Labour is defying its critics by continuing to publish advertisements attacking the Tories despite a backlash even from one of its own MPs.
On Friday, a fresh post on Twitter suggested the Conservative Party is weak on firearms offences.
Using the same format as the heavily-criticised first poster, it asks: “Do you think an adult convicted of possessing a gun with intent to harm should go to prison?”
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Before answering, “Rishi Sunak doesn’t”, and adding Sunak’s signature.
It includes the statistic: “Under the Tories 937 adults convicted of possession of a firearm with intent to harm served no prison time. Labour will lock up dangerous gunmen.”
Judges and magistrates, rather than the prime minister of the day, are responsible for handing out sentences and the figures Labour highlighted cover the period since 2010 – Sunak only entered parliament in 2015 and did not become prime minister until October last year.
The first poster – which was variously described as “gutter politics”, “idiotic” and “a new low in British political attack ads” – suggested Sunak did not support the jailing of child sex offenders.
The tweet has come in for a wave of criticism from across the political spectrum, including from former Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell, who said: “We are better than this.”
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In an excruciating interview on BBC Breakfast this morning, shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell repeatedly refused to say she personally supported the tweet.
HuffPost UK has reported the party was planning to step up its attacks – despite the furore – after holding talks with political allies in America and Australia over how to take the fight to the Conservatives in the run-up to the next election.
Labour was accused of a “vile and desperate” campaign strategy by Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson and “cheapened and debased” politics by SNP MP John Nicolson after posting the advert on Twitter.
Jacinda Ardern has described herself as a “hugger and a crier” as the former New Zealand prime minister said she wanted her career to inspire others to take political office in an emotional farewell address to New Zealand’s parliament.
Ardern – who burst onto the global scene in 2017 when she became the world’s youngest female head of government at age 37 – had stepped down in January saying she had “no more in the tank” to lead the country.
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In her departing address, wearing a traditional Māori cloak called a korowai, she described how she’d navigated a pandemic and a mass-shooting during her tumultuous five-year tenure as prime minister.
When Ardern finished speaking after about 35 minutes, she was greeted with a standing ovation by politicians from across the political spectrum and rousing renditions of several indigenous Māori songs.
The daughter of a policeman and school canteen operator, Ardern described how she never thought she was meant to have the role of prime minister.
While she couldn’t control how her tenure would be defined by others, Ardern said, she hoped it had demonstrated something else.
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“That you can be anxious, sensitive, kind and wear your heart on your sleeve,” she said. “You can be a mother, or not, you can be an ex-Mormon, or not, you can be a nerd, a crier, a hugger, you can be all of these things, and not only can you be here, you can lead, just like me.”
“You can be anxious, sensitive, kind and wear your heart on your sleeve.”
Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern delivers a final emotional address to parliament. pic.twitter.com/KwERQIeWFM
As head of the centre-left Labour party for five years, Ardern steered New Zealand through a volcanic eruption, a 2019 attack by a gunman in Christchurch that killed 51 Muslim worshippers and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ardern said she had found herself involved in people’s lives “during their most grief-stricken or traumatic moments” in that series of events.
She also described how she and fiancé Clarke Gayford thought they couldn’t have children after a failed round of IVF.
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“Rather than process that, I campaigned to become prime minister,” she joked. “A rather good distraction as far as they go. Imagine my surprise when a couple of months later, I discovered I was pregnant.”
Ardern became just the second elected world leader to give birth while holding office after she and Gayford had daughter Neve in 2018.
Ardern described how she’d approached the Covid-19 pandemic on a scientific basis and how New Zealand had fared best among developed nations when measuring excess mortality.
She said she once tried to argue with a lone protestor about a false conspiracy theory.
“But after many of these same experiences, and seeing the rage that often sat behind these conspiracies, I had to accept I was wrong,” she said. “I could not single-handedly pull someone out of a rabbit hole.”
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Later this month, Ardern will begin an unpaid role combating online extremism as special envoy for the Christchurch Call. It’s an initiative she started with French president Emmanuel Macron two months after the Christchurch shooting.
She has also announced she’s joining the board of trustees for The Earthshot Prize, an environmental charity started by Prince William.
Hundreds of asylum seekers will be housed on a barge docked on the Dorset coast, it has been confirmed.
The Bibby Stockholm vessel will be docked at Portland Port and house more than 500 migrants in its 222 bedrooms.
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It is estimated it will cost the public purse around £20,000 a day.
