Local elections 1) Starmer boosted by Labour wins in West Midlands and London
“Rishi Sunak’s hopes of reviving Conservative fortunes suffered a double blow on Saturday as his party lost the West Midlands mayoral election and Sadiq Khan secured a third term in London. On a dire day for the Tories, Andy Street lost the West Midlands mayoralty – which he had been expected to retain – to Labour’s Richard Parker by 1,508 votes. Susan Hall, the Conservative candidate for London, lost with just 32.7 per cent of the vote to Mr Khan’s 43.9 per cent. The West Midlands result – which came after a recount was ordered – was a major blow to Mr Sunak, who had been hoping to cling on to the mayoralty there after a series of crushing local election defeats left the Tories with fewer seats than the Liberal Democrats for the first time since 1996.” – Sunday Telegraph
- Labour insiders are allowing themselves a ‘quick fist pump’ before moving on – Tim Shipman, Sunday Times
- Burnham wins third term as mayor – BBC
- Green Party hails highest number of councillors – BBC
- Rotherham wins third term as mayor – BBC
- A bleak day for the Conservative Party – Leader, Sunday Telegraph
- If the Tories hold their nerve, millions could still return to the fold – Leader, Mail on Sunday
- Sunak may be battered and bruised after drubbing at the polls, but at least he is still a contender – Leader, The Sun on Sunday
- It’s time to call a general election – Leader, The Observer
- Don’t drift to the right, Street warns Tories – Sunday Times
- Labour must rebuild trust with Muslim voters, says Ellie Reeves – BBC
- Voters aren’t just sick of the Tories. The Western model is broken – Janet Daley, Sunday Telegraph
>Today: ToryDiary: Goodbyeee
>Yesterday:
Local elections 2) Rallings and Thrasher: These results point to a hung Parliament, Labour seven points ahead of the Conservatives
“Our comprehensive analysis for The Sunday Times of more than 3.7 million local election votes, cast across 1,400 wards that were not subject to boundary changes. We have then extrapolated from them in order to calculate a “national equivalent vote” of how the parties would have fared if these elections had taken place in every part of the country. This puts the Tories on 27 per cent…Labour is on 34 per cent, up a single point since 2019 and surprisingly below the point they reached last year. The Lib Dems, too, are down on last year but doing better than at the last general election…The overall national equivalent vote equates to a near ten percentage-point swing from the Tories to Labour since December 2019. Repeated at a general election on a uniform swing, these figures would lead to a hung parliament with Labour as comfortably the largest party but still short of a majority.” – Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, Sunday Times
- Voters show remarkable readiness to back candidates from outside political mainstream – John Curtice, Sunday Telegraph
Local elections 3) Holden: It’s time to get behind the PM
“When Andy Street first won his mayoralty in 2017, with a majority of 3,000, we were 21 points ahead of Labour. Given that the polls show a different position now, he shouldn’t have stood a chance. That he fought to a knife-edge loss shows how well he led and how hard we fought in the West Midlands…And even in London, Susan Hall defied the polls – she was 22 points behind on Tuesday – to lose by just 11 points…It is incumbent on me to communicate this message from voters to my colleagues – leave sniping from the sidelines to Sir Keir, get behind our Prime Minister and make the case for our party to our country.” – Richard Holden, Sunday Telegraph
- How ‘coiled mamba’ Boris could come back to save the Tories from total annihilation – even though Rishi ‘hasn’t picked up the phone’ – Mail on Sunday
Local elections 4) Braverman: We bucked the trend in Fareham
“I’ve lost count of the number of election counts I’ve attended over the decades. But I can’t recall one quite so dramatic as the one in Fareham this week. We shed tears of sadness because long-standing councillors were convinced we had lost, followed by tears of relief upon realising we had scraped through. In my small part of the world Conservatives held on because of strong local leadership, low council tax and well-managed local finances combined with first-class local services. It pains me to say it, but I must be honest: it was with no thanks to the national Conservative “brand”. Fareham Tories bucked the trend despite the national government.” – Suella Braverman, Sunday Telegraph
Rwanda 1) First deportation flight could take off on July 1st
“The first Rwanda deportation flight could take off on July 1, a court document has shown. It is the first time a specific start date has been mooted for the Government’s flagship scheme, which is aimed at deterring migrants from illegally crossing the Channel to the UK. The revelation emerged on Friday after the High Court rejected a request from ministers for more time to prepare for a legal challenge to the scheme.” – Sunday Telegraph
- Rwanda plan will disrupt the business model of evil people smuggling gangs – Priti Patel, Sunday Express
Rwanda 2) Hannan: Ireland should join the scheme
