Labour fears ANOTHER nightmare at the polls
First big test for Starmer after Corbyn debacle ... but Tories predict night of big losses, too
LABOUR leader Sir Keir Starmer is facing a ‘very difficult’ first electoral test this week ahead of a historic vote that could have major implications for the future of his party.
Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy said the party was not expecting miracles on ‘Super Thursday’ – the biggest- ever range of elections to take place on one day in Britain – but insisted that the mood among voters is shifting as the Conservatives become mired in sleaze allegations.
The Tories are also playing down expectations as Boris Johnson’s poll lead narrows after the Mail’s revelations about the redecoration of his Downing Street flat hit home with voters.
Miss Nandy told Sky News yesterday: ‘I think they are really concerned about the way that this Prime Minister carries on and the way in which it seems to be one rule for them and one rule for everybody else, so I think people are starting to think again about Labour.’
But she went on: ‘Whether that translates into good results at these local elections, I’m not sure; to be honest, we’ve got a big mountain to climb and it’s going to take time to rebuild that trust. Whether or not we get a good set of results in these local elections, I think they are likely to still be very difficult for us.’
Miss Nandy also told the BBC: ‘ We’re not expecting miracles on Thursday night.’
Voters in England, Scotland and Wales will between them choose 5,000 councillors, 39 police tsars, 13 mayors, 189 members of devolved parliaments, and one MP.
It is the first time that Labour leader Sir Keir’s popularity will be tested at the polls as no elections have been held since he took over from Jeremy Corbyn last April.
The most crucial contest for Labour’s leader is the parliamentary by-election in Hartlepool. It is a seat the party has held since it was formed in 1974 but the North East town voted heavily in favour of Brexit and Labour’s new candidate Dr Paul Williams is pro-EU.
If the Tories win in Hartlepool it would show that the party is continuing to become estranged from its heartlands and strengthen the Conservatives’ hold over former ‘Red Wall’ seats in northern England.
The other two big contests are the West Midlands and Tees Valley mayoralties, which were narrowly won by Conservatives last time.
Experts believe Labour will struggle to wrestle these from two popular Conservative incumbents.
Sir Keir personally has struggled on the campaign trail. He was thrown out of a pub by an angry landlord in Bath and his stunt of going shopping in John Lewis to mock the Prime Minister’s redecoration of Downing Street backfired. A video in which a young man posed for a photo with the Labour leader – then declared ‘Vote Conservative’ – went viral.
However, the Tories are expecting heavy losses in English council seats and stand no chance of winning the London mayoral contest.
A Focaldata poll of voters in northern ‘Red Wall’ seats put the Tories one point behind Labour, 44 to 45. And an Opinium survey found their lead had been slashed from 11 points to five in a week, with the Tories falling two points to 42 while Labour rose four to 37.
‘Their most crucial contest is Hartlepool’
AFTER all the sound and fury levelled at Boris Johnson in recent weeks, we’re about to discover what effect it’s had – if any – on the hearts and minds of real voters.
the results of thursday’s elections promise to be both seminal and absolutely riveting. if the tories can pull off the ‘Red Wall’ treble of winning the Hartlepool byelection and holding the mayoralties of Birmingham and tees valley, it would be a historic moment.
it would confirm that the 2019 election was no aberration and show the bond of blind loyalty that has seen constituencies such as Hartlepool vote Labour for generations has been broken.
that bond has been loosening for decades, as the party became ever more estranged from its traditional base.
Former MP Peter Mandelson had no more in common with the people of Hartlepool than David Miliband had with South Shields, or his brother ed with Doncaster.
Before taking up their safe seats, their idea of the north was probably Hampstead.
Defeat in its heartlands would be a disaster of existential proportions for Labour and its leader Keir Starmer. if they no longer represent the northern working class, then who and what are they for?
the truth is, they have effectively become the party of the aggrieved and the ‘woke’.
Of implacable Remainers, carping public sector unions, the swivel- eyed cranks of Momentum. Of inner-London and a few other shrinking urban redoubts.
if Labour’s working-class clothes were to be stolen by a man from eton and Oxford, its tragedy would be complete.
Meanwhile, there are other big questions to be settled on thursday.
Will nicola Sturgeon win a majority in Scotland and claim a spurious mandate for another independence referendum?
Can the tories weaken Labour’s grip on the Welsh parliament by building on their spectacular general election victories? Who will do best in local authority elections?
the Mail makes no apology for having been at the forefront of the ‘Wallpaper-gate’ story. We firmly believe Mr Johnson should be fully transparent over how the redecoration of his Downing Street flat was funded.
Rules of propriety are important and he can’t act as if they don’t apply to him.
But let nothing detract from his transformative achievements – delivering Brexit, winning an election landslide and now presiding over a world- leading vaccination programme.
this paper hopes and believes fair-minded voters will show their appreciation at the ballot box on thursday. and consign Labour to the obscurity it so richly deserves.