who is with the liberal democrats on a farm in east sussex. we can see the leaderjust over your shoulders, what is he up to today? that is right. there is a big issue with the lib dems, there is often a disconnect between what they are saying, today about clearwater streams and sewage are being put into them, and what they are actually doing. what ed davey is doing today, another stop on his photo call roadshow, he is feeding chickens on a farm. i suppose you could say a few things, that for once he is a big hit with the ladies, but of course, none of these can vote. one wonders what effect this will have. the effect it has is that people start noticing the liberal democrats and ed davey as a leader, not because of course, it is extremely unlikely that he will become the next prime minister. but this is important to their campaign and they believe it is working, it has given them a few points in the polls. as this campaign gets under way and developed. but as you say, what they are talking about today is the risk of sewage ending up in streams and rivers in the uk, obviously used by swimmers and by wildlife. a diversity and nature issue. they say the amount of sewage pumped into rivers and streams, the hours over the last year or so, has doubled compared to the year before. with the lib dems say they would do if they were in power or had some kind of influence over governments, is that they would make rivers and streams in this country blue flag compatible. effectively saying that where they put a blue flag mark on a river, that would prevent sewage companies from putting any sewage into those rivers and streams. of course, that sounds like a simple answer to a complex problem, and it is a complex problem because that sewage companies essay to make sure they do not release sewage into the environment they need to invest massively inveterate water treatment facilities and a sewage storage facilities. and that costs a lot of money. plenty of reporting over the last year suggests that if we stop lots of sewage going into the environment, it will put money on our water bills. so we will be questioning ed davey about that once he escapes the clutches of these chickens, we —— mike if you stand still for more than a few seconds they start packing your feet unless you have got food. he is out there feeding them, so maybe he will keep them away from us. the liberal democrats are pursuing a policy of targeting an area of the country very closely. that is the south and southwest of the uk, of england, thatis southwest of the uk, of england, that is where they think they are going to win seats from the conservatives. their targets are mainly conservative seats, they are also operating a lot in scotland and in parts of the north of england. it is a very targeted campaign, that is the strategy. a strategy the liberal democrats have used many times over the past few elections. of course, the past few elections. of course, the other problem, and they often get asked about this is that they have been in power in the last iii years, they formed a coalition with the conservatives between 2010 and 2015. as a result, they do end up answering a lot of questions about decisions taken as part of that government, specifically about austerity and student to tuition fees. particularly on the nhs and social care, the offer is a £9 billion increase in spending. paid for by increasing tax for people who they say can pay, they say they really feel they can take votes from the conservatives in those specific constituencies which they are targeting. as i say, across the south and southwest. we are in east to sussex. also in the north of england, selective places in the north of england and scotland. if you have not had breakfast, a nag might be in order. thank you very much. —— an egg might be in order. the conservative party says it will slash red tape for pubs, restaurants and music venues if it wins the election. plans include looking at licensing laws and planning restrictions, to see how changes could boost the night time economy. the harry potter author, jk rowling, has accused the labour leader of abandoning women who are concerned about transgender rights. writing in the times, she said she would struggle to vote for sir keir starmer, calling his attitude on the issue "dismissive and often offensive". labour have responded by saying they would protect single sex spaces for "biological women". the snp leader john swinney is visiting the royal highland show in edinburgh, where he will put the spotlight on his party's dry for "sustainable funding for farming". the party has also cold for a rural visa pilot scheme, to tackle what it cold "severe labour shortages" which it blames on brexit. leading representatives from the five most prominent political parties in wales have clashed in a live debate. they discussed everything from the nhs to tackling immigration and the cost of living. here's our wales correspondent hywel griffith. welcome to the bbc wales general election debate 202a. ready for kick—off, five leaders lined up for what's also now a regular fixture on our screens. an election debate, this time focused on wales. we have 29% of our children are poor. 29% child poverty. and my challenge to the conservatives and to labour, if they're in power, is will you abolish the two—child cap on our benefits? labour's been the party of devolved government here for a quarter of a century — its record under scrutiny. we've had the mismanagement of the nhs by labour for 25 years. you know, an election is full of weird and wonderful sights, but to me, one of the most bizarre sights of the past couple of weeks was wales' health minister holding up a placard saying, "let's modernise the nhs." the man defending labour also had to explain his own decisions, after taking a £200,000 donation from a company whose owner was convicted for dumping waste. knowing everything that i know now, i would not have wanted all of the difficulty that has been presented. i don't believe that. i'm very... money talks in our political system. audience member: give it back! very good idea! i am very clear about the way i've conducted myself throughout my time... if welsh labour voters weren't convinced, reform seemed to be pitching for them. we are really the new labour party. the labour party was founded... laughter. ...to represent the interests — no, listen to me. listen very carefully. the labour party was founded to represent the interests of working people, that is why it was founded, from the trade union movement. they are really not a party of labour any more, they are the