New schools guidance in full with Aubrey Allegretti

* Schools must not teach children about gender identity

* No ‘explicit’ conversations about sex until children are 13 - including contraception, STIs and abortion

* No sex education for children until age of 9 in primary…

Rishi Sunak speech:

* Seeks to defend 14 years of Tory govt, accusing Labour of trying to reduce it to 49 days of Liz Truss premiership

* Argues people should vote Tory because it is a case of 'better the devil you know' - Labour, he says, would make Britain less safe

* Says…

Rishi Sunak says he is willing to debate Keir Starmer 'as many times as he likes' during the general election campaign

He refuses to rule out a July election, saying he doesn't want a debate on 'process and timing'

And McVey gloats about universities in financial trouble because of immigration crackdown

“I have no sympathy - for too long these universities have been selling immigration to international students rather than education.”

Excl: First parliamentary report into birth trauma from Theo Clarke MP finds pregnant women and new mothers being failed by maternity services where good care is “the exception rather than the rule”.

thetimes.co.uk/article/birth-…

A short thread… 🧵

Natalie Elphicke has never publicly addressed her decision to defend her former husband Charlie Elphicke after he was convicted of two counts of sexual assault

She said in The Sun that he was 'attractive' and 'attracted to' women. She castigated his victims, saying they were…

Labour now has a **30-point** lead over the Tories, Yougov poll for The Times finds - the biggest since Liz Truss

Two thirds of voters think there will be a Labour majority, while just 14 per cent think there will be a hung Parliament. Just 5 per cent expect a Tory majority

Labour lead at *30 points* in this week's YouGov poll for The Times

That's the biggest Labour lead since Truss

CON 18 (=)
LAB 48 (+4)
LIB DEM 9 (-1)
REF UK 13 (-2)
GRN 7 (-1)

Fieldwork 7 - 8 May

BREAKING:

Tory MP for Dover Natalie Elphicke has defected to Labour

She says that the party has changed beyond recognition and 'looks to the future - 'to building a Britain of hope, optimism, opportunity and fairness'

She says Rishi Sunak's government is failing to keep…

Is Michael Gove's Kate Moss analogy the most unusual Cabinet intervention?

I think David Gauke probably still pips it for comparing a 'managed' no-deal Brexit to a unicorn that needs to be slaughtered

'Managed no-deal is not an option. It's not on offer from the EU and the…

Exclusive:

Michael Gove invoked Kate Moss at Cabinet as he warned Tories against 'comfort eating' by pursuing hardline policies to 'make us feel good about ourselves'

Gove: 'As Kate Moss once said 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels'.'

He argued that Tories are at their…

Rachel Reeves says that businesses have 'nothing to fear' from Labour's new worker's rights package

She says that a Labour government would consult on how it should be implemented to avoid any 'adverse consequences' for businesses

Rachel Reeves suggests she won't be unfreezing personal tax thresholds if Labour wins the election, despite huge hit of fiscal drag

'I have made no bones about wanting taxes on working people to be lower... I'm not going to make any unfunded tax cuts or spending commitments'

Rachel Reeves accuses Rishi Sunak of 'gaslighting' voters over the economic recovery

She concedes that inflation could hit 2%, economy could be out of technical recession and interest rates likely to fall

But she says end of a 'technical recession' is only a 'technical…

Times weekend read on dire local election results for Tories:

* Cabinet ministers say Tories heading for defeat - the only question now is the scale of the loss

*But Tory rebels lay down their arms and head to the pub after conceding there isn’t appetite to remove Sunak

*…