Afternoon summary
- Sir Keir Starmer has said that Labour’s electoral recovery was always going to take more than a year ahead of Britain’s biggest electoral event outside of a general election in modern history. (See 11.14am.) With two years’ worth of English local elections taking place at the same time, plus elections for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, city and metro mayors, the London assembly and police and crime commissioners, and a byelection in Hartlepool, Starmer faces a real risk of losing Hartlepool, a town that has not voted Tory since the 1950s, and perhaps doing less well in the local elections than Jeremy Corbyn did in his first year as Labour leader. (See 1.55pm.)
- Boris Johnson has suggested that the publication of plans for the reform of adult social care will be delayed again until the summer. (See 1.15pm.)
That’s all from me. A colleague will be writing the blog tomorrow. And I’ll be back early on Friday morning to bring cover to Hartlepool (which is counting overnight) and to cover all the other results as they come in. With counting set to continue over the weekend, we will also be running a blog on Saturday and on Sunday.
Savanta ComRes has released its final poll for the Senedd in Wales.
🏴Final Senedd Constituency VI
— Savanta ComRes (@SavantaComRes) May 5, 2021
Labour 36 (-)
Conservative 28 (+1)
Plaid Cymru 18 (-1)
LD 6 (+1)
AWAP 3 (-1)
Reform UK 3 (-1)
Other 6 (+1)
29 April - 4 May
(chg from 23-28 April) pic.twitter.com/cspKiKDys1
🏴Final Senedd List VI
— Savanta ComRes (@SavantaComRes) May 5, 2021
Labour 32 (+1)
Conservative 25 (+1)
Plaid Cymru 19 (-2)
AWAP 6 (-2)
LD 5 (-)
Green 5 (+2)
Reform UK 3 (-)
Other 6 (+1)
29 April - 4 May
(chg from 23-28 April) pic.twitter.com/ZFk3WkaShT
Updated
As this House of Commons briefing paper explains, three-quarters of adults in Britain will be able to vote in more than one election tomorrow, and 2% of them will be able to vote in four elections. It explains:
Voters in Liverpool, Bristol, Cambridge and Hartlepool will have four elections. They will all vote for district or borough councillors, and police and crime commissioners. In Liverpool and Bristol, two mayoral elections [for a city mayor, and a metro mayor] will also take place, and in Hartlepool there will be an election for a mayor and a parliamentary byelection. In Cambridge there will also be an election for a mayor and county council councillors.
Updated
Savanta ComRes has released its final poll for the London mayoral contest.
Final London Mayoral Poll
— Savanta ComRes (@SavantaComRes) May 5, 2021
Sadiq Khan 41% (-)
Shaun Bailey 29 (+1)
Luisa Porritt 8 (-)
Sian Berry 5 (-1)
Others 17 (-)
After transfers:
Sadiq Khan 60 (-1)
Shaun Bailey 40 (+1)
29 April - 4 May
(chg from 13-19 April) pic.twitter.com/LH7zO10SvD
The latest edition of the Guardian’s Politics Weekly podcast is out. Heather Stewart and Polly Toynbee look at how campaigning has gone in the run up to the 6 May elections. Aubrey Allegretti, Emily Gray and Joe Twyman break down the latest polling. Plus, Rory Carroll, Peter Shirlow, and Patricia McBride mark the Northern Ireland centenary by looking ahead to what politics there might look like in the future.
Updated
What Scotland Thinks, the Scottish voting website run by Prof Sir John Curtice, has posted this about the latest Scottish polls.
Average of the 5 polls published in last 24 hours
— What Scotland Thinks (@WhatScotsThink) May 5, 2021
SNP 49/38
Con 22/22
Lab 21/18
Green - /10
LD 7/6
Alba -/3
On a uniform projection = 64 SNP seats.
In short polls suggest 50/50 chance of SNP overall majority.
Is Brexit still an important issue in British politics?
Here are two questions from below the line (BTL) that I thought I would answer here because they might be of wider interest.
