Don’t punish us for Westminster, say Tories
Low profile for Johnson as doorstep campaigners focus on local services ahead of the council polls
TORY campaigners in today’s local elections are asking voters not to “punish” them for “mistakes” in Westminster as they distance themselves from Boris Johnson and the partygate scandal.
In a sign he is being kept away from the focus of campaigning, the Prime Minister barely appears in paid-for adverts from the Conservative Party on Facebook, while canvassers avoid Westminster politics on the doorstep.
Tory campaigners across the country are trying to defy gloomy polls, with the latest figures showing the Conservatives trailing Labour in the wake of revelations that Mr Johnson and Rishi Sunak broke Covid rules.
One Tory leaflet in Hartlepool said: “This Thursday, please don’t punish local Conservatives for the mistakes made in Westminster” and in London, 400 candidates are running with “Local Conservative” on the ballot paper.
Two local Conservative candidates in Edgbaston, Birmingham, have released a leaflet that claims the elections are “not about party politics, but about who will work hardest for the community”.
Out of the seven council elections where Tories could lose overall control, campaigners in three have actively taken a step back from the national party.
In Southampton, Wandsworth and some wards in Westminster, residents are urged to “vote Local Conservatives”. The words “this election is about local issues, not national issues” appear on leaflets in Newcastle-under-lyme, Staffordshire, where Aaron Bell, the incumbent Tory MP, has been a fierce Johnson critic.
Mr Johnson has not featured in any of the 113 local election adverts pushed by the Conservative Party’s Facebook account since May 1, despite appearing in five adverts encouraging people to join the party or donate to the party between July and December 2020.
The party has instead pushed adverts with graphics about the date of polling day, and an attack advert against Labour with a photo of Jeremy Corbyn.
The apparent attempt to hide Mr Johnson from voters comes after the Liberal Democrats accused him of deliberately staying away from “Blue Wall” areas during the campaign. Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader, said he was “nowhere to be found” and his absence was an “insult to millions”.
In Somerset, a local Conservative campaigner told The Daily Telegraph canvassers were told to focus on local issues. “Partygate comes up but it’s deflected by saying that what they do in Westminster is up to them,” they said.
Polling for The Telegraph has suggested the Tories could lose nearly 550 seats today. They could also lose control of London councils such as Wandsworth and Westminster – considered “bellwether” councils for UK opinion.
Southampton council is a marginal Tory-held authority but could flip to Labour today, according to the latest polling.
Wandsworth, in London, is by most accounts a model Conservative council. Band D council tax is £866 in the borough, compared with £1,660 in neighbouring Labourrun Lambeth. It is committed to fiscal rectitude, residents largely express satisfaction with its services, and they have consistently voted Tory even as the party’s broader fortunes have ebbed and flowed in the capital.
In today’s local elections, however, some Conservatives fear that that winning streak may come to an end. A council that pioneered the application of Thatcherite principles to local administration may be ejected from power because of the record of a Tory Government that has championed policies more redolent of high-tax, socialist Lambeth.
In council elections, campaigners often express frustration that their records are neglected by voters who wish to punish a party for its national sins. Today’s vote is unlikely to be any different – with the electorate expected to deliver a verdict not solely on local services, but on the partygate saga and the Government’s hapless handling of the cost of living squeeze.
According to some forecasts, the Conservative Party may face its most serious losses in the so-called blue wall – traditional Tory areas that have, in recent years, begun to shift away from the party. Some attribute this to demographic change and highly local rows over issues such as new housing development, but that is surely only part of it.
The Government has almost nothing to offer the aspirational voters who were for many years the bedrock of the Tories’ support. It has been left marooned with an increase in National Insurance contributions designed to fund an unreformed health service that seems incapable of delivering for the public. It rarely seeks to apply Conservative principles to problems such as the unacceptably high cost of energy. Instead, it flirts with Left-wing ideas such as windfall taxes, thereby eroding the Tories’ distinctive offer to the electorate.
Conservative councillors should not have to pay the price for the Government’s drift. By and large, Tory councils are better run than their Labour equivalents and levy lower rates of council tax. Like Wandsworth, they recognise that good housekeeping, competence and consistency can have an enduring appeal. If only the party in Westminster could say the same.