Labour targeted Rishi Sunak with a new ad campaign as the Conservatives warned people not to “surrender” their vote.
As the election campaign entered its final days, Sir Keir Starmer’s party put out an image of the Prime Minister in bed with the message: “Don’t wake up to 5 more years of the Tories”.
The Ipsos monthly survey published last week showed 75 per cent of adults in Britain are dissatisfied with Mr Sunak as Prime Minister, up two points from a month earlier, the worst score the polling firm has seen for a PM so close to an election.
But the poll also showed Sir Keir’s ratings would mean that if Labour wins on July 4, he would go into Downing Street with a lower rating as Opposition Leader than David Cameron, Tony Blair or Margaret Thatcher.
The Conservatives have targeted Sir Keir during the election campaign.
But this appeared to be the most personal political attack by Labour on Mr Sunak.
As the July 4 polling day fast approaches, each party has ramped up its General Election campaigning with increasingly bitter attacks on its rival.
With Labour still around 20 points ahead in the polls and just four days to go, the Prime Minister has explicitly warned of Sir Keir’s party heading for a “supermajority”.
In a stump speech on Monday, Mr Sunak will say: “We have four days to save Britain from a Labour government. Labour would hike taxes by more than £2,000 for every working family, would shunt our politics to the left and change the rules to ensure that they can stay in power for decades.
“If they get the kind of majority, the supermajority that the polls suggest, they will set about entrenching themselves in power. They will rewrite the rules to make it easier for them to stay in office and harder for anyone to replace them. So, don’t surrender your voice to Labour on Thursday.”
The Prime Minister also sounded the alarm over national security, claiming that Russian president Vladimir Putin “does not want us to be re-elected”.
“Putin would like nothing more than for Britain to step back, to appease his aggression rather than face it down and that is what will happen with another party in power,” he told the Telegraph.
Sir Keir has previously criticised “desperate” Tory suggestions that Labour is a threat to national security, saying that his party has united with government on defence matters such as support for Ukraine.
In an interview with the Guardian, Sir Keir said he plans to restore faith in politics with “deeds, not words.”
“The hope has been kicked out of many people. They’ve been promised lots of things that haven’t happened and that leads to disillusion,” he said.
“There’s a near-universal view that almost everything is broken and we’re going backwards as a country. That’s very demoralising.”
Labour urged voters to move to avoid “waking up on July 5 to five more years of economic chaos” as it accused the Tories of having presided over a “one rule for them and another for everyone else” approach to government.
Both Sir Keir and Mr Sunak were hitting the campaign trail on Monday for the final push in a six-week campaign, with the Labour leader touring the shires in southern England and the Prime Minister in the Midlands.
Meanwhile, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is battling an ongoing fallout over allegations of racism within his party.
The latest flare-up came on Sunday when the Reform candidate for Erewash, Liam Booth-Isherwood, dropped out of the race to back Tory contender Maggie Throup after becoming “disillusioned” with what he described as a “significant moral issue” within party ranks.
It comes after Mr Farage faced accusations from across the political divide of failing to tackle allegations of racism within Reform which have engulfed the party in recent days.
Addressing a rally in Birmingham earlier on Sunday, the party leader claimed that “the bad apples are gone” after withdrawing support for three candidates over the row.
Campaigners for Reform in the Clacton seat Mr Farage hopes to win in Essex were also recorded by an undercover journalist from Channel 4 making racist comments, including about the Prime Minister, who is of Indian descent.
Elsewhere on Monday, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey will promote his party’s pledge to spend £440 million a year on supporting widows and bereaved children on a campaign visit in southern England.
Scottish First Minister and SNP leader John Swinney will be out in the north east of the country, claiming that only his party offers the “hope of a better future in the European Union” for Scotland.
