TORIES OPEN UP 10-POINT LEAD IN POLL
Vaccines help party widen opinions gap
BORIS Johnson has jabbed his way to a 10-point lead over Labour, according to the latest poll.
In a voters’ survey the Tories came out 43% to Labour’s 33%, with the vaccines said to be playing a big part in the ruling party’s revival.
The figures – which put the Lib Dems on 9% – will worry Labour leader Keir Starmer as local May elections loom – effectively a national poll due to delays from last year.
If these Survation results were repeated at a General Election the Tories would get a 66 overall majority, with 150 more MPs than Labour. Survation’s Carl Shoben said: “Labour has bet the house on challenging the Government’s competency on Covid. The vaccine programme has left that strategy looking tired. “Labour must focus on showing its different vision for the country.”
Starmer sought to exploit fury over the PM’s 1% NHS pay offer at his local campaign launch last week. But
Conservative strategist Claire Pearsall said: “Kicking off a local campaign on a national issue is a mistake. At local level people care about the three Ps – parking, planning and potholes.”
Only 31% of voters think Starmer would make the best PM against Johnson’s 45% – up two points for the PM and down one for the Labour leader.
The poll shows 40% of voters like the Tories’ performance, up three points, but 42% are unhappy with it.
On May 6 there are 21 counties up for grabs, 57 districts, 34 metropolitan boroughs and 38 unitary authorities because of postponed elections.
Mayors are also up for re-election. ■ Survation polled 1,037 adults on March 9 and 10.
HOLLYWOOD star Kate Winslet has a new hobby she really digs: she likes to go fossil hunting.
The Titanic actress says she has become quite an expert on the subject after researching her latest role as a British palaeontologist. Oscar-winner Kate, 45, plays Mary Anning in romantic period drama Ammonite, due out next
month, and has been learning the craft first-hand with a team of professionals. She even uncovered a piece of an extinct marine reptile.
In a Natural History Museum talk, Kate said: “I worked with a wonderful paleontologist and he knows every nook and cranny. I did also find a piece of an ichthyosaur’s skull and was able to identify it. I was very proud of myself. It was really exciting. It was almost at the waterline as the tide had gone out – tucked away in a rock pool.”
The film centres on the relationship between Anning , who died in 1847, and Charlotte Murchison (Saoirse Ronan). Kate refused to wear a corset under her period costume, adding: “I just know that with all the bending and twisting and heavy lifting on beaches, there’s just no way that Mary wore a corset. We went down this road of putting her in work trousers underneath her dress. “We also put her in a chunky jumper that made me so boiling hot. In the end I had it without the sleeves.”