Labour and Lib Dem sources say turnout appears to be low in possible sign of Tory voters staying away
The Conservatives are braced for a nerve-shredding 24 hours after voting closed in local elections across the UK, with Labour and the Liberal Democrats expecting to make gains.
Taking place against the backdrop of the cost of living crisis, the first nationwide polls since Partygate will be widely read as a test of whether Boris Johnson has become an electoral liability.
Continue reading...Tory candidates ask voters not to punish them for ‘mistakes’ in Westminster in wake of Partygate
Hundreds of Tories are distancing themselves from Boris Johnson by standing as “Local Conservatives” in Thursday’s council elections, with rebel MPs saying they will gauge support over the weekend for a move against the prime minister.
Election leaflets seen by the Guardian show local candidates across England playing down their Tory affiliations, eschewing pictures of Johnson and styling themselves as “Local Conservative” on voting ballot papers.
Continue reading...PM’s interview on Good Morning Britain causes concern about party’s performance in upcoming local elections
Boris Johnson’s fumbled defence of the government’s record on the cost of living has exasperated Conservative MPs and sharpened fears about the party’s performance in Thursday’s local elections.
Asked about a pensioner forced to travel around on buses to stay warm and keep heating bills down, the prime minister’s first response was to boast that he introduced free travel for older people. During the interview on Tuesday, he admitted that the government had failed to do enough to alleviate the pain of soaring costs.
Continue reading...Dan Ozarow felt terrorised by abuse of him and his family after negative campaigning in Hertfordshire
Conservative councillors in Oliver Dowden’s constituency have been disciplined for a “hate” campaign against a Jewish Labour candidate, according to an independent investigation commissioned by Tory HQ.
The report found the behaviour of five Hertsmere Tory councillors “may well have encouraged” antisemitic abuse of Labour’s Dan Ozarow, as well as multiple breaches of the party’s code of conduct.
Continue reading...The Tories have held Wandsworth for more than four decades, but Boris Johnson’s lockdown woes and the cost of living crisis threaten to tip the balance towards Labour
In many ways, the London borough of Wandsworth is a paradigm of the modern capital. On one hand, it is a place where a teenager recently fainted from hunger in a food bank queue. And on the other, it is home to the “sky pool”, a spectacular transparent swimming pool suspended 10 storeys above ground in Nine Elms, and reserved exclusively for the development’s richest residents.
The borough is also known for its comparatively low council tax – which, its Conservative-run council boasts, is the lowest average council tax in the country. Wandsworth also claims to be the only local authority in London that is cutting its share of council tax bills.
Continue reading...Unhappy MPs feel poor results would help their cause, but No 10 believes he has ‘crossed Rubicon’ and will cling on
Tory MPs are eyeing the aftermath of dire local election results as their next chance to oust Boris Johnson, with the prime minister preparing to apologise for his Partygate penalty.
However, Downing Street is feeling bullish that Johnson has “crossed the Rubicon” after receiving his first fixed-penalty notice earlier this month, and will cling on in the face of further charges.
Continue reading...The Tories made huge gains in last year’s local elections but could be punished for scandals and the cost of living crisis
Over the past two months, the Labour candidate, Adrian Hughes, has knocked on more than 1,000 doors in Upper Gornal and Woodsetton in north Dudley before May’s local elections.
The most marginal ward in a historically marginal council, it was won by the Conservatives last year by 82 votes when there were five candidates on the ballot paper. This year there are only two options: red or blue.
Continue reading...The prime minister fails to feature on a number of Tory flyers for the 5 May polls, but his opponents are putting him front and centre
After his ratings plunged in the wake of “partygate” and as his government faces demands to act over the cost of living, it may be a surprise to discover that Boris Johnson’s face can be found on leaflets for the forthcoming local elections. Unfortunately for the prime minister, it is not his own party’s literature that features his image.
The Observer has seen Conservative leaflets circulated in London, the Midlands and the north of England in recent weeks. None of them shows Johnson, once regarded as the Tory politician able to reach voters that no one else in his party could.
Continue reading...A year after the chaotic parish council Zoom call, reports find the Handforth councillor was in the wrong
Jackie Weaver – if you recall the dialogue from the jaw-droppingly chaotic parish council meeting – had “no authority” to remove councillors from the meeting. “No authority at all.”
More than a year on, newly published independent investigation reports have revealed the complainants were correct: the muting of microphones and removal of individual councillors “was without authority”. Weaver, it seems, did not have the authority to do what she did.
Continue reading...Last week’s byelection result laid bare the growing anger felt towards the PM – both from outside and within his own party
Shortly after Owen Paterson resigned as the Tory MP for North Shropshire in early November, Helen Morgan, who had been trounced when she stood as Liberal Democrat candidate at the last general election, rang her party’s HQ in London with a message that took senior officials by surprise.