The Home Office is in discussions with other ports, and more barges will be used to house asylum seekers.
But home secretary Suella Braverman faces a potential legal action from Conservative-run Dorset Council, supported by the Tory MP for the area, Richard Drax.
The controversial move is part of Rishi Sunak’s plan to stop asylum seekers crossing the English Channel on small boats, while also cutting the £6m a day bill for housing migrants in hotels while their claims are processed.
The prime minister said: “We’re bringing forward alternative sites, like the barge, that will save us money and indeed reduce pressure on hotels – all part of our plan to stop the boats.”
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Immigration minister Robert Jenrick said: “The home secretary and I have been clear that the use of expensive hotels to house those making unnecessary and dangerous journeys must stop.
“We will not elevate the interests of illegal migrants over the British people we are elected to serve.
“We have to use alternative accommodation options, as our European neighbours are doing – including the use of barges and ferries to save the British taxpayer money and to prevent the UK becoming a magnet for asylum shoppers in Europe.”
He insisted the accommodation “will meet our legal obligations” and also pledged to work with local people to address their concerns over the vessel’s location.
Bill Reeves, chief executive of Portland Port, said: “We are keen to play our part in the national effort to house some of the thousands of people needing accommodation.
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“We encourage everyone in the community to approach this with an open mind and help us show other areas just how successful this type of initiative can be, both for the migrants and the local community.”
But Drax, the South Dorset MP, said the barge was being “dumped on our door” without consultation by the Home Office as he urged Ms Braverman to scrap the idea.
“Every option’s being looked at including legal action,” he told the PA news agency.
“We want to get this consigned to the dustbin before anything’s signed.
“We want to activate ourselves and say look Home Secretary, sorry, this is not the right place, can you please cancel this.”
Former US president Donald Trump has surrendered at a New York courthouse following his indictment on criminal charges after a probe into hush money paid to a porn star.
Trump, 76, was formally charged on Tuesday in a watershed moment for the country as his supporters and detractors noisily rallied outside.
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Wearing a dark blue suit and red tie, he exhibited little emotion on his face as he waved to a crowd assembled outside the courthouse after he was driven in a motorcade from his New York residence at Trump Tower. Trump held his fist in the air in a gesture to reporters as he departed his New York residence.
From his motorcade, Trump posted on social media: “Heading to Lower Manhattan, the Courthouse. Seems so SURREAL – WOW, they are going to ARREST ME. Can’t believe this is happening in America.”
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Trump with crimes related to a $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels in the final days of his 2016 run for the presidency.
Daniels claims these alleged payments, made by Trump’s then lawyer Michael Cohen, were meant to stop her from talking about her affair with Trump prior to the presidential election.
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The hush money in itself is not a crime, but Trump recorded his reimbursement to Cohen as legal fees. If prosecutors prove this was a falsification of records, it could count as a misdemeanour in New York.
It could also mean Trump violated campaign finance laws because it happened just before the 2016 election, and so it could indicate that he didn’t want his voters to know about her – that would be a class E felony.
US media has reported that there are more than 30 counts related to business fraud, although the details of the charges have not been made public yet.
Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, claims the affair did not happen and has alleged that the indictment is “political persecution” from the Democrats to impact the election.
He also alleged that the Democrats have “done the unthinkable” and indicted a “completely innocent person”.
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In a statement, his lawyer said: “He did not commit any crime. We will vigorously fight this political prosecution in court.”
Trump’s indictment involved him travelling to the district attorney’s office in downtown New York to surrender.
Trump will have his fingerprints taken and is to appear for the charges to be read before him in court. It’s unclear whether a mugshot will be taken. He is likely to be released and allowed to head home.
It marks the first instance in American history of a former president facing criminal charges, and comes after years of investigations into the 76-year-old’s business, political and personal dealings.
Any trial of the former US president would still be more than a year away, legal experts say, and could coincide with the final months of the 2024 presidential campaign as Trump seeks a return to the White House.
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The Manhattan case is the least serious of the potential criminal cases targetting Trump. A federal special prosecutor, Jack Smith, is investigating both Trump’s handling of classified documents and his role in the January 6 Capitol riot. And a grand jury in Georgia could soon hand up charges related to Trump’s efforts to change election results there.
In extraordinary moment in US history, former president Donald Trump is to turn himself in at a New York courthouse on Tuesday following his indictment on criminal charges after a probe into hush money paid to a porn star.
