Will a national message convince voters to pick Labour councillors on May 5th?

Labour’s campaign for the local elections on May 5th is now officially launched. Keir Starmer made clear in Bury yesterday that he would put the cost of living front and centre of the party’s bid for votes, urging people to “send a message to Boris Johnson and his Tories that they can’t ignore”: that “Britain deserves better than their pathetic, their miserable response” to cost of living pressures. It is clearly a salient issue and one that affects almost everyone. But the choice of topic is not without risk. Labour wanted voters last year to ‘send a message’ about public sector pay and supporting NHS nurses via their picks for local government – another thing that councillors can’t do much about. That did not work out very well. But perhaps the universality and urgency of the problem this time will make the national angle more effective.

While Rachel Reeves was launching the campaign in Worthing, where Labour has made significant progress in recent years such that the council is now led by a minority Conservative group, Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner chose Bury. This is where there are two key marginal parliamentary seats – and a new Labour MP, after Christian Wakeford defected. LabourList’s new reporter Katie got an exclusive interview with the Bury South MP following the launch event – and he had some strong words for Boris Johnson. “The Tories don’t have the answers. And if they do, they’re lying,” he said, predicting that the Prime Minister will “carry on… lying to the nation”. Wakeford also talked about his comments and voting record in parliament, his relationship with local Labour members, his chances of selection as Labour’s candidate at the next general election and his “very steep learning curve of acronyms” in the party.

LabourList has also released exclusive polling that makes for interesting reading. In our latest questions to the public, in research conducted for us by Savanta ComRes, we asked which party they saw as that of high taxation and that of low taxation. The results are perhaps surprising – and will certainly delight the shadow Treasury team, who have repeatedly called the Conservatives “the party of high taxation and low growth”. 39% of UK adults see the Tories as “the party of high taxation”, against 27% who would describe Labour as the party of high taxes, the poll found. As for “the party of low taxation”, 30% named Labour and 27% cited the Conservatives. In a less unexpected but nonetheless poor finding for the governing party, the polling also reveals that 75% of UK adults believe the government is not doing enough to tackle the cost-of-living crisis. See our full write-up here.

Have a great weekend, readers. Sign up to LabourList’s morning email for everything Labour, every weekday morning.