With more people dying each year and many spending their final days in institutions, researchers argue that wider access to palliative care could offer a more humane and cost-effective alternative, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
THERE are only two people who can realistically be prime minister on July 5. One of them is Rishi Sunak and the other is Keir Starmer. For innumerable reasons, I would far rather it was Keir Starmer and fervently hope that is the outcome.
But this is a very strange election. The traditional polling is highly consistent (the MRP polls are a different matter). They generally show the Labour party polling in the low 40s, while the Tories are stuck around 20 per cent. That is around half of their vote recorded in the 2019 general election.
All other parties, bar one, are showing very modest gains or losses except one. That is Reform UK. (Of course in Scotland, the picture is quite a bit different, but that is a separate story).
Every Starmer boast about removing asylum-seekers probably wins Reform another seat while Labour loses more voters to Lib Dems, Greens and nationalists than to the far right — the disaster facing Labour is the leadership’s fault, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP
Reform’s rise speaks to a deep crisis in Establishment parties – but relies on appealing to social and economic grievances the left should make its own, argues NICK WRIGHT
With Reform UK surging and Labour determined not to offer anything different from the status quo, a clear opportunity opens for the left, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE
JOE GILL looks at research on the reasons people voted as they did last week and concludes Labour is finished unless it ditches Starmer and changes course