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Trump with crimes related to a $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels in the final days of his 2016 run for the presidency.
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Trump, who was impeached twice but was never convicted, is the first former president to face criminal charges. But the case is just one of the many probes facing the Republican as he makes another run at the White House in 2024.
Georgia election tampering probe
A prosecutor in the state of Georgia is investigating Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in that state.
The investigation focuses in part on a phone call Trump made to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, on January 2, 2021. Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” enough votes needed to overturn Trump’s election loss in Georgia.
Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney and a Democrat who will ultimately decide whether to pursue charges against Trump or anyone else, told a judge on January 24 that a special grand jury had completed its investigation task and that decisions were “imminent”.
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Legal experts said Trump may have violated at least three Georgia criminal election laws: conspiracy to commit election fraud, criminal solicitation to commit election fraud and intentional interference with performance of election duties.
Trump could argue that his discussions were constitutionally protected free speech.
US Capitol attack
The US justice department has investigations under way into both Trump’s actions in the 2020 election and his retention of highly classified documents after departing the White House in 2021.
Both investigations are being overseen by Jack Smith, a war crimes prosecutor and political independent. Trump has accused the FBI, without evidence, of launching the probes as political retribution.
A special House of Representatives committee investigating the deadly January 6, 2021, assault by Trump supporters on the US Capitol urged the justice department to charge Trump with corruption of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and inciting or aiding an insurrection.
Only the justice department can decide whether to charge Trump, who has called the Democratic-led panel’s investigation a politically motivated sham.
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Demonstrators protest against former president Donald Trump at Collect Pond Park near the courthouse ahead of his arraignment hearing in New York city.
Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images
Missing government records
US attorney general Merrick Garland also appointed Smith to investigate whether Trump improperly retained classified records at his Mar-a-Lago Florida estate after he left office in 2021 and then tried to obstruct a federal investigation.
Garland also appointed former US attorney Robert Hur to investigate the removal of classified records in president Joe Biden’s possession dating to his time as vice president.
It is unlawful to willfully remove or retain classified material.
In Trump’s case, the FBI seized 13,000 documents from Mar-a-Lago in an August 8 search. About 100 documents were marked classified; some were designated top secret, the highest level of classification.
Trump has accused the justice department of engaging in a partisan witch hunt.
New York attorney general civil lawsuit
New York attorney general Letitia James sued Trump and his Trump Organisation last September for fraud.
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James said her office found more than 200 examples of misleading asset valuations between 2011 and 2021, and that Trump inflated his net worth by billions of dollars.
The attorney general said the scheme was intended to help Trump obtain lower interest rates on loans and better insurance coverage.
She also said her probe uncovered evidence of criminal wrongdoing, and referred it to federal prosecutors and the Internal Revenue Service.
The civil lawsuit seeks to permanently bar Trump and three of his adult children from running companies in New York state, and recoup at least $250 million obtained through fraud.
Trump, a Republican, has called James’ lawsuit a witch hunt, and the defendants have called the claims meritless. James is a Democrat.
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A New York judge ordered an independent monitor to oversee the Trump Organisation before the scheduled October 2023 trial.
A flag in support of former US president Donald Trump is waved outside Manhattan Criminal Courthouse on the day of his planned court appearance after his indictment by a Manhattan grand jury following a probe into hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels, in New York city.
AMANDA PEROBELLI via Reuters
Defamation lawsuits
E Jean Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, has filed two lawsuits accusing Trump of defaming her by denying he raped her in New York’s Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in late 1995 or early 1996.
Carroll first sued Trump after he told a reporter at the White House in 2019 that he did not know Carroll, that “she’s not my type”, and that she lied to drum up sales for her memoir.
The second lawsuit arose from an October 2022 social media post where Trump called the rape claim a “hoax”, “lie”, “con job” and “complete scam”.
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That lawsuit includes a battery claim under New York’s adult survivors act, which gave adults a one-year window to sue their alleged attackers even if statutes of limitations have expired.
Trump and Carroll are awaiting a decision from a Washington, DC, appeals court on whether, under local law, Trump should be immune from Carroll’s first lawsuit.
The second lawsuit could go to trial on April 25, after a US judge in January called Trump’s bid to dismiss it “absurd”.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Former president Donald Trump boarded his private plane Monday and flew from Florida toward New York ahead of his expected booking and arraignment, as the nation’s largest city bolstered security and warned potential agitators that it is “not a playground for your misplaced anger”.