1) Not really, if you look at these figures. I posted more on this topic on the blog yesterday, here and here.
2) Good question. You can look at it in three ways.
a) Is Brexit a live issue in the campaign?
Not at all, even though in some respects it should be, because the trade deal is still creating significant problems for some parts of the economy (eg the fishing industry, small firms that export to the EU, farmers reliant on migrant labour). It hasn’t become an election issue because Labour is clear that it accepts Brexit as a done deal, and that it has no wish to reopen the Brexit agreement in to any significant extent. And, although there is a still a debate to be had about what the ultimate Brexit destination might look like, only the SNP has any real appetite for addressing this.
b) Are parties being rewarded/punished for their stance on Brexit?
Perhaps, but only marginally.
It helps the Tories that they can argue that they “got Brexit done”. Rather, if they had not “got Brexit done”, they might have a problem. And the Labour Brexiters will claim the party is being punished for Keir Starmer’s anti-Brexit stance before the 2019 election. But Brexit is no longer a live issue, and generally people don’t vote on the basis of what happened in the past (unless they feel it is still relevant to what will happen next). For the same reason, if Boris Johnson and the Tories do well, that won’t necessarily be a Brexit thank you present. (It may be a vaccination thank you present, but that’s different because the vaccination programme is something that is making people feel very upbeat right now - not something that happened last year.)
c) Has Brexit changed the way people vote?
Yes, and in that sense there will be a Brexit impact because Brexit has helped to realign politics, and enabled the Conservatives to prise away what had been a chunk of the core Labour vote. In Scotland it has also dislodged a portion of the unionist vote that is now drifting towards independence. But in England Brexit only hastened a realignment that was happening anyway. The best guide to this is probably Brexitland by Maria Sobolewska and Robert Ford, which explains how identity issues have become increasingly important in politics. They point out that Labour was losing its “Brexity” supporters before the Brexit vote even happened. Writing about the 2015 election they say:
The strengthening of liberal and ethnic minority voices within the Labour coalition was also accelerated by the departure of many identity conservative white school leavers from Labour to Ukip. As a result, the 2015 Labour electorate, though similar in size to that of 2010, was radically transformed in ways that very few commentators noticed at the time. In 2015, for the first time, the new identity liberal groups outnumbered the core identity conservative demographic of white school leavers within the Labour electorate.
If Labour lose Hartlepool, that will be seen as just a further stage in this process.
Updated
Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, says that he and the party’s UK leader, Keir Starmer, are “building a credible alternative” across the four nations, while acknowledging that both leaders are facing bracing poll results tomorrow.
Asked about reports that UK Labour activists have been diverted from Hartlepool to the Airdrie and Shotts byelection – which is taking place a week after the Holyrood elections – Sarwar said:
Hartlepool is a really, really challenging seat. I don’t think we can escape the fact that there was a huge Brexit party vote in the last election, that poses its own challenge. What I know, just like I’m trying to do in Scotland, is that Keir is trying to build that alternative across the UK.
He added that Starmer had been hampered by the restrictions of the pandemic in reaching voters, saying he had “not had the opportunity to shake a single hand, since he’s been a leader due to the pandemic”.
Speaking to reporters after an eve of poll ‘drive-in rally’ where ex-PM Gordon Brown was a speaker (see 2.43pm), Sarwar added:
Of course I hope we get a good result in Hartlepool. But how do we rebuild the country? With humility, with honesty, with authenticity, with energy, to demonstrate that we are building a credible alternative.
Sarwar also urged Scottish voters not to be “conned” by calls from the Scottish Tories to vote tactically on the regional list ballot to stop a second referendum. He said:
The Tories are using the second vote as a way of saving their skin, not to save the union. I want to build not the opposition to Nicola Sturgeon, but the alternative to Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP.
Sarwar has been direct throughout the campaign about the fact that rebuilding the party will take longer than the nine weeks since he was elected leader.
