News Diary 24 – 30 June: BBC Hosts Final UK Debate, CNN Hosts First US Debate

A look ahead at the key events leading the news agenda next week, from the team at Foresight News.

Leading the week

It’s fair to say this has not been a great week for Rishi Sunak, who cheered a fall in inflation on Wednesday before seeing his party predicted to suffer an extinction level event on July 4, with another betting scandal thrown in for good measure.

The prime minister will be hoping to change the narrative as we enter the final 10 days of campaigning, starting with a live interview with The Sun’s political editor Harry Cole on Monday (24 June). The paper’s readers, who continue to hold a huge amount of sway in UK elections, will put questions to Sunak and his would-be successor Keir Starmer before a Sun people’s cabinet issue a verdict on the pair’s performances.

The Downing Street hopefuls then face off for the final head-to-head TV debate of the campaign, hosted by the BBC’s Mishal Husain in Nottingham on Wednesday (June 26).

In a packed media week for party leaders, Starmer also has an interview with ITV’s Paul Brand on Thursday (27 June), while Green co-leader Adrian Ramsay and Lib Dem photocall king Ed Davey have sit downs with Nick Robinson for Panorama on Monday and Friday (28 June), respectively, before a final leaders’ Question Time of the campaign on Friday featuring representatives from the Greens and Reform UK.

The damning revelations for former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells continued this week, with investigator Ian Henderson telling the Horizon inquiry that he suspected senior figures were involved in a cover-up and possible criminal conspiracy.

The inquiry’s attention turns next week to Gareth Jenkins, whose position in the Horizon affair stands in contrast to the recently-knighted campaign figurehead Alan Bates. Jenkins is a former Fujitsu IT expert and one of the architects of the Horizon system, who has previously been accused of providing misleading and contradictory evidence to the inquiry. He’s finally giving evidence at a four-day session from Tuesday to Friday (25-28 June), after seeking immunity from police prosecution and having two scheduled appearances delayed at the last minute. Jenkins is likely to face questions on his past testimony about the faulty IT system and the timing of document releases before his two previous scheduled appearances.

Looking abroad

After Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s campaigns decided to shun the traditional Commission on Presidential Debates, the two men are set to hold their first head-to-head on Thursday (27 June) when they meet in Atlanta for a debate moderated by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.

In a departure from 2020, there will be no live audience or opening statements during the 90-minute debate, and the candidates’ microphones will be muted except when it’s their turn to speak. Despite these measures aimed at ensuring a ‘civilised discussion’, the debate has the potential to turn ugly. Trump has already suggested Biden may be planning to use drugs to boost his performance and accused him of being mentally unfit for the presidency. Meanwhile the Biden campaign, having initially shied away from leaning into Trump’s recent conviction, this week released a new ad describing Trump as a ‘convicted criminal’ as well as raising his civil sexual assault and fraud cases. The next debate, hosted by ABC, is scheduled for 10 September.

Having spent over 450 days in pre-trial detention, Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich is scheduled to appear in court in Yekaterinburg on Wednesday (26 June) after Russia’s prosecutor general announced that a trial would go ahead on accusations Gershkovich was collecting secret information about a military facility on behalf of the CIA when he was detained last March.

News that proceedings will be held behind closed doors has reinforced widespread concerns of a sham trial, with the WSJ describing the charges as “repugnant, disgusting and based on calculated and transparent lies”. With Gershkovich facing a 20-year prison sentence, Russia has continued to signal openness to a prisoner swap that could potentially also see Paul Whelan, another US citizen held by Russia, returned.

Iranians elect a new president on Friday (28 June) following the death of Ebrahim Raisi alongside foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and several other senior officials in a helicopter crash last month. Former Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who is associated with the violent suppression of student protests, is being viewed as the frontrunner, facing off against leading reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian and hardline former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.

In France, the first round of snap parliamentary elections takes place on Sunday (30 June) ahead of all-important run-offs on 7 July in the wake of European elections that saw the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) win over 30 per cent of the vote. Current Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, of Macron’s Renaissance party, will be hoping that the prospect of RN premiership under Jordan Bardella or a far-left government under the influence of Jean-Luc Mélenchon is enough to convince voters to back centrist candidates from the Ensemble pour la République bloc who broadly support Macron’s administration. Ahead of the vote, Attal, Bardella and Manuel Bompard of the leftist Nouveau Front Populaire alliance will take part in a televised debate on Tuesday (25 June).