PM IS BRACED FOR A POLLS No vote

TOUR With Lola McEvoy

LABOUR are “fighting hard for every vote” in Thursday’s local elections, Rachel Reeves says.

She insists the party is taking nothing for granted, despite the Tories already being braced for a drubbing.

And the Shadow Chancellor told us it would be “great” if rumours of a snap general election were true.

“We’re ready, I think the country are more than ready,” she said.

“Rishi Sunak is running scared of the voters. People want change, you can’t hide from the voters forever.”

The Leeds West MP spoke while campaigning in the North East with Labour leader Keir Starmer and the party’s prospective Darlington MP, Lola McEvoy, on Friday.

Ms Reeves added: “There’s a feeling things are going backwards. If you listened to Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, you’d think the economy had turned a corner, that their plan is working. You’d think people had never had it so good.”

EXISTING

Recalling an encounter with parents of a four-year-old, she said: “He’s doing an apprenticeship in manufacturing and she works in a supermarket but is on maternity leave.

“And she said, ‘We’re getting by but every evening we’re talking about money because there’s just not enough.’” Another woman told her: “We’re existing but not much more than that.”

Ms Reeves said: “The promise of ‘levelling up’ just hasn’t happened.”

Labour has released an analysis showing inflation has swallowed Chancellor Mr Hunt’s tax cuts.

The Government says the typical worker would be £900 a year better off but Labour says annual costs for working households are now £7,800 higher than in 2020 due to inflation.

Ms Reeves blasted the Conservatives for failing to fulfil their big promise of “levelling up” the country – as Lib Dems revealed the Tories blew over £1million on ads boasting about it.

The campaign ran between October 2023 and February 2024, according to figures released by the Government under Freedom of Information laws.

Lib Dem MP Helen Morgan said:

HERE TO LISTEN Reeves and Starmer visit cafe in Darlington ahead of polls

“This is a massive waste of taxpayers’ cash. It is a complete farce. Every penny of this should have been spent on actually levelling up the country.”

But the Levelling Up Department

ON ROAD Our Mikey with Chris