10:00PM
That’s all for today…
Thank you for joining The Telegraph’s live coverage of day 15 of the general election campaign.
My colleague Jack Maidment will be back early tomorrow to guide you through the day’s developments.
9:45PM
Reject Hester cash, Labour chairman tells Tory candidates
The Labour Party’s chairman has written to all Tory candidates urging them to reject cash from Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) which she said was “tainted” by donations from Frank Hester.
It emerged earlier on Thursday that the party accepted a third £5 million donation from the businessman after it emerged that he had allegedly told staff in 2019 that Diane Abbott made him “want to hate all black women” and “should be shot”.
Anneliese Dodds said in her letters that 50p in every pound raised by the party for the election campaign has been donated by the businessman and urged Rishi Sunak and Richard Holden, the Tory chairman, to return the money.
She wrote: “But if they will not return that money in light of these latest revelations, then you have a decision to make. Will you do the right thing and stand up to them?
“If not, every leaflet you fold and every social media advert you post makes you personally reliant on the money of someone with a proven record of racist remarks. I therefore appeal to you.
“Tell CCHQ you do not want that tainted money, show that Hester has no place in British politics and provide the moral backbone for your party that Sunak and Holden have refused to show.”
9:28PM
Duguid: Scots Tories took no medical advice before blocking me from standing
The Scottish Conservatives did not take “any professional medical prognosis” before barring a former minister recovering from a spinal illness from standing for re-election and parachuting party leader Douglas Ross in as his replacement, it has been claimed.
David Duguid had been selected by local members for the Aberdeenshire North and Moray East seat before being blocked by a party committee for being unfit to stand.
“It has been reported and repeated that I am ‘unable to stand’,” he said in a statement on Thursday. “This is simply incorrect. Having been adopted by local members, I was very much looking forward to campaigning – albeit in a different format from normal. It was not my decision not to stand.
“It was the SCU [Scottish Conservative and Unionist] management board that decided not to allow me to be the candidate although none of them had visited me. They apparently took this decision based on two visits from the party director and without receiving any professional medical prognosis.
“Needless to say I am very saddened by the way this whole episode has unfolded and it would be wrong of me to pretend otherwise.”
9:11PM
Sunak denies being ‘liar’ after £2,094 Labour tax rises row
Rishi Sunak has denied being a “liar” after a row over a Conservative claim that Labour would introduce £2,094 of tax rises for every working family.
In a trailer for his first interview since Tuesday’s debate, where he made the claim repeatedly, Mr Sunak said “no” when asked by ITV News if he was prepared to lie to get re-elected.
He said: “I think it’s pretty desperate stuff and Keir Starmer and the Labour Party are obviously very rattled that we’ve exposed their plans to raise tax on people, and that’s what it demonstrates.”
He added: “There are 27 different policies that go into this number. 21 of them have been costed independently by Treasury officials, they’re all online and people can find them.
“Two of them come direct from the Labour Party, three of them from other public Government sources, and one of them’s from an independent investment bank.”
Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murty, his wife, at D-Day commemorations in Normandy, France on Thursday
Credit: Ludovic Marin/Pool via AP
8:58PM
I have ‘full confidence’ in Vaughan Gething, says Mahmood
Shabana Mahmood has said she has “full confidence” in Vaughan Gething despite the Welsh First Minister losing a no confidence vote in the Senedd on Wednesday.
The shadow justice secretary told BBC Two’s Question Time: “Yes I do. I have full confidence in Vaughan Gething. He has not broken any rules. He has said that the surplus that was donated to him will be donated to progressive causes.
“What we saw happen the other night in the Senedd was a political gimmick led by the Tory party, aided and abetted by their friends in Plaid [Cymru], and actually we have full confidence in Vaughan.
“He needs to be able to get on with his job. He’s a democratically elected leader in Wales and he has the full confidence of the Labour Party.”
8:53PM
Audience groans as Labour frontbencher says Wales record is ‘blueprint’
The Question Time audience groaned when a Labour frontbencher insisted the party’s record in Wales was a “blueprint” for a Sir Keir Starmer-led Government.
Shabana Mahmood, the shadow justice scretary, refused to say four times if Welsh Labour was a “blueprint” before saying it was.
“We’re very proud of our record in Wales,” she said. “It is a blueprint for us.”
As the audience groaned, Mark Harper, the transport secretary, interjected: “Why? Why are you? It’s terrible.”
Labour has been in control of Wales since 1999 and has been criticised in recent years over poor school performance, tax hikes for second home owners, the scrapping of road-building projects and a blanket 20mph speed limit in areas which were previously 30mph, which ministers later reversed.
8:42PM
Brexit has made Britain a ‘destination for investment’
Leaving the European Union (EU) has made Britain a “destination for investment”, Mark Harper has said.
The transport secretary told BBC Two’s Question Time: “It’s the reason why we’ve got the third largest technology sector after only the US and China.
“It’s the reason why we’ve got the largest amount of new investment into Britain on greenfield sites where people are building new factories, [the] third largest after the US and China because this is a destination for investment if you’re going to be where the jobs grow.
“In the new economies of the future, things like artificial intelligence, automated vehicles, we are able to regulate to suit ourselves and put ourselves at the front of that.”
8:20PM
Labour wrong to claim there is no ‘magic money tree’, says Green Party
The Labour Party is wrong to claim there is no “magic money tree”, the co-leader of the Green Party has said.
Carla Denyer told BBC Two’s Question Time that the Greens would charge a one per cent wealth tax on assets worth more than £1 billion,