Trump’s ground journey from his Mar-a-Lago club to his red, white and blue Boeing 757, emblazoned with “TRUMP” in gold letters was carried live on national television and took him past supporters waving banners and cheering the former president. Trump and his supporters criticize the case against him — stemming from hush money payments during his 2016 campaign —as politically motivated.
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The scene was quite different in New York, where Trump built a national profile in business and entertainment but became deeply unpopular as he moved into politics.
His return to the city opens an unprecedented chapter in American history, with Trump being the first former president to face criminal charges even as he is in the midst of a third campaign for the White House. It’s causing major legal, political and cultural events collide in unprecedented ways.
The former president planned to spend the night at Trump Tower, then surrender to authorities on Tuesday for booking and a likely afternoon arraignment. So far, officials have not seen an influx of people coming into the city, as was the case in Washington in the days before the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
Still, authorities warned that possessing a weapon in certain areas of the city, including near courthouses, is a crime.
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“While there may be some rabble rousers thinking about coming to our city tomorrow, our message is clear and simple: control yourselves,” said New York mayor Eric Adams. “New York City is our home, not a playground for your misplaced anger. We are the safest large city in America because we respect the rule of law in New York City.”
Trump Tower was open on Monday, but authorities were planning to close nearby streets as Trump came and went, and additional security was also in the works. They’ve taken steps to close and secure the courthouse floor where the former president is set to appear for an arraignment Tuesday afternoon.
Trump supporters, including one of his staunchest defenders in Congress, Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, planned a rally in New York late on Tuesday morning, probably before Trump would have to stand before a judge as part of the arraignment. Adams took the unusual step of calling out the congresswoman by name.
“Although we have no specific threats, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is known to spread misinformation and hate speech, she’s stated she’s coming to town,” Adams said. “While you’re in town, be on your best behaviour.”
The former president and his aides were eagerly embracing the expected media circus. After initially being caught off guard by news of the indictment when it broke on Thursday evening, Trump and his team are focused on using what they call a weak case against Trump to his advantage.
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<img class="img-sized__img landscape" loading="lazy" alt="A police bus sits outside of Trump Tower.” width=”720″ height=”480″ src=”https://www.wellnessmaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/trump-heads-to-new-york-amid-tight-security-ahead-of-his-surrender-4.jpg”>
A police bus sits outside of Trump Tower.
STEFANI REYNOLDS via Getty Images
<img class="img-sized__img landscape" loading="lazy" alt="Members of the press gather outside of Trump Tower.” width=”720″ height=”480″ src=”https://www.wellnessmaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/trump-heads-to-new-york-amid-tight-security-ahead-of-his-surrender-5.jpg”>
Members of the press gather outside of Trump Tower.
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS via Getty Images
<img class="img-sized__img landscape" loading="lazy" alt="Trump supporters hold flags outside the Trump Tower on April 3, 2023 in New York City. ” width=”720″ height=”480″ src=”https://www.wellnessmaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/trump-heads-to-new-york-amid-tight-security-ahead-of-his-surrender-6.jpg”>
Trump supporters hold flags outside the Trump Tower on April 3, 2023 in New York City.
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS via Getty Images
More than 1,200 miles away in Florida, demonstrators supporting Trump began gathered before dawn at a West Palm Beach shopping center on the way to the airport, hours before he was set to pass along the route.
Boca Raton firefighter Erik Solensten and his retired colleague, John Fischer, got an early start putting up banners. One was 30 by 6 feet (9 by 2 meters), picturing police officers and firefighters saying, “Thanks for having our backs, president Trump.”
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“We are fire-rescue. We are prepared and don’t like to wait for things to happen,” said Solensten, who took a vacation day to show support for Trump. “He needs morale just like everyone else needs morale. He’s done more for this country than any 10 presidents combined.”
Trump is facing multiple charges of falsifying business records, including at least one felony offence, in the indictment handed down by a Manhattan grand jury last week. The investigation is scrutinising six-figure payments made to porn actor Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
Both say they had sexual encounters with the married Trump years before he got into politics. Trump denies having sexual liaisons with either woman and has denied any wrongdoing involving payments, arguing that the case against him is politically motivated.
No former president has ever been indicted and trump’s active campaign for the presidency during next year’s election only further raises the political stakes. Trump spent the weekend golfing and meeting advisers but his campaign says it has raised more than $5 million since word of the indictment broke. One Trump fundraising email Monday carried the subject line, “Tomorrow, I will be arrested”.
