacas, including Pele, Sir Ed added: “I know they say be careful working with animals but these are fantastic aren’t they. It’s a lot easier than falling off a paddleboard in Lake Windermere.”

Sir Keir Starmer has claimed there is “no evidence” that private schools will be forced to close if Labour implements VAT on them.

The Labour leader told Sky News he would use the money from the taxation to fund struggling state schools.

In an interview with Sophie Ridge, he said: “I think they will adapt. They’ve had lots of increases in costs over the last 14 years, and they’ve accommodated it.

“There’s no evidence to show these schools will close. They don’t have to pass the cost on to parents.”