party of welfare. the final question on immigration leading to a testy exchange. rwanda is a very good... oh, you still have it on the table? crosstalk. you don't have a plan for immigration. we do! we know what labour's plan for immigration is, because we've seen it in wales. it's to try to get people more benefits, whether it's universal basic income, and then try to get them legal aid as well. oh, shame on you. that's what you were doing in wales. and after 60 minutes it was over. polite handshakes to end a lively contest. we'll know the final result in a fortnight�*s time. hywel griffith, bbc news. there are now just there are nowjust under two weeks until we go to the polls. i've been speaking to anna gross, political correspondent at the financial times, and stefan boscia, playbook author at the news site politico, about the past week's election campaign and what we can expect to come. something that has become increasingly clear over the course of this campaign so far and even a little bit before that, that fewer and fewer people want to be associated with the conservative party at the moment. and they and they want even less to be associated with a campaign that's doing so badly. so you can really see the figures tapering off as the weeks go by. and just to give you a sense of the scale of the difference. so sunak�*s party raised has raised roughly £900,000 since the beginning of this year's campaign. based on the figures we have so far, compared with 8.6 million in the first two weeks of the of the six week campaign in 2019. so that's that's almost nine times less than it raised in 2019. let's see how that's been resonating in the south east of england, stefan, because you've spent a lot of time there this week, normally very much a conservative stronghold. what are people telling you on the doorstep? what i'm getting from southeast constituencies all over the place, whether that's in dover and portsmouth or the very well—heeled suburbs of, constituencies, sorry, of guildford and surrey heath is that there's a real palpable anger and frustration with the conservative party, but also and i was a bit surprised by this, but a real visceral dislike of the prime minister himself. i did not pick up much goodwill towards him or any sort of of any sort of sense... ...that people wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. i had person after person say that they thought he was untrustworthy, he was out of touch. and i think that the one thing which seems to have really galvanised opinion in a lot of these in this case, every one of them was a 2019 tory seat. the one thing that really has galvanised opinion, i think, was the d—day, and that is something that has cut through more than anything in this campaign. and i think that they are in a real trouble in a lot of areas where they should be very safe seats like places like aldershot and aylesbury, which haven't been non tory seat for 100 years. while we're talking about the south east of england, stefan, where you've been this week how well a reform doing because they're focused quite often on immigration which is an issue of concern in that part of the country. yes, it is. and particularly in dover, where i spent some time, which as they see it is the front line of the fight against small boats and the illegal immigration coming here. and a lot of people there put immigration, both legaland illegal, as one of their most important issues at this campaign. and a lot of people said they wanted to vote reform and they were willing to give farage a go. now, obviously, it's always hard tojudge these things from just rolling up into town and speaking to people and who knows what people will do on the day. but i did feel across every, all six constituencies i went to a real feeling that reform is a genuine vote for people at this election, and the people are so fed up with the conservatives, they're not actually that bothered that doing that might actually give labour a majority or at least a victory. something else that the conservatives particularly had to grapple with this week was the gambling commission looking into the placing of bets about when the general election would take place. just before it was announced, the prime minister was very clear that that he abhorred that kind of behaviour. but how damaging is that to the conservative party? yeah, well, you know, iactually agree with stefan that the sense i get from speaking to people and just the mood that that the point of no return for the conservatives, to my mind, was the day sunak�*s decision to leave the d—day celebrations early. but there had been a sequence of events that have come after it. they've only kind of done further damage to the campaign. and i think this betting scandal is one of them. it has cemented an existing feeling that it was quite widespread around the public, that the conservative party cannot be trusted, that it lacks integrity, and that there is actually kind of corruption in its ranks. and you saw that it actually did come up very early in question time on thursday. the public asked, it was the first question that sunak was given by the public. and i thinkjust itjust shows that it really has resonated and and i think has done further damage to the campaign staff. in your view, how effective are the liberal democrats campaigning techniques with sir ed davey, their leader? very much front and centre and choosing some quite novel things to do. there he is floating in the water, which is one of the issues they're talking about this weekend on the campaign trail, water quality, are people taking it seriously, really thinking that these stunts, these gimmicks, these these these this is an effective campaign? well, i think it's a spectacular campaign because before no one knew who ed davey was. now a lot of people do. and even though a lot of people still have no idea what he's about or what he wants to do or what the liberal democrats want to do, a lot of people are willing to vote for them. and in a lot of places across the south east where the liberal democrats did very well during the new labour years, you know, they seem to be on their way to having quite a reasonable return this time. you know, a lot of projections of 50 or 60 seats. and i think that once again, the feeling is that they are not really and oftentimes voting because they think that the liberal democrats have this great vision for the country, although i'm sure some do like some of their policy platforms, they need really a vote to get the tories out. and in a lot of constituencies, places like eastbourne, which has always