Keir Starmer’s team confident public will back Angela Rayner over tax probe

As the nation continues to wait for the starting gun on the general election, politicians are engaged in a dress rehearsal with England’s local elections coming up on 2 May.

During the two-week Easter recess which concludes this weekend, Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer have hit the campaign trail hard in a bid to shore up their positions.

Hundreds of councillors across England are facing re-election, along with every one of the high-profile city mayors including Sadiq Khan in London, Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester and Andy Street in the West Midlands.

This week Sir Keir’s focus shifted to the by-election in Blackpool South, triggered by the resignation of disgraced Conservative Scott Benton after he was caught offering to break Parliament’s lobbying rules in exchange for the supposed offer of a job with the gambling industry.

“Blackpool is the most shiny contest at the local elections, for sure,” a Labour official said. The Tories captured the seat in 2019, after 22 years of Labour dominance in the area, with a majority of 3,690 – meaning that it is exactly the sort of constituency Starmer’s party should be winning easily if it is to remain on course for a Commons majority at the general election.

In the past year Labour has picked up five Tory seats in by-elections, overturning huge majorities in places which were well down the list of top targets.

“They can be a distraction but it’s a good thing overall, getting our campaign match-fit,” a senior party insider said. “The problem is that having overturned such big majorities in the past, we’ve set the bar pretty high.”

Another source added: “The by-elections are great practice for our digital operation, showing what messages actually cut through with people.”

In Blackpool – where i accompanied Starmer on the campaign trail this week – local Labour activists say they have seen little sign of any other party putting in the by-election legwork. This is despite claims by Reform UK to be targeting a strong showing in the constituency as proof that the right-wing outfit’s rise in the national polls can be mirrored in real-world election results.

The Conservatives also seem to have largely given up on the seat, which has become a poster child for the difficulties of the “levelling up” project. One Tory MP said the latter was unfinished business: “One of the promises of Brexit was levelling up, there’s a real feeling that under the status quo a lot of towns were allowed to fall into disrepair.”

The various mayoral campaigns will be a bigger challenge for Labour. If the party could topple Tory mayors Street, and Ben Houchen in Tees Valley, it could claim to have erased Boris Johnson’s legacy of Tory wins in places previously hostile to the Conservative. But one Labour source warned: “The two mayoralties are going to be really tough.”

Labour campaigners on the ground in the West Midlands said one of the biggest challenges is galvanising supporters to turn up to vote. “A big issue for us will be turnout and getting voters out of the door,” a source said. “If this had been held on the same day as the general election it would have been a different story.”

Labour wants to make the most of the Tories’ general unpopularity nationally, rather than letting the race become a personality battle between Street and his little-known challenger Richard Walker.

There is little doubt that Andy Burnham will be re-elected, and polls suggest Sadiq Khan should cruise to a third term in the capital – a survey published on Friday showed the incumbent on 50 per cent with his Tory rival Susan Hall way behind with 26 per cent, and no other party breaking past 10 per cent.

However, those around Khan remain extremely nervous about his prospects. They say privately that there is a real chance the switch to a first-past-the-post voting system could damage Labour’s chances.

Previously, there were two rounds with a one-on-one contest meaning that it did not matter if left-leaning voters splintered. Labour canvassers report speaking to some voters who say they will back the party at the general election, but plan to vote for Ms Hall in order to oust the Mayor.

Party chiefs have also been frustrated by the way their campaign has been dogged by persistent questions over the tax affairs of deputy leader Angela Rayner. Pro-Tory newspapers have accused her of dodging tax on the sale of her ex-council house shortly before she entered Parliament, and on Friday Greater Manchester Police confirmed they would investigate an allegation she broke electoral law by giving a false address.

Members of Starmer’s inner circle say they are confident the story will eventually fade away, although the leader himself gave a snappy response when questioned about it by local media in Blackpool. They believe the public will sympathise with Ms Rayner, who – in the words of one supporter – has had a “pretty complex” private life since becoming pregnant at 16.

For the Conservatives, the priority on 2 May is limiting their losses so that Mr Sunak does not face renewed whispers of a leadership challenge, or even – as some ministers fear – a formal coup attempt. Winning at least one of Tees Valley and West Midlands would help with this, as would limiting the party’s overall loss of councillors to around 200-300 out of the total of 1,000 up for re-election. If the Office for National Statistics (ONS) confirms on Wednesday that inflation is still falling, that would also boost the Prime Minister.

“Everyone I speak to thinks it would be total madness to have a leadership challenge,” one minister insisted. “It’s only about five people who genuinely think we need a new leader before the election. It would remind voters what they don’t like about us.”

But the minister admitted to nerves over the Tories’ overall position, saying: “I really expected the polls to narrow, and that hasn’t happened. I still think it will, but not until after the general election campaign actually starts. And it’s a tall order for them to narrow enough for us to win.”

They added: “We’re not doing well enough on the vision question, why you would actually vote Conservative. Because people don’t vote based on the past, they vote on the future.”

Away from Westminster, some Conservative activists warn that things are not going well on the
ground. One volunteer told i: “There’s a huge disconnect between local associations and CCHQ. Local associations are being sidelined since CCHQ say they know their constituencies better than the people on the ground.”

Rising discontent on the right of the party does not help, the activist said: “People in the party that are complaining about a lack of actual ‘conservative’ candidates are laughably wayward. The ‘conservative’ candidates are just laughably bad. From their CVs to their interviews. It’s like they aim to be another Boris.”

The ultimate wildcard as the general election approaches would be an intervention from Donald Trump. Those who know the ex-US president say he may well be tempted to weigh in on UK politics again, possibly backing his friend Nigel Farage and Reform UK.

“If Trump gets involved in our election it will hurt Reform big time,” a minister insisted. “Even Reform voters dislike Trump – it will have a major countereffect.”