During a live radio interview, Rishi Sunak was branded as a “pound shop Nigel Farage” as he faced criticism from his rivals, including former chancellor George Osborne. The prime minister’s trip to southwest England to rescue seats from a pincer movement by Reform UK on the right and Labour and the Liberal Democrats on the left was openly mocked, with images of him speaking on hay bales and failing to feed sheep. Meanwhile, James Cleverly is reported to lack the appetite to stand in the Tory leadership race following a presumed election loss, focusing instead on winning re-election in his Braintree constituency. The Tories are predicted to suffer their worst loss in over a century, with senior Cabinet ministers at risk of losing their seats, according to a mega-poll.
General election 2024 latest: Tories faces wipeout in new poll; Cleverly ‘lacks appetite’ for leadership contest
Sunak branded ‘pound shop Nigel Farage’ during live radio interview
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James Cleverly “lacks the appetite” to stand in the Tory leadership race following a presumed election loss, according to sources close to him.
Mr Cleverly, who previously served as foreign secretary, is reported to be focusing on winning re-election in his Braintree constituency and “doesn’t want” the leadership as much as other colleagues.
“He’s focused on winning Braintree and returning and as far as he’s concerned he’s done the two of the most high profile jobs in government and he’s still focused on delivering on the second of them,” the source told The Times.
It comes as a mega-poll predicted the Tories are set to suffer the party’s worst loss in more than a century with senior Cabinet ministers losing their seats.
With just two weeks to go before the general election, the Blue Wall could be shaking as safe seats like Jeremy Hunt’s constituency in South West Surrey is set to fall, the survey predicts.
More In Common UK pollsters warned the results show the Conservatives could emerge with only 155 seats, which is the worst number since 1906.
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The prime minister today took a trip to southwest England in a bid to rescue seats from a pincer movement by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK on the right and Labour and the Liberal Democrats on the left.
But as Mr Sunak was openly mocked by his rivals amid images of him speaking on hay bales and sheep running away when he tried to feed them, former chancellor George Osborne, who ran the winning election campaigns in 2010 and 2015, heaped criticism on the beleaguered prime minister.
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Comment | Keir Starmer is right to keep his wife Victoria out of the spotlight
“I rather admire the way Starmer has struck a deal with the devil of media intrusion on his own terms,” says Rentoul.
“He will use his wife’s work as an occupational therapist to buttress his pro-NHS credentials, and he will talk about his son and daughter enough to prove that he is a centrist dad; but he has not (yet) asked Victoria to introduce him at Labour Party conference, and he never uses his children’s names in public or allows photographs of them.”
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Voter registrations tank for under-25s
The deadline to register to vote passed yesterday (18 June), and over 630,000 people applied to register on the final day, Alicja Hagopian reports.
This marks 2.9m voter registrations since the election was called on 22 May. This figure is down by 1 million from the same period before the 2019 general election (29 October-26 November), when 3.85m people registered to vote.
Though 18-34 year olds had the highest proportion of registrations overall, the Gen-Z population may not be showing up to the ballot in high numbers.
The under-25 age group has sent in just 746,000 applications to vote ahead of the registration deadline — compared to double that (1.4m) before the 2019 general election.
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Read the full story on www.independent.co.uk
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/general-election-2024-uk-polls-sunak-starmer-farage-b2565608.html