Parties' pledges target growth and funding as campaign buses unveiled

ITV News Political Reporter Jasmine Cameron-Chileshe sums up the leaders' Saturdays so far

Sir Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak both hit the campaign trail on Saturday, delivering their respective pledges on creating wealth and funding towns.

Starmer got Labour's battle bus on the road with a speech that jokingly compared the vehicle to Conservative defections to his party, while Sunak spoke to supporters in the north-east against the backdrop of the Tory campaign bus emblazoned with the message "secure future".

The Labour leader said: "All week she’s (Angela Rayner) been showing me photographs of her bus and now I’ve come to see this fantastic bus. It’s rather like Tory defectors. You wait for ages and then three come along in a row.

"But this one, Ange, I’m reliably told has got a fridge in the back of it. So check that Boris Johnson isn’t in there. He used to be around these parts."

The coach, bedaubed with the word "change" 15 times on the side, will travel 5,000 miles to key areas the party is focusing on as the party leader pledged to focus on wealth creation if elected.

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Labour's pledged on Saturday to "power up every corner of Britain," promising the plan would "deliver growth," "put more money in people's pockets," and "give people control over what matters to them".

Speaking alongside shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves and deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner at the launch of the party's battle bus, Starmer said: "The Tories cannot be trusted with the finances of the country."

In Redcar, Sunak told supporters: "It’s only the Conservatives that deliver that economic stability for our country".

The Conservatives pledged £20 million to 30 more towns around the country if re-elected as a part of their levelling up plans.

But the Liberal Democrats said the Tories weren't "fooling anyone" with the announcement, accusing them of "broken promises on 'levelling up' since 2019".

Sunak used his speech to attack Labour for its handling of the Diane Abbott row.

He told Tories in the north-east that the back and forth showed "it confirms what we know about [Sir Keir Starmer] - that he doesn't stick by anything he says."

But Starmer brushed off questions about Diane Abbott on Saturday morning at Labour's battle bus launch.

Asked what had changed when he said on Friday the veteran left-winger could stand as a Labour candidate in the General Election after having the party whip restored after more than a year, he told broadcasters in Uxbridge: "I dealt with that issue yesterday. Today is about taking our argument to the country and getting people back to work."

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