Top Republicans, including some of Trump’s potential rivals in next year’s GOP presidential primary, have decried the case against him. President Joe Biden and leading Democrats have largely had little to say about it.
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Solensten said it is wrong that Trump is being charged with a crime stemming from an alleged tryst with a porn star long before he was in office. He said investigators should instead be looking at Biden’s son, Hunter, and his business dealings, which committees in the Republican-controlled House have already begun examining.
“To me, those acts are treasonable,” Solensten said of the Bidens. “But it’s a walk.”
Donald Trump is expected to voluntarily turn himself in to a New York district attorney’s office on Tuesday over charges related to hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels.
The former presidentwill have his fingerprints and mugshot taken and appear for arraignment in court. He will likely be released and allowed to head home, experts have said.
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Mugshots are not public record under New York state law, though they have leaked in the past.
Trump could seek to have the picture released himself in the hopes of a political boost as he makes another bid for the White House.
Within minutes of word of his indictment breaking, his 2024 presidential campaign was sending fundraising messages off the back of the news. His campaign has said it has raised more than $5 million and logged more than 16,000 volunteer signups since the indictment.
Trump could follow the path of other politicians. Texas governor Rick Perry posed for a mugshot photo in August 2014 after he was indicted on felony charges of abuse of power and coercion of a public servant.
Perry was looking to build momentum for a 2016 presidential run that ultimately fizzled out in a matter of months – much like the case against him, which never went to trial.
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An attorney for Trump has said they are against the former president’s mugshot being released.
Alina Habba told CNN: “I like transparency. I think that in certain situations, it’s a good thing. I do have a problem with leaking of pictures. I think that because we’re in a campaign, because he’s the leading GOP candidate, it’s not going to help anything.”
Trump’s campaign has announced he will deliver remarks on Tuesday night from his Mar-a-Lago club after returning from Manhattan. He is expected to be joined in Florida by supporters as he tries to project an image of strength and defiance to boost his presidential run.
The Associated Press has reported Trump is facing multiple charges of falsifying business records in the indictment handed up by a Manhattan grand jury last week. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has blasted the investigation as a “witch hunt”.
A journalist has torpedoed the claims of senior Tories that Brexit is not to blame for the traffic chaos at Dover.
Simon Calder, The Independent’s travel editor, said the French authorities were doing what “we asked them to do” by painstakingly checking the passports of everyone trying to get across the Channel.
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Thousands of holidaymakers trying to get away for the Easter holidays have been caught up in huge tailbacks in Kent in the past 48 hours.
Doug Bannister, the chief executive of the port at Dover, said that the “post-Brexit environment means that every passport needs to be checked”.
And local Tory MP Natalie Elphicke said she was “incredibly disappointed to see French border control problems once again adding to traffic mayhem” at the Kent port.
Appearing on Sky News today, Calder calmly explained why both Braverman and Elphicke were wrong.
He said: “For decades we’ve had so-called juxtaposed border controls at Dover.
“That very simply means French passport officials checking everything before you board the ferry. Normally that’s great because it means as soon as you get to Calais or Dunkirk, you’re free to go.
″Unfortunately, it was never designed, the port of Dover, which as you know is a very constrained area beneath the white cliffs, there was never idea that we would be a hard, external EU frontier just the same as they have in Russia and Turkey.
″But that was exactly what we signed up for after Brexit.
“So previously you would turn up in your car or on a coach and just wave your passport and if they really wanted to a passport official could check ‘is this Anna Jones, is this a valid passport’ and off you’d go.
“Now, they are required – as we asked them to do – to go through, check all your stamps to stamp the passport, and that on a coach needs to be replicated 50 or 60 times.
″And however many French frontier officials you can send over, it’s simply going to back up.”
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Extra sailings were run overnight to try and clear the backlog and by Sunday morning the port estimated some travellers would face waits of up to eight hours, depending on the ferry operator.
A port spokesman said: “The additional sailings have assisted in clearing some of the traffic, although currently both DFDS and P&O have two full lanes of coaches in the port before French border controls, with a processing time of about 4.5 hours.
“P&O have some coaches waiting at the cruise terminal and DFDS have some at service stations in Kent.
“Once coaches are processed in an operator’s lane, more are being sent to the port. Currently, the estimated total time is six to eight hours dwell time.”
