Sunak promises tax cuts in Tory manifesto but Labour call it ‘desperate wish list’

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Some final thoughts from me following tonight's debate here in Glasgow - primarily that it was characterised by contributions from the audience.

Each leader will have something to be happy about. All avoided major gaffes, and landed some of their key talking points.

It was the frustration of the members of the public present which was remarkable, on things like public services and Scotland's political culture.

It was aimed at not just the SNP government in Edinburgh and the Conservative government in Westminster, but also at those vying to replace them.

At one point, one woman said "shame on all of you".

It’s not the sort of thing you tend to hear at the stage managed events parties usually run during campaigns, with scripted speeches and "lines to take".

So hearing the feelings of the electorate might be a welcome corrective in this campaign.

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In Leeds, Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader William Clouston has just launched his manifesto, telling supporters: "We’ve been away a while and it’s lovely to be back".

The 36-page document promises to put "family, neighbourhood and nation" front and centre, and Clouston speaks about the "epidemic of family breakdown", claiming "a British 16-year-old is more likely to have a screen in their room than a father in the house".

The former Conservative member says his party's plan to allow a full sharing of tax allowances between couples raising children would mean they "wouldn’t pay any tax for the first £25,000".

His speech also covers the "awful duopoly" of Tory and Labour, reindustrialisation and renationalising some sectors.

The party’s stance on sex and gender is also prominent throughout.

Clouston says trans SDP members were consulted on policies and that he believes gender dysphoria is real - but that it "doesn’t mean that you can acquire rights and you can trample on sex-based rights".

You can read more about the SDP's manifesto here.

Soon we'll bring you an update from the manifesto launch of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) - a name which might just ring a bell.

The SDP traces its roots back to the party which was formed in 1981, when centrist Labour figures like Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams - household names in their time - broke away.

While the party gained huge media attention, it struggled to win electoral success and the bulk of the SDP merged with the Liberal Party in 1988 to form the Liberal Democrats.

Those that remained went on to form the current SDP in 1990, though this is the first time since 1987 that it has launched an election manifesto. They are also standing 122 candidates, including the journalist Rod Liddle.

The SDP describe themselves as "patriotic, economically left-leaning, and culturally traditional". Their headline policy is to allow couples raising children to fully share tax allowances.

The party has an election pact with Reform UK, with the two parties standing aside for each other in six constituencies, and more than a dozen candidates standing under a joint banner.

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Moving away from the Scottish leaders' debate for a moment, let's look ahead to the BBC's general election debate being held later this month.

BBC News presenter Sophie Raworth, who was slated to host the 26 June debate, will miss it after fracturing her ankle.

Raworth, 56, will continue to present bulletins and the second day of the BBC's election night coverage, but will not moderate Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer going head-to-head in Nottingham just a little over a week before the 4 July general election.

She will be replaced by presenter Mishal Husain, who hosted a previous BBC debate which included representatives from the seven main parties.

Raworth said: "The injury I picked up at the London Marathon has now been diagnosed as a fracture in my ankle. I was only told this last week during the D-Day commemorations."

• You can read more here about the BBC's election schedule

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Ahead of tonight's Scotland leaders' debate, Labour took to the campaign trail to focus on dentistry. And as a former dentist, it's unsurprisingly a subject close to Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar’s heart.

Health is devolved, so Labour’s plan to offer 100,000 extra appointments for children wouldn’t apply north of the border, but the Scottish Labour leader said electing a Labour government would influence how much money could be put into Scotland’s NHS.

On a visit to a dental practice in Dunfermline earlier today, he said his party would “close the non-dom tax loopholes”, which would fund another 160,000 NHS appointments in Scotland every year.

Sarwar, seemingly teeing up some of his critiques ahead of tonight's debate, delivered a scathing attack on the Conservatives’ plans to cut tax and National Insurance, saying: “They’ve crashed the economy, they’ve destroyed the public finances, they’ve destroyed our public services and now they’re desperately trying to throw out policy after policy that’s completely unfunded, completely uncosted in a desperate attempt to cling on to power.”

