Sunak under threat as 'upset' MPs try to stop general election | Lara Spirit

This is because I believe some Conservative MPs attacked blindly. I think it's fair to say that they feel that this has caught them completely off guard and that some of their colleagues who have left now only have a few days to say goodbye. to Parliament and that others feel they will surely lose their seats if the current polls are repeated and, in reality, the logic was to continue later in the autumn, now some of them are trying to coordinate a flood of last-minute no-confidence letters. to St Brady, who heads the 1922 Committee of Conservative MPs on the grounds that perhaps he could be dismissed before Parliament comes up at the end of the week.

Let's get our daily briefing on the politics, business and sports of the day. We'll start with Lara Spirit. of course, Red Box editor who has some breaking news about youf's exclusive grouping for the Times in the morning, Laura in the morning, Asma, so this is the first new news about the grouping that has been published since

election

s were called, it was obviously not held after the

election

s were called. That would be crazy, huh, but it's the first one we heard about after the election was called, so what do you say is correct? So this is the weekly voting intention survey that Yugov carries out for that moment and which I write about in the Redbox Bulletin um, it has the Conservatives this week with 21 points and the Labor with 46 points, which gives Labor a 25-point lead.

Now these aren't the high highs of a 30% lead we saw back in Fortnite. The lead has narrowed slightly from 27 points last week, but it's still not fantastic news for Rashi Sunak, who expects to see uh, I think no significant changes in the last few days, not that I'd expect it in those polls that are out there. They have remained consistently bad for him throughout this year and I think one of the big problems for them in this poll is the difficult position that their vote share is only 21 points; a few weeks ago it was 8 to 18 points, actually lower than it was even under Liz's confidence, so Rishi clearly has a lot of work to do during this short campaign to change that, but when you talk to those around him They often say that an election campaign can do this kind of thing with poll numbers and I think given how similar the polls have been for Riak, especially with these sugar finds since January in particular uh R would surely hope that that be true um if we review some of the parties that we will talk about today on breakfast radio who is better prepared who has been against this um that has its manifestos in order uh let's hear from um the couple of conservative parliamentarians let's hear from Labor let's hear from the Greens let's hear From uh the Libdems uh reform UK aren't going to speak until 11:00, they have some kind of press conference, but who would you say is better prepared?

Yeah, so I think it's important to say that part of this Rish bet. It was probably the fact that they consider the reformist UK to be among the least prepared for this announcement; the fact that it is well known that they have not selected the full list of candidates who have pledged to oppose the Conservatives and others in every seat in the country. now they get 12%, one point more in today's uh survey and, unlike previous parties to which we have compensated the reform, for example ukip, that vote comes almost exclusively from the percentage of conservative votes, so it is something Rishi Sunak and other Conservative MPs have been worried about for a long time and the hope will be that calling early elections will get reform wrong, they are not fully prepared and perhaps they will be forced to repudiate some of those candidates they hastily assembled before choosing in a way that could well harm them.

I think it's fair to say also that workers are probably pretty well prepared or will feel that Morgan Mcweeny, the well-prepared campaign manager, is almost a kind of mythological figure in Westminster because of how obsessive he is. He's been on the possibility of an early poll, he's long argued for that as the most likely outcome citing various logics you'll hear over and over again from labor consultants when they insisted it would be an early poll, things like boat crossings. of summer may possibly take place. up you know things like inflation coming back into the normal range which of course we've seen this week and as a result they know they're done with their policy planning uh they feel like in their view that's completely airtight. and their selection of candidates has been prepared for this, both Labor and the Conservatives have kept a good number of seats back, as they usually do for that last moment before the election, when they will force or rather accelerate some selection, so I think that's not surprising, but certainly, you know, we'll be waiting.

The big question, I think we'll be waiting to see, is where the Conservative manifesto is, how much of it at this point is fully formed and when we'll be able to see it. Not before, before Lara arrives um we didn't do it many people didn't believe we were very skeptical about the rumors early yesterday about the calling of elections um at 4:00 for the 4th of July um and yesterday we were hearing rumors and this tomorrow that um some Conservative MPs want to

stop

the election, so how would they do that? What are the chances of this happening?

I mean, it's almost completely impossible that this could happen. I'd probably say there's no way this could happen. This is. uh, due to the blind raid of some conservative parliamentarians. I think it is fair to say that they feel that this has caught them completely off guard and that some of their colleagues who have left know that they have only a few days to say goodbye to Parliament. uh and that others feel that they will surely lose their seats if the current polls are repeated and actually the logic was to continue later in the fall now some of them are trying to coordinate an avalanche of letters of censure to St.

Brady, who heads the Committee of 1922 of Conservative MPs on the grounds that perhaps he could be removed before Parliament comes up at the end of the week, now not only would he need the threshold, he would not only need the threshold of letters to enter which I think is unlikely that you would then need the vote of no confidence to go against Rishi Sunak, which I think is impossible, so I don't think this has any weight behind it, obviously I think it's useful as a sign of how

upset

he is. some Tory MPs are and how disunited the party is, I think it's fair to say that going into this crucial election and amidst hopes of some sort of absolutely historic comeback, certainly maybe not great news for Risha, just one thing finally because people have been getting in touch. about this um and no it's not really resolved yet but there's this wasar process where they have to push things through quickly and in a very short period of time and some people are tweeting furiously that you know knowingly or unknowingly so well. the infected blood um Parliament legislation will not be passed um surely not.