Updated
At the Scottish Labour rally in Glasgow earlier Anas Sarwar, the party leader, said he wanted to offer a “credible alternative” to the SNP. He said:
This is not just about being the main opposition; it is about presenting a credible alternative to Scots for a future where we choose recovery over a referendum.
If you agree with me, if you like what I am saying, and if you want to build that alternative, then you have to use both votes for Scottish Labour in this election.
We have a plan, we have the ideas, we have the energy, and we have the enthusiasm to build the kind of country we all want to see.
And Gordon Brown, the former. Labour leader, said that after 14 years in power, the SNP had failed to solve the problems facing the NHS. He said:
The first duty of an incoming government is not a referendum but the recovery of the NHS. To care for Scotland’s 7,000 missing cancer patients whose condition has gone undetected. For the 300,000 now languishing on waiting lists. For the 500,000 who’ve not been screened as planned and to end the SNP’s £1bn a year underfunding of the NHS every year of this decade.
And if the SNP has not solved the waiting list problem, the social care problem, the mental health problem, in any one of their 14 long years they have been in power, they will never solve the problem now – so let them make way for Anas Sarwar and Labour representatives who can.
Updated
Here are the results of YouGov’s final polling for the Senedd election in Wales.
YouGov final Welsh Parliament voting intention (2021)
— YouGov (@YouGov) May 5, 2021
CONSTITUENCY
Lab 36% (+1 from 18-21 Apr)
Con 29% (+5)
Plaid 20% (-4)
Reform UK 4% (nc)
Lib Dem 3% (nc)
LIST
Lab 31% (-2)
Con 25% (+3)
Plaid 21% (-2)
Abolish 7% (nc)
Green 5% (nc)
Lib Dem 4% (nc)https://t.co/Q2MsbDL7gq pic.twitter.com/5edoGbtiGd
Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Labour candidate did not break law by handing out brownies, say police
Police have confirmed that Tracy Brabin, the Labour candidate for mayor of West Yorkshire, did not break electoral law by handing out brownies while campaigning, my colleague Alex Mistlin reports.
In his pooled interview in the West Midlands Boris Johnson said that these would be a “very tough set of elections” for the Conservatives because “when we stood last time for many of these council seats, we were at a particularly high watermark”.
This is correct. Some of the council seats being fought this year were last contested in 2016 when Labour (under Jeremy Corbyn) actually won the local elections; in terms of estimated vote share (the calculation showing what would have happened if the whole of Britain had voted the same way as people voted in the places where there were elections), Labour was one point ahead of the Conservatives. But other seats were last contested in 2017, and in those elections the Conservatives beat Labour by 11 points in national vote share.
On the BBC News earlier Prof Sir John Curtice, the psephologist, said this meant that Labour could expect to be making gains in the areas where elections last took place in 2017, but losses in the areas where elections were last fought in 2016. He said:
So in those county councils which are up for grabs, Labour may now ... start making gains. Somewhere like Derbyshire might fall to them.
But equally, however, if we look at what was the position in 2016, in the other half of the elections taking place tomorrow ... in those [areas], even now with the narrowing of the Conservative lead, we could still be seeing Conservative gains in somewhere like Dudley.
So the truth is there’s probably going to be something for everybody to celebrate, but also something for everybody to be worried about. And certainly no party is seemingly likely to pull in the kind of clear, unalloyed, dramatic local election gains, the kind of thing we usually expect from an opposition once a government has been in office for as long as the 18 months that this government has already been in.
YouGov’s final poll for Thursday’s London mayoral race has shown that while it is a two-way battle between Sadiq Khan and the Conservative, Shaun Bailey – with the Labour incumbent odds-on to win – the Greens’ Sian Berry is up to 10% support, in a clear third place above the Lib Dems.
Berry spent part of election eve visiting a low-traffic neighbourhood (LTN) in Tulse Hill, south London, joined by Isabelle Clement from the charity Wheels for Wellbeing, which campaigns for inclusive cycling, and Green assembly member Caroline Russell.
LTNs have become something of a front in the political culture wars, with Bailey saying he will scrap them (even though they are the responsibility of individual councils, not the mayor).
