Last modified on Wed 5 May 2021 01.48 EDT
Top story: Labour insiders warn of ‘huge trouble’
Hello, I’m Warren Murray, and the last thing I would want to do is waste your time – so here is what matters most.
Fewer than half of recent Labour voters in Hartlepool say they will back the party in Thursday’s crucial byelection, according to internal data based on the canvassing of more than 10,000 people, leading activists to fear a historic Conservative victory. Voters across England, Scotland and Wales will go to the polls tomorrow on what has been dubbed “Super Thursday”, in the biggest set of local and devolved parliament elections since 1973. It is the first byelection since Boris Johnson’s landslide victory in December 2019, and is seen as a test of Labour’s appeal to its heartlands just over a year after Keir Starmer became leader with a pledge to rebuild the “red wall”.
Last modified on Tue 4 May 2021 01.39 EDT
Top story: Local elections campaigning heats up
Hello, I’m Warren Murray back with Tuesday’s news.
The UK still has a system that allows power to be abused, Keir Starmer has said, pledging that the Labour party will “clean up our politics”. In the final days before polls close for local, mayoral, Welsh and Scottish elections, the Labour leader will attempt to draw a close connection between the stories of Tory sleaze and their effect on ordinary people. Labour sources said Starmer would link the row over Boris Johnson’s lavish Downing St refurbishments to the early days of the pandemic and question whether the prime minister was distracted as he apparently sought donors to sponsor the decorations, which he has now funded himself.
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