Keir Starmer embraces Tony Blair as he faces make-or-break local elections: Labour leader vows to make ‘gains’ as Tories insist Boris’s leadership is NOT under threat and voters ‘don’t care about partygate backlash’
- Sir Keir enlisted ex-PM Tony Blair to officially endorse his leadership today
- Elections are taking place in some local councils in England, Wales and Scotland
- MoS poll shows public prefer Keir to Boris as leader of the UK, 57% to 43%
Sir Keir Starmer enlisted former prime minister Tony Blair to officially endorse his leadership today as he seeks ‘gains’ in Thursday’s local elections.
In a video to mark 25 years since Labour’s historic 1997 landslide election win, Mr Blair praises praised Sir Keir’s Starmer’s ‘strength, determination and intelligence’.
He also recounted the ‘huge ways and the myriad of small ways [that] Britain was changed for the better’ by his administration.
The endorsement is a bold move by a party in which Mr Blair remains a controversial figure.
He is hated by the hard left for the Iraq war and centrist policies that won him three terms in office.
Sir Keir today insisted that Labour had to make ‘gains’ in Thursday’s local elections in order for them to be a success – as a new poll suggested more than half of voters preferred him to Boris Johnson.
Exclusive research by former Tory deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft, published in today’s Mail on Sunday shows that when asked to choose between a Conservative Government led by Boris Johnson and a Labour Government led by Sir Keir, 57 per cent of people backed Sir Keir, and 43 per cent backed Mr Johnson.
But the 8,000-sample survey also picked up a 55 per cent approval rating for the Prime Minister’s handling of the Ukrainian crisis, with just 25 per cent who disapprove.
Despite the rows still raging about ‘Partygate’, the survey says the cost of living crisis is regarded as the most important issue facing the country, followed by the NHS, the economy, climate change and immigration.
Tory chairman Oliver Dowden used an interview with the Sunday Telegraph today to echo this, claiming that voters were ‘fed up’ with media attention focused on the PM’s law-breaking.
‘The further you get from Westminster, the more people are focused on the delivery issues. There’s this perception in Westminster that every door we’re knocking on, parties are coming up on the doorstep. That really is not the case,’ he said.
Sir Keir enlisted former prime minister Tony Blair – a controversial figure for the party’s left – to officially endorse his leadership today with days to go before the poll
Sir Keir Starmer today insisted that Labour had to make ‘gains’ in Thursday’s local elections in order for them to be a success
Lord Ashcroft’s poll results (pictured) show high approval for Boris Johnson’s handling of the Ukraine crisis, but other aspects of his leadership are less popular
Tory chairman Oliver Dowden used an interview with the Sunday Telegraph today to claimvoters were ‘fed up’ with media attention focused on the PM’s law-breaking.
Elections are taking place in some local councils in England, Wales and Scotland, as well as London boroughs and the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The results in Britain will provide a strong marker of the state of play ahead of a general election expected in 2024.
Sir Keir denied that Labour has a secret electoral pact with the Liberal Democrats.
Asked about claims made by Conservative Party chair Oliver Dowden of a pact, the Labour leader told Sky News: ‘I wouldn’t take anything Oliver Dowden says particularly seriously.
‘The fact that he is spending his Sunday… attacking Labour… why doesn’t he say something about the cost-of-living crisis for heaven’s sake?
‘There is no pact, everybody knows there is no pact. We will put a candidate up when there is a by-election, obviously after the Neil Parish resignation of yesterday.’
He later claimed Labour is standing more candidates than ever in the local elections.
Mr Dowden claimed Sir Keir was standing down candidates ‘in swathes of the country’ where Lib Dem support is strong to avoid splitting the anti-Tory vote. And he alleges Sir Ed Davey’s party has returned the favour where Labour is dominant elsewhere.
In a letter to the Labour leader, which has been seen by The Mail on Sunday, Mr Dowden claimed that Sir Keir planned to ‘deny the voters a proper democratic choice’ on Thursday.
If the alleged tactics are replicated at a General Election, it could see a return to the days of the Lib-Lab pacts of the 1970s.
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey later also denied there was a pact, and accused the Tories of being ‘desperate’.
He told the BBC: ‘In fact if you look at what we are doing in these local elections, we are fighting Labour in many areas, in Hull, in Sunderland, in Sheffield, in Haringey, in Southwark, I could go on.
‘This is pretty desperate from the Conservatives. I am not surprised because lifelong Conservatives are switching away from them because they are really upset that we have a Prime Minister who is not decent to run our country.’
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