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      Tory ‘performance art’ nearly over, Labour to say at local elections launch

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 22:30

    Keir Starmer expected to accuse Conservatives of failing on levelling up and ‘preying’ on hopes of voters

    May will mark the beginning of the end of a “Tory era of politics as performance art”, Keir Starmer will say at the launch of Labour’s local election campaign, accusing ministers of having utterly failed on levelling up.

    The Labour leader will join his deputy, Angela Rayner, and Richard Parker, the party’s candidate for West Midlands mayor, to argue that the Tories had given voters false hopes in their apparent mission to reduce regional inequalities.

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      On the buses with Rishi Sunak, we see only side-streets and diversions | Zoe Williams

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 6 days ago - 15:51

    The country may be becoming a basket case and councils going bust, but what does the PM think of the England shirt?

    There is nothing a politician loves more than a bus. They’re so versatile. You can paint slogans on them when you want your lies immortalised, and colour them pink to indicate (Harriet Harman, how could you? Circa 2015 ) that you’re a great big feminist.

    You can get an open-top bus if you want to look racy (Lee Anderson, nearly taking his own head off on a motorway, last week), but most of all, you can stand in front of one.

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      ‘This isn’t a game of 4D chess’: Tories braced for bruising local elections

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 6 days ago - 15:21

    Rishi Sunak launches his party’s campaign amid fears of wipeout and internal rumblings about his leadership

    At a bus depot in Derbyshire Rishi Sunak valiantly rehearsed some of the arguments the Conservatives are preparing to deploy against Keir Starmer and Labour at the local elections in May .

    Starmer was “arrogantly taking the British people for granted”, he claimed, and pointed to Birmingham council as an example of how Labour had “effectively bankrupted the largest local authority in Europe”.

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      Rishi Sunak rules out holding general election on 2 May

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Thursday, 14 March - 19:53

    PM moves to quash speculation he was preparing to call national poll to coincide with local elections

    Rishi Sunak has ruled out holding a general election on 2 May, when voters are to go to the polls in local elections.

    Asked by ITV News West Country whether he was preparing to call a snap election to coincide with the local elections , the prime minister said: “There won’t be a general election on that day.”

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      Tories fear losing half their seats in May local polls as pre-election budget flops

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Sunday, 10 March - 08:00

    Victories in councils won during Boris Johnson’s ‘vaccine boost’ of 2021 face wipeout, leaving Rishi Sunak’s regime in peril

    Senior Tories are braced for a catastrophic set of local elections that will see a collapse in council seats won at the peak of the “vaccine bounce” enjoyed by Boris Johnson.

    Rishi Sunak’s allies regard the results as the most dangerous moment remaining for the prime minister before the general election. While many of Sunak’s Tory critics have little appetite for removing him, some said they were asking themselves: “What is there to lose?” after a pre-election budget that has failed to increase Conservative support.

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      ‘We’re stuffed’: have Conservatives given up on winning the next general election?

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Friday, 8 March - 17:27

    With over 60 Tory MPs standing down and councillors quitting before council elections, there is a sense party expects a heavy defeat

    Hours after Wednesday’s budget, the Conservative party’s great and good assembled under the sweeping stone arches of the medieval Guildhall in London to hear Rishi Sunak address the 50th anniversary dinner for the Centre for Policy Studies thinktank. His party had a clear plan, the prime minister told hundreds of Tory MPs, peers, donors and other assorted luminaries: one centred on higher growth and lower taxes.

    Many of those gathered had listened in person as Jeremy Hunt unveiled another 2p cut in national insurance but failed to produce anything approximating the rabbit-from-a-hat announcement that Tory MPs hoped might start shifting the polls. Sunak’s remarks were therefore greeted with scepticism, and some even raised eyebrows and politely shook heads. One attender called the event the “most opulent funeral I’ve ever been to”.

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      Tory MPs pushing for Rishi Sunak to quit before he is deposed

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Sunday, 18 February - 19:28

    Backbench MPs said to be lobbying for PM to stand down after local elections in May to avoid spectacle of coup

    Tory MPs critical of Rishi Sunak’s leadership are hoping he will stand down voluntarily to avoid the spectacle of a damaging coup and are looking to May’s local elections as a potential crunch point, the Guardian has been told.

    A former minister said several Conservative MPs had contacted Graham Brady, who heads the 1922 Committee of backbench Tories, to say they want the prime minister to quit, but that they had not sent in letters of no confidence yet.

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      In Rochdale, there’s good amid the bad and ugly | Letters

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Sunday, 18 February - 16:49

    Rochdalian Tricia Ayrton remembers the town’s late MP Tony Lloyd, while Molly Berry suggests a candidate the town could vote for. Plus letters from David Vaughan , Donald Entwistle and Dr John Puntis

    Yes, Rochdale does deserve better than the current byelection situation, but in her catalogue of the town’s political ills, Marina Hyde has made a significant omission ( Conspiracists, chancers and a sexter – Rochdale deserves better, and frankly we all do, 13 February ). For seven years, from June 2017 until January 2024, Rochdale had the best. We in Rochdale were fortunate enough to be represented by Tony Lloyd , the most dignified, principled and humane politician it has ever been my honour to know.

    Tony’s death is still raw and he is still being mourned in Rochdale and right across the world. The 90 minutes of cross-party parliamentary tributes to him on 23 January pay tribute to his work and to the affection and esteem in which he is still held.

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