Latest editorial
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer holds five-month-old Hazel as he joins party members in Chatham, Kent, where Labour has taken overall control of Medway Council for the first time since 1998 after winning 30 of its 59 seats in the local elections, May 5, 2023
LABOUR’S “fantastic” local election results show the party is on course for Downing Street, Sir Keir Starmer claimed today while Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak attempted to remain defiant despite heavy losses.
The Labour leader told jubilant supporters that they are heading towards a Westminster majority after Thursday’s polls in many parts of England saw the official opposition seize Swindon, Stoke-on-Trent, Plymouth, Medway and other key battlegrounds.
But polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice warned the “jury is still out” on whether the party is making enough progress to win outright at the next general election, expected in 2024.
Once derided by Farage as a ‘fraud,’ Jenrick has defected to Reform, bringing experience and political ruthlessness to the populist right — and raising the unsettling prospect of a Farage-led movement with a seasoned operative pulling the strings, says ANDREW MURRAY
Every Starmer boast about removing asylum-seekers probably wins Reform another seat while Labour loses more voters to Lib Dems, Greens and nationalists than to the far right — the disaster facing Labour is the leadership’s fault, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP