Rishi Sunak to launch Tory English local election campaign
Rishi Sunak is planning to launch the Conservative partyâs local election campaign in Derbyshire today.
The party is facing the expectation of poor results on 2 May, due to a combination of the Sunak governmentâs unpopularity â Labour is broadly 20 points ahead in polling â and that Conservatives performed comparatively well when the same seats were contested in 2021, after the elections were delayed for a year due to Covid restrictions.
Sunak is hoping to push a message about the economy and the finincial situation of Labour-controlled local government, but his planned media appearance script is likely to be derailed by questions about what the government is proposing to do about the situation with Waspi (Women Against State Pension Inequality) women.
Yesterday the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) said thousands of women, potentially hundreds of thousands, are owed compensation because of government failings related to the way changes to the state pension age were made.
The recommended payouts of between £1,000 and £2,950 a person fall far short of the £10,000-plus that campaigners were calling for, and the ombudsman cannot compel the government to pay. It said the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had clearly indicated it would ârefuse to complyâ, which was âunacceptableâ. The issue led many of this morningâs newspaper front pages.
The local elections are being held in England. Wales also has four police and crime commissioners up for election, three of which are held by Labour and one by Plaid Cymru.
Key events
Rishi Sunak has arrived at a bus depot in Heanor in Derbyshire. We are expecting some words from him at some point as he launches the Conservatives local election campaign for England.
Rishi Sunak is lagging behind not just Keir Starmer but also Nigel Farage, Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson in net favourability in some latest polling from YouGov.
Politiciansâ net favourability ratings: March 2024
Keir Starmer: -18
Sadiq Khan: -32
Nigel Farage: -40
Jeremy Corbyn: -41
Nicola Sturgeon: -44
Boris Johnson: -46
Jeremy Hunt: -48
Rishi Sunak: -50
Liz Truss: -73Rachel Reeves: -6 (54% say “don’t know)https://t.co/7hhrlUOSaG pic.twitter.com/si453ftSUn
— YouGov (@YouGov) March 22, 2024
Other highlights include Sadiq Khan having a large lead over Susan Hall in popularity ahead of Londonâs mayoral contest in May, and Vaughan Gething and Humza Yousaf both still having work to do to overhaul the popularity of their predecessors.
There was a decent showing for fictitious politician Andrew Farmer though, who only ended up with a net unpopularity of nine points. YouGov include him in the survey to see how many people will say they have a firm opinion about somebody who doesnât exist.
By the way, our polling aggregator for headline party support is always available here:
A bit of economic news with political implications from my colleague Richard Partington, who writes that the governor of the Bank of England has said interest rate cuts will be âin playâ at forthcoming policy meetings amid progress in sharply reducing the UKâs headline rate of inflation over the past year.
The central bank kept interest rates on hold at 5.25% on Thursday for a fifth consecutive time. However, its rate-setting monetary policy committee said there were âencouraging signsâ of falling inflation that could open the door for interest rate cuts in future.
Read more from Richard Partington here: UK interest rate cuts âin playâ, says Bank of England governor
Plaid Cymruâs spring conference opens in Galeri, Caernarfon today, and one of the speakers will be SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn.
Some details of the speech have been released in advance. PA Media report Flynn is expected to say that his party and others must âbreak up the cosy Westminster consensusâ in a direct attack on the direction of Keir Starmerâs Labour party. He will say:
It is becoming ever clearer that the ambitions of Sir Keir Starmer are not just the return of new Labour, he is now an active fanboy for new Thatcherism.
Not for the first time, Labourâs leadership has abandoned progressive politics in the pursuit of power. It is therefore up to us â the SNP, Plaid Cymru and others to offer an alternative.
An alternative that will break up the cosy Westminster consensus. An alternative that demands real investment in the NHS and public services, a closer relationship with the EU, help with the cost of living, action to tackle poverty and an ethical foreign policy.
This week the Guardian has been reporting on the membership of the Garrick Club and its men-only policy. Todayâs edition of Today in Focus, if you fancy something to listen to, features Amelia Gentleman talking to Hannah Moore about it.
You can listen to that here.
Nesrine Malik has also spoken about the reporting, this time to Nimo Omer for todayâs First Edition, our free daily briefing email. She told Nimo:
Why would you want to be a member of such a club unless the values of that membership and its exclusivity already permeate your life and your professional existence?
You can read that here.
The government has announced that funding has been allocated for nearly 955 new electric buses in England, with 25 councils across the country sharing the £143m expenditure.
