🧵In our focus group in Hitchin for The Guardian we heard from voters genuinely torn between conflicting instincts on how to vote: their usual conservative tendency, fury at the mini budget, a desire for change but also worry about the 'unknown' of Labour. theguardian.com/politics/artic…

Ed Davey's first newspaper interview of the campaign

— Manifesto pledge to extend free school meals to all primary schoolchildren
— No conversations with Starmer so far
— What differentiates him and Starmer? He says actually they have a lot in common

theguardian.com/politics/artic…

Angela Rayner often described as Prescott to Starmer’s Blair. But she won’t be following his campaign strategy.

“I don’t have any plans to punch anyone,” she jokes. “But I hope nobody assaults me with an egg. If we keep to the rules, no one will get hurt”
theguardian.com/politics/artic…

Friday’s The Guardian front page: Guilty on all counts theguardian.com/us-news/articl…

BREAKING: Former Tory MP Mark Logan defects to Labour, telling BBC Politics party could 'bring back optimism into British life'.

Logan, who represented highly marginal Bolton NE until Parliament was dissolved, is standing down but says application to join Labour is in today.

NEW: Rishi Sunak is confronted about Partygate by a worker who lost his mother during the Covid pandemic.

“How can anyone trust you, or the party, after things like this?”

NEW: Faiza Shaheen, blocked by Labour from standing in Chingford & Woodford Green, announces she'll challenge decision in courts, claiming she has faced campaign of racism, Islamophobia & bullying. By Heather Stewart
theguardian.com/politics/artic…

When I joined the Evening Standard as a young(ish) political reporter in 2006 it had five print editions & helped make the political weather throughout the day. Good luck & love to all my friends still there ❤️