Tory candidates pitch themselves as ‘local champions’ in bid to bypass national woes
Conservative candidates in two constituencies have appeared to suggest in campaign literature that their party will not form the next government – and people should vote for them as “local champions”.
In a letter to constituents seen by Sky News, Paul Bristow, the Tory candidate for Peterborough, says the general election “may change who runs the country – but don’t let it put Peterborough’s progress at risk”.
“More than ever, we will need a local champion in parliament who is on your side,” he continues.
“Someone who is fighting your corner – whether that’s with the Labour-led council or the next government.”
Simon Fell, the Conservative candidate and most recent MP for Barrow-in-Furness, also asks voters to consider local issues when casting their ballot on 4 July, writing: “You’ve seen the polls, you’ve heard the commentators.
“You know who they say is going to win the national election. But your vote means more than that. Your vote is about what happens locally.”
It comes after Robert Largan, who is fighting to retain the red wall seat of High Peak for the Conservatives, published a number of campaign materials in the colours of Labour and Reform UK.
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Mr Largan’s graphics also include the phrases “Labour for Largan” and “Reform for Robert”.
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In one social media post, Mr Largan says: “So many local Labour voters have told me they’re going to vote for me, because they want to keep me as their local MP.
“There have been so many that I’m launching a new Labour for Largan club.”
A social media post about the Reform Party also linked to Mr Largan’s campaign page, which states: “Reform supporters right across the High Peak are voting local on Thursday 4th July and backing Robert Largan. Will you?”
A spokesman for Mr Largan denied he had done anything wrong, saying all his election leaflets clearly stated he was the Tory candidate and they complied with electoral law.
“As Mr Largan’s social media posts and website make abundantly clear, large numbers of traditional Labour voters have been contacting him to tell him they plan to vote for him, despite him being a Conservative candidate,” a statement said.
“The same goes for Reform supporters. This is because of Mr Largan’s strong record of delivery in the High Peak.
“Therefore, supporters clubs of traditional Labour and Reform voters have been set up, to allow people to tell Mr Largan that they’re supporting him.
“These are called Labour for Largan and Reform for Robert. Such supporters clubs are not a new phenomenon.”
Derbyshire Police confirmed it was reviewing a Conservative candidate’s campaign adverts after receiving allegations of election fraud.
“We wish to confirm that we have received a number of messages in relation to claims of election fraud, raised due to concerns around marketing material,” the force said in a statement.
“An incident has been created and will be reviewed.”
According to Sky News’s official poll tracker, the Tories continue to trail 21 points behind Labour, at 23.6% of the vote, compared with 44.5% for their opponents.
A separate poll from Opinium has also shown Labour’s lead has grown by six points in the last week and is now at a high not seen since Liz Truss’s premiership.
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The poll’s voting intention revealed that 4% more voters have said they will vote Labour, while the Tory vote share has dropped 2%.
However, 43% of voters think Labour’s campaign has been a success so far, while a third (32%) do not. For Mr Sunak, 61% do not think the Conservative campaign has been successful, while 20% think it has been.
Mr Bristow declined to comment. Sky News has approached Mr Fell and the Conservatives for comment.
Read more:
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The candidates standing for election in Peterborough are:
- Conservatives – Paul Bristow
- Green Party – Nicola Day
- Workers Party of Britain – Clayton Maxwell Payne
- Reform – Sue Morris
- Labour – Andrew Pakes
- Christian People’s Alliance -Tom Rogers
- Liberal Democrats – Nick Sandford
The candidates standing in Barrow-in-Furness are:
- Conservatives – Simon Fell
- Reform – Barry Morgan
- Labour – Michelle Scrogham
- Liberal Democrats – Adrian Waite
- Green Party – Lorraine Wrennall
The candidates standing in High Peak are:
- Green Party – Joanna Wiehe Collins
- Reform – Catherine Cullen
- Conservatives – Robert Largan
- Labour – Jonathan Brian Pearce
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Whitehall officials tried to convince Michael Gove to go to court to cover up the grooming scandal in 2011, Sky News can reveal.
Dominic Cummings, who was working for Lord Gove at the time, has told Sky News that officials in the Department for Education (DfE) wanted to help efforts by Rotherham Council to stop a national newspaper from exposing the scandal.
In an interview with Sky News, Mr Cummings said that officials wanted a “total cover-up”.
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The revelation shines a light on the institutional reluctance of some key officials in central government to publicly highlight the grooming gang scandal.
In 2011, Rotherham Council approached the Department for Education asking for help following inquiries by The Times. The paper’s then chief reporter, the late Andrew Norfolk, was asking about sexual abuse and trafficking of children in Rotherham.
The council went to Lord Gove’s Department for Education for help. Officials considered the request and then recommended to Lord Gove’s office that the minister back a judicial review which might, if successful, stop The Times publishing the story.
Lord Gove rejected the request on the advice of Mr Cummings. Sources have independently confirmed Mr Cummings’ account.
Education Secretary Michael Gove in 2011. Pic: PA
Mr Cummings told Sky News: “Officials came to me in the Department of Education and said: ‘There’s this Times journalist who wants to write the story about these gangs. The local authority wants to judicially review it and stop The Times publishing the story’.
“So I went to Michael Gove and said: ‘This council is trying to actually stop this and they’re going to use judicial review. You should tell the council that far from siding with the council to stop The Times you will write to the judge and hand over a whole bunch of documents and actually blow up the council’s JR (judicial review).’
“Some officials wanted a total cover-up and were on the side of the council…
“They wanted to help the local council do the cover-up and stop The Times’ reporting, but other officials, including in the DfE private office, said this is completely outrageous and we should blow it up. Gove did, the judicial review got blown up, Norfolk stories ran.”
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Grooming gangs victim speaks out
The judicial review wanted by officials would have asked a judge to decide about the lawfulness of The Times’ publication plans and the consequences that would flow from this information entering the public domain.
A second source told Sky News that the advice from officials was to side with Rotherham Council and its attempts to stop publication of details it did not want in the public domain.
One of the motivations cited for stopping publication would be to prevent the identities of abused children entering the public domain.
There was also a fear that publication could set back the existing attempts to halt the scandal, although incidents of abuse continued for many years after these cases.
Sources suggested that there is also a natural risk aversion amongst officials to publicity of this sort.
Read more on grooming gangs:
What we do and don’t know from the data
A timeline of the scandal
Mr Cummings, who ran the Vote Leave Brexit campaign and was Boris Johnson’s right-hand man in Downing Street, has long pushed for a national inquiry into grooming gangs to expose failures at the heart of government.
He said the inquiry, announced today, “will be a total s**tshow for Whitehall because it will reveal how much Whitehall worked to try and cover up the whole thing.”
He also described Mr Johnson, with whom he has a long-standing animus, as a “moron’ for saying that money spent on inquiries into historic child sexual abuse had been “spaffed up the wall”.
Asked by Sky News political correspondent Liz Bates why he had not pushed for a public inquiry himself when he worked in Number 10 in 2019-20, Mr Cummings said Brexit and then COVID had taken precedence.
“There are a million things that I wanted to do but in 2019 we were dealing with the constitutional crisis,” he said.
The Department for Education and Rotherham Council have been approached for comment.
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