“She told us that we really had a chance in the byelection, that we had to throw everything at it. Initially there was a lot of scepticism,” said a party official. “Nobody really believed it.”
Continue reading...Poll reveals huge public cynicism, with just 5% of respondents believing politicians work for public good
Trust in politicians to act in the national interest rather than for themselves has fallen dramatically since Boris Johnson became prime minister, according to figures contained in a disturbing new study into the state of British democracy.
The polling data from YouGov for the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) shows a particularly sharp fall in trust in the few weeks since the Owen Paterson scandal triggered a rash of Tory sleaze scandals.
Continue reading...Louie French becomes MP for suburban London seat, but Tories’ majority of nearly 19,000 cut to 4,478
The Conservatives have held the safe seat of Old Bexley and Sidcup in the first in a series of closely watched parliamentary byelections.
Louie French was elected as the new MP, replacing the well-liked former cabinet minister James Brokenshire, who died in October from lung cancer.
Continue reading...People in Old Bexley and Sidcup say their faith has been undermined but they are still likely to vote Tory
Residents in Old Bexley and Sidcup are vacillating over whether to return the Conservatives to power in an upcoming byelection that will test their loyalty following the high-profile corruption allegations that have beset the party.
Gillian Moore, 64, a poll clerk and retired bank receptionist, said the sleaze row and the government’s mishandling of the pandemic response had undermined her faith in the Conservatives.
Continue reading...Despite government narrative of a return to normality, schools in areas with high Covid rates lack support
Schools in England hit by high numbers of Covid-19 cases among staff and pupils have been forced to reinstate mask wearing, send whole year groups home to study online and in some cases close early for half-term as the pandemic continues to wreak havoc in education.
Despite the government narrative of a return to normality in classrooms, schools in areas with high coronavirus rates say they have struggled to function, with many staff off sick and problems securing supply teachers because of high demand.
Continue reading...Sister of murdered MP Jo Cox holds West Yorkshire seat for party, easing pressure on leader Keir Starmer
Labour has narrowly won the Batley and Spen byelection, holding on to the West Yorkshire seat after a hotly contested campaign.
Labour won 13,296 votes with the Tories recording 12,973, according to official results. Kim Leadbeater defeated Ryan Stephenson, the Conservative candidate, by 323 votes. George Galloway, representing the Workers Party of Britain, came third with 8,264 votes.
Continue reading...Rock Feilding-Mellen said he was emailed about potential cladding change but didn’t understand significance
Rock Feilding-Mellen, the Tory councillor in charge of the Grenfell Tower refurbishment, was informed of plans to save money by swapping zinc cladding for aluminium in 2014 but initially told police he only knew about it after the June 2017 fire, a statement released to the public inquiry show.
The switch led to the use of combustible cladding that became the main cause of the fire’s spread. Feilding-Mellen, the cabinet member for housing at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, said he had no idea about the different properties of the two materials.
Continue reading...Leader says party considering moving HQ out of London to show it represents the whole country after May election defeats
The Conservatives inflicted a historic byelection defeat on Labour and regained the Tees Valley mayoralty by a landslide as Keir Starmer conceded his party had lost the trust of working people across England.
The Labour leader, who called the local election results “bitterly disappointing”, is considering moving his party’s headquarters out of London to reflect Labour’s determination to show that it represents the whole country, party sources told the Guardian.
Continue reading...Metropolitan police chief stands firm after criticism from London mayor and home secretary
Britain’s most senior police chief defied pressure to resign as she dismissed “armchair” critics amid widespread outrage over officers manhandling women who were mourning the killing of Sarah Everard.
Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, was publicly rebuked by the home secretary, Priti Patel, and the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, for providing an unsatisfactory explanation of why police broke up a vigil for Everard in London’s Clapham Common on Saturday, near where she was allegedly abducted before being murdered.
Continue reading...Government says it will impose tier 3 restrictions on the region if no agreement reached
The strictest Covid restrictions will be imposed on nearly 3 million people across Greater Manchester if no deal is reached by midday on Tuesday, the government has said in a dramatic ultimatum.
The communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, warned northern leaders late on Monday night that if they fail to agree to pub closures and a ban on household mixing, the tier 3 measures will be brought in unilaterally.
Continue reading...Some locals believe the ‘Zante 30’ were selfish while others say they did nothing wrong
They’ve become known – somewhat infamously - as the Zante 30.
Just as the pubs, cafes and shops on the Barbican in Plymouth were gearing up for a bumper bank holiday weekend, with visitors and city residents expected to arrive on the Devon waterside to drink, eat and be merry, the news came.
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