PM Johnson maintains poll lead as parties trade blows over UK’s economy

Britain’s ruling Conservative Party ended a chaotic first week of election campaigning with its formidable lead intact despite the loss of a Cabinet minister and several candidates accused of racist and sexist comments, opinion polls suggested yesterday.

Support for the Conservatives, the party of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, remained steady at 39 per cent, while the main opposition Labour party fell one point to 26 per cent, according to the YouGov poll for The Sunday Times.

The anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats were up a point to 17 per cent while the Brexit Party, led by prominent EU critic Nigel Farage, gained three points to stand at 10 per cent with a month to go before the election.

The poll followed the resignation of Alun Cairns as Welsh Secretary minutes before Mr Johnson launched his party’s campaign. Mr Cairns was accused of lying over what he knew about an aide’s role in the sabotage of a rape trial.

He is still standing for election as an MP.

On Thursday, a Conservative Party candidate and radio broadcaster quit the race over comments he made about rape during a programme in 2014.

And at the weekend, another candidate stepped down after Facebook posts were found in which he suggested Muammar Qaddafi should have travelled to hide in Bradford, where a quarter of the population is Muslim. One of Labour’s candidates quit over an anti-Semitic slur.

The ruling party turned its fire on Labour’s economic plans at the weekend and gave a warning that its spending pledges would cost £1.2 trillion (Dh5.63tn) and plunge the UK into economic crisis within months.

Sajid Javid, the chancellor, said the opposition would spend an extra £650 million a day if they won on December 12. But Labour described the analysis a “ludicrous piece of Tory fake news” and an “incompetent mishmash of debunked estimates and bad maths”.

The left-wing Labour party plans to nationalise vital industries,

including the rail and postal networks, and has promised more spending on housing and health care.

The dispute over rival plans for spending comes as the government faces pressure over an unpublished report that examined Russian influence in British politics. Nine Russian businesspeople who gave money to the Conservative Party were named in the report, according to The Sunday Times.

The head of the parliamentary committee that drew up the report accused the government of sitting on it. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told the BBC on Sunday that the report had been delayed because of election rules.