been liberal democrat versus tory, people willjust vote tactically and they will vote liberal democrat. now, the one issue which i do think that they have done very well in getting home is the issue of the waterways and rivers. i mean, they have been pushing this since 2022 when it became a really big national scandal in the media in that summer. and they had been the party that has seen that very clearly. the traditional tory voters in the south east, in the home counties feel really strongly about this and they don't want their river ways full of sewage and they want someone to blame. and in this case the blame often goes more than the water companies to the tory party. yeah, that's the focus for the liberal democrats and labour this weekend. and just a very brief thought, if you would. what are you looking forward to looking out for in the final two weeks of the campaign? if you could just tell us briefly your thoughts. tough question. i guess i'm really, really interested to see whether the polls do finally narrow towards towards the end. my hunch, i suspect that they will that there will be a little bit of a boost for the conservatives in the last week or two. and i think it will make the race a little bit more interesting. i'm glad we've made you think hard on a saturday morning. i hope you've had enough coffee to cope. stefan, your thoughts as we enter the final straight, the home straight into the last fortnight. what are you you're expecting to see? yeah. i think i agree with anna that watching the polls and if they tighten is a big watch. and i think this week it's really, really key because the last time that people are going to have a chance to see starmer and sunak go head to head on monday, you have them in a debate or a question session with the sun on their website and on. later in the week. you have a bbc head to head debate. now, that's the last two big set pieces of this campaign. and i think that the last chance for rishi sunak to put something, anything on keir starmer so i'm going to be watching those. and then the other thing i'm going to be watching, as anna said, is if the tories can finally take some votes off reform and if they can finally whittle down the poll lead that keir starmer has. and i think that it's really quite interesting this week to see if finally some of the problems that reform have, particularly with some of the candidates they've selected, who are some of them, quite frankly, unfit for parliament, some of them who have praised hitler, for instance. it'll be interesting to see if people finally see that and actually say, well, maybe we can't vote for these guys. the prime minister is meeting at night time economy leaders in central london this morning to discuss the conservative party pledged to boost pubs, restaurants and music venues if they win the election. he is promising a review of licensing laws and planning rules to cut red tape within the first 100 days of conservative government. ht days of conservative government. hit has been great to talk to representatives from clubs and bars, they do an enormous amount to enrich our communities and provide jobs for young people, it is right they get the support they need. they have been let down by labour, with multiple job losses, been let down by labour, with multiplejob losses, in been let down by labour, with multiple job losses, in wales been let down by labour, with multiplejob losses, in wales labour is hiking up their taxes. at conservative government will support all those venues to make sure they can continue creating jobs and drive our economy forward and provide an enormous amount of enjoyment in our community. enormous amount of en'oyment in our communi . ., ., enormous amount of en'oyment in our community. nigel farage has been criticized for _ community. nigel farage has been criticized for comments _ community. nigel farage has been criticized for comments he - community. nigel farage has been criticized for comments he has - community. nigel farage has been i criticized for comments he has made, saying that the west provoked vladimir putin into invading ukraine. what do you think? what vladimir putin into invading ukraine. what do you think? what he said was completely _ ukraine. what do you think? what he said was completely wrong _ ukraine. what do you think? what he said was completely wrong and - ukraine. what do you think? what he said was completely wrong and only | said was completely wrong and only plays into vladimir putin's hands. he is doing deals with countries like north korea, this kind of appeasement is dangerous for britain's security. the security of our allies that rely on us, this only emboldens putin further. higel only emboldens putin further. nigel faraue has only emboldens putin further. nigel farage has also _ only emboldens putin further. nigel farage has also addressed comments about yourself, many colleagues of yours have said they felt uncomfortable with those comments, how did they make you feel? j liaise how did they make you feel? i love this country — how did they make you feel? i love this country deeply _ how did they make you feel? i love this country deeply for _ how did they make you feel? i love this country deeply for what - how did they make you feel? i love this country deeply for what it - how did they make you feel? i mr- this country deeply for what it has done for my family, my grandparents emigrated here with very little and two generations later i have the enormous privilege of being our prime minister. that is why i will work my hardest to repay this country for everything that it has done for my family. fin country for everything that it has done for my family.— country for everything that it has done for my family. on wind rush, cam aiun done for my family. on wind rush, campaign or— done for my family. on wind rush, campaign or say — done for my family. on wind rush, campaign or say today _ done for my family. on wind rush, campaign or say today they - done for my family. on wind rush, | campaign or say today they believe there are still thousands of victims that have not been given citizenship, your own figures suggest there are thousands of victims that have not applied for compensation. many people say that is because they do not trust the home office, after all this time, why is that still the case? 50 home office, after all this time, why is that still the case? so many --eole why is that still the case? so many peeple suffered — why is that still the case? so many people suffered injustices - why is that still the case? so many people suffered injustices unde