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During tonight's debate between Scotland's political leaders, we may well hear issues and dynamics which differ from the UK-wide election.

SNP First Minister John Swinney delights in painting his main opponents as mere local branch managers - but those other parties have crafted a deliberate strategy in recent years of having very distinct local messages in Scotland.

The Scottish Conservatives have revived their fortunes by focusing on the question of independence above all else - and avoid talking about things like Brexit, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

Labour have given Anas Sarwar leeway to come up with messaging more suited to a battle with the SNP, more on the left of politics.

While Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey may have taken inspiration for his madcap photo opportunities from the party's former Scottish leader Willie Rennie, the man in charge north of the border, Alex Cole-Hamilton, has taken a more reserved approach.

And the Scottish Greens are a distinct entity from the Greens of England and Wales, with the two are occasionally at odds over policy.

• Tonight's debate will be broadcast on BBC One Scotland, the BBC News Channel (with BSL), BBC iPlayer, BBC Radio Scotland and at the top of this page from 20:00 BST. You can also follow text updates here.

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Some more now from Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who is now addressing supporters hours after an object was thrown at him earlier today on the campaign trail.

"Politics, it would appear, is worse, five years on than when I left it," he says in remarks livestreamed on X.

“I genuinely believe that our democratic process is directly under threat. What happened to me in Clacton last week when a young woman threw milkshake in my face and then the mob violence that you saw in Barnsley today is an attempt to stop me speaking.”

Farage adds it was noticeable that some of the people gathered in Barnsley were "fresh out of university. Their minds are being poisoned in school and and in university, and it's plain wrong".

In his concluding remarks, he says: "It is not nice or pleasant to be subjected to violence, I’ve not paid for that, but I will not surrender, I will not give in to the mob."

Last week, police in Clacton arrested a 25-year-old woman in relation to the milkshake incident, while the South Yorkshire Police today said it had arrested a 28-year-old man on suspicion of public order offences.

As we've been reporting, Nigel Farage appears to have had at least one object thrown at him while on the campaign trail in South Yorkshire today.

The Reform UK leader posted a video on X, formerly Twitter, which appeared to show objects being thrown at him while he was on top of a bus in Barnsley.

Home Secretary James Cleverly has condemned the attack against Farage, writing on X that there "must be no place for violence and intimidation in our politics and these actions should be condemned by everyone".

Labour's shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, also shared on social media that she was "appalled" by the assault on Farage, adding that everyone "must be able to campaign without violence or threats".

South Yorkshire Police says it has arrested a 28-year-old man on suspicion of public order offences.

Another noteworthy quality of Rishi Sunak's launch speech from earlier (catch up on that here), was that there was only a brief reference to the NHS and just a few pages in the manifesto (4 out of 78).

He said, if elected, there would be real terms spending increases in the next Parliament in England and more doctors and nurses recruited.

This is hardly surprising – there is already an NHS workforce plan agreed with health service leaders. Over recent decades, health spending has always been pushed up above inflation to cover higher demand for new medicines and the needs of an ageing population.

So promising real terms increases does not tell us much.

NHS leaders in England have, in fact, warned that the budget for the current year allocated by the Conservative government barely covers inflation and there is a serious financial squeeze.

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What are manifestos?

Manifestos set out the policies that parties plan to introduce should they win the election. They tell us what a party stands for - and can be used to check back on what a government said it'd do.

Who's launched theirs?

So far, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems are the only two major parties to have launched theirs for the upcoming election on 4 July.

And who hasn't?

We're expecting the Green Party to launch theirs tomorrow, followed by Labour on Thursday - the SNP, Reform UK, and Plaid Cymru are expected in the coming week or so.

How do I know what's in a manifesto?

We're compiling handy summaries for all major parties - we've analysed 11 key policies from the Lib Dems here - and put together a quick summary of the Conservatives' plans here.