hello. welcome to the programme. we start this hour here in the uk with the general election campaign. labour says it s committed to reducing the number of people legally migrating to britain if it forms the next government. but speaking earlier, the shadow home secretary yvette cooper refused to set a target or any date by which a reduction would be achieved. net migration, the difference between the number of people arriving in the uk and leaving, stood at 685,000 last year. labour s plans include more apprenticeships in jobs that are currently reliant on a significant level of migrant workers. here s our political correspondent ione wells. immigration is a sticky issue in this election campaign, and both major parties say they want to control it. labour says it would train more uk workers to fill skills shortages and it says firms that pay exploitative wages would be banned from hiring foreign workers. but labour have not put a figure on how much they would reduce it by, a
as a legend of rugby league who had a huge heart . rob burrow s life is defined by his defiance of the odds. as the smallest player in a giants game, he was world class. absolute legend. pound for pound, probably the strongest player we had in the squad and the strongest guy who s played in super league. so honoured to have played alongside him. it was obvious at an early age that rob wanted to be a professional in the sport he loved. they always used to say, oh, he s good, is that rob, but he s never going to make it because he s not big enough. after signing for leeds rhinos as a teenager, he went on to become one of their greatest. but not long into retirement, he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. it was a condition he faced with incredible positivity. i m not giving in till my last breath. you know, i have too many reasons to live. the love he had for his family and the love they had for him shone through as rob made his private battle a public one to help
welcome to the programme. we start this hour with the latest on the uk general election. the leader of the scottish national party, john swinney, has launched his party s campaign ahead of the vote onjuly the 4th. at an election rally in glasgow, mr swinney pushed for independence, celebrated his party s record on fighting the cost of living as well as attacking both the conservatives and labour. he said people in scotland wanted rid of a disastrous tory government, and he accused labour of giving an awfully good impression of them. let s take a listen to some of what the snp leader said. look, there are some people telling me to forget about independence at this election. but you know what? after looking at sir keir starmer s serial u turns in the pursuit of power, i think people are crying out for political leadership that sticks to its principles. applause ..for leaders who argue for what they believe in. and i passionately believe independence is the best opportunity
this is row that has been ongoing for months but has really, really been ongoing for the past few days, and this all goes back to a letter diane abbott wrote to the observer newspaper 1a months ago now. after that letter, she was accused of anti semitism and she said in the letter thatjewish people along with irish and traveller people didn t face racism all their lives and after that was published she apologised very quickly and she was suspended from the parliamentary labour party pending an investigation. now, if you are someone who has been suspended, if you are suspended when an election is happening, you can t run again as a labour candidate so we didn t hear anything about the investigation or the outcome of it for a long, long time. then, when the general election was called, we suddenly needed an answer, needed to know whether or not dianne abbott would be allowed to run. and several days ago, the bbc s newsnight programme reported that investigation concluded five m