By Alexandra Rogers, political reporter

Names have begun to emerge in what will likely be a tense and toxic contest to replace Jeremy Corbyn as the Labour Party's candidate for Islington North at the next general election.

The party formally launched the process to select its candidate for the north London seat after months of uncertainty.

Sir Keir effectively barred his predecessor from ever standing as a Labour candidate when he proposed a motion by the party's ruling body, the National Executive Committee (NEC), which said Mr Corbyn "will not be endorsed by the NEC as a candidate on behalf of the Labour Party at the next general election".

It cited the dismal defeat Mr Corbyn led Labour to as leader in the 2019 general election in arguing his candidacy should be blocked and said the party's chances of securing a majority in the Commons would be "significantly diminished" if he was endorsed.

Mr Corbyn has been without the party whip - meaning he cannot sit as a Labour MP in the Commons - since 2020 following his response to a report into antisemitism within the party by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, which Sir Keir and his allies felt downplayed the significance of the problem while he was leader.

Since the passing of the NEC motion, speculation has been rife as to what Mr Corbyn's future could hold.

Read about the potential runners and riders here:

After the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer set out what Labour would do if it wins the election, Beth Rigby, Jess Phillips and Ruth Davidson discuss the six key policies that have been unveiled.

They also talk about the major speech made by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the beginning of the week and debate whether the election campaign has really started.

Plus, it's been a politically good week for Jess Phillips after her amendment to a bill on banning arrested MPs from Parliament was passed by one vote.

And there is a listener email about Swiss food.

👉 Listen above then tap here to follow Electoral Dysfunction wherever you get your podcasts 👈

Email Beth, Jess, and Ruth at electoraldysfunction@sky.uk, post on X to @BethRigby, or send a WhatsApp voice note on 07934 200 444.

By Alexandra Rogers, political reporter

Sir Keir Starmer has insisted he can be trusted to deliver his six pledges to voters - despite abandoning many of the promises that saw him elected Labour leader.

In an interview with Sky News' political editor Beth Rigby, Sir Keir repeatedly defended his decision to "adjust" some of the 10 pledges he made to party members when seeking to succeed Jeremy Corbyn following Labour's disastrous 2019 general election result.

The Labour leader said: "When the facts change, the circumstances change. Good leaders know you have to adapt and change with it."

The Labour leader was speaking following a major pre-election event in Essex, where he set out the "first steps" of a Labour government before the public heads to the polls.

The six targets, which have been compared to the pledge card Sir Tony Blair put to voters before the 1997 general election, are to deliver economic stability, cut NHS waiting lists, crack down on anti-social behaviour, recruit 6,500 new teachers, launch a new border security command and set up publicly-owned Great British Energy.

Sir Keir said the programme was "going to be hard" to achieve, adding that the public could expect to see the promises materialise within two terms of a Labour government.

Read more from Labour's policy launch and the interview with Sir Keir here:

The first minister of Wales has appointed a new minister for social partnership after he sacked the previous officeholder yesterday.

Sarah Murphy, MS for Bridgend, has now been appointed to fill the junior ministerial role.

In a statement yesterday, Vaughn Gething accused the MS for Delyn, Hannah Blythyn, of leaking a message from a ministerial group chat that appeared in local news outlets.

As a result, he said he had "no alternative" but to ask her to leave the Welsh government.

Ms Blethyn said she was "deeply shocked and saddened" by the decision, insisting she has never leaked anything.

A Tory peer is set to be suspended from the House of Lords and banned from parliament's bars after he was found to have harassed and bulled two people when drunk.

The House of Lords Conduct Committee concluded that Lord Kulveer Ranger had been "visibly drunk" and made "various inappropriate comments" to a group of people in Strangers' Bar in January.

The committee recommended that he be suspended from the Lords for three weeks, and banned from the Lords' bars for 12 months "to "underline the House's disapproval of alcohol-related misconduct".

It invited the Commons to follow suit.

Lord Ranger is a former advisor to ex-PM Boris Johnson, and was ennobled in his resignation honours list.

He apologised to the two complainants, saying he did not remember the incident, but was "deeply mortified at the descriptions of my behaviour" and "saddened to hear that I caused you distress".

He did not try to excuse his conduct, but did describe it as a "wholly uncharacteristic outburst" at a time when his wife and children's health issues had "taken a significant toll" on his physical and mental health.

