The two candidates have been facing questions from members in Darlington before travelling to an evening event in Perth, Scotland.
As they did so, Conservative members - including many MPs - posted messages on social media of their ballot papers.
'Return to sender'
Supporters of Mr Johnson, the former Mayor of London and foreign secretary, urged people to return their papers as soon as possible.The first, and as yet, only confirmed head-to-head TV debate between the two men, will take place on Tuesday 9 July.
Setting out his plans to bring more jobs and investment to the North East, Mr Johnson signalled his backing for free ports - small free-trade zones, sometimes called special economic zones, in which the normal tax and tariff rules of the country in which they are based do not apply.The ex-foreign secretary said they would be "an excellent way to boost businesses and trade in regions that Westminster has neglected to pay attention to for far too long".
When asked to give a time in his political life when he had set aside self-interest for the benefit of the country, he replied it was "obviously possible to make more money by not being a full-time politician".
Pic--Top L-R: Ignacy Brzezinski, Jan Sadowski, Julianna Chodakowicz, Justyna Parczewska. Bottom L-R: Marek Brzezinski, Natalia Zmuda, Wojciech Nowakowski, Marek Chowaniec/wp/west midland police source
Special crime gangs report(wp/bbc):::
Members of a gang behind the biggest modern-day slavery network ever exposed in the UK have been jailed.
Police believe more than 400 victims were put to work in the West Midlands by the organised crime gang.
They tricked vulnerable people from Poland into England with the promise of work and a better life.
But their victims were made to live in rat-infested houses and work menial jobs, it can now be reported after reporting restrictions were lifted.
Eight offenders, who police say are members and associates of two Polish crime families, have been jailed after being convicted in two separate trials of crimes including trafficking, conspiracy to require another to perform forced labour and money laundering.
The network collapsed when two victims fled their captors in 2015 and told slavery charity Hope for Justice of their ordeal.The group of five men and three women targeted the most desperate from their homeland, including the homeless, ex-prisoners and alcoholics.
They were transported to the UK by bus, but when they arrived they were housed in squalid homes around West Bromwich, Smethwick and Walsall, forced to sleep up to four in a room on filthy mattresses and had their wages "farmed" from bank accounts on payday.
One victim said he had to wash in a canal because he had no access to water.
The slaves were made to work long days at rubbish recycling centres, farms and turkey-gutting factories and given as little as £20 a week by their captors.
But they were marched to banks and made to open accounts the gang had complete control over.The gang also claimed benefits in the names of some of their oblivious victims, who ranged in age from 17 to a man in his 60s.
One of the victims died while in captivity, and the gang removed all his personal belongings and identity documents so their plot could not be discovered.
It is estimated the gang made more than £2m between June 2012 and October 2017, which allowed them to lead a lavish lifestyle.
The convictions and sentences in full
Marek Chowaniec, 30, of Walsall, and Marek Brzezinski, 50, of Tipton, West Midlands, were jailed for 11 and nine years respectively for trafficking, conspiracy to require another to perform forced labour and money laundering.
Justyna Parczewska, 48, of West Bromwich, and Julianna Chodakowicz, 24, of Evesham, Worcestershire, were jailed for eight and seven years respectively for conspiracy to require another to perform forced labour and money laundering.
Natalia Zmuda, 29, of Walsall, got four years and six months for trafficking, conspiracy to require another to perform forced labour and money laundering.
Ignacy Brzezinski, 52 of West Bromwich, Jan Sadowski, 26, also of West Bromwich and Wojciech Nowakowski, 41, of Winson Green, Birmingham, were all convicted of trafficking charges, conspiracy to require and control another person to perform forced labour, and conspiracy to acquire, use and possess criminal property.
Brzezinski - who remains on the run - was jailed in his absence for 11 years, Sadowski for three years and Nowakowski for six and a half years.
