The grim news for the Tories in the latest Sky News/YouGov poll begs another question about Rishi Sunak’s political judgement. Was a long election campaign a blunder?
The prime minister is already under fire from Conservative MPs and activists for gambling on an election in July rather than waiting for October or November.
The conventional wisdom was that economic news would be better by the autumn and deportation flights to Rwanda would help stop the boats bringing migrants across the Channel.
But as well as doubts about a July poll, the big slump in Tory supportsince the last Sky News/YouGov poll on June 3, suggests a long campaign of six weeks may also have backfired.
On 22 May, the day the prime minister made his shock general election announcement, some veteran Tory MPs privately questioned Mr Sunak’s decision to fight a long campaign.
“Margaret used to have three or four-week campaigns,” one long-serving Conservative MP who has stepped down told Sky News, in a reference to three-times election winner Mrs Thatcher.
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But with the Tories trailing badly behind Labour in the polls for months, Mr Sunak clearly hoped a long election campaign would give his party more time to recover and close the gap.
However, the opposite appears to have happened. As the campaign continues, with polling day still two weeks away, opinion polls are suggesting bigger Conservative losses, not smaller.
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Poll: Labour on course for best-ever election result
On 3 June our YouGov poll suggested the Conservatives would hold 140 seats. Now the same pollsters are suggesting they’d hold just 108, well below their previous lowest of 141 in 1906.
The big change of course, has been Nigel Farage’s dramatic comeback as Reform UK leader on 3 June. In the Sky News/YouGov poll that day, Reform UK was not forecast to win any seats.
Now it’s five, including Mr Farage in Clacton. The other big movers are the Liberal Democrats, forecast to win 48 seats on 3 June, now 67. The latest poll is good news for smaller parties generally.
Labour’s seat projection is up slightly from 422 seats to 425 and its majority is up from 194 to 200. But it’s the Tory slump that’s the big change since the early days of the campaign.
So are those veteran MPs who lamented the glory days of Mrs Thatcher correct about previous Tory prime ministers opting for shorter campaigns? It would appear so.
Had Mr Sunak waited to call the election until January 2025 – the end of a maximum five-year term – parliament would have automatically been dissolved 25 working days before polling day, meaning he could have opted for a shorter campaign.
In 1983, when Mrs Thatcher won a landslide majority of 144 seats, she had announced the election on 9 May, parliament was dissolved on 13 May and polling day was four weeks later on 9 June.
Image: Sunak gambled on a July election Pic: PA
It was a similar story in 1987. Mrs Thatcher announced the election on 11 May and polling day was a month later on 11 June, when she won a second landslide and a majority of 102.
In 1992, when Sir John Major pulled off a shock victory after months of trailing Neil Kinnock’s Labour badly in the opinion polls, the election campaign again lasted just 30 days.
Sir John asked the Queen to dissolve parliament on 11 March and voters went to polls on 9 April, when the Conservatives won a 21-seat majority over Labour.
Lord Cameron’s 2015 campaign, after five years of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition was longer. Parliament was dissolved on 30 March and the election was on 7 May, when he won a Tory majority of 10.
Image: Margaret Thatcher used to have three to four week campaigns. Pic: PA
In the most recent general election, Boris Johnson’s dash to the polls in 2019, parliament was dissolved on 6 November and the election was on 12 December, with Mr Johnson winning an 80-seat majority.
This time, Mr Sunak has chosen a gruelling six-week campaign. More time for mistakes? And more time for the Tories’ opponents – Labour, the Lib Dems and Reform UK – to gain momentum?
It’s starting to look like that. At times since his D-day fiasco, the prime minister has looked crestfallen. Now senior Tories are talking about a Labour “super-majority” and a “blank cheque” for Sir Keir Starmer.
And there are still two weeks to go in this long, six-week campaign. But that was Mr Sunak’s choice.
It is “shameful” that black boys growing up in London are “far more likely” to die than white boys, Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley has told Sky News.
Sir Mark, who came out of retirement to become head of the UK’s largest police force in 2022, said: “We can’t pretend otherwise that we’ve got a history between policing and black communities where policing has got a lot wrong.
