Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey and top Conservative Gillian Keegan staged duelling visits to Wimbledon on Monday as the two parties stepped up their tussle in one of London’s most marginal constituencies.
Sir Ed was paying his second visit to the south-west London seat, following one by Rishi Sunak, in the political equivalent of serve and volley a week before the start of the Wimbledon tennis championships.
In his latest attention-grabbing stunt, the Lib Dem leader cleaned an ambulance to highlight the party’s finding that the number of patients waiting 12 hours or more in Accident & Emergency has risen 100-fold since 2019, with some 12,000 people set to wait 12 hours or more at A&E in the next 10 days leading up to the general election on July 4.
Sir Ed told the Standard: “Ambulance services are on their knees in London, leaving patients waiting hours in pain for help. This election is a chance to rescue our NHS after years of chaos and neglect under the Conservatives.”
He added: “On July 4th, the people of Wimbledon have a great opportunity to elect Paul Kohler to Parliament as a local champion who will stand up for London’s health services.”
The Tories are defending a wafer-thin majority from 2019 of 628 - but Labour believe they are also in the mix with their candidate Eleanor Stringer after coming just over 7,000 votes behind the Lib Dems last time in Wimbledon.
Ms Keegan, the Education Secretary, trained her sights on Labour’s policy to remove a 20% VAT exemption on private school fees. She argued that will hit families in Wimbledon disproportionately hard as some 20% of children there are in fee-paying schools, compared to an average across England of 7%.
“They are putting the politics of envy ahead of evidence. It’s the same old Labour Party,” the Cabinet member said as she campaigned with the Tory candidate Danielle Dunfield-Prayero.
Ms Keegan claimed: “Labour’s tax grab on our independent schools will disproportionately affect hardworking families with children in Wimbledon, particularly those with SEND [special educational needs and disabilities].”
However, Labour is convinced it is on to a vote winner by reallocating funds to state schools, and insists that private schools must learn to make the same sort of tough choices that have faced the state sector over 14 years of Tory rule.
Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said on Sunday that with regard to children with additional needs, “we do need to do a lot more”.
But she stressed on LBC: “We will make education a big priority for Government, once more, not a peripheral issue, as it has been under the Conservatives.”
As the race for the general election hots up, The Evening Standard has drawn up an interactive map of all the key battlegrounds in London on July 4, including Wimbledon.