As you might expect, the Greens take a different view – and with transport being one of the mayor’s main responsibilities, Berry hopes to capitalise.
While Berry is unlikely to become mayor, with the Greens polling at up to 15% in the assembly elections, she is likely to be re-elected to that, along with Russell, and possibly more Greens.
Updated
Sir Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has said his party wants to stop a second independence referendum in Scotland. He told PA Media:
Liberal Democrats are going to spend the next 24 hours stopping the SNP. We want to stop another referendum on independence. It’s divisive and it’s not what Scotland needs.
Liberal Democrats have made the argument - with Willie Rennie leading brilliantly - that we need to put recovery first.
Updated
Johnson suggests adult social care reform plan being delayed again until summer
In his pooled interview with broadcasters in the West Midlands Boris Johnson also suggested that detailed plans for the reform of adult social care will not be published until later in the summer.
There is expected to be some mention of adult social care in the Queen’s speech next week. But it has been reported that this will not go much further than saying a plan is on its way, and Johnson seemed to confirm this. Asked if the Queen’s speech would give details of how the reform of adult social care would be funded, he replied:
Social care is a massive priority for this government.
I think the pandemic has ... shown the amazing work that social care workers do and all the help they give to our society. They have been absolutely fantastic. They’ve borne the brunt of the pandemic, so we invest hugely in social care as a government ...
We put billions more into helping local government but we also have to think about the long-term issues, the long-term costs and how we should be funding it.
We’re determined to bring forward new proposals - there will be something about it in the course of the next few months.
In his first speech as prime minister, on 24 July 2019, Johnson famously said that he would “fix the crisis in social care once and for all with a clear plan we have prepared”. No such plan was ever published, prompting the suspicion that it never existed.
After the 2019 general election Johnson said that a plan for social care reform would be published in 2020. In a speech in June 2020 he said the government was “finalising” its plans for reform. But that timetable also slipped, and now it looks as if the plan will not be published until about two years after it was first promised.
In Scotland STV News has released a new poll, from Ipsos Mori, suggesting the SNP is on course to win an outright majority.
Here are the key numbers from the Britain Elects Twitter account.
Scottish parliament voting intention:
— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) May 5, 2021
Constituency:
SNP: 50% (-3)
LAB: 22% (+4)
CON: 20% (-)
LDEM: 6% (-)
GRN: 2% (-)
List:
SNP: 39% (+1)
CON: 23% (+2)
LAB: 18% (-)
GRN: 12% (-)
LDEM: 4% (-2)
ALBA: 2% (-1)
via @IpsosMORI, 30 Apr - 03 May
Chgs. w/ 04 Aprhttps://t.co/sEKbDLbuT5
My Seat Projection:
— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) May 5, 2021
SNP 69
CON 27
LAB 19
GRN 11
LDM 3
SNP majority of 9
Indy majority of 30
And here’s an extract from an analysis of the poll by STV’s Bernard Ponsonby.
Other polls of recent days have cast doubt on the SNP winning an overall majority but none dispute that they are way out in front. Given the margin of error in polls, an overall majority is not certain and is the only question mark hanging over the party of government.
Even if the SNP fail to hit the 65-seat mark (this poll suggests they will get 68 seats), the Scottish Greens could pick up as many as 11 seats, ensuring there is a comfortable pro-independence majority at Holyrood.
If the SNP need Green votes then the smaller party would be in a strong position to start playing hardball in key policy areas. I’m sure the expectation of Green activists is that the party is demonstrably seen to be calling some of the shots, conscious of the charge made against them that they are the SNPs ‘little helpers’.
Our seat projection is that the Tories, Labour and the Liberal Democrats will actually lose ground at this election. Given the potential margin of error in the polls I would treat these predictions more cautiously for a number of reasons.
