Rachel Reeves has indicated, saying also that most financial services companies have “not regarded Brexit as being a great opportunity for their businesses”, Peter Walker reports.
announced two weeks ago that he was going to take over as party leader and stand as a candidate, he justified this primarily on the grounds that the nation had been let down by the Tories.
Today he is launching his manifesto in Merthyr Tydfil in the South Wales valleys, an old mining area where the vote has traditionally been rock-solid Labour, and he says he is there because he wants to focus his attack on Keir Starmer’s party. In a statement released in advance, he said:
One of the reasons we are launching our Contract with the people of Britain in Wales is because it shows everyone exactly what happens to a country when Labour is in charge.
Schools are worse than in England, NHS waiting lists are longer than in England, Covid restrictions were even tighter than in England and now Welsh motorists are being soaked by literally hundreds of speed cameras to enforce the deeply unpopular new 20mph blanket speed limit in towns and villages.
Since devolution, the Welsh have been ignored by the London political establishment and let down by the Labour administration they elected.
Meanwhile, the Tories have been the official opposition almost solidly since 2016 and have achieved zilch, which probably explains why we are neck-and-neck with them in the polls in Wales.
So, if you want a picture of what the whole country will be like with a Starmer government and a feeble Conservative opposition, come to Wales and then hear us unveil a better future for all of Britain.
Until now Labour has not been too bothered about the increase in support for Reform UK because, overwhelming, that seems to be hurting the Tories a lot more. But with two and a half weeks of the election yet to run, it is possible that, if Reform UK changes it messaging, that could change.
Farage has been on the Today programme this morning where he half-defended Donald Trump over his role in the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 and insisted that he could be a viable candidate to be prime minister at the next general election, perhaps in 2029. I will post the highlights shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: The Best for Britain campaign group publishes its tactical voting recommendations for the election.
Morning: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is campaigning in Devon and Somerset.
10am: John Swinney, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, gives a speech in the Outer Hebrides.
11am: Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, are on a visit at at port the south east of England. Starmer is doing a Q&A with workers.
Morning: Rishi Sunak is on a visit in East Yorkshire.
1pm: Nigel Farage is launching the Reform UK manifesto (which they not calling a manifesto, but a “contract” with voters) in Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line (BTL) or message me on X (Twitter). I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word. If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use X; I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos (no error is too small to correct). And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
Source: theguardian.com
