Starmer woos small firms as Labour targets key local election battlegrounds

With three weeks (and a day) left until polling day in this year’s local elections, all around England campaigns have begun in earnest. Keir Starmer is out today with Rachel Reeves in Great Yarmouth, talking about Labour’s plan to revitalise high streets and promoting a pledge to offer £700m to support small businesses with energy bills. Given that more than 150 pubs in England and Wales have already closed for good in the first three months of 2023, Labour’s plans certainly meet a need. The Labour leader is to promise that “Labour will work in partnership with businesses and local communities to get our high streets thriving again”. Labour currently holds 14 of 39 seats on Great Yarmouth Borough Council, where elections will be taking place in May, and on the longer horizon, the party will have half an eye on the Great Yarmouth parliamentary seat. Currently held with a sizeable majority by former cabinet minister Brandon Lewis, it was a Labour seat between 1997 and 2010, but it is the kind of gain Labour could only make on a very good night.

This morning on LabourList we have a must-read piece of analysis from NEC member Luke Akehurst, laying out the challenges and opportunities for Labour as more than 8,500 seats in 240 councils go up for grabs on May 4th (personally I advise bracing yourselves for endless “May the fourth be with you” jokes). Akehurst lays out three categories of council for Labour: traditional Labour-Tory swing councils, areas where Labour has gone backwards and needs to recover and places where Labour faces an insurgent challenge from independents or the far right. Labour currently controls 96 councils, and Akehurst notes the achievable landmark of the party returning to controlling more than 100 councils – again, a possibility on a good night. Akehurst says: “I’m expecting somewhat varied results region by region, as anecdotal feedback from colleagues around the country is that not all regions are experiencing patterns that match the national opinion polls.”

Meanwhile, the discussion over Labour’s controversial attack ads continues, with Labour sources crowing to the Times that the campaign has been a cost-effective success, describing it both as “a triumph” and as a “winning formula”. If that’s the attitude, one wonders if Labour shouldn’t return to the classics, and make a bid to bring about some unity between the left and right of the party while they’re at it, by declaring Rishi Sunak to be “lower than vermin“.