I haven't heard that and I would also be surprised if that had anything to do with this decision or wasn't part of this type of final process. It means that legislation making its way through Parliament must be passed or abandoned sooner. There are 16 government bills, 28 other 28 bills all together and I think the big question around them actually is which of them is now supported by the government in the last few days to pass, so there are things around to the sentencing bill that would eliminate short prison sentences. It was going to see a rebellion from Conservative MPs, but some, including the Justice Secretary, also see it as vital to alleviating prison overcrowding.

We have the Tenant Reform Bill as well as the Criminal Justice Bill which includes some powers measures. You have the tobacco and vaporizer bill, that landmark bill that we know. Richi Sunak holds the football governance bill very close to his heart, so they are big. questions I think we'll have to wait until later this morning to find out which ones will be prioritized by the government or which ones will be removed, well we'll find out Lara, thank you very much, that's Lara Spirit times Redbox editor, now we have it, so the station electoral has elections, eh, but our street is drowning and things can only reach the West, the headlines and subtitles that Rishy Sunak may have wanted today, that is a rhetorical question.

We're joined by Scarlet Maguire, the JL Partners pollster. Tomorrow, scarlet morning, what did you do yesterday? So, oh, it was quite disconcerting, wasn't it? I think it was obviously, people weren't expecting it, and everything that you obviously discussed in great detail a moment ago, um. but everything from the moment it happened, to the performance, to the fact that it was being done in the pouring rain, to kind of the crazy messages to the background music, I mean, it was everything, it was all very real and I didn't. HE. I think it's a very good start to what is already going to be a difficult campaign for the Conservatives.

Why do you think the decision was made to go early? Yeah, I mean, it's hard. I don't really see much reason beyond the fact that uh, I could see the writing on the wall that he had been looking at the polls that everyone else had also been looking at for the last 18 months and decided that he knew he was never going to able to do so, so he might as well leave now. and move on and move on, uh, I don't think there's actually a good kind of electoral reason or argument to go now. I think it's even the case that potentially, you know, making a move toward reform and them not electing their candidates, as you're describing, Danny Finlin says, No, I don't really believe in that and there were signs that reform he had already started to peak in the polls and I don't think that's it, I think you know the whole case.

What he did in today's speech was talk about the economy and convey a message about the economy saying you know stay with us, it will improve the workforce, it might derail it, but soon you will start to feel better, none of that really. It makes sense if you're calling an election too early before interest rate cuts can already be set in place, all of that doesn't really seem to make much sense to me. Workers are miles apart in polls. Let's go. to get another survey um in about 20 minutes or so uh presumably that will say the same thing that we don't know yet um but have they been discovered at all? this? um does this at all uh is this is this at all disadvantage to them or not I wouldn't have thought so I would have thought Labor would have been very happy with how yesterday when Labor seemed to have been preparing for the May election or at least they had been telling everyone that, um, for the last few months and you know, as soon as Ry Sunak gave that speech, which I repeat, you know, it went as bad as you think it could have been, given that everything was under his control and he is one of the few The things that in this campaign will be totally under his control and work were, you know, taken directly from there with a very clever video, with a very strong message that it's time to change, you know , having silly focus groups all over the country.

It seemed to be the message of the moment of change that resonates most with voters and I think that, in that case, it seems that they are going to make a good speech to the electorate for these

general

elections. I don't think there's much bad news for workers at this point. Things could change in the next six weeks. Things could happen, but no government has managed to overcome this deficit in time for election day during a campaign. I don't think it looks great, eventually our thoughts turn to, I suppose, a lot of things, manifestos, election manifestos, now Labor have had some sort of uh, no, no, no, it's going to a Manifesto, but that first episode that came out last week, um, Rishi has had his kind of five promises, what do you expect in terms of Labor and Conservative manifestos?

I think it's a great question. Labor has been careful not to reveal too much and not scare the horses into anything, uh, I suspect potentially not. One hugely strange thing is that it looks like we might see the Conservatives roar in response to the sort of abolition of national insurance, which is something they said they were working on in the autumn. That is another thing that, the timing of these elections, shortens a little. I kinda would have thought that they would seek to communicate to the voters in some way that none of them are going to do anything particularly radical or particularly scary because they think that's not where the voters are, but they will address their concerns, which they are primarily focusing on. the economy, the NHS and immigration.

I think it's a problem that both sides are going to have, potentially, something that the workers, I'm sure, will be thinking about.a lot, so I think you know, the first steps are quite An interesting choice was that, right now, there is a prevailing feeling in the country that the country is broken and nothing is working. One thing you hear over and over again is that Britain is broken and I think the little problem for workers is that it is so bad. which people think can't be fixed and I think it's going to be something they'll find difficult to address in the manifesto because on the one hand, if they don't come forward with radical plans, people think there's not much point, nothing's going to get better no matter who. let's put in office, but on the other hand, if they come forward with things that, um, look, you know, potentially too daring, then people say, well, we don't believe in that anyway, um, so I think actually you know there's a lack of trust in politics and politicians and that's the kind of symptom and I think there's no necessary signs that we're going to get better any time soon okay Scarlet thank you so much for that Scarlett Maguire who is a poster girl at JL Partners for