“And we get a lot more right today, but we do still make mistakes. That’s not in doubt. I’m being as relentless in that as it can be.”
He said the “vast majority” of the force are “good people”.
However, he added: “But that legacy, combined with the tragedy that some of this crime falls most heavily in black communities, that creates a real problem because the legacy creates concern.”
Sir Mark, who also leads the UK’s counter-terrorism policing, said it is “not right” that black boys growing up in London “are far more likely to be dead by the time they’re 18” than white boys.
“That’s, I think, shameful for the city,” he admitted.
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Police chase suspected phone thief
Baroness Casey was commissioned in 2021 to look into the Met Police after serving police officer Wayne Couzens abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard.
She pinned the primary blame for the Met’s culture on its past leadership and found that stop and search and the use of force against black people was excessive.
At the time, Sir Mark, who had been commissioner for six months when the report was published, said he would not use the labels of institutionally racist, institutionally misogynistic and institutionally homophobic, which Casey insisted the Met deserved.
However, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who helped hire Sir Mark – and could fire him – made it clear the commissioner agreed with Baroness Casey’s verdict.
After the report was released, Sir Mark said “institutional” was political language so he was not going to use it, but he accepted “we have racists, misogynists…systematic failings, management failings, cultural failings”.
A few months after the report, Sir Mark launched a two-year £366m plan to overhaul the Met, including increased emphasis on neighbourhood policing to rebuild public trust and plans to recruit 500 more community support officers and an extra 565 people to work with teams investigating domestic violence, sexual offences and child sexual abuse and exploitation.
Watch the full interview on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips from 8.30am on Sunday.
Labour’s largest union donor, Unite, has voted to suspend Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner over her role in the Birmingham bin strike row.
Members of the trade union, one of the UK’s largest, also “overwhelmingly” voted to “re-examine its relationship” with Labour over the issue.
They said Ms Rayner, who is also housing, communities and local government secretary, Birmingham Council’s leader, John Cotton, and other Labour councillors had been suspended for “bringing the union into disrepute”.
There was confusion over Ms Rayner’s membership of Unite, with her office having said she was no longer a member and resigned months ago and therefore could not be suspended.
But Unite said she was registered as a member. Parliament’s latest register of interests had her down as a member in May.
The union said an emergency motion was put to members at its policy conference in Brighton on Friday.
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Unite is one of the Labour Party’s largest union donors, donating £414,610 in the first quarter of 2025 – the highest amount in that period by a union, company or individual.
The union condemned Birmingham’s Labour council and the government for “attacking the bin workers”.
Mountains of rubbish have been piling up in the city since January after workers first went on strike over changes to their pay, with all-out strike action starting in March. An agreement has still not been made.
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Rat catcher tackling Birmingham’s bins problem
Ms Rayner and the councillors had their membership suspended for “effectively firing and rehiring the workers, who are striking over pay cuts of up to £8,000”, the union added.
‘Missing in action’
General secretary Sharon Graham told Sky News on Saturday morning: “Angela Rayner, who has the power to solve this dispute, has been missing in action, has not been involved, is refusing to come to the table.”
She had earlier said: “Unite is crystal clear, it will call out bad employers regardless of the colour of their rosette.
“Angela Rayner has had every opportunity to intervene and resolve this dispute but has instead backed a rogue council that has peddled lies and smeared its workers fighting huge pay cuts.
“The disgraceful actions of the government and a so-called Labour council, is essentially fire and rehire and makes a joke of the Employment Relations Act promises.
“People up and down the country are asking whose side is the Labour government on and coming up with the answer not workers.”
Image: Piles of rubbish built up around Birmingham because of the strike over pay
Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman said the government’s “priority is and always has been the residents of Birmingham”.
He said the decision by Unite workers to go on strike had “caused disruption” to the city.
“We’ve worked to clean up streets and remain in close contact with the council […] as we support its recovery,” he added.
A total of 800 Unite delegates voted on the motion.
Binance co-founder CZ has dismissed a Bloomberg report linking him to the Trump-backed USD1 stablecoin, threatening legal action over alleged defamation.