Updated
Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian
And this is what Sir Keir Starmer said this morning about Tracy Brabin, Labour’s candidate for mayor of West Yorkshire. He said:
I’m here again with Tracy Brabin, our candidate for the West Yorkshire metro mayor, and she’s got a fantastic plan focusing on jobs - 1,000 jobs for the area, particularly for young people.
She’s also got a very, very good plan for transport and buses, and we’ve seen what Andy Burnham has done over in Manchester with transport. Cheap, efficient, smart transport that really helps communities, that’s what we can have here with Tracy Brabin.
What I say to people is if you want that, if you value that, then vote for it. She will, of course, also be very, very strong on crime because the crime levels here are too high and she will drive them down.
Starmer also said that he supported the devolution of power, and that Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester had shown what a difference a metro mayor could make. Starmer said:
I absolutely support devolution of power and what you’ve seen with Labour mayors, look at Andy Burnham, look at other Labour mayors, is a powerful voice for their communities.
Boris Johnson has praised the record of the West Midlands Conservative mayor, Andy Street, and in particular his plan to extend the West Midlands metro. Johnson said:
I’ve been working with [Street] for years now – he’s brilliant at getting funding for projects here in the West Midlands but he also has a vision for the whole area.
The connection between transport and extending the metro to Dudley, getting £1bn of investment in Dudley town centre, getting Goldman Sachs, a huge American bank, to put their tech hub in Birmingham now.
That’s all part of what he wants to do to put in transport infrastructure investment, boost skills, and drive long-term growth in jobs.
Asked if voting for Street was the only way to get a good deal for the West Midlands, Johnson replied:
Of course – I think Andy Street has done an absolutely outstanding job and I would say, as I’m a backer of Andy’s, that I think he would do a much better job than the other candidates.
What he offers is a programme of growth and regeneration and knowing how to build new homes and create new opportunities on brownfield sites.
If you look for instance at the HS2 interchange at Solihull, it’s fantastic.
Yesterday the Conservative MP Sir David Amess disowned an election leaflet in which he was quoted – wrongly, he says – as saying the government was reluctant to help places that voted for opposition parties.
Updated
Johnson says it's 'not the time' for second Scottish independence referendum
Boris Johnson also restated his opposition to allowing Scotland to hold another independence referendum - without committing himself to blocking the idea in all circumstances. Asked if he would allow another vote on independence, he said:
Well, let’s wait and see what actually happens.
I think that most people in Scotland, most people around the whole of the UK, feel that this is not the time, as we’re coming forward out of a pandemic together, this is not the time to have a reckless, and I think irresponsible, second referendum.
We had one only a few years ago - I think what most people want is to focus on the country and taking it forward and rebuilding our economy and getting people into work.
That seems to me to be the priority.
“Not the time” is, word for word, exactly the formula used by Theresa May four years ago when Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, began to argue that Brexit meant Scotland should have a second independence vote. It has been the UK government’s line every since.
May said now was not the time because Brexit was still taking place; Johnson is arguing that now is not the time because of Covid.
In a TV interview in the West Midlands Boris Johnson has also defended the decision to invite an Indian delegation to attend the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in London this week, despite the Covid risk. As my colleague Aubrey Allegretti reports, the Indian delegation is now isolating after two members tested positive.
Asked if it was a mistake to go ahead with an in-person meeting, Johnson said:
I think it’s very important to try to continue as much business as you can as a government.
We have a very important relationship with India and with our G7 partners.
As I understand it, what has happened is the individuals concerned are all isolating now.
I will be seeing the Indian foreign minister later this afternoon and that will be a Zoom exchange, I’m given to understand.
Johnson says winning Hartlepool will be 'very tough' for Tories
Boris Johnson has been campaigning in the West Midlands this morning where Andy Street, the Conservative mayor, is on track to win again quite comfortably, according to polling out yesterday. Asked if he would put money on Conservative mayors being re-elected in the West Midlands and Tees Valley, and his party taking Hartlepool from Labour in the byelection, Johnson replied:
Obviously with those, I think Andy Street has done an outstanding job in the West Midlands, I think Ben Houchen is a fantastic mayor in Teesside and obviously we are fighting for every vote in Hartlepool.