The committee said: "Lord Ranger's bullying behaviour was prolonged in duration, with two separate incidents separated by up to an hour, alcohol was an important factor, and it led to a finding of harassment as well as bullying."

One of the complainants had said the peer's outburst had made her "more wary about her interactions with people" and left her with trouble sleeping.

The proposed sanctions will need to be voted on and approved by the wider House of Lords, which is expected to happen in early June.

In January 2023, Rishi Sunak made five promises.

Since then, he and his ministers have rarely missed an opportunity to list them. In case you haven't heard, he promised to:

• Halve inflation
• Grow the economy
• Reduce debt
• Cut NHS waiting lists and times
• Stop the boats

See below how he is doing on these goals:

For the second day in a row, we have a political event that made the general election feel six weeks away rather than six months.

Did both Labour and the Tories book venues for a summer campaign before discovering they couldn't cancel the rooms?

We'll never know.

But what we do have a clearer idea of is the contours of the coming race for Downing Street - and the focus for the chancellor today was tax.

Not that you need to be told that by me, given Jeremy Hunt was stood next to three signs proclaiming "Labour's Tax rises" – positioned in the spots usually reserved for slogans that set out a party's own ambitions.

If that wasn't strange enough, we were then treated to the sight of Mr Hunt admitting he was indeed the bloke who put up taxes by £20bn just two years ago - despite the words inches from his head suggesting it's the other guys who have been whacking up your bills.

To flesh out this attack line, the chancellor said he was talking about future changes and cited costings of Labour policies showing a spending black hole that could only be filled through tax rises.

Labour called that "desperate" and pinged across a document showing the exact same costings applied to the Tory ambition to abolish National Insurance.

What could that lead to?

You guessed it - tax rises. And not just tax rises. Tax rises... for pensioners.

That was a suggestion Jeremy Hunt said was "fake news... a lie".

Talk to economists and they'll tell you taxes are going to have to go up whoever is in power for the coming years to pay for increasing spending on healthcare, defence and pensions.

The alternative would be for swingeing and likely fanciful cuts in other public services.

So there's a grain of truth in what both parties are saying - but as ever, it sits in a deeper pool of spin and obfuscation.

I hope you're not getting bored – there are months of this to come.

We've just had some reaction from Labour to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's ferocious attack on the party's spending plans (scroll down to read more).

A spokesperson labelled his speech "another desperate attempt by the Tories to deflect from their £46bn unfunded tax plan that could lead to higher borrowing, higher taxes on pensioners or the end of the state pension as we know it".

That is a reference to the Conservative Party's goal of scrapping National Insurance entirely.

The spokesperson insisted that "all of Labour's policies are fully costed and fully funded".

"Unlike the Conservatives, who crashed the economy, Labour will never play fast and loose with the public finances."

They added that the chancellor's time "would be better spent getting Rishi Sunak to confirm the date of the election, rather than putting out any more of these dodgy dossiers".

The Sky News live poll tracker - collated and updated by our Data and Forensics team - aggregates various surveys to indicate how voters feel about the different political parties.

With the local elections complete, Labour is still sitting comfortably ahead, with the Tories trailing behind.

See the latest update below - and you can read more about the methodology behind the tracker here.

Sky News political correspondent Darren McCaffrey asks two questions of the chancellor.

Firstly, he asks if he agrees with ex-PM Theresa May's assessment yesterday that the Liz Truss government helped to undermine the public's confidence in Conservative economic management.

Jeremy Hunt replies: "Mistakes were made. And the first thing I did as chancellor was to reverse those mistakes.

"And I've been very open about that. To her credit, after appointing me as chancellor, Liz Truss did not stand in my way at all. And she told me very clearly I needed to do what I had to do, and I did."

Secondly, Darren asks the chancellor if he can guarantee that taxes will fall under a Conservative government, no matter the circumstances.

But he refuses to do so.

The chancellor replies: "If you're saying can I look into a crystal ball and predict what is going to happen in the world in the next five or 10 years, and therefore give you a cast iron guarantee of when we will be able to reduce the tax burden and to what level?

"The answer is, of course I can't. And it would be irresponsible to do so."

But he went on to say his key commitment is that taxes will go down under a future Conservative government, and claims they would not under Labour.