Police said Chowaniec was the "respectable face" of the gang, playing a convincing role in banks and employment agencies. Ignacy Brzezinski - who absconded during his trial while wearing an electronic tag - was in charge of the bank accounts and wages.
Marek Brzezinski travelled to Poland to recruit victims, while Parczewska - the wife of Ignacy Brzezinski - was described by police as having a "matriarchal role, welcoming new arrivals and making them cups of tea and food at her home but knowing full well what horrors lay ahead".They even had an insider at a Worcester employment agency - Chodakowicz - who signed up dozens of the victims.
Nowakowski and Sadowski met the arrivals in the UK while Zmuda escorted them to job centre appointments and controlled bank accounts.
The trial judge at Birmingham Crown Court, Mary Stacey, described their trafficking conspiracy as the "most ambitious, extensive and prolific" modern-day slavery network ever exposed in the UK.
Ch Insp Nick Dale, who led Operation Fort, said it had been a "really complex investigation" over four years.A total of 92 victims were identified but police believe at least 350 more were used by the gang and either could not be traced, had left the country or were too scared to give evidence.
"This was trafficking and exploitation on a massive scale; this gang treated these people, their fellow countrymen, as commodities purely for their own greed," Ch Insp Dale said.
"What they did was abhorrent: they subjected victims to a demi-life of misery and poverty. They forced them into work and, if they objected, they were beaten or threatened with violence and told family members back home would be attacked.
"Some were told they would be taken to the woods to dig their own graves. One man who had an accident at work was forced back to the factory and denied hospital treatment, leaving him with long-term damage to his arm."
Business reporter(wp/reuters)::: Jaguar Land Rover (TAMO.NS) is making a multi-million pound investment to build electric vehicles in Britain, in a major boost for the UK government and a sector hit by the slump in diesel sales and Brexit uncertainty.Britain’s biggest car company, which built 30 percent of the UK’s 1.5 million cars last year, will make a range of electrified vehicles at its Castle Bromwich plant in central England, beginning with its luxury saloon, the XJ.
“The future of mobility is electric and, as a visionary British company, we are committed to making our next generation of zero-emission vehicles in the UK,” Chief Executive Ralf Speth said on Friday.
The announcement gives a boost to Britain’s automotive sector hit this year by Honda and Ford’s (F.N) plans to close factories.
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has highlighted the dangers of a no-deal Brexit and the need to maintain frictionless trade with the European Union, echoing warnings from the industry that just-in-time production could be hit by customs delays and additional bureaucracy.
But it has signed a deal with workers at the Castle Bromwich factory to go from a five-day to a four-day working week with the same amount of hours which should allow the plant to operate more efficiently.Three of JLR’s four European car plants are in Britain, giving it limited capacity elsewhere on the continent.
The other, in Slovakia, only opened last year and is still being ramped up with other models allocated there.
“We are making this investment because the ongoing Brexit uncertainty has left us with no choice, we had to act, for our employees and our business,” JLR said.
“We are committed to the UK as our home and will fight to stay here but we need the right deal.”Both candidates to replace Prime Minister Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, have both said they are prepared to take Britain out of the EU on Oct. 31 without a deal, although it is not their preferred option.
Brexiteers have argued that the EU’s biggest economy Germany, which exports hundreds of thousands of cars to Britain ever year, would do its utmost to protect that trade
Friday’s announcement comes after a turbulent few months for Jaguar which announced around 4,500 job cuts earlier in January and posted a 3.66 billion pound loss in 2018/19.
The carmaker is undergoing a turnaround designed to offer an electrified option to all of its new models from 2020 as it seeks to move away from its reliance on diesel vehicles which are being increasingly shunned by buyers.Jaguar also called on the government to bring giga-scale battery production to the country so that Britain is not left behind in the rush to produce low and zero-emissions vehicles and technology.
Britain’s business minister Greg Clark said the government was doing all it can to meet that goal.
“We are determined to realise that ambition,” he said.