But these are tough contests and Hartlepool in particular you’d have to say, that hasn’t been a Conservative since its inception – 46 years ago or whatever it was. So I think that will be a very tough fight but I hope everybody gets out to vote.
Houchen is expected to win Tees Valley very easily, although he only beat Labour by a whisker in the inaugural election four years ago. No 10 see him as exemplar of how Johnson-style, interventionist, job-focused Conservatism can win in the industrial north of England.
Hartlepool is now looking good for the Conservatives, although that would still be a remarkable win for the party in a seat that, in its current and previous form, has voted Labour at every general election since 1945 apart from one (1959).
But in the West Midlands Labour still believes its candidate, Liam Byrne, will win, according to LabourList. Elliot Chappell quotes party sources describing the poll giving Street a big lead as “bollocks”.
Updated
Starmer says Labour's recovery will take more time
Sir Keir Starmer has said he will take responsibility for Labour’s performance in the elections. On a visit to Pontefract in West Yorkshire, Starmer told reporters:
We are having a very positive reception on the doorsteps, we are going into tomorrow in good spirit.
Whatever the results are, I will take responsibility, as I take responsibility for everything in the Labour party.
Repeating an argument he used yesterday, Starmer also claimed that it was always going to take more than a year for Labour to recover. He said:
I took over the Labour party after the worst general election result since 1935.
We’ve got to rebuild into the next general election - that is the task in hand.
This is the first test and we go into that test fighting for every vote, but I never thought we would climb the mountain we have to climb in just one year - it is going to take longer than that.
Updated
In the comments m909 was asking about recent polling. Politico Europe has a good “poll of polls” aggregating the results of recent polls. Here is their chart.
Wikipedia also has a page collating GB polling that is quite useful. It’s got this chart.
Scottish polls divided over whether or not SNP on course for majority
The Scottish papers have rival polls this morning with quite different takes on the state of the contest for the Scottish parliament.
The Times (paywall) features a YouGov poll suggesting the SNP is on course for a majority of seven. In his story Kieran Andrews reports:
The SNP is set to secure a seven-seat majority in the Holyrood elections tomorrow, the latest polling reveals, raising the prospect of a second independence referendum during the lifetime of the next parliament.
YouGov’s research for The Times suggests the SNP has rebounded on the constituency ballot but is shipping support to the Scottish Greens on the regional list with Patrick Harvie’s party set to return 13 MSPs — by some margin its best-ever result.
The Scottish Greens would win just four fewer seats than Labour, who are struggling to convert the personal popularity of Anas Sarwar, the party leader, into votes.
Under modelling by Prof Sir John Curtice, of Strathclyde University, the SNP would win 68 seats — a majority of seven — while the Scottish Conservatives would comfortably hold on to second place with 26 MSPs, down five from 2016.
Labour would win 17 seats, down seven, the Liberal Democrats four, down one, and Alex Salmond’s Alba party would return one MSP, probably at the expense of the Lib Dems.
Here are the YouGov figures.
Final YouGov/Times Scottish Parliament voting intention (2-4 May)
— YouGov (@YouGov) May 4, 2021
CONSTITUENCY
SNP 52% (+3 from 16-20 April)
Con 20% (-1)
Lab 19% (-2)
LD 6% (nc)
Green 2% (+1)
REGIONAL LIST
SNP 38% (-1)
Con 22% (nc)
Lab 16% (-1)
Green 13% (+3)
LD 5% (nc)
Alba 3% (+1)https://t.co/ycvK0ZAOdl pic.twitter.com/xcw36CdOnJ
And here is the Times’ seat projection.
This is broadly similar to what an Opinium poll for Sky was saying yesterday.
But the Scotsman is reporting a Savanta ComRes poll suggesting the SNP is on course to lose seats in what would be its worst result since 2007. In his story Conor Matchett reports:
Such a result would see the pro-independence party returned to government with 59 MSPs after 14 years in power and short of a majority by six seats.
