UK general election live: Jacob Rees-Mogg praises Trump as he suggests border wall in the channel | General election 2024

Recriminations have begun to fly around the Conservatives as a senior figure called the last few weeks the “worst campaign in my lifetime” and criticised the party for failing to tackle the threat from Reform.

The Guardian’s Rowena Mason and Kiran Stacey spoke t a number of senior Tory figures for this story, and found that candidates, advisers and officials are deeply frustrated with how Sunak has run the campaign after calling a July election against the advice of his key strategist Isaac Levido.

One senior Tory party figure said on Monday it had been the “worst campaign in my lifetime”, saying that while Sunak was wholly to blame for the early election, there was a feeling that Levido could have pushed back more against the July date and that Conservative HQ should have “taken the fight to Reform” earlier.

They said Levido had made it clear from the start that 2019 Tory switchers from Labour were “gone and never coming back”, telling candidates that all their efforts should be made to target potential Reform voters instead.

However, the source said some people around the cabinet table had argued that the Tories should just ignore Nigel Farage’s party, and the campaign had been too frightened to tackle Reform’s arguments head-on for fear of offending voters who sympathised with them.

The senior figure said the mood among many Tory candidates was that it was “tough out there”, while those whose seats were less difficult were “focusing on what’s left and what’s next” – a new Conservative leadership battle.

They also said candidates in tight marginal seats were getting zero financial or practical support, even on social media, and there was frustration that Conservative HQ had either overspent in the run-up to the election or wrongly thought it would get a last-minute deluge of funding.

There is also suspicion among some Tory candidates that CCHQ could be holding back some funding to rebuild the party after an election defeat rather than going all-out on defending candidates.

Rishi Sunak has started today with an early visit to an Ocado packing plant in Bedfordshire.

The Prime Minister witnessed hundreds of washing machine-sized robots topped with blinking green lights scuttling along a grid of rails, picking up and sorting boxes of food items from above, PA reports.

As he toured the warehouse, he also met with members of staff in their canteen for an early morning cup of tea.

He seemed to find this avocado quite amazing:

Given Britain’s stagnant economy, dilapidated public services and near-bankrupt local authorities, there isn’t much public concern left over for its universities. But 14 years of Tory rule have damaged them just as grievously as the rest of the public realm, and in some ways more recklessly.

William Davies reports:

As many academics have warned, the funding system of higher education is heading towards disaster. One reason why this story has struggled to gain traction is that, as with so many areas of Britain’s highly unequal society, the elite end of the spectrum continues to thrive: according to the recent QS world university rankings, four of the world’s top 10 universities are in Britain.

But the news from the rest of the sector is increasingly grim. Revenue has struggled to keep up with spiralling costs, even while academic salaries have been falling in real terms. A sense of emergency took hold last autumn, when it became clear that there had been a sharp drop in international students, whose higher fees have become pivotal to the funding model of higher education in the UK. Cue panic, as universities scrambled to bring in whatever students they could, slashing entry tariffs for postgraduates and even poaching them from one another, sometimes midterm.

Then there is the debt. The average undergraduate now leaves university owing £45,000, with a commercial rate of interest accruing. For postgraduates, you can add another £24,000 on top. The government’s repayment scheme raises a graduate’s marginal rate of income tax by a further 9%, resulting in the highest marginal tax rates for any workers in Britain.

In an economy as regionally unequal as the UK’s, higher education is one of the few countervailing forces, spreading revenue and jobs to parts of the country that otherwise have little to fall back on. Despite whatever schadenfreude might be enjoyed by Daily Telegraph columnists and Tory backbenchers, a financial crisis in this sector does not only impact on lecturers:

And here is just a bit more of Ed Davey’s Zumba class to start your morning:

Is the glass more than half empty or less than half full? Rishi Sunak visited the Cotswolds Distillery in Whichford, central England on Monday.

10/10 walking in a relaxed and confident way – one hand in pocket – while chatting to strangers for Sunak:

See: Not boring at all! Fun! Loves a laugh!

Today’s winner of the Dogs-are-so-Lucky-to-Have-No-Idea-What-is-Happening Award goes to:

As we contemplate Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey’s campaign of antics this election, tidying up expert Marie Kondo would have us ask one simple question: Does it spark joy?

It does:

Jacob Rees-Mogg has said he wants to “build a wall in the English Channel” in a leaked recording, in which he heaped praise on Donald Trump and the hardline Republican response to immigration.

Speaking to young Conservative activists, Rees-Mogg doubled down on his backing for the former US president, saying he took the right approach by building a border wall.

“If I were American I’d want the border closed, I’d be all in favour of building a wall. I’d want to build a wall in the middle of the English Channel,” the former cabinet minister said.

Rees-Mogg is fighting a strong Labour challenge in his North East Somerset and Hanham constituency against Dan Norris, the mayor of the West of England, who was previously MP in the seat until he was defeated by Rees-Mogg in 2010.

Rees-Mogg, a popular figure among Tory party members, is likely to be influential in the Conservative leadership race if he retains his seat. Support for Trump’s White House bid is a sharp divider within the party between the right and the centrist One Nation group.

Speaking before a pub crawl in March organised by a Young Conservative group, Rees-Mogg said: “Every so often, I slightly peek over the parapet, like that image from the second world war of the man looking over the wall, and say if I were an American, I would vote for Donald Trump and it’s always the most unpopular thing I ever say in British politics, but I’m afraid it’s true. I would definitely vote for Donald Trump against Joe Biden.”

Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the – almost 48 hours until! –the UK general election on Thursday with me, Helen Sullivan.

As Labour and the Conservatives drive home their messages, Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg has told young Tories that if he were American, he would vote for Trump in the US elections. He praised the former US president’s border wall, saying “If I were American I’d want the border closed, I’d be all in favour of building a wall. I’d want to build a wall in the middle of the English Channel”.

Rees-Mogg is fighting a strong Labour challenge in his constituency of North East Somerset and Hanham against Dan Norris, the mayor of the West of England, who was previously MP in the seat. Rees-Mogg defeated Norris in 2010.

More shortly on that story from the Guardian’s Jessica Elgot. In the meantime, here is some of what we can expect today:

The Scottish Conservatives’ Meghan Gallacher will be on the campaign trail in the seat of Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, which is expected to be a straight fight between the Scottish Conservatives and the SNP.

10:00 Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar is in Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West with candidate Martin McCluskey.

10:30 Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton visits a falconry in Fife.

14:00 SNP Leader and First Minister John Swinney will join SNP candidate for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey Graham Leadbitter on the campaign trail on Tuesday in Aviemore.