Transport secretary Mark Harper said âAs part of our plan to improve local transport across the country, weâre providing a further £143m to improve journeys for bus passengers, particularly in rural areas, with almost 1,000 brand-new, zero-emission buses due to hit the road.â
The spending allocation is, according to PA Media, broken up as follows:
Sunakâs local election campaign launch in Derbyshire today is expected to have a transport element to it, and he is likely to try to talk up government transport policies, which have been under increased scrutiny after the long-drawn out demise of the HS2 plans and the promised redistribution of the funds.
George Osborne calls for Sunak to name general election date
Former Chancellor George Osborne has said that Rishi Sunak should name the general election date to avoid a summer of speculation. On his Political Currency podcast he said:
I would today say: âIâll tell you when the general election is going to beâ. That ends all the speculation about early elections. It means you donât go through the whole summer with questions on is it going to be October or November. The marginal advantage heâs going to get by having a bit of a surprise ⦠is more than outweighed by the endless speculation. The only reason people know he isnât calling an election right now is because he knows he couldnât win it.
Rayner: tax allegations were ‘non-story manufactured to try to smear me’
Overnight Labourâs deputy leader Angela Rayner has defended her handling of her tax affairs.
In an appearance on the BBCâs Newsnight programme she told viewers:
Iâve been very clear thereâs no rules broken. [The Conservatives] tried to manufacture a police investigation. [The police] said thereâs no issues there.
I got tax advice which says there was no capital gains tax. Itâs a non-story manufactured to try to smear me. I was a home care worker, you know, I didnât have an accountant. I had, as most people would: you put your house on the market, you get a legal conveyancing solicitor, and you get an estate agent.
But since those allegations were put to me, I got expert tax advice to make sure that I hadnât done anything wrong. I wasnât aware of the HMRC rules ⦠when I sold that property. I sold it as most people would put it on the market, got the solicitor and the estate agents, etc.
Since those allegations were put to me â the tax laws on capital gains tax and principal private residency â is very complex, including marriage. I got that advice that is categoric that I do not owe any capital gains tax on that.
PA Media notes that a book by former Conservative Party deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft had suggested that she failed to properly declare her main residency when she sold a property in 2015 before she entered parliament.
Former Conservative party treasurer Ashcroft resigned from the House of Lords in 2015 to focus on other activities.
Labour have announced a series of proposals on the justice system, including a trial scheme in which six police forces will be given powers to charge domestic abuser suspects without the involvement of the Crown Prosecution Service. The plan is based on a pilot implemented by West Yorkshire police which has invested in a cohort of trained police decision-makers.
Our Home affairs editor Rajeev Syal has more here: Labour to give police emergency powers to charge domestic abuse suspects
Rishi Sunak to launch Tory English local election campaign
Rishi Sunak is planning to launch the Conservative partyâs local election campaign in Derbyshire today.
The party is facing the expectation of poor results on 2 May, due to a combination of the Sunak governmentâs unpopularity â Labour is broadly 20 points ahead in polling â and that Conservatives performed comparatively well when the same seats were contested in 2021, after the elections were delayed for a year due to Covid restrictions.
Sunak is hoping to push a message about the economy and the finincial situation of Labour-controlled local government, but his planned media appearance script is likely to be derailed by questions about what the government is proposing to do about the situation with Waspi (Women Against State Pension Inequality) women.
Yesterday the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) said thousands of women, potentially hundreds of thousands, are owed compensation because of government failings related to the way changes to the state pension age were made.
The recommended payouts of between £1,000 and £2,950 a person fall far short of the £10,000-plus that campaigners were calling for, and the ombudsman cannot compel the government to pay. It said the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had clearly indicated it would ârefuse to complyâ, which was âunacceptableâ. The issue led many of this morningâs newspaper front pages.
The local elections are being held in England. Wales also has four police and crime commissioners up for election, three of which are held by Labour and one by Plaid Cymru.
Welcome and opening summary
Good morning. Welcome to our live UK politics blog for Friday. We are expecting Rishi Sunak to be out and about in Derbyshire today kicking of the Tory campaign for local elections in England. Here are your headlines â¦
Private membersâ bills are being discussed in the Commons today, and there is some business in the House of Lords too. There is no business scheduled in the Scottish parliament, Senedd or Northern Ireland assembly.
It is Martin Belam with you today. I very much enjoy reading your comments and will try to chip in when I think I can be helpful, but by far the easiest way to contact me if you have spotted a typo/error/omission or just want to point me in the direction of something is by emailing martin.belam@theguardian.com.