They would still retain an overall pro-independence majority alongside the Scottish Greens if similar figures are returned after polling day on Thursday ...
Such a result would see the SNP return 59 MSPs, down four on their 2016 result of 63, with the list vote failing to make up for potential losses in the constituency ...
If this poll is replicated in the results, [Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader] is likely to lose one MSP from his cohort, leaving him with 30.
Labour would be strengthened with two additional MSPs, increasing their representation from 24 to 26.
🏴Final Holyrood Constituency VI for @TheScotsman
— Savanta ComRes (@SavantaComRes) May 4, 2021
SNP 42 (-3)
Conservative 25 (+2)
Labour 22 (-1)
LD 8 (+1)
Other 3 (+2)
30 April - 4 May
(chg from 23-27 April) pic.twitter.com/i1i0KTXbF2
🏴Final Holyrood List VI for @TheScotsman
— Savanta ComRes (@SavantaComRes) May 4, 2021
SNP 34 (-2)
CON 23 (+1)
LAB 19 (-)
LD 6 (+1)
Green 9 (-1)
Other 8 (-)
30 April - 4 May
(chg from 23-27 April) pic.twitter.com/TFpVlaKxBM
Updated
Radio 4’s Today programme has interviewed all the other party leaders ahead of tomorrow’s elections, but Boris Johnson refused an invitation to appear this morning. As John McDonnell, the former Labour shadow chancellor points out, Johnson has a habit of avoiding election scrutiny by the media.
Johnson’s refused to go on BBC’s Today programme. Same tactics as in general election to avoid detailed questioning. He’s playing the BBC again & getting away with it. The BBC should refuse to accept a substitute, blank Johnson’ stunts and offer their slots to the other parties.
— John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) May 5, 2021
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s external affairs minister, has said he will participate virtually in the G7 event in London after he was possibly exposed to coronavirus. He has posted this on Twitter.
Was made aware yesterday evening of exposure to possible Covid positive cases. As a measure of abundant caution and also out of consideration for others, I decided to conduct my engagements in the virtual mode. That will be the case with the G7 Meeting today as well.
— Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) May 5, 2021
As Sky’s Joe Pike reports, two members of the Indian delegation have tested positive for coronavirus.
NEW: More on COVID cases at G7:
— Joe Pike (@joepike) May 5, 2021
-The 2 Indian delegation members tested positive yesterday.
-They were picked up by Public Health England PCR pre-testing.
-They did not attend G7 meetings at Lancaster House, but were due to attend today.
-A rapid tracing programme is underway.
Updated
Good morning. Today is the 200th anniversary of the first edition of what was then the Manchester Guardian and, if you buy a print edition of the paper, you will find included a facsimile of the four-page first edition. In the editorial the paper says it is committed to the “prompt and fearless exposure of delinquency in high places”. Two centuries on, we’re still on the case.
The first edition also carries a report on Lord Russell’s motion to extend the “elective franchise to great towns”, pointing out that it is unlikely to be carried. Two hundred years later, the paper is leading with another story about the the progressive party in parliament facing a likely setback. Tomorrow every adult in Britain will have the chance to vote in one of the “Super Thursday” elections - for the Scottish parliament, the Welsh Senedd, city and metro mayors, councillors, police commissioners, the London assembly and a Hartlepool MP - and, as my colleague Josh Halliday reports - in Hartlepool in particular, and some English council contests, it is looking grim for Labour.
On the last day of campaigning, Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer are both doing visits, and there will be a blitz of campaign activity across the country. Starmer will be doing three visits to support mayoral candidates, going first to West Yorkshire (Tracy Brabin), then the West Midlands (Liam Byrne), and finally the West of England (Dan Norris).
Today I will be mostly focused on the election campaigning. With parliament in recess, and the government in purdah, there is not much in the diary, although the G7 foreign ministers are still meeting in London, Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, is hosting an online meeting of G7 transport ministers, and the ONS is publishing various Covid reports.
I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.
If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
Updated