“The best course for Ireland would be to pursue the Rwanda scheme jointly with the UK. Sadly, Ireland’s leaders seem to have determined that collaboration with the EU, whatever its cost, is always preferable to working with the UK. Meanwhile, other European countries are moving towards their own versions of Rwanda-style scheme, considering third-country destinations for deportations, and the federalist European People’s Party has endorsed the idea. How bizarre it would be if, just as the rest of Europe is coming around to Britain’s way of thinking, Starmer were to follow through on his commitment and scrap the scheme. Where do you suppose that would incentivise illegal immigrants in Europe to move? No wonder Brussels wants a Labour victory.” – Daniel Hannan, Sunday Telegraph
- How Ireland’s intransigence over Brexit is coming back to haunt it – Mail on Sunday
Keegan to order universities to stop anti-Jewish demonstrations
“Rishi Sunak will next week order uni chiefs to stop pro-Palestine demonstrators spreading anti-Jewish hate on campuses. The PM will discuss safety of students facing anti-Semitism with vice-chancellors at No10. The bosses must take action — including calling police — if students campaigning against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza incite hatred against Jews. Education Secretary Gillian Keegan insisted: “There is absolutely no place for anti-Semitism in our society. “Jewish students must feel safe on campuses.We are bringing together university leaders to understand what more we can do to combat the scourge of anti-Semitism and avoid scenes like those we’ve seen in the US being repeated on our campuses.” – The Sun on Sunday
Other political news
- Unite warns it will hold back funds if Labour weakens plan on workers’ rights – The Observer
- Fury as taxpayers facing £150,000 bill to re-cover MPs’ green benches at the House of Commons – The Sun on Sunday
- Lisa Cameron MP: ‘I was bullied out of the SNP. They were autocratic and intolerant’ – Sunday Telegraph
- Poll shows more than half of Britons think King Charles is doing a good job – Mail on Sunday
- SNP fall further behind in opinion poll – Sunday Times
- Government will treat elderly ‘like criminals’ under controversial new bank snooping law – Mail on Sunday
- Farage must stop ‘shilly-shallying around’ and announce if he wants to stand on Clacton, Reform Party insiders say – The Sun on Sunday
- Hamas’s arrival in Cairo boosts hope of Gaza ceasefire – Sunday Times
Hodges: The Conservatives have reunited
“Despite the worst local election results for the Tory Party in almost half a century, the disparate group of backbench MPs nicknamed The Five Families have decided to sue for peace. ‘There’s no point in trying to remove Rishi now,’ one MP told me. ‘We don’t have enough MPs’ votes, and even if we did, we don’t have a candidate.’ So the Conservative Party is united. The One Nation Liberals, The Red Wallers, The Spartans, the New Conservatives, The Pop Cons – all are together at last. Marching themselves and their party towards electoral oblivion.” – Dan Hodges, Mail on Sunday
Colvile: Why have the Tories never asked me to join?
“I’ve been involved in politics for quite a while. In all that time the Conservative Party has never actually asked me to join it. Even when, back in the 2010s, I answered the question, “How will you be voting?” with, “I’m a senior leader writer at The Daily Telegraph”, there was no attempt by the canvasser to sell me a membership. It’s not just me. Over the years I’ve asked dozens of Conservatives and Conservative sympathisers: business leaders, special advisers, cabinet ministers, activists and people actually working in party HQ. Not a single one was actively invited to join. Admittedly, there has sometimes been a sign-up link in party emails. But it says something about the membership demographic that it’s given the same prominence as the request to leave a gift in your will. (Indeed at certain points the party has been receiving more in donations from the dead than from the living.)…Tory membership has fallen almost tenfold since the 1980s, from roughly 1.3 million to the 140,000-odd who voted in the Truss v Sunak contest. And the party has often seemed to treat this as a regrettable fact of life, rather than something that might ever be reversed.” – Robert Colvile, Sunday Times
Lynn: Milei is already proving the Left-wing economic establishment wrong
“Argentina has historically been a country of failed governments, economic collapses, and debt defaults. Yet incredibly there are signs that – against all the odds – the bold, free market reforms of its libertarian President Javier Milei are beginning to work…If Milei can make good on his promise to unlock the country’s vast reserves of shale oil and gas – using technologies that have proved safe and successful in the US – then the economy could even start to boom. If so, Argentina would be defying a global economic establishment addicted to bigger government, more regulation, and rising deficits.” – Matthew Lynn, Sunday Telegraph
News in brief
- No way back for the Tories – Henry Hill, Unherd
- Khan may have won, but he should still reverse on Ulez – Ross Clark, The Spectator
- Labour has triumphed but it should reflect too – Andrew Marr, New Statesman
- Labour’s triumph obscures worrying signs of division and chaos brewing in British society – Sebastian Milbank, The Critic
- How to save the London Stock Exchange – Yerbol Orynbayev, CapX
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