Labour and Tories on track for lowest combined vote share since first world war

Good morning. Labour and the Conservatives are on course to register their lowest combined vote share in a century, according to pre-election polls.

The Financial Times’ tracker of 46 polls indicates that both parties have lost support since Rishi Sunak’s election announcement on May 22, with smaller parties such as Reform, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens all making advances.

Labour’s polling average has fallen to 41.7 per cent, down from 44.5 when the election was called, with the Tories also falling three points to 21.1 per cent. The Labour lead has held steady at 20 percentage points.

If the current polling were borne out on July 4, the result would produce the lowest combined vote share, of 63 per cent, for the main parties since the two-party system emerged after the first world war. Here’s more from the FT’s poll tracker.

• Election betting: The scandal spread to the Labour party yesterday while a Tory cabinet minister also admitted he had placed wagers on the date of polling day.

• GB Energy: Labour donor Dale Vince has said the party’s planned state-owned energy company has the potential to lead the development of new technologies, but also stressed he was not seeking support for his own projects.

Here’s what else I’m watching today:

• Kenya protests: Demonstrators have vowed to continue protests against President William Ruto “until [he] is gone” after the parliament passed a bill to increase taxes.

• Sunak vs Starmer: BBC hosts the final debate before polling day in Nottingham tonight.

• Evan Gershkovich: Russian judicial proceedings against the Wall Street Journal reporter are due to begin in secret.

Have a burning question to ask about the UK election? Stephen Bush, writer of the FT’s award-winning Inside Politics newsletter, will be on Reddit at 1pm to take your queries. See you there!

Five more top stories

1. US companies have been able to reprice almost $400bn of debt at lower interest rates this year due to booming investor appetite for junk loans. According to strategists at Goldman Sachs, even before the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates from a 23-year high, a number of borrowers in the US leveraged loan market have benefited from the equivalent of two quarter-point Fed cuts.

2. Exclusive: A hedge fund has named a former Segantii Capital Management employee in connection with several trades that used confidential information from Morgan Stanley. Evolution Capital Management said in court filings that it believed its former employee Robert Gagliardi was linked to several of the trades that US authorities scrutinised in the probes that led to the Wall Street bank paying a $249mn fine. Read the full story.

3. Exclusive: France and Italy are jostling for a senior economic post in the next European Commission, ahead of a crunch summit on the bloc’s top jobs tomorrow. President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni are at loggerheads over a powerful commission vice-president in charge of trade, competition and industrial policy. Here’s how this will complicate tomorrow’s meeting.

4. Geopolitical tensions and climate change could lead to “food wars” as countries fight for waning supplies, one of the world’s largest agricultural commodity traders has warned. Sunny Verghese, CEO of Olam Agri, warned that trade barriers imposed by governments seeking to shore up domestic food stocks had exacerbated food inflation.

5. Volkswagen will invest up to $5bn into a partnership with American electric vehicle start-up Rivian as the German carmaker attempts to rapidly improve its software, sending the luxury electric truck maker’s share price up more than 35 per cent. VW’s in-house software developer Cariad has failed to deliver products on time, delaying its rollout of new models. Here’s more on the joint venture.

The Big Read

Europe’s armies are shrinking. On paper, European Nato allies have 1.9mn troops between them — seemingly enough to counter Russia (1.1mn soldiers and 1.5mn reservists). But in reality, European Nato powers would struggle to commit any more than 300,000 troops to a conflict — and even then, that would take months of preparation, analysts tell the FT. With the number of soldiers in decline in the UK, Germany, France and Italy, what might make more people serve?

We’re also reading . . . 

• Julian Assange: After spending seven years in an Ecuadorean embassy and five in prison, the WikiLeaks founder is finally free. But is it a victory?

• Geoengineering: Climate experiments rightly raise hackles and cannot replace cutting emissions, but we have a duty to find out whether these fixes could work, writes Anjana Ahuja.

• The Taliban: Our latest visual investigation explores how the Islamist regime has issued dozens of contracts to tap gold, gemstones and minerals from Afghanistan’s mines.

• French politics: The snap election called by Emmanuel Macron has sped up his centrist allies’ plans to distance themselves from the president.

The first round of the French elections will be held this Sunday. Don’t miss our Europe Express newsletter, which is free to read for the next few weekends and available in English and en français.

Chart of the day

Iranians often refer to their nation’s cheapest domestic car model, the Pride, as a “coffin on the go” because of its safety defects. But for families on a budget, even the low-quality Pride is too expensive. A minimum-wage worker would need three times what they earn in a year to afford it. It’s one of many signs of economic pain in Iran as the presidential election looms.

Take a break from the news

Shun common containers and embrace the rusty, ramshackle and radical for greenery with added interest, writes FT Weekend columnist Luke Edward Hall. Here are his suggestions for pots that will give your plants a pick-me-up.

Additional contributions from Gordon Smith and Emily Goldberg