Keir Starmer grilled by Piers Morgan on polling
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Support for the Conservatives continues to soar and the party is currently polling at a huge 46 percent, a YouGov survey suggested. The Labour Party remains unable to make a significant impact on voters and is on just 30 points.
The share of the vote for the Tories has increased by three points in the past week – up from 43 points on May 27-28.
Labour has increased its support from 29 percent to 30 percent in the same period – but the gap to the Tories had widened from 14 points to 16.
The fieldwork for the Westminster voting intention poll was carried out from June 2-3 and put the Green Party in third on nine points – an increase of one percent.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats came fourth on six points, down two, from a week ago.
The damning poll piles more pressure on the Labour leader as it also comes on the back of a humiliating set of local election results last month.
Labour lost control of eight councils across the country and 327 councillors were ousted from their seats.
Labour suffered further embarrassment after losing the Hartlepool by-election to the Conservatives – the first time the constituency has turned blue.
Sir Keir, who replaced Jeremy Corbyn as leader in April 2020, took full responsibility for the disastrous set of results.
On Tuesday, Sir Keir took part in a Life Stories interview with Piers Morgan on ITV, and addressed the current state of the Labour Party.
He said: “I’m not going to pretend the last few weeks have been easy, but there’s a huge emotion that runs through the Labour Party, and we lost in Hartlepool, we lost badly.
“But when you want to win, it hurts to lose. There’s emotion there.”
He said his three top priorities were a “first-class education for every child. Second thing, to make sure our economy deals with insecurity and inequality. A third thing is to put real dignity into older age”.
Sir Keir added: “The biggest change we need to make is a Labour Party that stops looking in on itself and looks out to the electorate, to the voters.”
The former Director of Public Prosecutions said the primetime interview was the first time he had spoken in front of an audience since he was elected leader 14 months ago.
Sir Keir, who has faced criticism for not standing up to the Government and a lack of clear policies, suggested the British public would see a different side to him once coronavirus restrictions are over.
He told the former Good Morning Britain co-host: “Let me get out there, let me take the mask off, because we’ve been living in restrictions.
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“As we come out of this, this allows the space to open up, the pandemic allows the political space to open up, the restrictions allow me to open up.”
Sir Keir also confirmed he would be going on a tour of the country this summer to listen to people who are no longer voting Labour.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister could be tempted to capitalise on his lead in the polls and trigger an early general election, according to reports.
In the Queen’s speech to parliament, the Government put forward plans to removed the Fixed-Term Parliament Act – paving the way for an election in 2023 – a year earlier than planned.
The YouGov poll surveyed 1,703 UK adults from June 2-3.
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