Election in brief
A safe bet?
Jeremy Corbyn's announcement of four extra bank holidays has sparked a surge in bets that he will become the next prime minister. Nearly two-thirds, or 59 per cent, of wagers in that market during the 24 hours following the announcement were for the Labour leader, according to comparison site Oddschecker.
Mr Corbyn accounts for nearly half of bets on who will be the next PM, as one bookmaker cut odds over the weekend. According to Oddschecker, more than 47 per cent of bettors fancied the Labour leader as the next PM yesterday, compared to just under 30 per cent for Theresa May — whose Conservatives are widely expected to beat Labour in June.
Tories to take Wales for first time in 100 years
The Conservatives could beat Labour in Wales for the first time in nearly a century, according to a surprising new poll. The YouGov Welsh political barometer shows the Conservatives on 40 per cent in the country, up 12 per cent since January. Labour dropped 3 per cent in the poll, on just 30 per cent.
The results, if replicated at the general election on 8 June, would see the Tories pick up the most votes in Wales for the first time since 1922.
The poll has Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru on 13 per cent, unchanged, the Lib Dems on 8 per cent, down 1 per cent, and Ukip on 6 per cent, down 7 per cent. Labour won the most votes in Wales for the first time in the 1922 general election and has dominated Welsh politics ever since.
In 2016 it won the Welsh Assembly elections with 29 seats and 35 per cent of the vote, just short of a majority. The party picked up 25 seats in Wales at the 2015 general election, with the Tories winning 11. Plaid Cymru won 3 and the Liberal Democrats 1.
Communist Party backs Jeremy Corbyn
Britain’s Communist party will not field any general election candidates for the first time since its formation in 1920 in order to throw its weight behind Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party.
Declaring its endorsement of Labour’s leader, the Communist Party of Britain said victory for Mr Corbyn at the general election in June would be “the first step towards a formation of left-led government at Westminster”.
The party's general secretary, Robert Griffiths, added that it was crucial to stop the Labour leader facing a leadership challenge from “right-wing” figures in his own party. He added his party was in “no doubt” that Mr Corbyn’s party “serves the interests of workers and their families”.
Conservatives on campus
Male students are far more likely to vote Conservative than their female peers, exclusive new data can reveal, highlighting a stark gender divide in voting intentions in the run up to the general election.
Research collected by the Student Room shows the vast majority of the student body feels ignored by the current Government, with eight out of 10 claiming they do not feel represented and that not enough attention is paid to their views. The survey of more than 1,000 students eligible to vote found the majority lean towards Labour, with 41.7 per cent of students polled pledging to vote for the Opposition Party come June.
While almost half of female students said they favoured Labour (48.6 per cent), only one fifth said they planned to vote Tory, compared with more than a third (36.6 per cent) of males.