There is “no prospect” of Boris Johnson ever becoming prime minister again, George Osborne has said.
The former chancellor said the civil war inside the Tory Party “has ended” because Johnson is now fighting to even remain as an MP.
The ex-prime minister is waiting for the privilege committee’s verdict on whether he misled the Commons over lockdown-busting parties inside 10 Downing Street.
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On the Andrew Neil Show on Channel 4, Osborne also praised Rishi Sunak for improving the Conservatives’ fortunes since taking over as PM from Liz Truss and said they now had a chance of winning the next election.
Speaking after an interview with safeguarding minister Sarah Dines, Osborne said: “I think things are much better for [Sunak’s] administration at the end of this series of this show than they were when we started at the beginning of the year.
″Not least because the internal rebellion has ended in the Tory Party.
“You were asking the minister about Boris Johnson – there’s no prospect of him coming back. He’s battling to stay in the House of Commons itself.”
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Johnson gave a fiery appearance in front of the privileges committee last month during which he admitted he did mislead the Commons, but insisted his comments were made “in good faith” after being assured by his advisers that no parties had taken place.
An interim report by the committee earlier this month said it should have been “obvious” to him that lockdown rules were broken.
If the committee recommends that Johnson be suspended from parliament for at leats 10 days, and the Commons votes for it, he would face a recall petition and potentially a by-election in his Uxbridge seat.
Shabana Mahmood, Labour’s elections co-ordinator, had a simple message for the shadow cabinet last Tuesday.
“The polls have tightened and so discipline is key,” she told them in her latest presentation ahead of the local elections on May 4.
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With Rishi Sunak having enjoyed the best month of his premiership following the passing of his Brexit deal, a disaster-free Budget and the introduction of his plan to stop small boats crossing the Channel, the pressure is suddenly on Keir Starmer to respond.
Mahmood told her frontbench colleagues that Labour will focus relentlessly on three areas in the run-up to polling day – the cost of living, crime and the NHS.
“We must have confidence to stick to the issues we want to talk about, confidence that they are the issues the voters want to hear about and resist being led away by the Tory pied piper,” she said.
Two days later, Starmer was in Swindon to formally launch Labour’s election campaign.
The choice of location was significant. Although Labour has never controlled the local council, its two parliamentary seats are key targets for next year’s general election.
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It is further evidence that May 4 is being seen by party bosses as a dry run for 2024.
“Two months ago, those around Keir were saying that Swindon will be the barometer,” one senior Labour insider told HuffPost UK. “I think we’re looking good there, but they’re not leaving anything to chance.”
In all, 8,141 seats and 230 councils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are up for grabs next month.
The Tories currently hold 3,290 of them, with Labour on 2,062 and the Lib Dems on 1,205. Independents and others make up the remaining 1,600 seats.
One source said: “People probably have their expectations in the wrong places. They expect this to be a complete bloodbath for the Tories, with Labour hoovering up hundreds of seats.
“But the key thing to look out for is where Labour is winning and what our vote share is compared to the 2019 general election.”
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No Labour supporter will need reminding of what happened in 2019, when Jeremy Corbyn led the party to its worst defeat since 1935.
Keir Starmer takes a selfie with shadow cabinet members and Labour members at the party’s local election launch in Swindon.
Stefan Rousseau via PA Wire/PA Images
One shadow cabinet member pointed out that the last time these council seats were contested four years ago, the Tories did so badly that it cost Theresa May her job.
“A lot of Tories went independent in 2019 and the chances are they will switch back this time,” he said.
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“The narrative for us has to be what Labour does nationally and how we perform in they key seats we need to win next year. We’re concentrating our resources there.
“If we wake up on May 5 and the BBC story is ‘Tories lose 100 seats and Labour win 200 so the general election is too close to call’ we’ll have done a bad job of managing people’s expectations.”
Morgan McSweeney, Labour’s campaign director, reinforced that message in his own address to the shadow cabinet.
“He said that the Tories and us are going to be campaigning in different places,” a source told HuffPost UK. “So just because the response we get on the door will feel good, the Tories will be relentlessly working the areas they lost in 2019 and will win some of them back.”
Nevertheless, the mood among Tory MPs remains gloomy. One minister, having seen the returns from Conservative canvassers around the country, recently told a Labour colleague: “You’ll have my job next year – we are fucked.”
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Starmer hopes that the local elections are indeed a stepping stone on his road to 10 Downing Street.
