Starmer: I’ll still play five-a-side football every week if I become PM

Speaking to broadcasters during a visit to Hucknall Town football stadium in Nottinghamshire on Tuesday morning, Sir Keir said: “I actually can hardly believe that 48 hours before an election, the Conservative Party has got nothing possible positive to say as they go into this.

“I’ve been arguing throughout this campaign, you’ll have heard me many times say they haven’t changed, they’re just the same, nothing’s going to change, and they’re proving it – because they are not saying, look, if you vote Tory, vote Conservative on Thursday, these things will happen.

“They’re just in this negative desperate loop. And it is really desperate. My family is really important to me as they will be to every single person watching this and I just think it’s increasing desperation, bordering on hysterical now.”

Rishi Sunak did not repeat Conservative claims that Sir Keir wanted to avoid working after 6pm on Fridays but cited “the sacrifice” that being prime minister entails as he said “there is always work to do”.

Asked by journalists on the campaign trail what time he works until on Friday, the Prime Minister said: “Everyone is going to approach this job in a different way.

“In my experience, there is always work to do, there’s always decisions that need to be made, and that’s what the job requires, that is… the privilege of this job, that’s what public service is about and the sacrifice it entails.”