The Tory general election campaign hit more trouble on Saturday as Rishi Sunak faced accusations of using levelling up funds to win votes and Labour opened its biggest poll lead since the disastrous premiership of Liz Truss.
As Sunak tried to fire up his party’s campaign before the first crucial TV debate with Keir Starmer on Tuesday, it emerged that more than half of the 30 towns each promised £20m of regeneration funding on Saturday were in constituencies won by Tory MPs at the last election.
Some 17 of the £20m pots went to towns in areas won by the Conservatives in 2019, although two of those were no longer held by Conservative MPs when the general election was called.
Just eight awards were made to towns in Labour seats, although many of the party’s strongholds tend to be in more deprived areas in need of levelling up money.
The funding pledge led to accusations from Sunak’s opponents of “pork barrel” politics, while those involved in regeneration of the north said the announcement was more about winning votes than levelling up.
The row came as the latest Opinium poll for the Observer on Sunday gives Labour a 20-point lead – the highest level it has recorded since Truss was briefly running the country.
This is despite Labour having endured a torrid week on the election trail and days of infighting over whether veteran Diane Abbott should be allowed to stand again.
Labour is on 45% – up four points on last weekend, while the Conservatives are down two points on 25%. Reform is up on one on 11%, the Lib Dems down two on 8%, and the Greens down one on 6%.
The poll also showed more people (45%) thought the Tories’ big announcement last weekend – the reintroduction of a form of mandatory national service for 18-year-olds – was a bad idea than thought it was a good one (35%).
A lot of people haven’t forgiven them for the Coalition - a vote for them back then turned out to be a vote for the Tories.
Students in particular got fucked due to the tuition fee pledge roll back. I can see the conservatives using that as a wedge against the lib dem student vote in those seats.
The great British public utter failing to understand coalition politics - if you want the Lib Dem’s to have to make less compromises the key is to vote in more Lib Dems… not less. Of course a government that is mostly Conservative is going to do mostly Conservative things. But it also did some Lib Dem things, which is better than no Lib Dem things! The idea that ‘Vote Conservative and be fucked’ is more compelling than ‘Vote Lib Dem and be a bit less fucked’ goes a long way to explaining the mess this country is in.
I agree that the coalition was probably better than a full conservative government, they both had to get rid of their stupid/extreme policies.
Still stuck me with 10s of thousands more student loan though… I’m over that now… Mostly.
The debt sucks. A progressive graduate tax would probably have been better - then you couldn’t just avoid it by having rich parents, or avoid the interest by paying it off quick by going into banking. But, you know, tax…
The only reason it’s not a tax is to save older, more likely-to-vote generations (who have a higher earnings differential from their degrees than younger folk) from having to pay it too, concentrating the cost on the currently-young.
Lib Dems could have formed a coalition government with labour instead of forced a Tory minority government and a quicker return to the polls. Clegg chose power over his party.
“If you want daddy to stop beating you, just mind your manners and be better behaved”